Books of the Century

True to her word, Jodi has posted the 100 Books of the Century, and it is interesting to see where this list is similar to, and where it departs from, the list of 106 books most often bought but never read. I've only just got round to posting this though due to one or two IT issues this week. I'll say this - pen and paper never stop working due to viruses... As with the past book post, books I have read are bold, books I own but have not read/started but didn't finish are in italics, and books I want to read are in underline. If I have a comment, I'll make one...

TOAST OF THE CENTURY - Waterstone Bookstores
1900
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz – Frank L Baum
And here comes the first confession... I was the Tin Man in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. My first and only brush with the stage, for very good reasons. From what I have seen, Baum's books are far more disturbing than the MGM musical (although it is disturbing in itself).

1901
Kim – Rudyard Kipling

1902
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle
The very first Sherlock Holmes story I read, I suspect it is how most modern readers are introduced to Holmes. It is by no means the best of the Holmes mysteries, but it was hugely popular, coming as it did after Holmes' "death" at the Reichenbach Falls, and written by Conan Doyle to appease the demand for Holmes, without having to bring him back (though he eventually did).

1903
The Riddle of the Sands – Erskine Childers

1904
The Golden Bowl – Henry James

1905
Kipps – HG Wells

1906
The Railway Children – Edith Nesbit

1907
The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad

1908
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
A book from my childhood (from many childhoods). I much prefer Winnie-the-Pooh to be honest.

1909
Tono-Bungay – HG Wells

1910
Howards End – EM Forster

1911
In a German Prison – Katherine Mansfield

1912
'Twixt Land and Sea – Joseph Conrad

1913
Sons and Lovers – DH Lawrence

1914
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist – Robert Tressel

1915
The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford

1916
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
Joyce. Always the Joyce. Joyce is the only author I feel any obligation to read in order to prove that I can read "the greats". And because the impulse comes about purely because of an intellectual vanity, I can resist it.

1917
Uneasy Money – PG Wodehouse

1918
Return of the Soldier – Rebecca West

1919
The Moon and Sixpence – William Somerset Maugham

1920
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

1921
Crome Yellow – Aldous Huxley

1922
Ulysses – James Joyce
!!!! !!!! !!!!

1923
Riceyman Steps – Arnold Bennett

1924
A Passage to India – EM Forster

1925
The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
It's on the bookshelf, so I ought to get round to it sometime in the next 50 years...

1926
Winne-The-Pooh – AA Milne
Ah, there you are my childhood friend. I still read these, even though I am almost 29 (in just over a week, *cough*hint*cough). The Pooh stories are more than just stories for children. They are charming and witty, and clever. They may not have A Very Big Brain, but they do have A Very Big Heart.

1927
The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

1928
Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh

1929
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemmingway

1930
Strong Poison – Dorothy L Sayers

1931
The Waves – Virginia Woolf

1932
Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

1933
Love on the Dole – Walter Greenwood

1934
Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie
I love watching the TV adaptations of Poirot starring David Suchet. So why haven't I read any of the stories yet? Not so keen on Miss Marple as a character, but Poirot I think I really should read at some point. On to the list...

1935
Mr Norris Changes Trains – Christopher Isherwood

1936
Absalom!Absalom! – William Faulkner

1937
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
I've only seen it in adaptation, but the story inspires and kills me in equal measure.

1938
Brighton Rock – Graham Green

1939
At Swim-two-Birds – Flann O’Brien

1940
Farewell My Lovely – Raymond Chandler

1941
Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton

1942
The Robber Bridegroom – Eudora Welty

1943
The Last Summer – Kate O’Brien

1944
Fair Stood the Wind for France – H E Bates

1945
Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

1946
The Member of the Wedding – Carson McCullers

1947
Whisky Galore – Compton MacKenzie

1948
The Naked and the Dear – Norman Mailer

1949
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
I own it, it's just finding the time, honest! I have all this Dostoevsky and Dumas before I get to Orwell... (excuses, excuses)

1950
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
And yet none of the other Narnia books. It would be interesting to read these in conjunction with Lord of the Rings, to see how proponents of two different fantasy worlds, with two different theological viewpoints, stack up against each other.

1951
The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

1952
The Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

1953
Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
My second favourite Bradbury novel (Something Wicked This Way Comes steals that crown), this is definitely one for all bibliophiles. A world where books and reading are banned seems far fetched, and yet we often hear the cry that "children don't read enough", and that technology and the internet is killing off reading. Perhaps not banned, but might we one day see a world with no interest in reading, apart from a small band of outcasts? Plus it has poison injecting robot dog chases - what's not to love? This is one of those books that is begging to be made into a half-way decent movie to bring a new generation to it.

1954
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
The fact I haven't read this yet surprises me as much as it surprises you. This is up there with 1984 and Brave New World on the list of books you might expect me to have read.

1955
Lolita – Vladimir Nabakov

1956
The Talented Mr Ripley – Patricia Highsmith

1957
On the Road – Jack Kerouac

1958
The Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – Alan Sillitoe

1959
The Naked Lunch – William Burroughs

1960
Rabbit Run – John Updike

1961
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
You can add Catch-22 to the list along with Lord of the Flies...

