Fiction Friday

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday

Something new for Fridays. Every week, the Write Stuff website runs a challenge. The rules are simple.

• Every Thursday, just check this page for this week’s theme or challenge.


• Spend at least 5 minutes composing something original based on the theme or challenge.


• But, remember, no editing. This is to inspire creativity not stifle it.


• On Friday, simply post what you wrote to your own blog.


• Then come back to Write Stuff and leave the link in the comment section of that week’s Fiction Friday post.

This Week's Theme: Dirty Little Secrets
Pick a famous fictional character and give them a secret vice - at the very least it should be distasteful if not outright illegal. Now give the character's rationale in their own words. Example: Have Santa explain why he looks through women's drawers during his rounds.

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I shouldn't feel guilty about it. No, I don't feel guilty about it at all. Why does he get all the attention anyway? That fat idiot. He gets all the attention, while we're all relegated to bit players. Well, I'm tired of it. No more meek little Piglet. Mr Milne said that the book was all about me, not that overstuffed, brainless bear.

He was always there, sponging off the rest of us, contributing nothing. "Oh Piglet, I wouldn't mind a little smackering of something, oh Owl, would you by chance have any honey?" And did he give anything back? Of course not.

It started innocently enough I suppose. It was more an accident than a deliberate plan to do Very Bad Things to him. Kanga gave it to me. I thought it was just the bottle of malt she gives to Roo. But she said it always helped her to calm down, then winked at me. I didn't think much more of it until I got home and poured it into the honey. I only wanted to knock him out you see. He can be so infuriatingly tiring when he gets going.

Right on clockwork, the Bear of Little Brain arrives at my door, chancing his arm to see if he can get a free meal. "Oh yes Pooh, I have some honey right here" - and he eats it. All of it. The greedy swine. And that's when I really look at the label on the bottle. It's not malt. It's opium...

That whole Heffalump chase incident? Yeah, wandering around a forest in circles chasing imaginary animals in a fugue of opium. The only thing you can do with him then is play along, or he gets spooked. The highs were funny - for a while. But the come downs... let's just say that his temper is something that Mr Milne never wrote about! And of course, one pot ceased to be enough for him, he demanded more and more, to feed his dual addictions. The waist-expanding honey addiction, and the mind-expanding opium addiction. He ate so much once he got stuck in Rabbit's doorway, and when we finally got him out he claimed he saw all of Rabbit's Friends and Relations pulling on him. Honestly, it was just Rabbit and me, he hallucinated the rest.

So now of course we have a quandary. What to do with him? Keep him doped up? He had precious little Brain to begin with, now he just sits and drools. We can't get him to go cold turkey - the last time he did well... let's just say we haven't seen Tigger in a long time. Kanga can't keep getting hold of the stuff for us. She's not as young as she used to be, and let's just say that doesn't get as much for her company as she used to, if you know what I mean...

I think the best thing we can do is take him to the Enchanted Place and be done with him. Like we did with Eyeore.

You have issues...

Tags: writing Catholicism mysticism

On the walk into work this morning, I was pondering my Wrath story, and how I've been toying with extending it to a longer story - the central character, denied the chance to extract revenge against the person who hurt him in the past, enacts his revenge against a variety of cyphers (in this case priests), each kill an attempt to purge the desire for revenge from his system, and each attempt failing to do so.

Julia said to me "you really do have issues with Catholicism don't you?"

Not really. I don't have "issues" any more than the next Catholic, or indeed any person who retains nominal allegiance to a particular religious viewpoint has issues with their religion. Do I agree with everything the Catholic church teaches? Absolutely not (I'd be a hypocrite of the highest order to claim so), and my disagreements with the Church are a matter of record in my personal blog, where I've taken issue with the Doctrine of Limbo and the Church's reckless decision to ask Catholics to stop supporting Amnesty International. But as for deep rooted issues, there are none. However, religion (specifically Catholicism) does feature heavily in much of my writing.

Wrath has a priest being wrongly murdered. Best Served Cold opens in a confessional, with a priest taking the confession of a murderer. The Long Watch is set in the Vatican, and is about a group run by the Church. One of the characters in the London novel is a priest. Several of the stories in The Major Arcana unavoidably deal with religion, and indeed one of them is a prequel to The Long Watch, the events of which directly impact on the storyline.

