Writeapalooza: The Best of 2008

It's the time of year for list posts! Today over at Write Anything, Janie invited us all to select our best writing from this year and showcase it. Now, I'm hoping that my best writing this year is the stuff you guys haven't seen; short stories for contests, couple of projects for (fingers crossed) publication, that kind of thing. In terms of this blog however, and in order of publication rather than rank of how good I feel they are, here are the ten posts I consider my best from this year...

• Tube nightmare
  This I selected because it still freaks people out, particularly those who have travelled on the London Underground before. I had a lot of fun writing it, and more fun hearing the reaction to it.
  
• School reunion
  As with most of my Fiction Friday entries, this didn't have a title originally, so I'm making these up on the fly. I have a soft spot for this story; firstly because who doesn't want to right perceived wrongs from high school; secondly, and most importantly, because again this got a strong reaction from readers, mostly because I wrong-footed just about everyone with it! My reputation for the disturbing and vengeful had preceded me, so the last thing anybody expected was a romance. Just goes to show you folks, I am versatile - not everyone in my stories has to die (it's just that most do...)
  
• A bad day at the office...
  I had not long bought my straight razor and was running it across the leather strop, mesmerised by the high-pitched swishing sound, when this image came to mind. I confess to being influenced by the infamous ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs. I enjoyed writing De Marco's matter-of-fact, slightly chatty dialogue in this scene.
  
• This old man, he played two...
  A teaser story for The Long Watch (which I swear I'll get back to in the New Year!) this is the first insight into the character of Major Strangechild, Gideon's father. It also introduces us to Dante and Shelley, characters who will be seen again...
  
• Transplant
  What can I say? Another fun story to write, which succeeded in freaking out my mother. My work here is done...
  
• Message in a bottle
  I think Message in a bottle is the best example of pure writing I've produced this year.
  
• Before I wake...
  I've written poetry in the past, but this is the first poem I've written that has both followed a poetic convention (iambic tetrameter to be precise, in couplets no less!) and been any good!
  
• Nothing left to lose
  I'm going to return to this story in 2009, as there is more to it, including the corruption of the ideals expressed by the main character. The germ of the idea came about in late summer when a situation came to a head and I realised that there was nothing that the other party in the situation could do or say to damage me, there was nothing they could take from me - with literally nothing that could be lost, they had no power over me. The most dangerous person is the one with nothing to lose, for there is no threat, no bargaining, no inducement possible with such a person.
  
• Faith and the New Gods
  This essay was a lot of fun to research. I don't know if it was ever used for the radio show it was commissioned for (given it was over twice as long as asked for), but I'm proud of it.
  
• F-I-C-T-I-O-N
  An essay in response to a rather bizarre attack on fiction from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. I can understand atheists objecting to religious texts, but fiction? This almost bordered on the puritanical, and, if the quotes were accurate, put Professor Dawkins in the same book-banning camp as some of the religious fundamentalists he opposes!

If you are a fiction blogger, please do play along. Select your best posts, list them, then submit the link as a comment on Janie's post today.

A glimmer of immortality From Write Anything - 10 August 08

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Anything website on August 10, 2008. The original text can be found here.

A glimmer of immortality

Authors are not immortal. They die. Characters on the other hand, are near immortal, continuing long after their creators have shuffled off this mortal coil. Sherlock Holmes (despite Arthur Conan Doyle's best efforts) has spawned a cottage industry of pastiches and parodies. Johnston McCulley's Zorro has been reinterpreted recently by Isabel Allende in her Zorro: A Novel. And Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler reignite their love affair in Alexandria Ripley's Scarlett, a sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind

Sometimes a character is ruined by such works. It is rare for a much loved character to reappear, in the hands of another artist, and to be received well, let alone seen to be superior to the original treatment. This is a problem that also occurs when translating one medium to another. Think of any number of recent novels adapted to books, and the various reactions of those fans who were disappointed that favourites scenes were dropped, favourite characters were not as envisaged, or the exigencies of the film industry and the limits of the medium force the dreaded "creative changes".

But sometimes, rarely, it happens. Sometimes you witness something that makes you realise: the new artist understands the character far better than the original artist.

And this example, is The Dark Knight. In two and a half hours, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan demonstrate a superior understanding of the motives, desires and essence of Batman, that far surpasses any such understanding demonstrated by any other writer, artist, or director of the various films, comics and television series - even the (at the time) outstanding handling of the character demonstrated by Bruce Timm in the animated Batman series.

For a fuller appreciation of why this film succeeds, I invite you to read this review of The Dark Knight (and I will admit the shameful nepotism, the reviewer concerned is a professional comic book artist, and also happens to be my brother...)