1962
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess

1963
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – Ian Fleming

1964
The Wapshot Chronicle – John Cleever

1965
An American Dream – Norman Mailer

1966
The Magus – John Fowles

1967
The Magic Toyshop – Angela Carter

1968
A Fan’s Notes – Fredrick Exley

1969
Portnoy’s Complaint – Phillip Roth

1970
The Vivisector – Patrick White

1971
Something Happened – Joseph Heller

1972
Bird of Night – Susan Hill

1973
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong

1974
The War Between the Tates – Alison Lurie

1975
Changing Places – David Lodge

1976
Saville – David Storey

1977
Staying On - Paul Scott

1978
Tales of the City – Armistead Maupin

1979
Treasures of Time – Penelope Lively

1980
Earthy Powers – Anthony Burgess

1981
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

1982
Lanark – Alasdair Gray

1983
Waterland – Graham Swift

1984
Money – Martin Amis

1985
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit - Jeanette Winterson

1986
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

1987
Bonfires of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe

1988
Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey

1989
The Remains Of The Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

1990
The Buddha of Suburbia – Hanif Kureishi

1991
The Famished Road – Ben Okri

1992
The Secret History – Donna Tartt

1993
The Shipping News – E Annie Proulx

1994
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields

1995
Behind the Scenes at The Museum – Kate Atkinson

1996
Everyman for Himself – Beryl Bainbridge

1997
Enduring Love – Ian McEwan

1998
Underworld – Don DeLillo


So, out of this list of the centuries most popular books by year, how many have I actually read? Five. And about as many again that I want to/intend to read.

I suspect that these are the books that were most popular in their year of publication, but which are not necessarily still as popular as other books published in the same year. There are absences. Animal Farm is easily as popular, and more accessible, than 1984. Yet in 1946 the most popular book was The Member of the Wedding, which I have never even heard of. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is easily more popular than any book on this list, and certainly more popular than it's publication year sibling, Enduring Love. Yet in that year it wasn't a huge seller, in fact it took the subsequent books creating a following to reignite interest in the first book, propelling it to the dizzy heights it has reached now.

The good is not always popular, nor the popular good. You can apply that to this list however you wish.

Tags: Waterstones books of the century popular literature

The Wall From The Write Stuff - 09 Dec 07

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Stuff website on December 09, 2007. The original text can be found here. As race day fast approaches, I hope I don't run into the running wall. And as for the writing wall... one brick at a time...

The Wall

I go running. Not so much in the past month, but since February this year I have been running on a regular basis.

There is a phenomenon that all runners encouter, and which you might have heard of called “The Wall”. The Wall is both physical and psychological. It hits marathon runners the most, usually about the 20 mile mark. In terms of physiology, The Wall occurs because you have burned up all your reserves of glycogen, and you aren’t getting enough oxygen to burn fat to provide the energy for the remaining few miles. You physically lack the energy to carry on. In terms of psychology, The Wall is a result of the full spectrum of emotions you go through whilst running. The euphoria, the despair. When the despair hits just as you run out of energy, you wind up thinking that you are a failure. You can’t go on. You are a failure and you might as well give up.

How do you avoid The Wall? Train to run the distance you are going to run. There is no point trying to run for 26 miles if you only train to run for 20 miles. Eat well. Make sure you have the fuel to get you from start to finish. All very sensible. But none of this will help you with the psychological aspects of The Wall. How do you get past it?

The best advice I have ever seen is this:

Keep running.

The Wall in your mind. It tells you that you have no energy left. It won’t let you acknowledge your second wind. It tells you that you are a failure. It won’t let you see how far you have come. But a wall is stationary. If you run, it can’t follow. Keep running, and you break through, you get past the wall. And you will get to the end of the race.

What has this got to do with writing?

In the past, I have likened NaNoWriMo to a marathon. A long endurance race for writers. For some of us, the finish line was 30 November 2007. But not for me. I knew that my story would not be told in 50,000 words, and would not be written in 30 days. It would need December, and possibly January, to finish it.

So I set off at a reasonable pace, taking my time. 30 November was not my finish line. But it has become my Wall.

I hit the 50,000 word mark on 30 November this year, then I stopped. I promised myself I would take a short break, only a couple of days, then get back to writing. But I haven’t, not yet. And every time I go to start writing, I find an excuse to leave it. A voice in my head tells me “you’re tired. You can’t write any more. Not yet. Take a break. You have no ideas left. Give up. Walk away…”

It is a voice I have heard before. It is The Wall.

When you are a runner, the only way to get past The Wall is to keep running.

When you are a writer, then just like a runner, you know what you have to do. In order to beat The Wall you have to do what you do best.

Keep writing.

Tags: Write Stuff Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

The 106 Most Unread Books

Thanks to Christopher at Catalogue of Organisms for this.

This is a list of the 106 books that apparently people buy because they think they should read them, but never have. Literary ornaments to make you look smart in other words. A high proportion of them are "the classics" as you would expect, although a few modern books get in there.

Books I have read are in bold, those I own but have never read, or started to read but never finished are in italics. I have underlined those books that I don't own, but would like to read.

I agree with Christopher - this is a very culturally specific list. Anglo-centric, probably American, possibly English. He wonders whether, for example, a list compiled in New Zealand would look different. I know that if the list were Scottish then there would likely be more than one Robert Louis Stevenson novel, and at least one (probably more) by Sir Walter Scott.

• Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
  
  
• Anna Karenina - currently on the shelf, waiting for me to get to War and Peace first...
  
