Blood from a stone

Having got, as I though, the first sentence of this crime story written, having added to it, much that was too wordy, and then pared it back, it still wasn't going especially far.
 
I tried playing 'fortunately ... unfortunately' with it (another idea from Emma Darwin) which helped quite a bit but, when I didn't know where I was going, could only be of limited value.

I did come up with some music - a relevant title which sort of drives things forward, provides an impetus, but everything remains somewhat tenuous, the ending uncertain.  What I DO think though, is that this story will form a bridge between a series of prompt-written tales I wrote in 2011, for both 6S and T10 (now both died a death) under the heading of 'Shenanigans' and the third novel of a trilogy I have yet to write.   As ever, it is the characters which tell me their tale; act out their story.

Genesis of a story

I read of the Short Story Competition for Bloody Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival three days or so ago.  Theme 'Escape'.  Three thousand words.

Knew, if I was going (which I am) I really would have to enter.

'Escape'  ... hmmm ... nothing sprung immediately to mind, except perhaps to remember that my next novel, third of a trilogy, has to tell Luke Darbyshere's story.  But I'd already told myself I fancied trying something in first person. Owed it to myself to write something brand new.

I can, usually, do drabbles.  Practise weekly hundred-word shorts which almost inevitably become serials, but I have always found longer stories daunting.   And almost never write without a prompt or three.  'Escape' didn't quite do it, on its own.

I began one too-close-to-the-private bone which would turn into a rant if I wasn't careful. Abandoned that.  Yesterday picked up Naomi Epel's 'Observation Deck' which was a Christmas present from one of my sons.  Selected, not entirely randomly (i.e. discarding what I didn't fancy) three what I thought were prompt cards, before realising that they referred to chapters in the accompanying book.

These were 'change your point of view', which I'd already done, ‘find the music’ which I haven't yet done but will find useful when I need it (it's worked before) and finally, 'observe a ritual' which, although I know it'll be something the MC does, I don't have a clue about at the moment.  I also decided to set the scene amidst something I do know something about, so as to better ground the 'voice'.

And this morning got up at 5 a.m. and wrote the first 255 words.

To be sat upon and let to ferment.

Festival of Writing - September

Booked my place at the Writer's Workshop Festival of Writing in York in September - my second time so I'll have a better grasp on what is going on;  will meet folks I already know and some of those who were on the Self Edit course with me.

Plus six Workshops, one mini-course (with Nicola Morgan, on The Perfect Submission) and two 1:1 sessions with book agents.

And the following week I'll be at Bloody Scotland.

Omniscience or head-hopping?

I've suddenly got self-conscious - and consequently come to a stuttering halt - about some of the passages in one of my current wips as a result of hearing about the iniquities of head-hopping.  I thought this passage, dealing with the conversation, actions and thoughts of three adults and three children  worked fine until then, but does it transgress all grammar rules and thereby confuse the reader?

     In the sunny kitchen they [Sean and his son Michael] found Sally making breakfast for both girls, her own daughter in one of the baby chairs, and Rosy held on her hip, not exactly crying but clearly about to make more of a fuss;  an intent halted as soon as she saw Sean [her father], whereupon she jeopardised her security by attempting to launch herself in his direction.  Smiling at both her and Sally, Sean lifted his daughter to safety.  ‘Another hungry child – do they never stop?  Thanks Sally.’   His nod acknowledged that she had been busy, having also cleared the kitchen of the previous night’s detritus.

Occasionally, when Sean stood more than usually close, Sally found herself experiencing a tingle of appreciative awareness.  This morning, his sun-bleached hair tangled and flopping across his forehead and the blue-eyed ease of his smile confirming what the soap-powder freshness of his T shirt failed to mask, i.e. the lust-sweat odour of sex, her  response was considerably stronger.  
     When Michael said, ‘Auntie Sally, my Mummy’s all wore out and she has to stay in bed,’ she couldn’t help but direct a complicit glance at Sean, any more than she could help wondering what it would be like to have this man between her thighs, so different in many ways to his brother, but undoubtedly as able.  Which, in itself, was the teasing, occasionally tormenting, thing.   
     Not that she had any complaints about Christy [Sean's brother]. A little more briskly than intended, with a little less breath than expected, she told Sean, ‘Christy’s gone for some rolls, he shouldn’t be long – he thought he’d nip out while the boys were asleep to make it quicker.  There’s bananas if Michael’s really hungry.’
     ‘I don’t think he’ll starve … but this little girl might think she’s going to if we don’t feed her – is that okay with you Michael, we have to see to the girls first.  Would you like a banana?   You can sit outside and watch for Uncle Christy coming back, but don’t run off.’   
     Five minutes later Sean was more amused than he let on to hear Michael, too impatient to let Christy get within earshot before shouting ‘Uncle Christy, Daddy’s feeding Rosy an’ I’ve got a banana an’ Mummy’s all wore out in bed with no ‘jarmies on!’
    Christy grinned at him, ‘Have I missed all that while I’ve been gone to fetch the rolls – tomorrow it better be someone else’s turn!’   Handing Michael the bag he said, ‘Go and give that to Aunty Sally, and ask her has she got the coffee on?’  He followed the three year-old into the kitchen, and was immediately met with Sean’s now-hard blue stare, above the top of the chair in which Rosy sat, having cereal spooned into her.  It didn’t require his twenty-plus years’ experience to decode the several layers of Sean’s message, especially since Michael’s words had to some extent forewarned him.  Sally’s back being turned, he was able to ruefully acknowledge receipt while not entirely admitting guilt. Just as well Sean had found out, though, before it went any further, he’d known it was a stupid thing to have started.