I watched The Dark Knight in awe. When the end credits had finished, I had two comments to make. Firstly, that if I ever wrote anything as good in my life, I would be quite, quite happy. Secondly, that some people simply do not deserve their own characters. With Batman Begins and The Dark Knight the Nolans have shown that they understand the character even more than Bob Kane, the creator of Batman. Kane will always be the creator of Batman. But for me, from now on Batman will always belong to the Nolans.

We as writers hope to leave something behind, something that will live on when we are gone, for which we will be remembered.

Do you feel comfortable with the idea that someday, someone may begin to reinterpret our characters, presenting them in new situations, perhaps reacting to events in ways you would not suppose?

Worse yet, what if they handle your character far better than you ever could?

Tags: Write Anything Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

I'm baaaaaaack!

Aaaah, it's good to be back folks. Did you miss me?

I missed you.

Peace on earth and goodwill to all

To my family who have been quiet observers in the background, to fellow writers who have commented, worked with me and inspired me throughout the year, to old friends around the world, and new Friends closer to home, to all the readers and subscribers of the blog...

Thank you for being there, thank you for supporting me, thank you for pulling me up by the bootlaces when I was feeling down throughout a long, exhilirating, painful and exciting year.

Thank you all for still coming back to read, to follow, to comment.

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, wherever you are and however you celebrate it.

Love, peace and goodwill to you all.

What’s in a name… again… From Write Anything - 03 August 08

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Anything website on August 3, 2008. The original text can be found here. I did finally manage to finish The Brothers Karamazov a couple of months ago, and took a slight break from heavy literature, to read some Winnie the Pooh. Now ploughing my way through George Orwell...

What’s in a name... again...

Slowly, week by week and page by page, I am working my way through one of the classics of Russian literature, Dostoevsky's last great novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Or, to be less idiomatic, The Karamazov Brothers.

Stuart Jeffries, writing for the Guardian newspaper, points out that ever since the book first appeared in English, we have been using a title that is the literal translation of the original Russian, yet it is a phrase that we would not use in English, sounding clumsy to our Anglicised ears. As Ignat Avsey, translator for the Oxford University Press edition rightly points out, we would no more naturally talk of the "Brothers Karamazov" than we would the "Brothers Marx" or the "Brothers Warner".

That being said, whilst The Brother's Karamazov may not be strictly accurate in English, we have coped with The Brothers Grimm for longer, without complaining about the dissonance of the Germanic construction.

Avsey wonders that if we can't rely on the translator to get the title right, how can we rely on them to correctly translate the remainder of the book? I am reminded of the apocryphal story of the translation from English, to Russian, and back into English again, that resulted in a well-known phrase being rendered as "the vodka is tempting but the meat is rancid" (can you guess the original phrase? Answers at the end...)

Sometimes, as Jeffries points out, you have to do violence to the literal level in order to do justice to the spirit of a work.

For example, the Asterix comic books have characters who's names are humorous puns. But the puns are language specific, and would not work in the original French. So the names are changed to something humorous in the language the story is being translated into - the character called "Abraracourcix" in the original French, is known to the English speaking world as Vitalstatistix, for instance.

These changes are minor though, in relation to the totality of the work. A good story will have an essence, a spirit to it that is universal, that fine thread of commonality that all humanity recognises. That makes a classic, that is what gives a story its power. It is beyond character names, beyond the strict structures of the particular language of the source material - it is something known in the heart, not something that is known through a grammarian's lens.

If the essence of your story so wholly relies on the foibles and complexities of your own native tongue, then in many respects you have failed as a writer. Storytelling is beyond language, beyond borders. We are all people - as writers, ought we not be able to touch the souls of others?

Would your writing survive translation?




Oh, the well-known phrase? "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak"...

Tags: Write Anything Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

Woo hoo - confidence boost

Had three critiques back now for the short story. All very positive, each with different areas that they can see could be improved, or re-emphasised, and in some cases each pointing to the same bit with more or less the same solution, so when three different people are telling you something, time to pay attention!

Thank you for the ego massage ladies!

Fiction Friday - 19 December 2008 Christmas present

This Week's Theme: Write a short scene, with exactly two characters that involves a terrible Christmas (or similar holiday) present.

---

His first thought was who would call him at this time in the morning?

Truthfully, his first thoughts were "what the hell is that noise" followed by "where the hell am I?", "is that my phone" and "why the hell have I got Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as my ringtone", but these thoughts were dismissed by the more pressing concern of who would call at 4am on Christmas day?