  
• Crime and Punishment - I read the first few chapters of this on Project Gutenberg, and bought it on the strength of that. It is waiting for The Brothers Karamzov to be finished (this will be a recurring theme, books waiting for other books...)
  
  
• Catch-22 - this is the first book on the list that I think will surprise people that I have never read. It is on the (ever=expanding) list of books that I want to read, but just never got round to...
  
  
• One Hundred Years of Solitude
  
  
• Wuthering Heights
  
  
• The Silmarillion - I have read The Hobbit, but not the Lord of the Rings (yet). Whether I attempt this or not will depend on whether I enjoy Lord of the Rings. Christopher enjoyed this more, as it demonstrated Tolkein indulging his own personal enthusiasms for mythology and linguistics. Nothing wrong with that, but a novel written purely for your own personal enjoyment is a novel that ought to stay in your drawer. If you're going to write, write with at least one other person in mind. Rather than a "commercially-acceptable blanket", I think the Lord of the Rings was written with other people in mind, making it more enjoyable, let alone commercially acceptable.
  
  
• Life of Pi : a novel - some days I pick this off the shelf in bookstores, only to put it back. The allure hasn't been strong enough to make me buy it.
  
  
• The Name of the Rose - first one I've read from this list! The Name of the Rose is brilliant, and rewards repeated visits. It is heavy going at times, due to Eco's love of linguistic tricks and expository detours into the architecture of libraries, the contents of monastic physic gardens, and manuscript illustration. But even these are entertaining, and there is a rich vein of humour running through a demanding murder mystery.
  
  
• Don Quixote - if you think you know the story of Don Quixote, you don't. That whole "tilting at windmills" thing is over and done with by page 30. You then have about 600 to go. I personally felt that it was a little too long, and I would have enjoyed it more had I been more familiar with the genre that it is sending up. When it drags, it becomes turgid and dull. However, for the most part it is very witty, and well worth a read.
  
  
• Moby Dick
  
  
• Ulysses - the first appearance by James Joyce, and the first book on the list that I agree with the underlying premise of the list - that you only own it because it looks good to own it. I find Joyce impenetrable, and Ulysses is the prime example. I have not yet consciously met someone who has (a) read all of this book and (b) enjoyed it. Please, dear reader, if you have, let me know.
  
  
• Madame Bovary
  
  
• The Odyssey - on the list, after I've read The Illiad...
  
  
• Pride and Prejudice - there are several Jane Austen novels on this list (I think only two are missing to make the complete canon. I've mentioned previously my change of heart over Austen. As with most British people my age, I read this in school, first having been shown the BBC adaptation with Colin Firth. If I may be allowed to be controversial, the 2005 film is a better adaptation, but the book blows them both out of the water.
  
  
• Jane Eyre
  
  
• The Tale of Two Cities - I feel like a fraud for this one, as it was only an abridged children's version...
  
  
• The Brothers Karamazov - this is currently on my reading pile, and I'm ashamed to say it has been for several months longer than I care to admit! It is dark and funny and tragic all at once. I have a soft spot for both the scoundrels of the story, Fyodor the father and Dmitri, the eldest of the three fathers. I know enough of the plot to know what is coming between them, but I haven't reached that far yet!
  
  
• Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
  
  
• War and Peace - I appear to like Russian and French authors... War and Peace is on the list. My favourite Woody Allen joke - "I once spead-read War and Peace. It's about Russia..."
  
  
• Vanity Fair
  
  
• The Time Traveler’s Wife - I think this is the most modern novel on the list. I flicked through a copy in a bookstore recently, and I'm sufficiently intrigued by the concept to give it a go. However, I am still banned from purchasing books until I read through the ones sitting on the bookshelf from the past five years that I bought but haven't finished. My guilty secret...
  
  
• The Iliad
  
  
• Emma - I'm going to quote Christopher's comment on this in full: "apparently, Jane Austen commented in a letter when writing Emma that she had invented a heroine whom no-one was going to like but Austen herself. I must admit that I found the character of Emma more than a little annoying." Yup, I think everyone is annoyed by Emma. From the first line of the book, I hated her. It was only years later I realised this was a testament to Austen's skills as a writer.
  
  
• The Blind Assassin
  
  
• The Kite Runner
  
  
• Mrs. Dalloway
  
  
• Great Expectations - I am a heretic. I can take or leave Dickens. I'll probably read Bleak House some day, but beyond that, meh.
  
  
• American Gods
  
  
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - this is what I write every day...
  
  
• Atlas Shrugged
  
  
• Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
  
  
• Memoirs of a Geisha
  
  
• Middlesex
  
  
• Quicksilver
  
  
• Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
  
  
• The Canterbury Tales - Scottish education tends to bypass Chaucer...
  
  
• The Historian : a novel
  
  
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - again, Joyce. I'm sure he has his charms. I just can't see them.
  
  
• Love in the Time of Cholera
  
  
• Brave New World - ah, the second entry in the "I thought you had read that" list for me. No, I haven't. Add it to the pile...
  
  
• The Fountainhead
  
  
• Foucault’s Pendulum - another Umberto Eco. Not as good as The Name of the Rose, but then again here Eco is on his home territory of semiotics and playing with language and the idea of language. Detours into the history and experiences of the fight against the fascists in Italy cause the story to drag, but once past those, this probably has the best concept of all of Eco's fiction. For a new reader of Eco's work, I would ease in with Baudalino instead, and leave Foucault's Pendulum last.
  
