Travelling

Back on Tuesday from a week in New Orleans - my second visit but my husband's first.  Ate and drank very well, discovered hitherto unknown bookshops, went to a free BluesFest in Lafayette Square and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.
Then northwards, finding out how little we knew of how small town America functioned - only one restaurant open in the centre of Jackson on a Monday night - but also saw cotton fields, cotton picking and cotton bales.
Arrived at the Shack Up Inn in Clarksdale - the highlight of the fortnight - and met with the best sort of friends from Alabama who taught and showed us so much of the area, including a memorable lunch which Mike Handley wrote about here.

Now I'm off to Cardiff ... still working on latest novel, still with two end of year deadline short stories, so I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo this year either.

End of the game

‘The cellar is now empty.’

So.  A now-dry cellar, a once dry wit, now maudlin; a once beautiful, flat-bellied man now bloated and bald as the bassist from Queens of the Stone Age. 

Sans goatee, of course.

He’d got the hint that hirsute was unwelcome the night I super-glued it with extensions, using what the poodle clearly didn’t want, since she’d left it in her basket. 

Had lost nothing of his powers of observation though.

Unwithered by my scorn, he crossed the room.  Took me by the shoulders.  Turned me to face the glass that hung between two windows.  Forced me to contemplate the scraggy bag of loose-bound bones, barely fit for soup.  Set his hands beneath and lifted high the once-was-black, now white and wuthering swirly mass of elf-locks.

Briefly he touched his lips to my rarely-exposed neck, then, holding my reflected eyes in his, he said, unsmiling, ‘Checkmate after all.’

Ran out of time to write something new - this, part three of the 'Chess Pieces' posted a couple of days ago - was my response to House of Writers prompt 10, which was to write a tale which featured a hairless man, a big-haired woman and a  shedding dog.

Signs and portents to a new direction?

... or simply coincidences?

Yesterday I arrived early at the dentist.  Top of the magazine pile was a Travel magazine, quickly browsed and only articles on places I'd recently been were perused.  Next, one of those glossy aspirational ones, gorgeously scruffy, scumbled paint, sun-bleached wood, Suffolk farmhouse conversions.  Just about the only thing that has me panting for riches. And dishonestly - where would I find the time?

So, I turned to a short story, read it, mildly enjoyed it, then was reminded - was forcibly dragged back to a childhood when such stories had formed part of my staple diet.  My mother's magazines, and those of my aunt.  And the neighbour's. The stories, the serials, the accompanying, usually water-colour, paintings that illustrated them (and those I do remember, wanting to emulate, believing that was what painting was for.)

I've known since I started writing, I almost never do stories.  Briefly, as I followed the dental assistant into the surgery, I wondered why.   Then the news of Alice Munro, who I had heard of but it hadn't registered that she wrote only short stories.

This morning the first line of a possible short story popped into my head. But possibly, if it grows enough, I could turn it into a novel.

Chess pieces

He played chess like a politician in the midst of a crisis.  Drunk out of his skull and imitating two out of three of those bloody brass monkeys.  (Were they brass, originally?  The ones in my childhood had been, but God alone knows who they came from.  Or where they went.)

It was me that spoke evil.

But then it was me that gave him the problem.  He blew it up into a crisis.

I’d suggested the chess to create a breathing space.  Was a time I’d have used words like ‘strategy’. Was a time he’d’ve played me for all I’m worth (and, yes, I do know my worth).

Tonight all I needed was ‘checkmate.’

***

‘Zugzwang’

A guttural growl, which I first took for the Basset hound beneath his chair.  Realising it was him I checked again the pieces on the board.

He was correct.

I waited, poised for him to make the final move: not one in the book of course, but customarily an overturning of the table, an upsetting of the board, sweeping of the table, so that kings and queens; knights, bishops and rooks were scattered, black and white, across the red-tiled floor.

He surprised me.

Picked up the bottle he’d most recently emptied, (three more lay on the floor, rolling and dribbling as he was wont to do, after the fifth) and, squinting, read its label.

‘Two thousand and nine.  The last year Hooglangley Wines made anything decent.  And this the last bottle.  Three years drought has been the death of them.  But might have been the saving of mine.’

Focusing on my no doubt disbelieving face, he explained, ‘The cellar is now empty.  I’ve done what I promised myself I’d do.

I've drunk it dry.’

Scrivener - learning curve and procrastination

As I've said before, I'm using 'Scrivener' for this current novel, having realised that with three strands of story and the need to interleave events taking place on different time lines, some more flexible way of working was needed.  The quickly re-aligned index cards, colour-coded, with date in the title, have been invaluable, especially once I'd learnt that it made sense initially to separate scenes.

I don't like - or haven't yet learnt - how to match the appearance of the main Scrivener page with what I get in my Word document.  Appearance, of the document on the page, is important insofar as I get distracted if it looks wrong.  So, I am writing in Word and then, at certain stages - when a mental pause is needed - re-uploading section by section.