Horrified Press - and me!

My regular participation in The Prediction Fiction has led to me being invited to submit work to two anthologies, whereby I rub shoulders with folk who write a range of  work far outwith my normal range.  It was a surprise to find myself a Femmes Fatale in February, and now I learn I'm a writer of horror - one of many who successfully submitted to 'At the Stroke of Thirteen'.  Expected to be available on Google Play maybe as soon as 19th April.

My story is 'Discordant' - a tale of murder and revenge in Neolithic Orkney.

April 19th – At the Stroke of Thirteen (horror anthology)

At the stroke of thirteen, terror reigns… Thirteen O’ Clock is a sinister hour, strange and horrific, just like the incredible stories in this anthology. These authors have track records for producing spine chilling tales for dark nights and haunted places, yet in this volume they have outdone themselves. Here revealed are the unspeakable visions that few would dare to put down on paper. Here is a three-ring circus of fear presided over by that ringmaster of horror – Mr. Nick Cuti. Step right up! The show is about to begin and an unpleasant time is guaranteed for all.

- and no, you're not ready to leave.

‘Watch.’  She undid the buckle, slid the well-worn brown leather strap from his wrist.

‘Wallet,’ pulling it from the inside pocket of his jacket, stroking its rough and scabby leather hide, commenting, ‘More barnacle than crocodile,' before opening it, teasingly pretending to count the notes within.  ‘Guess you can afford me tonight,’ as she proceeded to then remove his jacket, unbutton his shirt.

A second buckle, this a recently-bought belt, leather less pliant.  He murmured a token protest which, smiling quietly, she reached, with lips and fingers, to silence.

‘Spectacles, so you can’t see what I’m doing.’
Then her hands were swift , swift and warm, lifting cotton, sliding denim, bending to remove the heap of clothes around his feet.   She stood again, this time accepting the heft and heat of him.

‘Testicles.  And a veritable upstanding Anglo Saxon Chronicle’

[Written for House of Writers Word Prompt 40]

Doldrums dissipated

A glimmer of an idea last night as to how Chelsy got hold of the photo which suggests All Is Not As It Seems had, by 4 a.m., firmed up enough to propel me out of bed by five and even as I wrote I realised better ways to deal with it. One conversation fully written, another (which adds more conflict for Baz & Madigan) still to do, but It Will Work.

Phew!!  Until the next time.

Doldrums

Having re-read for the umpteenth time and then put aside Longest Shadows Reach, my most recent work in progress, I returned to its predecessor Step So Grave, with the intention of applying what I learnt on the Self Edit course.

All fine and dandy for a few days.  One conversation that I felt lacked veracity was dealt with by seeing the need to bring in more jeopardy, thinking about what might have sparked animosity and writing its back story (which will be used in a forth-coming challenge).  Conversation re-written, all ramifications attended to.  Good.

There were other areas that needed more tension - those I'd found myself skipping over when it came to re-re-reading.  They weren't exactly boring but didn't necessarily earn their keep.  I thought a bit more conflict between Baz and Madigan would help. Thought I'd excise one of the not-boring-but bits and use the plot line from that to set  up a potential betrayal.

I wrote a conversation which gave good reasons for suspicion.

And then I came to a stop.   Because logistically it didn't work.  So I moved it.  And tried to shoe-horn it in elsewhere.   But found myself sitting at my laptop moving words about without them having already sounded in my head.  And digging myself deeper in the mire. So I stopped.

It will pass I tell myself.  It has done before.  Write a story instead - plenty prompts to write to.
But so far they've all been non-starters too.

