O Momentous day

Not only am I heading for Stirling in readiness for tomorrow's  Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Masterclass, but today's the day when Scotland votes whether or not to become independent from the UK.
I sincerely hope not.

And whatever the vote, the weekend will be dominated by that as much as the writing of crime.
But will undoubtedly be a good one.

Unanimous

Three one-to-one sessions with agents who had read synopsis and  the beginning of  'Step so Grave' but not very far beyond I suspect.  The message - too much waffle at the beginning and the necessity of beginning a crime novel with a body - made more than a little more palatable for my having realised it myself just a couple of days before I arrived in York
One of the results of improving and learning the more you write.
The lessons further hammered home but, what was more important, potential tools to identify and find a solutions also suggested, by Jeremy Sheldon's workshop on 'Four plot problems you never knew you had';  Emma Darwin's Three and Five act structure; and C.M Taylor's 'Using Fatal Flaw to deepen theme and unite plot and character.'
 Another of Emma's workshops,  simple but highly effective, was her  'Plain and perfect, rich and rare.' demonstrating the benefits of working on sentences to make the best of them.

Festival of Writing

I'm off to the Writer's Workshop Festival of Writing at York today.

Seven workshops, six folk from the Self-Edit course we shared, my five-times written novel to promote, four hundred fellow writers, three agents, two night of non-stop conversation (even for me!) and one weekend I'm looking forward to all the more for it being my second time.

Progress

17K words into third of trilogy - working title evolved from 'Luke's story' to 'Commission and Omission' - and far better-organised thanks to SE course.

Bloody Scotland had a hand in it too - the short story written for that will be expanded and incorporated, plus I am getting huge amounts of inspiration from reading and re-reading Chris Brookmyre's Jasmine Sharp trilogy! 

Obviously I'm very much looking forward to the workshop I'm doing with him in Stirling on the nineteenth of this month.

Nursery tales

As a child I frequently but uselessly wished for my favourite characters from different books to meet up and have conversations and new adventures together.  K M Peyton did this to a small extent with her Pennington series, incorporating the girl from Fallen Angels but by not appearing until 1970 they were too late for me, by some decades.

All my own fiction has been character-inspired and led.  Some have arrived as a pair, such as Jenna and Ed; others, such as Jenna’s daughter, grew up and met an ever-expanding cast of characters, during fifteen years and four novels which began, fortuitously (for the sex) in 1963.

Others – the majority of them –  came from responses to prompts on the several sites I’ve used to practise and hone my writing (many since disappeared, but the lessons have been gratefully retained.)

Journalists Baz Rose and Rose Madigan come into this category, as does Luke Darbyshere.  Susannah Elphinstone arrived in my head as the peg to hang a second novel of their story on.

John Pettinger was created for a short story written in advance of a writing retreat;  his career continues, week by week and drabble by drabble, under the title ‘A change of focus’ led by prompts from Prediction Fiction, rapidly approaching episode 100.

Another short story, an entry for this year’s Bloody Scotland had Pettinger meeting with Annabel Buckingham.  Not only a friend of a friend of Luke and Baz, she was part of an alliterative, unpublished serial which went by the name of ‘Shenanigans’, written back in 2010 and loosely based on a town near me.   

All have stood up to be counted into the third in the Baz, Luke and Madigan trilogy, along with Ivo who arrived last month in Tennessee and the principal of the school who interviewed and employed him.

The delight of getting to know them, seeing how they interact and what they hide  and the lies they tell to cover up their true feelings gives me such joy, that I no longer yearn for the days when I had to rely on other writers.

Growing a character

Ivo was born at a writing retreat – the fifth such – in a cabin in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains. (Thanks to MH for the photo)

Seeded by a photo prompt; rooted more sturdily via a challenge to channel Hemingway, he pushed forth his first healthy shoots via an eleven-sentence exercise loosely based on Bob Thurber’s http://home.comcast.net/~bob-thurber/anatomy.html.

Next came an effortless and unexpected bloom:

'Ivo makes love like an alley cat. Skinny and slippy and quick. Ends with a grunt; an unsmiling appraisal of the woman beneath him who’s already forgiven him since she came at the moment he entered her; having feared that he’d leave her without.’

And rumour had it he teaches art ...

I've a place for Ivo. A barely-begun novel, the last of a trilogy, where I hope he'll bear much fruit, and
I’m waking earlier and earlier these days, needing to set down conversations.

Yabloodyhoo

My Yahoo account was hacked while I was in transit to America (and not the Ukraine) and my contact list wiped.  It has been rendered unavailable, so I shall be using my gmail account.   If you don't have that, message me on  FB.

Birmingham, Alabama

Arriving in the dark is black and orange.  Staccato red and punctured white.  Impossible to know what daylight looks like and not able even to imagine after nineteen hours of travel.

Soon a clichéd, howling mournful train, which I know cannot be as lonesome as the ones heard in Kansas a couple of years ago.  Then I slept, hearing, but not woken by, a dozen repetitions.

Morning grey and green.  Constant traffic noise explained by the elevated Interstate above an intersection, beside another crossroads whose surface is, like the tarmac car park down below, wet glistening.

Attached to this, with ugly childish tackings of telegraph pole and streetlight, are broccoli trees, the furthest mystified as to where the hills, only apparent later, have disappeared to.

And, just this minute, the sun appears; the Interstate turns silver, maybe all the way to Atlanta.

Saturday start to week of writing with friends

You know you're in America as soon as you hear those trains!!

And three hours til I meet with the first two of eight of those good friends, having caught up with (some) of my sleep for a drive (in the rain) from Birmingham Alabama to Gatlinburg Tennessee.