Why? Because I'm Catholic and writing what I know? Maybe. The truth is, out of all the Christian religions, I think Catholicism has the best scope for fun in fiction. Despite the heavy reliance on literal interpretation of the Bible that some branches of the Protestant churches display, they seem to shy away from miracles. From apparitions. From relics. From the stranger, more unusual aspects of religion, things that seem more akin to pre-Christian religions. The power of words, and symbols, and items. Catholicism seems more "magic(k)al" than the other Christian religions. There are saints, and relics, and stigmata, and bi-location, and transubstantiation, and complicated theologies of angels and demons. Not always endorsed, but always in the background.

I can't imagine too many non-denominational schools falling victim to the mass-delusion of a Marion apparition the way my school did. Nor could I envisage a Baptist minister leading a team of angels and demons fighting to save the world. There seems to be more tension in having a murderer confess to his deeds in a confessional, than over a cup of tea with the local Presbyterian minister. And no other branch of Christianity has the history, locations, organisational structure and political involvement to be able to hang complicated geopolitical or conspiratorial plotlines on. Despite my dislike of the book, I don't think The Da Vinci Code would have been anywhere near as successful if Dan Brown had made the villains Anabaptists, for example, rather than the Catholic Church.

So it's not so much that I have issues with the Church - but the structure of the Church raises some juicy issues that are fun to play with.

The Angel and the Path

Tags: writing fragments fiction angel

Here's a little sneak peak at a vignette I've worked on for a scene in my novel set in London. Since I'm not doing a lot of work on that book just now, I thought you might like to see a little bit of it. It's similar in style to some of the tales in the Lieh-tzu, or the stories told by characters in the work of Dostoevsky, although (bizarrely) it was listening to the opening of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra that inspired the style for this. Enjoy.

*** UPDATE 6 September 2007 *** I have submitted this as an entry in the Write Stuff Shorty Story Contest. Vote early and vote often for me!

I travelled along the road when I came upon the Strong Man. "Strong Man" said I. "Tell me, what is the strongest part of a man?"

"A man can find strength from his bones and his muscles" said the Strong Man. "They can carry him far in life and make him mighty. But these are merely flesh, and any man can have them, if he works for them. No, man is truly strongest in his heart. For a man's heart can be invincible when he is passionate and pure. When a man's heart has love in it, he cannot be conquered. The love in a man's heart is limitless, unceasing, overwhelming. When he loves, it is never lightly. That is the strength of a man. An indomitable heart."

Further along the road I came upon the Broken Man. "Broken Man" said I. "Tell me, what is the weakest part of a man?"

"A man's skin and bones and muscles can fail him" said the Broken Man. "Through sickness, injury or old age, even the mighty will succumb. But this is natural, and any man can suffer from these afflictions, in the fullness of time. No, man is truly weakest in his heart. For a man's heart is vulnerable when he is passionate and pure. When a man's heart has love in it, he can be conquered. The love in a man's heart can be taken for granted, abused, and discarded. When a man loves, it is never lightly. That is the weakness of a man. His heart is easily broken."

In time I came upon the Wise Man. "Wise Man" said I. "The Strong Man told me that the heart is the strongest part of a man, yet the Broken Man told me that the heart is the weakest part of a man. Wise Man, tell me, who was right?"

The Wise Man smiled. "Both told you the truth. When a man loves, his heart is boundless, and his love is limitless. But at this moment of absolute strength his heart is so vulnerable, so weak. For it has given all of its strength out to the one it loves. And if that love is discarded, rejected or in vain, then the heart simply shatters. This much you knew already, for you are both the Strong Man and the Broken Man."

I looked back from where I had came, and I recognised the Strong Man and the Broken Man as me. And I knew the truth.

I came upon the Angel at the end of the path I walked. "Angel" said I. "Will you keep my heart strong?"

"Only you can say" said the Angel. "When a man loves, his heart is strong, but may break at any time."

So I gave the Angel my heart, and then the Angel flew away.

I watched the Angel fly with tears in my eyes. The Angel turned, and saw my tears.

"Man" said the Angel. "Why do you cry?"

I looked up at the Angel, and replied. "Angel, I have never before seen such beauty. I thought I knew what was beautiful in this world, but that was before I saw an angel for the first time. It is the beauty of such a wondrous creature that makes me cry - with joy for beholding the beauty, and with sadness that you depart."

The Angel returned to the path I stood on, and approached. "Is that the only reason you cry?"