As Scot fumbled to find the phone in the darkness his stomach lurched at the thought that something had happened, that he would answer and hear the distraught voice of a relative. He dismissed the thought and grabbed the phone. The display read "withheld number".

"Fuck off then" he muttered, pressed the call reject button, and lay back down. Within seconds the merry electronic tones of Rudolph started again. He rejected the call again, only to have the phone roar back to life with an encore rendition of Red-Nosed adventures.

He sighed and answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Boo." The voice was soft, a whisper, and he strained to hear it?

"Hello?"

A pause, then "Merry Christmas."

"Who is this?" He was tired, he was settling in for a hangover, and he was in no mood for games.

"The Ghost of Christmas Past?" Still soft, the voice was a little more confident and louder. Alone in the dark, the recognition filtered through his brain. "Oh. I see." Hanging up now would be churlish, although possibly the wiser course. But it was Christmas. Peace, goodwill and all that jazz. "I thought you weren't talking to me."

There was no response. "Why are you calling? If you wanted to send a Christmas message then send a card, don't call me at ungodly hours."

"I've got a present for you."

He laughed. "Last I heard you could mail them too. Goodnight Helen." He hung up and threw himself back down onto the bed. He wasn't going to get back to sleep now. Blasted ghosts. What present?

Rudolph began to chirp away again, and he lifted the phone to his ear. He didn't even have to ask who it was.

"OK, what present?"

"The Ghost of Christmas Present." The voice let out a little giggle, then continued. "The best present anyone could hope to have."

Scot sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I'm in no mood for ghosts, or word games, or any of this Helen. It's too early, I'm too tired, and we're too… complicated for me to deal with this now. So why are you calling? The truth please."

"That's the present I've got for you. The truth. From a Ghost of Christmas Past, about the Ghosts of Christmas Present."

"I'm not sure I want any of your truths. I seem to remember the last one hurt like hell."

"Sometimes the gifts we need the most are the ones that we least want to receive."

"Thank you Confucius. Your wisdom is much appreciated at this happy time of year. Now are you going to ruin Christmas for me, or do I get to enjoy the rest of the day on a couple hours of sleep?"

"You're still angry with me."

"Well I wonder what gave you that impression."

"Do you still… I know what I said to you then, but how do you feel now?"

"Tired and annoyed."

"I meant about me, about us."

"Tired and annoyed… With myself. Look, this isn't a good time for me, and I… couldn’t this wait?"

"No, it can't. I'll let you rest, but you have a present. Open it, and when you're ready, we'll talk." The phone line cut out, and the doorbell rang. Scot staggered out of his bed, tripping over shoes and clothes scattered on the floor, and made his way to the door. He could feel his heart pounding as he turned the latch, expecting to see…

The empty street outside. His breath swirled in the cold, adding to the early morning fog. On the step was an envelope. He bent down to pick it up, aware of the cold air invading his home. He quickly shut the door and looked at the envelope.

From the Ghost of Christmas Past, hoping for Ghosts of Christmases Yet To Come.

He tore open the envelope, and took out the card inside. The picture on the front, from a better time. He opened it up, and read the message inside.

"Thank you" he whispered. "Merry Christmas to you too."

Tags: fiction Fiction Friday

Bad writer! Bad! *smack*

I totally rock [insert sarcasm here].

The Christmas story? Y'know, the one I'm supposed to record and have up by Sunday night? Yeah.... sorta not finished yet.

Currently the Long Watch team have sailed two or three days out of Tauranga, and are about to part company with the container vessel they hitched a ride with, and take their own small boat towards Point Nemo. They'll arrive on Christmas Eve and find....

Well, if you're read The Call of Cthulhu, you'll know what to expect close to Point Nemo.

A lot of the Christmas story draws on The Call of Cthulhu for inspiration and background material. Of course, I should have had them set off from Dunedin on a ship called Vigilant II or something to have a closer parallel to the story...

So, currently the team are floating on the South Pacific, anticipating a Christmas showdown. And I have two days to get the story done if I want to record it on Sunday.

Like I said, I rock...

Keep checking the site though, I'm pretty sure I'll have the podcast ready for late Sunday, or perhaps Monday. I hope.

A Little Help To My Friends

Please, please, please, readers and subscribers to this blog, can you spare a few seconds each day for a friend of mine?

Amanda, who blogs as Self-Designed Student is about to take a very brave step and go full-time as a student. Grad school costs money, and Amanda is in the running to win a little green, but we need your help to get her there.

You can help her by voting for her favourite toy, a cute little Brontosaurus (well, Apatosaurus now I guess...). Amanda's story is incredibly sweet, and completely blows all over the current first place story. Just look at them: Amanda, with a tale of jealousy, desire and plush toys versus a guy who "won an XBox" - there's no contest here, Amanda should be at number 1!

