29 September - October 6 - Banned Book Week

Tags: Banned Book Week American Library Association Free People Read Freely

This week sees the annual American Library Association's Banned Book Week, a week dedicated to highlighting the censorship of the written word in the United States and beyond.

If you head over to the site you can find a list of the most challenged books of the year, as well as information on the 100 most challenged books of the decade 1990-2000. Given that some of the classics of western literature are on this list, and two in the top 10 have recently been made into movies, it makes for shocking reading. In a previous post I have stated that I am no great fan of the Harry Potter series of books, but I find it abhorrent and disgusting that there are places where children and adults are not allowed to read these books.

As the motto of Banned Books Week goes, Free People Read Freely. You may not agree with an author's point, but you have no right to ban others from discovering whether or not they agree with that viewpoint. If you value freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of conscience then you have to value the right of authors to write what they wish and to allow readers to evaluate the work of these authors.

Looking at some of these banned books, you can tell what sort of person advocates banning them. They deal with themes of violence, homosexuality, racial equality, they give fair treatment to non-Christians. In some cases they are guidebooks to help children deal with issues of puberty, or self-help books for people in loving, adult relationships. I am pointing my finger at a certain breed of right-wing, Christian fundamentalist that one would hope is peculiar to, and dying out in, the United States, but sadly they are spreading.

To these people, who are generally quick to quote the US Constitution about their right to use a gun to shoot people, I say - there is a reason that the First Amendment is the FIRST Amendment. If you accorded the First Amendment even a fraction of the literal interpretation you give to the Second Amendment, or to the Bible, then there is no way you could even consider banning a book, for any reason.

Speaking of the Bible, if you wish to ban books because they advocate genocide, are rife with acts of cruelty, adultery, homosexuality, rape, child abuse, worship of false gods and other unsavoury acts, then the Bible itself would be ripe for banning.

Of course, as a supporter of freedom of thought, I wouldn't dream of banning that book. It has as much right to exist as any other book out there. And if you wish to preserve that freedom for it to continue to exist, then you have to allow all the others.

Fiction Friday - 28 September 2007

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday Gideon Strangechild The Long Watch

Something a little different for Fiction Friday today - hopefully this will come within the terms of the challenge for this week's Fiction Friday, but it is also an introduction to a character who will be featuring in my NaNoWriMo work. Hope you enjoy...

This Week's Theme: Give a virtuous character a sordid past.

He whispers a prayer in the darkness, a plea to a higher power to have mercy on all the souls in this world and the next. Except his own. He isn't that presumptuous. His hand, runs from his forehead, down across lips still softly uttering Ave Maria, towards his stomach, then gently taps each shoulder, left then right.

With a final Amen he rises from the floor, and reverently kisses the plain wooden cross in front of him. A low bow, then he crosses the cell to his bed. He lies on his side and closes his eyes. He must sleep now, as he won't get much sleep over the next few days. Not during the Watch...

His mind becomes quiet and still and he drifts back to a simpler time. Childhood, school, university. Friends long gone, a love long since lost. And always in the background, a man, stern, distant. To please him, he would follow him, follow in his footsteps for Queen and Country...

The world melts away, and reforms. Bright, arid, he can feel the warm desert breeze on his face. He looks around the dreamscape and sees Lucas, Peterson and the rest of the unit. Eyes alert, guns raised. He follows their eye line, and sees the bunker.

He doesn't want to recall the bunker, but he can't stop the explosion, the rat-a-tat-tat of weapons, and the enemy, swarming out, running for their lives, fear in their eyes. Running towards him, not away. He and his men look beyond the terrified Iraqis, to the thing they are running from. As one, they raise their guns and fire, backing away at the approaching form. The scene swims again, and reforms...

The bodies. Everywhere. Friend and foe alike. And only him, bloodied, but unharmed. The darkness surrounds him once more...

As the veil lifts, he is looking up at the stars, slumped on the street, a bottle of something vile in his hand, a singed foil and battered lighter close to hand. They help him forget, that's his excuse. But only for a little while.