And I found I could not look the Angel in the eyes. "No" I mumbled. "I cry because you carry off my heart, and I do not know if you will keep it safe, or whether you will cast it down from the heavens, when it will surely shatter. A man's heart must be a common thing to an angel."

The Angel wiped the tears from my eyes with a hand and said "Man, you give your heart freely, and with no expectation in return. Such a gift is rare, even to the angels. Your heart is precious, and will be kept safe. And in return, you may have this."

The Angel pressed something into my hands, then flew up into the sky. In wonderment I beheld this flight, happy to have spoken to the Angel. I looked down at my hands, to see what the Angel had given me.

And I smiled, and the tears filled my eyes. Not tears of sadness, at watching the Angel depart, but joy, at the gift I had been given. For in my hands I had that rarest of gifts, which is most precious.

I had given the Angel my heart. And I received the Angel's in return.

A Poe Puzzle...

Tags: Edgar Allan Poe missing volume vanishing book

I guess I was caught up in the moment of writing about the Poe Toaster in my previous blog entry, that I completely forgot to mention a little personal Poe trivia.

I mentioned a leather-bound compendium of Poe's works that I grew up with. The book belonged to my mum and dad, but as with a lot of their books, I always considered it "mine" more than "theirs".

I loved that book. Reading it was an experience, not only for the contents, but the look and feel of the book. I could imagine that it was some old, dusty tome that I was the first to discover in decades, that I had discovered it huddled away in a corner of some dark, deserted antique bookstore, or in a private library of some crusty old aristocrat.

Those who went to school with me might remember that book. In my final year at high school I (briefly!) took SYS English, and my dissertation was going to be on Poe and his concept of "the perverse", so the book was never far from me in my late teens.

Then, the book vanished. Not lost, this much we are certain. Vanished. When I dropped out of that class, I remember returning the book to its home on our bookshelf. Then, one day, it was gone. Not only was the book not there, there was not even a "missing volume of Poe" void left behind. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the other books in our collection abhorred the gap left behind, so shuffled together to close the gap. Poe, the leather, the gilt-edge - all gone.

It was not the sort of book that we loaned out to people - it was far too good for that. I was the last person to read it, and not only had I returned it, I remember seeing it on subsequent occasions before it disappeared.

This was not the first instance of a vanishing Poe in our lives. I had a children's adaptation of some of his best stories. Had being the operative word. My brother bought a paperback collection of Poe's stories for his wife. This was to replace her previous copy, which had mysteriously vanished. To be followed by the replacement copy.

I now own a new, leather-bound, gilt-edged, hardback collection of Poe's short stories and poems, a birthday present from my in-laws. It lives on the second bottom shelf of my bookshelf, with other hardback books, but just above the oversized books. Every other day, I have a quick look at the shelf. Just to make sure that the book is still there.

I'm sure someday, somewhere, someone will tear down a wall of a house, and discover piled up behind there numerous copies and adaptations of Poe's work, quietly gathering dust, waiting to be claimed. They'll be sitting right beside the sherry...

Nevermore

Tech Tags: Edgar Allan Poe Poe Toaster Westminster Presbyterian Church graveyard Baltimore Sam Porpora

A slight change in tact for this posting. It's not a story. And it's not about my writing. It's about another story, one that isn't written down but is acted out once a year. A wonderful, touching story, but one that may, perhaps, be just another work of fiction.

On my About page I mention writers whose work I enjoy and who, I hope influence my own work. One of these, and possibly my favourite writer, is Edgar Allan Poe.

I grew up with Poe. My parents had a large, hardback, leather bound, gilt edged compendium of all of Poe's stories and poems. I can remember from a very early age, holding this tome in my hands, running my fingers around the embossed image of a raven on a skull, in gold leaf on green leather. Smelling the leather binding, the crisp pages. The weight of the book. Even before I could understand the stories, the book itself was a thing of beauty. It is the first book I actually remember. And the stories themselves! The Telltale Heart, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter (detective stories to rival Conan Doyle's work) and my favourite, The Imp of the Perverse. Not to mention the oft-parodied The Raven, and my favourite poem, Eldorado. These are the tales of my childhood and adolescence.

If people wonder why so much of what I write myself is strange, bizarre, weird, perverse, then it is the influence of Poe, and latterly Lovecraft (himself hugely influenced by Poe).