Updated serials

'A Change of Focus' and 'Threshold' - serials progressing week by week, prompt by prompt via Prediction Fiction, and available to be read in their entirety on the above pages - have been updated; John Pettinger's adventures now having reached episode eighty-two.

Botanical study

One hand in his pocket, jingling coins and car keys, eyes unfocussed as he gazed beyond the grimy sash window, the other taking the final half inch of roll-up from his mouth and squashing it absent-mindedly into the matt black saucer sat beneath the pot containing the dead ... dead what?  Hard to tell, same as it was hard to tell how long it had been dead.   You’d need to have studied it to know how many weeks it took for leaves to drop, desiccate and crumble;  at what point the stems became hollow and fragile. 

Easier to do though, than study the similar death of a marriage.  No way of decoding those ambiguous, coded signs.  Those sighs, intended to both convey to and conceal.  In her case, first the one and then the other.   Convey her unhappiness;  conceal her affair.

Stupid that it should have been the dog who told him.  Barking – barking a welcome – at the man coming along the river bank towards him.

His death would not have been desiccated;  his body not dry and crisped.

Prompted by two Thinking Ten prompts from last week

Under the fullness of the moon

Yesterday I had a three hour train journey yesterday and Louise Doughty's 'Apple Tree Yard' to read - a story told in first person and full of adulterous sex (and huge tension). I was using  as a bookmark the scrap of paper I'd written the three prompt words from Prediction Fiction on, and had to break off reading to write the following, so loud it was clamouring in my head (and so obviously influenced by my reading).

Under the fullness of the moon

Neither of us was to blame. It was not a situation where blame could be attached. Was not a fairy-tale prince and princess, pink and glittery; sweet and smelling of roses story told in moon and June, love and dove type verse, but a fast and furious wet and sweat, buck and fuck coming together. Smelling of semen, bruised weeping leaves and dirty, earthy sex. 

After – a month or so after, when the shouting had become silence – my most abiding memory was of the yellow startled eyes of the dog fox, seemingly transfixed by the rocking of our tangled limbs.

Aaargghh!

There's acknowledgements, half a page or more of them.  There's thanks to umpteen specialists for advice and information.  Thanks for encouragement, for wifely love.
There's reference to, and more thanks for, the editing.
But no-one seemed to know that there's no such thing, on Scotland's east cost, as a heron gull!

Conversation over a pint

“The first was that Eddie Cochran song –"
“Blimey – that’s going back a bit.”
“Teens, yeah, but the sounding like something else, the mis-hearing, came later ... Seventies, ‘Winter of Discontent’ and all that.  Which reminds me, did I tell you about when we went to see Richard III at Stratford, Robert Lindsay?”
“Yeah you did ... discount tents, yeah?”
“Aye.  The Eddie Cochran one was more annoying – kept sounding like ‘ASLEF carries on ... and things do go wrong,  just follow steps one, two and three ...”
“ASLEF?”
“The railway union.   On strike, and forever in the bloody news.  Later, it was the ‘terror pork chops’ ...”
“Wha-a-t?”
“Tape you did for me.  Bon Jovi.  Turned out he was saying something about Tarot cards ...”
“Right ...   It was Dire Straits did it for me –"
“Oh yes, that sexy voice –"
“Not so much that.   More sex gone wrong.   Going wrong, potential for.  Teenage again ...”
“Don’t know what you mean ...”
“Well, something to do with the girl I was going out with at the time ... he kept going on about ‘I recall my fall from Grace’ and I could see myself, if I ever did make any progress, making such an almighty cock-up of it that she pushed me out of bed!”

[This written for Word Prompt no.35 on House of Writers - http://houseofwriters.ning.com/]

Self-Edit course - all done

And although the group - which was a huge and unanticipatedly beneficial  part of the experience - and the exercises and the feedback will remain accessible for ever, to be continued for as long as we want it to - is still functioning; the input of Debi Alper as tutor is no more.  Emma Darwin's vast store of common-sense advice and writing wisdom can, of course, be accessed via 'This Itch of Writing'

So there is a certain bereftness, a sadness that it's all over.  And also an eagerness to put to good use what I've learned, which has been considerable.

And I can thoroughly recommend the course as a way  to proceed once you've got that ms to the point where you think it might be done:  http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Self-Editing.html

February Femmes Fatales

Just received my copy of February Femmes Fatales, 275 pages of 'horror, gritty crime and sultry noir' - including one tale from me, entitled 'That Cat Steven's Song'.