  
• Middlemarch
  
  
• Frankenstein - for those only familiar with the movies, this will confound all expectations. For a good movie adaptation, see Kenneth Branagh's version with Robert De Niro as the Monster.
  
  
• The Count of Monte Cristo - I love Dumas, I just haven't read any of his work. This is in the pile, waiting for me to finish the Muskateer cycle...
  
  
• Dracula - I haven't tried reading this in a few years. I keep giving up, mainly because I find Mia's letters so damn boring!
  
  
• A Clockwork Orange
  
  
• Anansi Boys
  
  
• The Once and Future King
  
  
• The Grapes of Wrath
  
  
• The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
  
  
• 1984 - I own a complete collection of Orwell's novels. They are in the pile. And 1984 makes the third entry into the "what do you mean you haven't read it Paul, I thought you had" list...
  
  
• Angels & Demons - on the one hand, it always disappoints to see Dan Brown books in any list. On the other, if they are at least confined to an "unread" list, then the owner of the book has been spared...
  
  
• The Inferno - I've read the entire Divine Comedy. Not only does the Devil have the best tunes, but the best writing. After Inferno, it's a long downhill trek through Purgatorio and Paradiso...
  
  
• The Satanic Verses
  
  
• Sense and Sensibility - oddly enough, we didn't read this, the second most well known Austen novel, and all accounts arguably the best.
  
  
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
  
  
• Mansfield Park - at school this was a surprise inclusion instead of Sense and Sensibility when we were studying Austen. I was 17 at the time, and this was the last of the three we had to read. I don't think I was paying much attention, as I can barely remember the story now.
  
  
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  
  
• To the Lighthouse
  
  
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles - did I say "study" Austen? My mistake, what I meant to say was "spend your summer reading nothing but Austen, only to return and find that the teacher you thought you were getting had left, and the new teacher decided that the class would critically examine the works of Thomas Hardy". Tess was first up. I quit the class shortly after finishing Tess. These two facts are not wholly unrelated.
  
  
• Oliver Twist - again, I'm cheating. It was the abridged children's version...
  
  
• Gulliver’s Travels - one of the very first books I remember reading as a child. The version I read only contained the first two voyages. It was only when I was older that I read the final two voyages, and came to appreciate the satire.
  
  
• Les Misérables - I really cannot say enough good things about this book. Definitely one of my favourites of all time. My one and only criticism is that the entire section on the Battle of Waterloo could be left out without detracting from the character development. But that is the only criticism I can make of this book. Do yourself a favour, and read it. Unabridged.
  
  
• The Corrections
  
  
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
  
  
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - bonus points to the person who knows what the title refers to.
  
  
• Dune
  
  
• The Prince - I have read most of The Prince, but not in a long time. Not really a novel, it is sitting with other works of political philosophy like On War by von Clausewitz.
  
  
• The Sound and the Fury
  
  
• Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
  
  
• The God of Small Things
  
  
• A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
  
  
• Cryptonomicon
  
  
• Neverwhere
  
  
• A Confederacy of Dunces
  
  
• A Short History of Nearly Everything - it, along with the entire Bill Bryson catalogue, is sitting on the bookshelf...
  
  
• Dubliners - Joyce. Again.
  
  
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  
  
• Beloved
  
  
• Slaughterhouse-five
  
  
• The Scarlet Letter
  
  
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves
  
  
• The Mists of Avalon
  
  
• Oryx and Crake : a novel
  
  
• Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
  
  
• Cloud Atlas
  
  
• The Confusion
  
  
• Lolita
  
  
• Persuasion
  
  
• Northanger Abbey - given that I do actually like Austen, I should probably get round to reading the rest of the canon...
  
  
• The Catcher in the Rye
  
  
• On the Road
  
  
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame - as with Frankenstein, if you only know it through the films, you don't know it at all. I found that the scenes in the Court of Miracles to be the most entertaining. Hell of a depressing ending though...
  
  
• Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
  
  
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
  
  
• The Aeneid
  
  
• Watership Down - yes, it is about rabbits. Despite this, don't let your kids read it thinking it is a happy little romp through the countryside...
  
  
• Gravity’s Rainbow
  
  
• The Hobbit
  
  
• In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
  
  
• White Teeth
  
  
• Treasure Island
  
  
• David Copperfield
  
  
• The Three Musketeers - thus far I have assaulted The Three Musketeers seven times, each time getting further than the last. Some day I will finish it. And when I do, I only have Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne, Louise de la Vallière and The Man in the Iron Mask to read...

How many of these do you have on your bookshelf, and how many of them have you actually read? Are there any books notable by their absence? If we are thinking about books owned purely to make you look good, then I think there are a fair few copies of "A Brief History of Time" on the shelves, with the spine uncracked...

Tags: unread books vanity purchases

Fiction Friday - 25 April 2008

This Week's Theme: Someone buys a dresser at a yard sale. When they get home there is a roll of film taped to the underside of one of the drawers. What happens next?

---

This story has been removed from the blog pending publication in an anthology.

For further information, please contact the author.

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday

So why make it that way?

JJ Abrams has said that his monster movie Cloverfield is "better seen at home" than in a cinema.

Which begs the question, why make it that way? Why invest so much in a movie, only to proclaim "you know what, this is more for TV and DVD anyway"?

Isn't this just a tacit admission that it didn't do very well at the cinema?