Each card has the option of allocating a status to it.  Naming the status is up to me.  I have 'first draft', 'revised draft' and there is a default 'final draft'.  Something has so far prevented me from allocating 'final draft' to a single one of the sixty-eight cards already written.
 

All in a name? - a ten minute piece of flash fiction

The keys were there, on the doormat.  Attached to the plastic tab with the ludicrous photo of herself, age four, covered in chocolate and laughing at the camera;  her brothers out of focus in the background. 

They’d rushed up straight after the photo had been taken, of course, each with a bucket of water, and had taken it in turns to throw some over her.  Not a lot; Mum – she’d been ‘Mummy’ then, of course – had kept a watchful eye.  Always said, if she ever did come complaining (and by four she’d learnt not to!) ‘You’re a Rose, not a shrinking Violet!’.  Similarly she’d brought the boys up not to be savages. 

But. 

The keys on the doormat. 

Evidence for sure that she should have been more shrinking.

If she had been she’d not now be standing here, in the hallway, scratchy from the stupid form-filling, the endless bladder-heavy waiting around, the patronising questions about ‘the father’.  And the smug looks of pity from all those feeble, unable to stand alone, brainless, do-anything-for-a-council house morons with their spotty sperm donors, none of whom ought to be being allowed to breed in the first place!

And she’d not be snivelling, snot down her face, bawling her eyes out.  Knowing that he’d been here.  Let himself in with the keys she’d given him.  Collected his stuff, locked the door behind him and dropped the keys through the letter box so as to tell her he’d never be coming back again. 

Take it away Tuesday:  'The keys were there' - todays prompt for Thinking Ten.  This, like so many other pieces, is a part-rehearseal, part character sketch for my current wip.

Triple benefit - prompt, novel and blog post

Last night, re-reading an earlier part of 'Susannah Elphinstone' (that's the working title;  it might end up as 'Longer Shadows Reach' if I can get permission from the poet to quote him) led me to realise I needed a description of the adult version of my MC.

I wrote a note to remind me and left it on my laptop.

This morning, an email from Kerry Logan of Thinking Ten telling me today's 'on location' prompt was 'a bedroom facing east'.

Perfect.

Mind mulling over possibilities as I walked up to buy a paper, scribbled phrases before I ate my breakfast, brain given its work out over the crossword, then upstairs to spend just a little more than ten minutes getting the bare bones down.

'Tis done.

Fits snugly into novel;  now posted on T10  - and I've also got a subject for today's blog challenge.

And it isn't even nine o'clock yet.

Everything come to she who waits ...

Not that I think, or am claiming, that it is a good way to progress a novel.

But, yes.  I've not been just waiting on this.  Thought I'd got the answer, more or less.  One of two answers anyway.  As I've said before, 'Susannah Elphinstone' began with a blurb challenge, utilising the name of the heroine from an in-progress novel. (Not Susannah:  Madigan.)  It sat for  while, then the premise suggested a story, characters began talking to each other, as they are wont to do, and the book began to take shape, my only input the decision to make it a thriller with a far smaller cast than I'd used before.

Progress was made by conversations:  Madigan with Baz, Baz with Luke, Luke with Madigan.  Ed became involved.  Then the action moved to where Susannah lived.   I remembered that it was a thriller I was supposed to be writing.  Someone had to die.  Actually, someone had died at the beginning, that was left over from the earlier book.  But I needed someone else.

Fifteen to twenty thousand words in I decided who that someone would be.  Next thing, of course, who did it?

Yes indeed.  Who did do it?  For focus' sake it had to be one of two, from up to seven possibilities.  I had to work out how, had to factor in red herrings and misinformation.  Input reasons, methods, timetable, confusion.  I eventually found myself continually see-sawing between two individuals, unable to satisfactorily plump for one over the other.  Unable to justify or even convince myself how.  Quite important that:  if I wasn't convinced I sure as hell would not be able to convince any reader.  Oh, and I also needed to inject pace, and manage a final, surprising, last-minute, totally unforeseeable twist to the tale.

Yesterday, completely out of the blue, the answer came to me.  Of course.  It wasn't either of them, that was why I'd been struggling;  it was someone I'd barely noticed, someone who'd been sending out his own misinformation.  And when I started looking I could see exactly how he'd done it, what lies he'd told, how he'd fooled all of them.  And me too.

So now all I have to do is write it down.   In the correct order.  Remembering that there are things which need not be said until the end.  Gosh.

Downs and Ups

Yesterday finished disillusioned, crotchety and, although not fully despairing, bad enough to need a sneaky, well-heaped teaspoonful of chocolate spread to attempt to restore my belief that, sometimes, when the moon and stars were right, and in alignment, I could write.

The reason for this was I'd finished reading through my most recent work in progress.  Had, for much of it, been quite impressed, especially at the bits I'd no recollection of writing.   But the end.  Oh the end.  Was wrong and self-indulgent, irrelevant and totally off-topic.  Brought in new characters who really did not deserve their place, took attention away from the main character (who in any case was struggling to assert himself at times).
And I still have not quite decided how the second body came to be dead.  Still do not know which of the two most likely was finally responsible for the dastardly deed.  The evidence mounts up quite nicely, tension builds between MC and rival, there is character development (though not quite enough) - but only seventy-four thousand words.