"You look like hell my boy". Through half closed eyes he sees the figure of a man. Damn you, he thinks. All this to make you proud - this is what I've become. "Give me your hand. I can help you." He focuses on the man's face, and realises it is kinder than that of his distant tormentor. He grasps the outstretched hand, and in touching it he sees flashes, short staccato images. His unit. The beast. Blood. Fire.

His eyes snap open. Always the visions. A glance at the clock by the bed shows it is 9 am. He's had as much sleep as he will get today, and for several days. Tonight he makes sure the visions do not come true.

Gideon swings his legs out of bed, rises, and walks towards the cross on the opposite side of the cell. Kneeling down before it, he offers a prayer for mercy on all the souls in this world and the next. And for the strength to protect them. Tonight will be the Long Watch. And he prays that he is ready.

My inspirations - Edgar Allan Poe

Tags: favourite authors inspirations Edgar Allan Poe

For a few months now on my About page I've had a sidebar that mentions some of my favourite authors: people who I either love reading, or who have a style of writing that has been an influence on me, and often both.

I've never actually explained my choices though. So, as an occasional series, I thought I would give my reasons, and that I would start with the one who is probably my all time favourite author - Edgar Allan Poe.

I've briefly mentioned Poe twice before (Nevermore about the Poe Toaster, and A Poe Puzzle, about disappearing books). But I've never gone into why I like him and how he influences me.

I'd said in a previous post that I grew up with a wonderful leather bound hardback copy of Edgar Allan Poe's collected works. I don't know which of my parents bought it - although my mother has always been the more avid reader, my father has always been responsible for bringing in the more esoteric and unusual books into the house, the ones that I devoured as a child, and left the greatest impression on me. So I suspect that my father was responsible for us having the Poe book (as an aside, my interest in the esoteric and unusual probably comes through my father's side of the family - his father had a collection of books that would be proud to grace any Fortean's bookshelf, and his grandfather was a high ranking Mason).

Poe has a reputation for writing about the strange, the bizarre, the Gothic = the "perverse" in a sense that is unique I think to Poe. But on rereading his work, what strikes is his eclecticism. Poe writers satire (Loss of Breath: A Tale Neither In nor Out of "Blackwood"), allegory (Shadow - A Parable), crime (The Purloined Letter), detective drama (The Murders in the Rue Morgue) and Gothic horror (The Fall of the House of Usher). Still, nothing makes me happier than Poe's perversity stories, such as The Tell-Tale Heart, The Imp of the Perverse and The Black Cat.

To further Poe's eclecticism, he wrote poetry. Most people are aware of The Raven, but my favourite of Poe's poems is Eldorado. And Poe even makes it into Lovecraftian Mythos (more later!) with The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

Poe also mainly wrote short stories, which is how I started writing, but also wrote novellas and a novel. His is a style of writing, in terms of the form and craft, that I'd like to emulate. And in terms of subject matter, the sheer variety of subjects, with a wide streak of the bizarre running through it, I'd like to think we are similar.

I mean, from stories about a priest teaming up with a demon and an angel, to crack-addicted children's characters via essays on human rights - that's a bit of a mix of subjects!

Did someone say podcasts?

Head on over to my podcast page... you might be surprised...

Fiction Friday - 21 September 2007

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday

This Week's Theme: Pick an unusual phobia and explain why a character has it.

Thud. Thud-thud. THUD-THUD!

It's not the hammer blows in my chest that are causing me to shake, it's the adrenaline coursing through me. My cold and clammy hands grip the counter tightly, as I try to keep myself still, choke down the panic and regain some composure. I look up into the mirror, at that scared little boy...

My lip trembles as the tears course down my cheek, the mockery of my classmates still fresh in my ears. "Fraidy cat, fraidy cat!" My father puts his arm around me to reassure me. "Just ignore them son" he says to me, as I burrow my head into his chest, trying to hide away from everyone. I've let him down. The soldier, the police man, the man. My father. And his cowardly son, scared of his own shadow.

"Everyone gets frightened by lots of different things."

"Even you?" I look into his soft eyes, and he smiles.

"Even me. When I was a soldier, I was so scared that I wouldn't come home to your mom. Even now, every time I go to work I get scared that I might have to hurt someone, or someone might hurt me." He ran his thumb across my cheek, wiping away the tears. "Fear isn't a bad thing - it keeps you safe. There are scary things out there, and fear teaches you what they are, how to avoid them. You just need to learn how to control fear, and not let fear control you."