What NaNoWriMo Taught Me From The Write Stuff - 02 Dec 07

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Stuff website on December 02, 2007. The original text can be found here.

What NaNoWriMo Taught Me

For 30 days in November I, and thousands of other insane individuals around the world (including a few regulars to this site) engaged in a challenge; a writing marathon, the challenge of writing a novel of 50,000 words in one month. NaNoWriMo does not sound challenging to many who hear about it. “Writing isn’t hard. Only 50,000 words? Easy.” To those people I can only suggest that you try it...

With two days left to go, my word count stood at 43,240. I broke the 50,000 target by early afternoon on the final day, but it was not easy. Not by a long shot.

Has it been worthwhile? Unequivocally yes. If you add up all the words of fiction I have ever written before November, then I don’t think it would amount to 50,000. November was the proving ground. In November I earned the right to call myself a writer.

I finished NaNoWriMo, but I am not finished with the story. Not yet. It was only half-told (possibly less than that). This story has been inside me for over ten years and will finally be told. This is what November, and NaNoWriMo, have taught me:

1. Writing is not easy

Anyone who thinks it is, doesn’t write. Physically it is difficult. You sit in one place, for an extended period of time, getting cramps from typing (I am full of admiration for those who manage this longhand!) and backache from hunching over. And the mental exertion involved is tremendous. I spent twenty minutes trying to decide on the best name for a character who features in one paragraph only. I had to remind myself that at this stage, his name wasn’t important, only the story mattered! But in creating a story you create a world, it is not enough to randomly throw together some names - the names have their own personalities, their own histories, their own stories. You may not tell them, but as a writer you have to be conscious that for these characters (even bit players) to be realistic and believable, they have to have that vital essence. And that is not an easy world to create.

2. Characters and stories are organic

Following on from from the fact that you are creating a world full of vital, living characters, you have to accept that not only will your story change as you write it, but your characters will change too. Whatever plan you come up with beforehand, you will deviate from it. Characters you considered secondary will rise to the challenge. Main characters will sink into the background. Heroes will become villains, and villains heroes. You are creating a world full of real people, and they are complex. You may think you are the resident deity of your world, but you are not, despite it all, omniscient. Be prepared to sit back and think “now why the heck are you doing that?” as your characters begin acting in unexpected ways.

3. Writing is not a solitary activity

There’s nothing like sitting down and writing to attract attention.

“What are you doing?”

I’m writing.

“Ooh, I didn’t know you were writing a book! What’s it about?”

For those who don’t know that you are doing this, the act of seeing you fully engaged in the process is a curiosity, and one that attracts people. During the work week I write at lunch times. Unfortunately the only place I can go is a glass walled atrium overlooked by the main thoroughfare through our office. I became something of an object of attention that month. If you write on public transport, you will get people reading over your shoulder. This can be a distraction, or embarrassing, depending on how you deal with attention, who is looking, and what you are writing about! But you have to accept it. Not many of us have the luxury of solitude during NaNoWriMo.

If you have let on to people what you are doing, then they become interested in your progress. Family and friends will all want to know how you are getting on, whether you’ve had a good day or a bad day, and what happens next. And they will all want to read it when you finish, which is daunting if you don’t rate your own abilities, or if you are worried about revealing too much about yourself. But they care about you, and so care about what you care about.

And we writers ourselves are social creatures. You know that, you’ve come to this writing website to read the thoughts of a fellow writer. You leave comments on other people’s blogs. And over on the main NaNoWriMo site, there were thousands of discussions taking place on a variety of topics, from tips about writing to discussions of how our lives were going. Whether it is to seek inspiration, to swap ideas and tips, or just for a quick chat and some encouragement, contrary to the popular image we writers are social creatures - whether it is online or offline. My initial nerves about NaNoWriMo were dispelled after the pre-November welcome party held by my regional NaNo group.

Wherever and whenever you write, you never write alone.

4. It is important to write when the mood takes you. It is even more important to do so when it doesn’t

Writer’s block be darned, keep those fingers tapping on the keys, and keep that pen moving! It is the only way you can complete this challenge. And it doesn’t just apply to those taking part in NaNoWriMo. You will never be a writer if you don’t write. And you cannot afford to wait for inspiration to hit you. It just doesn’t work that way. This was my problem. To an extent, this is still my problem. This was why it has taken me ten years to write this story. I was waiting to be inspired before I wrote, rather than writing and letting the inspiration flow from me with the words. If you don’t write, you don’t develop existing ideas, you don’t come up with new ideas, and you don’t have a story.

I lost my bearings mid-way through NaNoWriMo and played catch up over the final two weeks. I allowed myself to not write some days, because I didn’t feel like it. That just meant the next day’s target was higher, and the next, until the achievable target had, cumulatively, become unachievable. Write when you feel like it. And if you don’t feel like it, write anyway. Because you’ll find that if you do, you will very soon find that you DO feel like writing, and you won’t stop. At the start of the final week I was about 15,000 words behind, and felt like giving up. But I wrote, and I wrote, and when I didn’t feel like writing I wrote some more, and the story flowed, and new ideas came, and I rediscovered what it was I loved about this story and about writing.