It's available (with a peek) from http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1494731878/ref

Self-editing - last post

Six weeks has flown by, usefully and enjoyably.  And worth every penny, for the friends made, the insights and skills learnt and for the fact that I now know where to take my book next, and why.
Debi Alper asks questions.  Difficult questions that I can, for a while, ignore, hands over ears, muttering "yes but ..."
In the end it's not so much that I can't ignore as it becomes so bloody obvious.  A 'light bulb moment' as she is fond of saying.

Self-editing ... six weeks of it.

Tomorrow I start a six-week online Self-editing your novel course - http://www.writersworkshop.co.uk/Self-Editing.html

It's taken me three years to realise (accept) that I need help.  Not entirely arrogance, although there's a bit of 'shouldn't my book be all my own work?, and I have been aware of each succeeding book that I am improving.
I probably wouldn't have been so enthusiastic either had I not already come across Emma Darwin and her superb and empowering'This Itch of Writing' blog, and done a couple of workshops with Debi Alper at last September's Festival of Writers, run by the folks who organise the courses.
I did, of course, read one novel by each of them - they certainly practice what I hope they'll preach.

Where to start?

An Amazon parcel arrived this morning, courtesy of the voucher received for my birthday, just before Christmas.  Three novels – one of which is Emma Darwin’s ‘A Secret Alchemy’ – and the long-awaited (order back in September) ’Crime Writer’s Guide to Police Procedure’.

I received ’The Elements of Eloquence’ and ‘To the Letter’ plus four novels as gifts from my children, who also lent me thirteen novels.  Accidentally, I’ve already picked up five more charity shop bargains.

Plus there’s the three books of poetry which arrived on Christmas Eve.

The two non-fiction books will sit on my reference shelf, but both need to be read first.

And how do I juggle poetry with fast-pace novels?  

Top five non-crime books of 2013

Ajay Close - ‘Official and Doubtful’ 

Read twice within a couple of weeks - flight to the States and on the return.  Intriguing, intelligent.  Characters are rich and interesting - the gradual revelation of Nan's personality and her past is compelling; Danny and Callum well-drawn and their interaction complex. The language, the prose is vivid, original and exciting.  For once, for me, I’d use the word ‘mind-blowing’.


T. Geronimo Johnson - ‘Hold it ‘Til it hurts’
Exceptional on several levels. The language poetic - unsurprising to learn that T. Geronimo Johnson is a poet - and the story totally absorbing, both in Achilles search for his brother and his own self-examination in coming to terms with life after Afghanistan.

Emma Darwin - ‘The Mathematics of Love’

Gorgeous. One of those books you are so conscious of the joy of reading for the very first time that you keep stopping so as to delay reaching the end, and rich enough so as to be able to do so without suffering too much.
And discovering that Emma Darwin practices what she so very well preaches, i.e. the art of writing (although 'preaches' is entirely the wrong word since she is very much an enabler) was a bonus.



Andrew Greig - ‘At the Loch of the Green Corrie’
I should have known. This is about far, far more than fishing. Much more than mountains. Intended as a paean to Norman MacCaig, it says so much more about life and belief and friendship and vision and about Andrew Greig.  Who puts into words philosophies I hold but have barely realised, and never articulated.  

Sophie Jonas-Hill - ‘My Crooked Little Sister’

Many, many delicious phrases, page-turning tension, irresistible end-of-chapter hooks, the dialogue and the descriptions. To say nothing of that trepidation (rare these days) that maybe you've read it wrong and it isn't going to turn out as you hope.

good wishes

All good wishes for a peaceful, contented Christmas

 and a brilliant 2014

Dish of the day?

The shape of his head, more visible as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, was reminiscent of an Elisabeth Frink – stone Tribute rather than bronze Aggressor.

Solid column of throat the same for either.  His sweat-varnished, black against soft white cotton.

I stepped inside. 

Behind me, a collective intake of breath, part-suppressed;  a single eruption of protest, immediately silenced.  From Julian, who I hadn’t yet learned to trust. 

His hands lifted slightly, a thin rattle of a chain. 

He whispered again, lips rimed with light, eyes lignite glittering.

My blood ran cold.

From behind me silence.  Avidly awaiting entertainment.

One of this week's entries for Prediction Fiction, prompt words varnish, erupt, cold. 

Threshold

From the doorway all that could be seen was the gleam of his cotton shirt and the whites of his eyes.  The rest of him was in shadow.   Unsurprising: boarded-up windows allowed only a thin-drawn rectangle of light.  He’d backed himself into the corner, somehow levered himself to standing, the bulk of him merging into the shadows.  I had to trust the shackles held.