That's what my father taught me - I can control fear. If you're 100 feet in the air on a crumbling ledge, then it's good to feel fear. But if you're inside a building 100 feet up, you shouldn't be afraid. It was all a matter of controlling the circumstances, learning dangers, teaching myself how to use my reactions. A tiger is dangerous, a wasp isn't really. A burning building is dangerous, but that shouldn't stop me from striking a match. Master your fear and you master yourself.

So as I grew up, I took what I was afraid of and I confronted it. I studied the things that scared me. I devoured statistics, risk assessments, took part in activities that brought me face to face with the things that scared me. Heights? Bungee jumping. Water? Surfing. When I played football in college I was "Fearless" Freddy Callaghan to my team, on and off the pitch. There was no player too big that I wouldn't go up against, and nothing off-field that I wouldn't take part in.

Roosevelt said it, and it is so true: "we have nothing to fear..."

I knew what fear felt like, and I knew I never wanted to feel it again. And that's when the panic attacks started. I couldn't figure it out at first, what was I scared of? And I couldn't see anything that could be triggering it - and if I couldn't see it, how could I confront it? For a year, these sensations would hit me, randomly, breaking me down, causing me to shut myself away in my mind, trembling, crying. "Why? What am I so afraid of? I don't want to feel this way!"

I lived on a knife edge, dreading the next attack, telling myself "I have nothing to fear, I have nothing to fear..."

I have spent a life time mastering my fears. And the thing that has driven me is fear. I am so scared of feeling fear, that I have done everything I can to rid myself of it, to the extent that I have nothing left to fear...

... but fear itself. Phobophobia they call it. The fear of being afraid - a self-perpetuating cycle. The scared little boy in the mirror fades with the panic attack. The man in the mirror wipes his eyes and counts the days until the next one.

Writing Heroes...

Tags: Heroes scriptwriter favourite shows favourite writers Steven Moffat

Each time I watch Heroes, I love it more and more. It is one of the most enjoyable, well-written, intelligent series I have seen in a long time.

There are a lot of TV shows I enjoy, but since I've begun to write, I'm beginning to appreciate the writing more on shows.

Heroes, Lost, House, Doctor Who, Jekyll, 24, Dexter. All clever, thoughtful and intelligent, and out of them all I think Heroes is the best.

On another page on this site I've mentioned the authors who inspire me and influence me; perhaps I should also look at scriptwriters? That being said, with US shows there tends to be an entire team of writers at work, so it is harder to pinpoint a single writer as deserving credit over another. In the UK, shows tend to have one writer, or perhaps a small team. My favourite Doctor Who episodes, and Jekyll, were written by Steven Moffat (who by coincidence is also from Paisley), but I couldn't tell you who my favourite writers are on Lost or Heroes for example, only who the creators of the show are.

If in the future I can look back on a writing career, and if I have produced anything as good as Heroes, then I'll be quite happy.

Redemption

Tags: writing short story fiction fuel crisis enviropocalypse

A very rough first draft of an idea that's been kicking around in my head for about two months now. Best to get it set down before NaNoWriMo takes over my attention!

“Follow the sun. Follow the sun home...” Every morning I’ve watched the sunrise, and known that someday, somehow, I’d follow the sun all the way back home to your arms. Soon, I promise. I’m on my way.

The Cape is notorious; if the weather doesn’t get you, the pirates will. So far, we’ve managed to avoid the raiding parties that anchor near the coast, and the waves have been calm, with a strong wind in the sails. Good fortune on our part, although Skip favours divine intervention. “She’s blessed by the gods, Tom" he always says. "The sea loves The Redemption.”

Maybe. In the three years I’ve sailed on her I don't recall us losing anyone - passenger, crew, cargo. No-one wants to risk attacking The Redemption. If we’re favoured by the gods, then you don’t want to go pissing off those same gods, just in case your next voyage isn’t so favourable. We were attacked once, maybe two years ago now? Just east of the Caribbean coast. Rumours spread shortly after the attack, about how they didn’t find all the bodies. Pirates are a superstitious lot, and took that as a sign - the gods really did favour The Redemption. In reality, you don’t attack a ship carrying vital supplies to the 23rd Marine detachment and not expect some blowback.