Which brings us to the tale of "The Poe Toaster". In brief, each year on the anniversary of Poe's birth, a mysterious figure is spotted stealing into the Westminster Presbyterian Church graveyard in Baltimore, to lay three roses and a bottle of cognac by the writer's grave. Described as a "Poe like figure", the visitor has been spotted, but never spoken to. On rare occasions, he has left notes to indicate that he is not the original Poe Toaster, but someone carrying on the tradition, and that the original Toaster had died. Is he a fan? A distant relative? Is he some spectre, the ghost of Poe? Whoever or whatever he is, his actions are a labour of love, a tribute to a literary genius, that has happened every year since 1949.

Or perhaps it hasn't. If Sam Porpora is to be believed, the whole thing is a hoax, a publicity stunt to garner attention to Poe's final resting place. Porpora admits that someone has, based on his story, subsequently become the Poe Toaster (an example of an urban legend becoming true, known as pseudo-ostension). One of his tour guides? Porpora himself? An anonymous citizen of Baltimore? Perhaps even a tulpa, created by the expectation of seeing this mysterious visitor.

Yet controversy remains. A newspaper article from almost a quarter of a century before Porpora claims to have invented the story makes reference to an annual visitor to Poe's grave who leaves a bottle of cognac. Porpora's story is inconsistent, variously claiming that he made up the story and told a journalist in 1967, whilst the newspaper story he is referring to dates from 1976. Where is the truth? Porpora's claim only muddies the water, and leaves us no closer to knowing who the Poe Toaster is.

And to be honest, I don't want to know. I don't want to know that this was all a hoax. I don't want to know that this was all a mere publicity stunt that has been carried on into the public domain by enthusiastic individuals. I want this to be a quiet tribute by an anonymous person, for personal reasons. A solemn remembrance of a tragic figure. A romantic idea, a recognition of a writer gone but not forgotten, visited by a shadowy figure, someone that Poe could have written himself.

Sometimes a lie is more beautiful than the truth. That is what fiction is. Beautiful lies, lies that we want to believe, even briefly, because believing the lie has beauty and purpose. If the lie does no harm, and the truth is less inspiring, then why not perpetuate the lie?

An actor dresses in a frock coat and goes through the motions of laying flowers in order to attract the tourists. Is that the truth? If it is, do you want to believe it?

I prefer to believe the tall tale, of an unknown person, who steals into a graveyard unnoticed and unchallenged in the dead of night, to lay a tribute whose true meaning we presume to know, for reasons we can only guess at. That has meaning. That has purpose. That has beauty. On this occasion, I don't want to find out the truth, ever. Call it Poe's last great mystery. And leave it unfinished.

Scott Sigler screenplay contest...

Tags: Scott Sigler Brent Weichsel BloodCast screenplay winners Shua Mullikin Paul Crowe Anne Kelsey Paul Anthony Anderson

Remember a while back I was working on a script for a competition? If you've forgotten here are the contest details and here's my entry.

Today, Scott announced the winners on his podcast and on his site. You can download the episode and find out the names of the winners here.

Looks like I might be one of the winners...

FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!!!!! (Apologies for the bad language mum!)

I and the other three winners (Shua Mullikin of Atlanta, Georgia - Paul Crowe of the Netherlands - and Anne Kelsey of Londonderry, New Hampshire) have known the result for a few weeks now, and have been patiently waiting for the official announcement so we could shoot our mouths off to anyone and everyone.

So to Scott and Brent, thank you thank you thank you for picking my humble effort as worthy, and thanks for the opportunity to be one of the writers on the project. It is doubly gratifying for two reasons. Firstly, I have not tried screen writing before. Sure, I had in the past knocked out things that I thought were scripts, but until I started writing the script for this project, I had no idea what format a script should be in, the mechanics of scriptwriting etc. I'm still not sure to be honest, but hey, that's what second drafts are for!

Secondly, since entering the contest, and since finding out the result, I have had the two worst pieces of criticism of my writing I had ever received. I'm talking real vitriolic, take you down a peg or two, not just pointing out areas that could be improved, but pure spiteful "you suck and should give up now" criticism. And man, I so wanted to just round on these people and tell them "I suck huh? I suck so bad that a number one, Amazon best-selling author picked me to collaborate with, so smoke on that dipshit!"

But I refrained, firstly because I was asked not to mention it until the official announcement, and secondly I'm too much of a gentleman to call someone a dipshit...

So that's the news I've been sitting on for a while, desperate to tell you but sworn to secrecy. It's a huge boost coming so early in my nascent writing career. Off course now this means I'm Scott Sigler's bitch. Mind you, there are worse things to be...