This morning, with a couple of yesterday's tried-but-failed, prompt-led diversions rattling round my head, an idea for each took root, grew shoots, produced a lovely phrase or two, a voice, a phone conversation and a couple of neat endings.
Having polished them successfully, posted them, and put the washing out, I'm now ready to tackle Susannah Elphinstone again.

Blind to the screamingly obvious

Woke this morning, before 4 a.m. (not unusual) and used the time before getting up to think about my current wip, always a useful exercise as I spend far too long sitting at the keyboard typing not thinking.

I use a dialogue a lot to progress the plot, and realised that thus far no-one has even mentioned that there is a four week gap between man disappearing and man dying, never mind wondered why.
I know what happened (mostly) but they don't.  You'd think they would ask, wouldn't you?
At least I have the word-room to write it - a tightening of style, a reduction of characters, a more focused approach means thus far this is still well under 80K.
Onwards.

Bad Book Learning

This reading for writing idea is not always as straightforward - or as easy - as it sounds, is it?
Parallel to me writing a crime novel I began, for the first time, apart from a few Ian Rankin's, reading them - both crime and thriller.  I discovered there was a huge variation in type as well as style, but that I really enjoyed a lot of them, especially those with characters who developed as book followed book.
I learnt that short sharp sentences add pace, that descriptions of fights are hard to do convincingly (and boring when they go on too long), that good sex can be told - or at least implied - in just three words.
And I've no doubt I learnt a lot unconsciously - or do I mean subconsciously?.
Since York, where I bought books by WW-connected writers, I've fully realised that when a book is really good I can only read with 100% enjoyment.  Even though I always mean to take note, go back, analyse how it's done, I rarely do because I am on to the next book.  Harry Bingham's wonderful 'Talking to the Dead' came into this category.
Two others were much more informative.  One, totally unreadable, but at least I now know that it would have benefited immeasurably from a bit of psychic distance. (Though I doubt that alone would have rescued it).  The other, fast paced and brilliantly-plotted, brought home to me that a superfluity of adverbs and too imaginative a deviation from plain old 'said'  are definitely to be avoided.  I'm grateful to 'How Not to Write a Novel' for that.

Prediction Fiction

Herewith the two latest episodes for Prediction Fiction, using the prompts alabaster, pore and waxwork.  The whole of the tales involving DS John Pettinger and the disgraced and disgraceful Tao can be accessed from the tabs above.  
 

A change of focus [57]

 Pettinger pored over the images Cherriman had smugly produced.  Spread across the faux-alabaster kitchen worktop their several lurid messages were shocking.

Not so much for what they depicted but that Cherriman knew such things had taken place

‘They’re fakes.’

‘You have to prove that.  In a court of law if necessary...’

‘I’ll risk that.’

Pettinger remembered a waxwork-buttocked judge, last seen handing wads of cash to greedy, now-dead, Gunita. 

He sighed.

‘Cherriman, now Raptor’s gone, surely we can re-negotiate?  I’ve no interest in Khakbethia...’

‘Me neither. I need a tame policeman here.’

‘It won’t be me.’

‘I think it will.’

Dirty tricks

Mutterings warned Drusilla not to approach too closely to the man whose gun threatened her daughter’s life, e’en as the mob parted to permit her passage.  Rarely seen in daylight she shocked the elders who’d known her, biblically, who’d pressed themselves against her alabaster skin, soot-pitted pores of which now close resembled leaf-mould.

She  halted twenty feet before them. 

Described some swift finger-writ message in the air, whereupon her daughter’s face became yellow waxwork.

‘She curses you?’  Tao, mildly incredulous.

‘I stole her magic...’

‘Then she cannot harm...’

Premature:  his pale passenger slumped against him, causing his gun to fall.

'The Blacksmith's Wife' (illustrated on the left) precedes Tao's tale.

The numbers game

This is my 547th post on this blog and my 47th wedding anniversary.  Significant?  No, of course not.  Just one of those things.
Yet when I woke, about a hour ago, one of my first thoughts was to remember the day, the date, and recall some of the supposedly significant things one ought not to do at the start of a marriage, not if its success is to be anything like guaranteed.  (But who really believes that everlasting happiness can be guaranteed, that the perfect marriage exists?  No-one who has been married for any length of time, I bet.)
That wedding day - a compromise (of course) between what we wanted, which was only to be married so we could live together; what my mother wanted, i.e. the sort of wedding she could endlessly discuss with her workmates (unkind, and only one aspect but one that I strongly disliked) and what his parents wanted, which was a) not yet (we were young) and b) in church, which we flatly refused, being non-believers and not wanting to begin married life with a hypocrisy.
And we broke another cardinal 'rule' - travelled in the same car to the Registry Office - two cars cost twice as much.
I won't even tell you about the proposal, which has to count as one of the most unromantic in the whole world.  I certainly never said 'yes'.