Food, guns, dignitaries, people, refugees - we will take anything, anywhere. It’s what we do, it’s why we’re called Redemption. Like our sister ships Hope, Faith and Charity we offer a glimmer of optimism in a bleak world. No matter how bad things have been, no matter how bad they are at the moment, we offer a chance. If you’ve served your time and you need to get home, we’ll take you there. If you’re in trouble, chances are we’ll be bringing the rescue team.

One by one I watch the stars fade out of sight, as the inky velvet of the night gives way to a pale azure that heralds the approaching sun. My watch is almost over, and so is my term of service. Two weeks on from the Cape I’ll be dropped on shore, free to go, free to rejoin my family, free to be with my love again.

Five years ago the closest I’d ever come to the seas was when I used to walk on the beach with my girl, watching the waves roll over our feet. That was before the lights went out worldwide. I was in New York on business. Business. That makes me laugh now. Pushing a service nobody wanted onto people we didn’t care about. Things had already become expensive by then. The only way I could afford to be in New York was because the company paid for the flights. We knew a problem was coming, but we were all in denial. Gas at the pumps was pricey, but hey, someone would come up with some kind of electric car or something. Oil running low in the Middle East? Of course it wasn’t, that was just OPEC raising the stakes. Business as usual.

Except it wasn’t. The oil fields really were dry. Everywhere. Gas too. And coal. We’d been running an energy deficit in the decade leading up to the big switch off, and the scientists, the environmentalists, they’d all predicted it, but the politicians and the public - we didn’t really want to know.

Until it was too late. The announcement by OPEC that they hadn’t produced more than a couple of hundred barrels of crude a day for the past six months rocked the planet. They had been secretly exhausting their reserves, giving the impression that production was fine, hoping they’d find a new supply, and they’d then restock on the quiet. But the reserves were completely gone, and suddenly the whole supply chain was in freefall. When we realised that what we had was ALL we had, the panics began. Governments had to step in and conserve what they could. First, all non-essential travel was axed. Then came the big switch off. Shut downs on the national grid supply systems across the planet. No power supplies during the day except to essential services. Limited domestic supply at night.

I instantly became part of a new class of people. Energy refugees. People trapped outside their own countries and unable to get back home because they couldn’t fly, drive, take a train, whatever. You could walk, if there was a land border. I had an ocean in my way. Out of the question.

I hear you can still bribe your way on to military flights. That’s not the great idea it seemed five years ago. But at the time, if you had a spare $25,000 or so, you could get a ride home. The military always seemed to be able to fly, even today. When The Redemption put in to Tokyo last year, I swear I saw a couple of fighters on the horizon.

Energy refugees had to earn their keep. We didn't belong, we were a burden, so we were put to work, essentially slave labour. The idea at first was we’d earn citizenship, and just stay where we were. But the General Strike put paid to that idea. What were they going to do, deny us citizenship if we didn’t work? Deport us? That’s what we wanted! We just wanted to get home. So that was the compromise. Energy refugees could work, and earn the one thing most people were now denied. The right to travel. We put in our time, and we get a travel permit and a free pass to our homes.

I’d never sailed, but boats were the popular jobs. After the oil dried up, some countries realised they could produce a fair amount of energy from solar, wind and wave power. Others realised that although they couldn’t produce the power, they could produce food. The food rich states send supplies to the energy rich states, who in return supply enough power that we can all sort of muddle by. What a world we live in now. We’ve got indoor electric lights, since LEDs don’t use much power. But we cook on woodfire stoves. We ride horses, not cars. But we can listen to the radio, and once a week there’s television. And the sailing ships bring essential supplies around the world, as well as delivering energy refugees to their homes.

This is my last voyage. Most people have to serve between five and ten years, depending on how far they have to go, what sort of work they do; it’s all about the energy it takes to get you home and the value your work has. Serving on The Redemption was a lucky break for me, it gives special dispensations. We're a Neo-Clipper - fastest ships in the water. Low crew numbers, high capacity for cargo. We go where other ships won't, and we do it faster than any other ships. Dangerous cargo, dangerous waters, dangerous deadlines. So, in recognition of the extreme danger, my service was pegged at three years, despite the distance. When we get into port, my three years will be up. I'll be home. Just over the horizon, where the sun rises...