5. I am not as good a writer as I thought

My spelling and grammar are atrocious. My attention to detail is woeful. Within the space of two paragraphs I had created a plot hole so wide I still haven’t fixed it. I thought that wonderful sentences would just flow from me, because that’s what I expected writing to be. Well, it’s not. It is dirty. It is difficult. It is inelegant. And it is called a first draft. And now that I expect it to be like that, I am not put off by it. I am not as good a writer as I thought. And neither is anybody else.

6. I am a better writer than I thought

Technical flaws can be picked up in subsequent drafts. Spelling and grammar can be checked. Sentences and paragraphs that lack grace and deftness of touch can be edited. Plot holes can be reworked and closed. But you can ignore these things when you look at a piece of work, and you can see the potential. And I can see that now. Friends and family, and you guys, through your comments and support, have helped me to see that I’m not crazy. I am on to something. I do have a story to tell, and it’s not “silly” - it is worth telling because are people who want to read it. I didn’t think people would want to read what I write. Now I know differently. NaNoWriMo 2007 has brought that change about in me.

7. It is possible to do this challenge and still have a life

In November hosted a bonfire party, visited relatives, took part in the odd Fiction Friday and a few Creative Carnivals. I blogged, I saw an old friend for drinks, and kept in touch with far flung friends. I even made some new ones. I kept up with my job, worked on overtime, went to the cinema, and even did some Christmas shopping. Barring personal disaster, "I don’t have time" is no longer a valid excuse. Not for me.

8. If and when we do get published, there are a lot of people to thank

Spouses. Girlfriends. Boyfriends. Siblings. Parents. Children. Friends and colleagues. Starbucks barristas. Bosses. Whoever made this journey possible for you, then make sure you remember them in your acknowledgments. And if you don’t get published, take the time to thank them in person. Remember, there are no little people.

***ADDENDUM***

I have started reading On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King. Had I read it BEFORE November, I would have learned these lessons well in advance, rather than through trial and error. But there is a difference between being told something in a book, and finding out for yourself. And I think I am a better writer for having gone through this, discovered these things, and only later received affirmation from someone who has made it, affirmation that these lessons are the right ones, and necessary ones.

Tags: Write Stuff Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

Fiction Friday - 18 April 2008

This Week's Theme: gongoozler

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Seriously. The prompt was just one word. Now, as it turns out, gongoozler is a real word. It means someone who watches canals and canal boats in the United Kingdom. Who knew? Not me. So I'm not using the meaning of the word for this idea. Oh no. Instead, I am inflicting upon you something that has been long threatened. If you read this article, then you'll be aware of a character called Captain Juan. At the risk of causing my older brother to groan, here is an introduction to the fabled adventurer. Enjoy...

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"Yarrrr, there be a ship on the horizon Cap'n!"

Redbeard grinned, gold teeth glinting in the mid-day sun. He hobbled over to the mainmast on his two peg legs, and looked up to the crow's nest. His look-out "Blind" Billy leaned over the edge. "She be just to the East of us!"

Redbeard swung round. "Hoist the mainsail and bear down on her. We'll pluck her treasures and put the crew to the sword!" As the ship lurched with the wind, Redbeard teetered to the bridge. "Where is my looking glass? Jake, bring me my looking glass!" A young boy, no more than eleven, trotted over with a slightly battered telescope and handed it to Redbeard. The telescope slipped through the hook on his left hand and clattered on to the deck. "The other hand boy, the other hand!" Jake swiftly picked up the telescope, paused to check that the lens hadn't cracked again, and placed it sheepishly in Redbeard's good hand.

He extended the telescope with a flick of his wrist and brought it up to his eye. They were gaining on the ship, bearing down on it at a rate of knots. Fast. Too fast...

He blinked, and shook his head. No, it couldn't be. Peering through the looking glass again, there was no doubt. They weren't simply gaining on the other ship. It was heading towards them too.

"Billy, why isn't that ship running?" "Blind" Billy grabbed his telescope and had a look at the rapidly approaching ship. They were running the skull and crossbones, as well as Redbeard's own flag. Any ship that saw them should have turned tail and prayed for a good wind. This ship wasn't running. It had turned and was making a course straight for them. It was a Spanish frigate, fully armed and carrying the colours of the Spanish court and...

"Dammit Billy be careful!" The telescope narrowly missed Redbeard's head, shattering against the deck. "I've not got many original parts here ye scurvy knave." Redbeard snarled at the crow's nest, then paused when he noticed Billy wildly gesturing and babbling.

"Cap'n! Ship! Frigate! Cap'n! Spanish! Captain.... oh lord! The ship... oh lord the ship..."

"What are ye blabbering about man! What ship is it?"

"La Gongoozler....."

Redbeard crossed himself and swallowed hard. La Gongoozler. The scourge of the seven seas. Personally commanded by the hero of the Spanish Court, famed adventurer and explorer, Captain Juan Ferdinand Fernandos. And he was bearing down on his ship...

"Hoist the flag of surrender, turn us about! Retreat lads, retreat!"

Standing at the bow, sword drawn, the wind whipping about his clothing, Captain Juan threw his head back and laughed, a glint in his eye and immaculate white teeth gleaming. "Surrender in the name of His Majesty, or I shall be forced to fight you all!" A deft twirl of the sword, then Juan jumped from his ship, swinging across to the bridge of the pirate ship, before landing on deck, pistols drawn. The assembled pirates dropped their weapons and held their hands aloft. Juan twirled his moustache and laughed. Another victory for the Spanish Blade, El Capitán, counsel to kings and lover to queens, the finest sailor, shot and swordsman of the age, the fabulous, flamboyant, fantastic Captain Juan.