Phew!

Finally submitted my entry for the Bloody Scotland Short Story competition.
Having written, quite quickly, one version from the murderer's point of view I then wrote a second from the detective's.  In third person.   Then spent three weeks putting it into first person.
Then realised that the first version had the stronger voice.
And although I could go on editing forever, it really had reached a good point.
So, phew and fingers crossed until the middle of August.

Thoughts on being ambushed

Dauntlessness was not enough.

I’d seen him despatch six in fewer minutes, but they a mismatch of pure-bred English fops; ambition way beyond ability.

These now – one atop a stallion in the centre of the road before us, twin-matched double deputies either side, Saxon-haired and broad as Blackwater barges – a different breed.  Brains matched brawn (though maybe blunter than the black-haired man I’d decided was my future).

But with unknown numbers fast coming up behind; an unwieldy loose-wheeled cart and a now-howling babe, ‘twas likely his future would be very short. 

Mine only long enough to pay the required penalty.

This is the latest post for Prediction Fiction - prompt words penalty, mismatch and dauntless - and the latest episode of 'Threshold' (see page above) which began last December with what was intended to be a one-off.  Pettinger has reached his ninety-first episode.  It's a brilliant place to hone one's words.

Bloody Scotland - booked

Booked my tickets for this third Crime Writing Festival in Stirling, 19th to 21st September.  I was in Orkney for the first and at the York Festival of Writing  for the second but that is being held a week earlier this year.

I've opted for a Crime Writing Masterclass, which includes a session with Christopher Brookmyre, followed by discussions between him and Denise Mina on their latest books (Red Road' stayed in my mind for a long while!) followed by Stuart MacBride and Mark Billingham talking about combining humour with the gritty.

On Saturday afternoon (leaving the morning free) I've opted for new-to-crime-writing Eva Dolan, Hania Allen and Mason Cross, followed by AlexGray and Caro Ramsay on police procedurals;  finishing with Luca Veste and Kevin Sampson, both from Liverpool. 

And on Sunday Craig Robertson, Malcolm Mackay & Kati Hiekkapelto discuss the different approaches to crime writing by different countries, followed by RobertRyan, Tony Black, Doug Johnstone & Douglas Skelton, all of whom came via journalism.  The weekend finishes with Ian Rankin who will doubtless have much of interest to say. 

  

Testing, testing.

On my husband, who I don't usually bother, but I think this is done.
Spent much of yesterday refining the final third, careless of word count, knowing I could tighten it. Went to bed knowing, after two attempts, the final conversation wasn't what I wanted.  Still wasn't this morning, at 7 a.m. after another couple of hours (to be fair I was re-reading the whole so as to keep the flow).
Halfway up the road for the paper, a phrase.  The perfect phrase.
And bingo.
So.  I think it's more or less done.
Now I have to strike that balance between sending it off too soon and spotting glaring inconsistencies or giving it a daily fiddle.
But in the meantime, I'll let my husband read it.   Before or after the Cup Final which, he tells me, is more important.
I know my place.

Surrounded by chaos

Yesterday slight niggly feelings about my finished Bloody Scotland Crime story, partly engendered by reading Ann Cleeves, spurred to greater dissatisfaction by Peter Temple.  Not that I'd even dream about attempting his wonderful, laconic Australian bloke dialogue.
But something of the sort would make a difference.  When I write DI John Pettinger [Change of Focus] I can do dialogue that sparks ... I just needed another tale to tell.
On waking this morning I realised I had a story.  Wondered about telling it from Pettinger's point of view.  The cop rather than the culprit.  Try, for veracity's sake to stick to the same end result.
On my way to buy a paper I got the opening lines.

The carpet fitters arrived before nine.   Hall, stairs and landing.  I got marooned upstairs while they chatted, about girls and restaurants, while they knifed and peeled and pulled and unrolled and hammered and nail-punched stuff in place.   While they hoovered and hoovered all the bits up.
Nearly three in the afternoon before I could get downstairs again.   But I had two thousand of three thousand words written.  Nowhere near the denouement, but I prefer to prune rather than pad.
A good day's work!

Persistence to the rescue

On Wednesday, at 2,350 words, my Bloody Scotland crime story was looking better (even though I didn't know who dunnit).
Late Thursday, a sudden rush of inspiration, a garbled final paragraph badly typed but enough to show direction of recent thoughts.
Friday morning, early, before we went away for the weekend, a tidying up.
Friday afternoon, in a Suffolk hotel, after five hours of mulling while heading south and east, the first hint of satisfaction and that magic moment as I realised I'd not only finished but managed to encompass the specified theme, of 'Escape'.
And now, four sessions later. I'm glad to say it's not far off done.  2795 words or thereabouts.

[The picture shows sediment gathering on an aluminium plate as it undergoes non-toxic etching]

a.n.d.... sunk

All gone pear-shaped.
Felt flat.  Re-did bits, new beginning, went panicky, turned on Track Changes (probably too late) and then became aware I was only making it worse.
Best thing to back off and get on with something else, but when that state of mind occurs everything gets kamikaze.

Slowly ... but surely?

It's growing - 1954 words.  Many added, many taken away.  I'm resisting using Track Changes, relying instead on that old "if you can write it once you can write it again" argument, passed on via a Wimbledon Art College student of Prunella Clough, which I adopted when I was printmaking.
There's printmaking in this story too - Annabel, who's story this is, is a printmaker.

I do have an inkling of the end, and it is an end that will resurface in my next novel which currently has fewer words than this story, but which will definitely feature Luke Darbyshere as main character.

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/]