Fiction Friday - 14 September 2007

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday

This Week's Theme: Write a story, poem, or essay from the point of view of an inanimate object.

It's very dark in here. At least he remembered to put me back in my case this time. Probably only because he didn't want me to make a mess. Not that I could, even if I wanted to. He's forgotten to fill me again, but why would he remember? He hasn't used me in months, and on those odd, wonderful moments that he rediscovers me, he shakes his head in frustration and grumbles that I don't work.

Then I'm discarded again. Obsolete they say. Replaced by technical advancments. He sits with that titanium monstrosity, tapping away, sending out electronic thoughts and digital emotions. None of them real, none of them taken any time over. There's no art there, no craft. You make a mistake, you tap-tap-tap and it's gone. With me though... the mistake is indelible. Even if you cross it out, there's still a reminder of your mistakes, like a scar on otherwise pristine skin.

That's what made it fun though. Furious scribbling, the smudges, that dull ache in the hand that let you know you done a real day's work. And the works we produced. Essays, exams, flights of fancy. Tender moments of love expressed on parchment.

Now it's an e-mail instead of a letter. A blog instead of a journal. A computer instead of me.

A dry nib. An empty reservoir. Bursting with potential, eager to help him give expression to his heart and soul.

Forgotten at the bottom of his bag.

Let's do this...

Tags: NaNoWriMo National Novel Writing Month writing crazy ideas things I may come to regret

OK, I've come to a decision. I'm going to do it. It may be crazy, it may be stupid, but I'm going to enter the writer's equivalent of a marathon, and take part in NaNoWriMo this year. Over the course of November, I'm going to attempt to get a novel written.

And do my full-time job. And post to this blog. And my other blog. And eat, sleep, and all the other things I normally do.

It should be... fun, I guess.

Of course, all this is dependant on nothing cropping up that takes priority. Family emergencies, illness etc. If Sigler's movie project starts up in November, then NaNoWriMo is probably not happening.

Guess I'm playing this one by ear.

NaNoWriMo

Tags: NaNoWriMo writing crazy ideas

Should I? Shouldn't I? NaNoWriMo is fast approaching, and registration is October 1.

I've toyed with the idea of doing it in the past.

Do I dare go for it this year?

And have you voted for my short story yet? If not, why not, you ingrates!!!

Shameless....

Tags: shameless self promotion Write Stuff short story contest

Fiction Friday - 7 September 2007

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday

This Week's Theme: A character gets three wishes...

"That was a really lovely dinner Al, we should go out more often, just the two of us."

"Mmm hmmm" I mumbled in agreement as we rounded the block. Almost home now. "It's good to get away from the kids for a little... while..." My voice trailed away as I pulled up outside our home. What used to be our home anyway. Where before used to stand a lovely two storey home, with a lush green lawn and white picket fence now stood...

I don't even know how to begin describing it. Pink. Very pink. And squishy. Yeah, squishy is probably the best word for it. My wife got out of the car and sighed. Then sniffed. "Is that... is that marshmallow?"

I nodded, and walked towards the... door, I guess. Sat on the doorstep was my son. I think. It had my son's body anyway, but not his head. His head was, well, you'll find out. It looked up at me, not with sad eyes, but more bored than anything. "Let me guess, you're a poo-poo head?" It nodded. I shook my head and went in through the foamy doorway. My wife followed, leading our smelly headed son in with us. As we sank into the jelly floor of the hallway, she smacked the back of my head.

"I told you not to leave that thing lying around."

She's right of course, it should have just stayed buried. What can I say, I have problems letting go of the past.

I stumbled my way up the stairs, almost falling through the fudge stairs, and grasping hold of an oversized lollypop stick for support. I hauled myself through the candyfloss carpet of the upstairs hall, and came at last to the door at the end. I stood up, and walked in. There she was, surrounded by giant gummy bears, the lamp sitting in her lap, grinning mischievously.

"Young lady" I said, in the best booming voice I could muster. "You wish everything back the way it was this instant or no supper for you!"