Had to trust them too.   I didn’t know why they’d sent me to fetch him.  Didn’t know why they laughed behind me nor, when he saw me, why his teeth gleamed too, whispering, ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

One of my 100 word pieces for this week's Predction Fiction - using  flatter, cotton, shackle

A story of mine accepted for an anthology of horror stories, 'At the Stroke of Thirteen', which is to be illustrated by Comic book legend Nick Cuti.  Immensely flattering as I never thought of myself as a writer of horror.

I submitted a tale called 'Dischordant', a follow-up to 'Edge:  curve, arc, circle' and am curious to see what he makes of my Neolithic Orcadian tale.

Four o’clock

She wasn’t easy to pigeonhole.  Which made it all so difficult.   If they’d been able to be certain, the solution would be easy – bullet in the head, burial in the closest cement-poured project.  All the evidence indicated... timing, sightings, her bank accounts’ steady acquisitions of cash.

But face to face felt like a setback:  genteel parlour, doves cooing, latticed windows curtained with William Morris ‘Golden Lily’, velvet settee protected with pampas-grass embroidered antimacassar and arm-covers, India tea served in fragile Royal Pembroke bone china...

...it was the tea, of course.  And, after strenuous chopping, she found them very easily pigeonholed. 

One of two entries for this week's Prediction Fiction,  prompt words:  pigeon, cover, setback.

Phew.

At just over ninety thousand words I feel able to declare what began life as 'Susannah Elphinstone' and what is currently 'Longest shadows reach' finished.  By which I mean after many many re-readings and writings I think it is, apart from minor tweaks, finished.

It is the follow up to what was .'Not wanted on voyage' and became 'A step so grave' which I temporarily abandoned after submitting it to an agent and a book doctor at York's Festival of Writing in September. This had undergone three major re-writes and I did not then have the stamina for an immediate fourth one.

I also have 'Making good' awaiting a final edit - the fourth and final on in the Bridie and Sean saga.

My intention is to sign up for the six week  'Self editing your novel', course run by the Writers Workshop which begins January 7th, using 'Longer shadows reach'  but before that I intend to play a bit more with the cover design.

Return to Porthfeddon at MuDJoB

A short story of mine - Return to Porthfeddon - is now up at the excellent MuDJoB site.

Another sign of the times?

Less than a quarter awake with two stories in my head which I am certain I have written:   skinny impoverished  black girl reaches the front of a queue to be given ... clothes?  Food? Entry?  Three, four places behind (written a half a day or something later) a black boy, darker skinned whose tale is only part-defined.

I spend time trying to bring the two together.  

Trying to recall the words I used.

But the more awake I am the more the words dissolve, until I’m left with two well-washed and frayed squares of cotton, on which the words have changed themselves - hers become milk chocolate coloured stripes, his faded into dots of semaphore, which I am unable to translate.

Woke with an opening in my head ...

"Merk arrived as they were leaving, the distinctive nose of his car blocking the end of the drive.   Had David been driving he’d’ve backed down but Viv was made of sterner stuff. "

I've extended it to a drabble for a Prediction Fiction challenge, subsequently incorporating  'alto', histrionic' and 'ticking', as a first part of a holiday-themed horror serial, each episode to be dictated by the week's prompts, and yet to be sent to Colleen, but what a gift of  early-morning words.

Ensuring customer satisfaction

He must’ve Photo-shopped his picture – one half then the other to counteract the ever-shifting cast in his eye.  The foetid crosswind of his minted smokey-bacon breath was another thing you couldn’t check online.

Likewise voice.  His, attempting to cajole, was whining, ‘Sorry, Doll, body on the line at Bakerloo...’

I could check that later.  Maybe.  Nodded to Dave the barman;  he’d’ve known this one would need swift intervention. 

‘Gotta take a slash...’

Dave returned, unsmiling.  ‘I still say it’s a bit drastic...’

‘But if your Dating Agency guarantees client vetting, it’s essential to deliver...’

‘Even if it’s client into sewer?’

[This week's entry for Prediction Fiction, using 'crosswind', intervene', and 'cajole'.]

Impressed with myself!!

Having rested it for a couple of months I'm now re-reading my current work in progress.
Approaching the end I've just read a conversation between the two main protagonists and found myself thinking 'What?  What's going on?  I thought they'd already arrested the man responsible - what's the date of this conversation?'

Then I realised that they were discussing the final twist, the denouement, the surprise at the end ...

Of course I did know he had done it, and that All Was To Be Revealed at some point, but hadn't remembered how, or exactly when.   As I say, I've impressed myself, even if only for this evening.