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday Captain Juan

Where have all the muses gone?

The Guardian book blog posed this question today, in the wake of the death of Joan Hunter Dunn, the inspiration and subject of John Betjeman's poem, A Subaltern's Love Song.

Where have all the muses gone? Traditionally the Muses were goddesses who inspired the creative process. Whilst the Ancient Greeks believed in the literal existence of the Muses, in modern times they are a metaphor for inspiration in general. "My muse has left me" is another way of saying that you have writer's block, and are lacking inspiration.

Sometimes however, a muse is real. It is something that moves an artist to create. For an artist like Monet, his muse was the action of light on objects, something he strove to capture and recreate in his paintings. Most commonly, it is a person. And as the Guardian article points out, it is most often a woman.

Why should this be? Are there no male muses? Do men not inspire creativity? Or is this merely a symptom that for many years, the arts were not seen as a "fit and proper" career for a woman, and so the majority of artists were men?

Why should we know who an artist's muse is anyway? The act of inspiration is often a private and personal affair, only the created product is intended for consumption. Perhaps today writers and artists are more reticent to reveal their muse, for fear of embarrassing the muse, embarrassing themselves, maybe even from fear of losing their muse? Who knows. To all the muses out there, known and unknown, I salute you.

Why does my Muse only speak when she is unhappy?
She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.

Stevie Smith

Tags: muses John Betjeman Joan Hunter Dunn inspiration

Stay Drunk From The Write Stuff - 25 Nov 07

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Stuff website on November 25, 2007. By coincidence this week I wrote this post, which is thematically similar. The original text can be found here.

Stay Drunk

“The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.” - Vladimir Nabokov.

A pristine white page. A blinking cursor on a fresh new Word file. However you write, these are the most terrifying and the most beautiful prospects a writer sees. More so than the finished product. (Frankly, some of my finished products I never want to see again…)

The blank page is absolutely terrifying. It is a daunting prospect, a new vista. You and you alone are responsible for what will fill it up. The page is not going to fill itself up, the computer will not mysteriously begin typing on its own. It is all down to you. The responsibility, the pressure, the expectation. All squarely on your shoulders.

That scares the hell out of me. There is nothing like a blank page to make you freeze. And once frozen, that expectation grows. Aren’t you a writer? Shouldn’t you be, y’know, writing? On this page?

The blank page is absolutely beautiful. It is potential, it is possibility, it is all your dreams come true at once, because it can literally be anything. It is waiting to be filled with whatever flight of fancy occurs to you. Is it a love story? Is it something chilling? A hilarious farce? A tragic catastrophe? The blank page calls to you and invites you to let loose all your inhibitions and throw it all onto the page.

I love that quote from Nabokov (I like it so much that I used it to name my writing blog!). Whenever I feel daunted by the blank page, I remind myself of that quote, to remind me that the blank page is not just a frightening unexplored country. It is the destination for my thoughts. The words are already there, they have always been there. It is for me to discover them and reveal them to the world.

This advice from Nabokov is one of a few that inspire me, and keep me on course. It inspires me when I am challenged in my writing, but the quotation that inspires me most, the one that keeps me focused as a writer, was left to me by a friend and fellow writer. She encouraged me to view writing as more than something I “could” do in the future. This quote always inspired her, and she passed it on to me:

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” - Ray Bradbury

Reality is work. Reality is other commitments. Reality is life getting in the way. Reality is a voice telling you that you cannot write a book in a month, that 50,000 words is an impossible target, and that nobody would be interested in anything you have to say.

So stay drunk on your writing folks. Ignore that little bit of “reality” that tells you it can’t be done, and questions why you are even bothering. Because on that blank page, you can make your own reality.

And if you have your own favourite writing quotations, ones that inspire you and drive you on, perhaps you’ll share...

Tags: Write Stuff Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

Keep your chin up

Without wanting to sound too much like my April Fool's Day blog entry, I have begun to feel a little down about my own writing recently. I am acutely aware that I'm not actually writing, and this isn't writer's block, because that is a case of sitting there, and not having a single idea about how to proceed. With this, I'm not even getting to the sitting down part.

I found a new blog today, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, and this entry has lifted my spirits a little. It is amazing how some simple phrases can be enough to do it for you. These are my favourites.

There's a word for a writer who never gives up... published

You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning than landing a publishing deal. But understanding the market and working to improve your craft can have the same effect as climbing a tree in a thunderstorm, carrying a long iron rod.

No one is entitled to anything.

Don't compare yourself to other writers. Nothing good can come of it.

Maybe you can't win. But you sure can try.

But far and away the most important bit of advice given is this:

Write when you can. Finish what you start. Edit what you finish. Submit what you've edited. Repeat.

Who are you?

So, I have a fair few visitors to this site, and the podcast site. And unlike on my personal site, most of you aren't coming through bizarre, perverted web searches (seriously, ask me about the hits I get through Google sometimes. There are some disturbing people out there...).

No, most of you are coming with no referring link. To specific post URLs. Which means you are subscribers. Or you have me in your favourites list. I see familiar IP addresses popping up all the time. And that's great. I love you guys.

But I have no idea who any of you are. And I'd like to.