The grin faded from her face and she hung her head. "Yes daddy" she whispered. As the house melted back to normality, I lifted her up and gave her a hug. "There there pumpkin, it's OK. But you know you're not supposed to play with daddy's wishing lamp. Not until you're older."

I'm honoured!

Tags: Thinking Blogger Award

Well, I've just been awarded one of these:

A Thinking Blogger Award. My award comes courtesy of an anonymous benefactor. OK, actually it was my wife Julia, but she was kind enough to say that "It's not nepotism if the blogger's work would blow you away even if you weren't married to him."

The rules state that I must now nominate five blogs that make me think, to bestow the award upon. So, in no order of preference, here are my nominees...

1. the ink pot
Paisley is a writer I have come to know of purely by random chance. Although she already has a Thinking Blogger Award for her main site ...why paisley???, I thought I would nominate her again, specifically for the always provocative pieces on the ink pot site, and also for her new project secret... secret... i've got a secret...

2. Strange but true...
Another random person, this time through the randomness that is Gumtree, where we were both members of the sadly defunct G-Team... The good Doctor, in her own words, is a "Misplaced Canuck living/working in London for the past three years, shares her rambles and tribulations with the masses..." and in the process has some pretty sharp observations on life in this city. When she's not tirelessly giving me shit about not recording podcasts...

3. If you're interested
OK, so a little bit of nepotism at work here, as this is my uncle's blog. That being said, go read his posts - again, another acute observer of life, with the slightly warped viewpoint you can only really achieve if you are a firebrand socialist revolutionary who wakes up and realises that you're married with kids. Laurie is also a writer, and one of the earliest influences that led me to believe I could do this, that writer's weren't just "other people" but that "people like us" could do it too.

And to prove that other people think his work is thought provoking too, how many other non-scientific people have their work featured in The Boneyard?

4. Ramblings of a Crazy English Girl
Fi has lived more lives than anyone I know. She's done more, seen more, been through more than anyone I know. It's like she's packed in several lifetimes. And despite (or perhaps because of) all this, she is one of the loveliest people you could ever hope to meet.

5. The Bitterest Pill
I hesitated about including Dan Klass in this. And not just because he's a huge, famous podcaster, and I'm just some unknown schmuck ("Paul who? He wants to give me a what award? Never heard of it. Or him!").

I hesitated firstly because he's probably had hundreds of these bestowed on him before from his numerous listeners. Secondly, because his podcast, The Bitterest Pill is often, by his own admission, a rambling monologue about what he has been doing that past week, tales from his career, or about his family, or simply reminiscing about his childhood and youth. Funny, yes. Entertaining, absolutely. But it's like a chat over a few beers with a good friend. So perhaps not quite in the spirit of the award. And I hope Dan takes no offence in what I've said.

However, I have included the Pill as my final recipient for the Thinking Blogger Award because like all good friends Dan occasionally takes us to one side and has a deep and meaningful talk with us. Stand out episodes for me include Dear God and more recently We are all Fairport, which more than any other is why I am nominating Dan. Maybe it is the fact that when that episode came out it was around the tenth anniversary of my leaving high school, and I was feeling nostalgic, but I suspect that it was because this episode was poignant, moving and universal. And for that, Dan Klass merits my final nomination.


Phew. I would of course have nominated the absolutely brilliant, witty and devastating insights that can be found in an amazing blog called On with my life..., written by an exceptionally clever and handsome young man...

... but somehow that seemed in violation of the spirit of the award!

I'm sorry Piglet, I didn't mean it...

Tags: writing influence self-criticism

So, my little piece for Friday Fiction has gone down very well (see the comments).

One of the rules is that you aren't allowed to go back and edit it - so the inner critic is chomping at the bit, pointing out the flaws - I used the phrase "truth be told" twice in as many sentences, which rankles, and the tense of a verb is wrong.

But I'm glad that people liked it. And I enjoyed writing it. I had intended to take part in last Friday's Fiction Friday, but ran out of time. The theme was to create a character in a genre you normally avoid. Since none of my stuff can generally be called "child friendly", I was going to go with a children's story. I guess that influenced my decision to use a children's book for the Dirty Little Secret them...

Next up is an entry for the Write Stuff Short Story Contest.