Pre-prandial

As oil and vinegar only combine after vigorous shaking, such as is required for successful vinaigrette, we invariably took time to come to homogeneity each time we met.   Too much time; our differences on each successive meeting seeming greater.  Thus on that particular evening we’d sat across the table from each other, unspeaking.  Drinking the speedily-delivered Merlot but, having ordered, choices made,  now saying nothing.  True, not only because of our own mutual difficulties, but also because the conversation of the couple on the table beside us – we were separated by a heavy curtain which maybe they mistakenly believed was soundproof – concerned an unholy and compelling liaison; a twinning of politics and piety.  Only when the name – names – of those concerned was mentioned did you speak, and only then with your fingers, in a gesture that indicated your clear desire to see the speaker garrotted at the first possible opportunity, underlining your intention to do the job yourself with the production from your pocket of a skein of piano wire.   

[garrotted, vinaigrette, unholy - Prompt 81 for House of Writers]

Sitting in the window, wearing a crimson skirt.

‘Whisky works well enough.’

She turned her head, eyes heavy as the thick-bottomed tumbler she clutched with both hands in her lap and nigh matching the peat brown quarter inch still remaining.

‘As what?’  Regretting the sourness but, since it hadn’t leached fully away, unable to hide it.  Their exchange of words less than an hour ago had been truly vitriolic and he could never rid himself of the belief that you couldn’t give voice to such unless you’d already thought them.  Believed them.  And each accusation, each insult, each saying of the unsayable had solidified and fallen to earth, scattering themselves across the flagstones, a rash of corpulent black maggots which, like marbles, would trip up every attempt at reconciliation.

‘As a painkiller.’

He sighed, resigned.  ‘So does strangulation.  Eventually.’

[corpulent, vitriol, painkiller] 

Unheeding

At first, little more than a whispering, loosening the last of the autumn-clenched leaves, stirring the palest of the ashes.

‘It’s coming’

‘Hours yet.’

Silent, she held her knowledge within.

Two hours passed.  A drift had formed, grey against centuries of soot.  Roof slates stirred, tapping a finger-bone tune.  She whispered another warning.  His eyes stayed shut, his breathing steady.

Time passed.

Air shifted, maybe five degrees, setting up a whistle ‘twixt wood and wall.

From nowhere, howling harshness, flinging an upward torrent of the largest of them.  Feathered and malevolent.

His eyes opened.  ‘Crows?’

‘Aye. A murdering of them.’

[This week's words for Prediction Fiction:  torrent, ashes, whistle]

Pages of Tales for The Prediction

This week I posted episode 112 of John Pettinger's 'A change of focus' and episode 49 of 'Threshold' on the http://predictionfiction.blogspot.co.uk/   Each can be read in their entirety in the tagged the pages above.

'The blacksmith's wife' - published with illustrations - was the first serial I attempted and 'From Rhodes' a 58 episode sequel, dealing with the blacksmith's brother.

Can't say enough how much this weekly exercise has help in the honing of my craft as a writer - particularly now that I'm trying to reduce 'Step so grave' from ~135K words to nearer 90K.

My Christmas was lovely but ...

Overheard in charity shop:
Assistant:   "Did you get everything you wished for?"
Customer:  "No. I wished they would all go home."

Commission and Omission - update

I reported having reached 17K on September 2nd, Had topped 40K by the 24th October, and today I've just passed 60K.

Not, obviously, a word count comparable to NaNoWriMo, but many of these words are much nearer a final draft, the clues are better worked out, the red herrings far more subtle, and in the process I've developed a final arc for the whole of the trilogy.

90K is my target - one which seemed impossible when halfway there - but a fattening of the characters, a realisation that description of place is not, if well done and applicable, a waste of the reader's time and awareness that I still have ten scenes still to write, makes it a far less daunting task.
No cover as yet - I am without Photoshop, my current version having just disappeared one day, but one possible starting place might be a print done for my first ever piece of fiction, 'The One That Got Away'.

Seedy contemplation

Gave pebble-dash a whole new meaning.  (In Scotland they add a concrete skim and call it harling.  Likely hurts no less but the blood-spots not so well-defined.)

Gave my back what looked like a nasty case of measles (except where the cord wound round me, tying arms to torso, added stripes.)

My old man.

Don’t need to tell me the drugs don’t work; old before his time with his never-ending quest to tame the butterfly he’d caught.

My mum.

Who’d said one day he weren’t my Dad, adding to his life, his love for her, a black and bittersweet symphony.

[Another offering for Prediction Fiction, this time a stand-alone, with thanks, of course, to The Verve]

A change of focus, episode 103

Three words, more or less weekly, from which to concoct a drabble of one hundred.  That's how Prediction Fiction works, and this week's words are ... well, go and see for yourself.

John Pettinger first appeared in a short story written for a Writer's Retreat in Kansas in 2012. Episode one of 'A change of focus' appeared at the end of 2012, intended as a stand-alone.
But I become attached to my characters.  John himself;  his impossible boss Vanessa and her unsuitable associates.  His Khakbethian relatives, including the evil Raptor.  And lately, since episode eighty-four, the daughters of the murdered Edward Cherrystone:  Faith, Hope and Charity.  All can be read about via the Page tab beneath the heading.

Despite his cordless phone, Pettinger was rooted to the spot as they told him; detached police reaction impossible when the crime was personal.  More personal than he’d imagined it could be.  Sick fear lodged, pebble-like, in the hollow of his throat, as he tried to make sense of what was being said – stuff about a shredded bible and a wingless bird.

‘Laid at her head.  There were other objects – bones and ribbons, baby shoes.  We got your name from what was written on her back –‘

‘Written –?’

‘With a scalpel –‘

Brickwood’s being right was bittersweet.

Charity’s revenge long-held.

Superb first novel - Nicola White's 'In the Rosary Garden'.

I've just finished reading, almost in one sitting, having only reached page forty last night, Nicola White's 'In the Rosary Garden'. and have reviewed it both on Goodreads and Amazon as follows:

Good heavens, this was wonderful! Bought because it was short-listed for the Deanston Scottish Crime Book of the Year, recommended by Declan Hughes and Denise Mina (and already the winner of the Dundee International Book Prize) this has an originality and a freshness which sets it part from usual crime novels. It is beautifully written, tightly and convincingly plotted with exceptional scene-setting and fascinating characters, especially in Ali and detective Vincent Swan, who I hope is due to appear elsewhere. And soon.

Bloody Scotland 2014

What a brilliant event!

And how wonderful to hear every single writer say first and foremost you have to write what you want to write, and be true to your own voice.

And secondly, that so many of them make so much of it up - including police procedurals - saying that there is a danger of too much research being fed in (because you've done it so why not?) and slowing the pace.  Most impressively astounding of all was Malcolm Mackay who admitted he didn't grow up against a background of  Glaswegian underworld - you'd never think it from the world he's so skilfully created.

Other highlights, for me, included hearing Christopher Brookmyre talk, during Friday's Crime Writing Masterclass about the importance of magic -  reveal and misdirection - and later reading 'Puck Knows' his story of teenagers at a performance of 'Midsummer Night's Dream' - and hearing William McIlvanney talk about the process of writing his Laidlaw trilogy - plus the news that there may be two more to come.

Friendly, well-organised, and loads of books to buy - I certainly intend to be back next year!

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.