For instance, I have a regular subscriber/visitor from an IP address in Glasgow. This isn't my mum, my dad, either of my brothers, or my godmother. Maybe I went to school, or university with you? Who knows.

Well, you do, obviously. So, I've got a favour to ask. Let me know.

Just leave a comment, or drop me an e-mail. Let me know who you are, how you found the site. That kind of thing. Because I'd like to know you better. So if you're shy, send an e-mail. If you're a bit braver, leave a comment to this post.

I'll even pick a subscriber at random and send you a prize!*




* Not a guarantee. Well, maybe. If you're lucky. It'll probably be some bit of crap I've got lying around, like a book or something.

Write. Write. Write. Right?

I have recently begun listening to the Times Online Books Podcast. Today I listened to author Philip Pullman speaking about his new book, Once Upon A Time in the North at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.

Pullman mentioned that if you write, you have to get into the habit of writing every single day, without fail, without exception. Writing "is a marathon, not a sprint".

Very true, and something I am very guilty of. I guess it's back to the keyboard, back to the laptop, back to the pad of paper and pen. I don't have writer's block, I just have writer's laziness...

On the subject of literary/book festivals, I'm going to my first one in a few weeks - the Kingston Readers' Festival which runs from 23 April to 23 May of this year.

Where did your novel come from? From The Write Stuff - 18 Nov 07

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Stuff website on November 18, 2007. The original text can be found here.

Where did your novel come from?

If you write, then you’ve probably been asked the following question many times before - "where do you get your ideas from?" And as a general question, it is a tough one to answer. I get my ideas from everywhere. A news story, a conversation, another writer’s work, a dream - anything and everything is a rich source of inspiration for the writer.

But change the question, and ask about a particular idea, and then the question becomes easier to answer. And that’s what I’d like to ask; think of what you are writing just now - where did your idea come from?

(Now if you’ll excuse my self-indulgence while I wax nostalgic about my NaNoWriMo novel and my upbringing…)

The Long Watch is a story that has been stuck in my head for almost ten years now. Gideon Strangechild is a former British army officer, now field commander for a quasi-military organisation run by the Catholic Church. He is assisted by Maria (a 9000 year old vampire), Al (a demon controlled by a religious artefact) and Lex (an angel who has voluntarily exiled himself to Earth), as well as a host of former military converts who form the various field units around the world. Gideon is answerable to Cardinal Mancini, himself a former US Marine, and the second most powerful man in the Vatican.

In the dying hours of the Long Watch, his team is put on high alert by a breach between worlds, but upon investigation there is no trace of the breach. As further breaches occur across the planet, Gideon and his team must uncover the source of the breaches, and what connection there is to Gideon’s past. No easy task, when you aren’t even sure you can trust your own side… Or at least that’s the blurb on the back cover!

Where did this idea come from? The Long Watch owes a lot to my upbringing. I was born and raised Catholic, but grew up in a household which always had a high proportion of books on a variety of mythical, spiritual and mystical topics, which have always been of interest to me, and which saw me progressing from an unquestioning believer in everything I read, to the more considered, sceptical man I am today. At about the age of 18, I first began to conceive of a world where the Church not only accepted the existence of angels and demons in terms of doctrine, but actively engaged with them in day to day business.

That idea slowly germinated, and began to be fleshed out with a cast of characters. No group could operate within the Church without the knowledge of the Church hierarchy - hence the need for the character of the Cardinal. I needed a strong lead character - but not a priest, to allow a greater scope for action. So Gideon was born. To suggest the reality of the nature of the supernatural world they deal with, I populated the team with various entities. The original line up included a demon, an angel, a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf. As I developed the characters, the first three became Maria, Al and Lex - their characters grew stronger, more compelling. But the characters of the ghost and the werewolf did very little - they often replicated character traits and skills present in other characters, and so I wrote them out.

This story represents a fusion of mythical and spiritual concepts I find fascinating (but not necessarily true) - concepts that I grew up with, concepts that haunted my dreams, concepts I flirted with. The world I am building is a world that I would be endlessly enthralled by if it existed. Reality as fiction, conspiracy as fact, and the extraordinary as the mundane. And I’m delighted that so many people who have read snippets of it actually like it!

A few days ago, I looked back on some notepads from several years ago, when I first tried to write the story, but never quite got round to it. I had penned some outlines of the characters, and some plot points, and I was pleasantly surprised to see just how many names, character traits and events have remained constant. I think this shows just how the story has matured over the years in my mind. Now I just need to write it.

What are you working on at the moment? Where did you get your inspiration?

Tags: Write Stuff Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

Time to admit defeat

There have been a few things playing on my mind of late. If you've been listening to the podcast, then you'll have spotted that the last few episodes have been, well, a little mournful to be honest. There are issues I'm struggling with, and truths about myself that I'm not sure how to articulate. But really, it comes down to the fact that I'm unhappy.

I think we're all smart enough to know why that is. The past few months have shown that I have neither the talent, nor the application to make it as a writer. So why fight it?

This will be my final entry on this site. This isn't what I want to do with my life. Since I was 16 I've only ever had one true passion, only one thing has made me happy.

I've always loved dancing, and would take every opportunity to practice my plié, my arabesque, my jeté. I have to try now, before I get too old and the chance passes me by. I have applied to the Vaganova Ballet Academy, and will be leaving for St Petersburg in a few months.

You can keep up to date on my new site, Paul's Pirouette.

Tags: giving up moving on look at the date