You can vote every 8 hours, so please keep coming back - Amanda needs to be on top and stay there for a couple of months to win, so this is going to be a long campaign!

Keep hitting that little green voting button, and keep doing it. Make it part of your daily routine. And most importantly, spread the word. This is the sort of thing the internet was made for, so we need to make Amanda's Green Brontosaurus the hottest thing going.

What's Your Favorite Toy? Brickfish

Time to call in some favours...

You might remember a few posts back I was looking for readers to go over some stories I was working on.

Well, the first one is ready for critical reading, and a few of you have indicated you are willing to cast your eye over it.

This competition is the Kingston Readers' Festival Short Cuts Micro Story Competition 2009. It's a tough one that looks easy - open brief, with a very small word count. 500 words isn't a lot to tell a story in, especially when there is no set guidance as to the type of story.

So, if you want to help out, drop me a line - leave a comment, use the contact form, send an e-mail.

And wish me luck!

Review - Wholebake 9 Bar

The following is a review post, imported from my old blog. Review writing is a specialised type of writing, so I thought it might find a home on this blog. The review is my own personal opinion of the product, based upon a free sample sent to me. Other than receiving a free sample of the product, I have received no remuneration for making the review

Wholebake are a small company based in Wales who specialise in making healthy snacks using only natural ingredients. All their products are vegetarian and they offer organic versions of their most popular products. Their 9bar, a hemp seed snack bar, is alos gluten, dairy and wheat free.

They have been making the 9bar for ten years, but only recently have the supermarkets begun stocking their bars. You can find them in Waitrose, Asda, Sainsbury, Tesco, Morrisons' and Holland & Barrett, as well as over 1000 independent health food stores in the UK.

I was sent a 3-pack of their Original 9bar, which contains:

Sunflower seeds, Pumpkin seeds, Carob topping, Honey, Raw cane sugar, All vegetable margarine, Dehulled hemp seeds (3%), Sesame seeds, Poppy seeds.

I have to confess, my heart sank when I read the words "carob topping". I can't stand carob. If you want chocolate, have chocolate, not mocklate.

Undeterred, I tried the first bar, and was more than pleasantly surprised. Either carob has in general improved, or Wholebake can do something nobody else has managed. They made carob taste good, or in other words they made it taste like chocolate.

The bar itself is crunchier than you might expect. I was anticipating a chewier bar, more akin to a Tracker bar or similar. However, it is not so crunchy that each individual seed breaks off and spills everywhere. I expect the crunchiness is due to the sheer volume of seeds packed into each bar.

As a light snack to boost energy or stave off hunger, these are really good - just the right size, not so heavy that they would spoil the appetite, easily digested and, quite importantly, tasty. I would probably carry one or two of these while out running, ready for when I stop and need a quick shot of something with both protein and energy. A combination of the seeds plus the honey and cane sugar would do it for me.

My only complaint (and it is a minor one) is with the name. Yes, there are hemp seeds in it. But as with all things made with hemp, was the sly reference to drugs in the product name really necessary?

For more information, go to the 9bar site to see the full product range.

Tags: review Wholebake 9bar hemp seed organic vegetarian

Please turn to page 69... From Write Anything - 27 July 08

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Anything website on July 27, 2008. The original text can be found here.

Please turn to page 69...

There are more books in existence than any person could ever possibly read in their lifetime. Reading is a luxury, and it's a time-consuming luxury. How on earth should you choose what to read?

Book reviews help of course - the expert opinion of the literati can help sort the wheat from the chaff, but leaves your tastes at the mercy of someone else. I find better still to be the recommendations of friends, the people who know you best. Amongst one of the last books I read was one bought solely on the recommendation of a friend, and they were spot on.

Ultimately, the best judge of whether a book is worth reading is you - after all, you are the one who decides what you like. But how do you know whether you'll enjoy a book, without reading it first?

I stumbled upon an interesting little theory in the Guardian Book Blog. To decide if you will like a book, read page 69. If you like that page, chances are you'll like the rest of the book.

The theory is credited to Marshall McLuhan, and the rationale behind it is that page 69 is representative of the writing style of the author, the subject matter of the book etc. The publisher's blurb will make any book sound exciting, but until you immerse yourself in the substance of the author's world, you will never know if it is a "fit" for you.

Charlotte Stretch, writing for the Guardian, tests this theory on five books, giving her opinions. She does point out some flaws in the theory - different editions will have different page 69s (maybe you'd dislike one, yet like the other?) and can you truly have a feel for characters on page 69 without the previous 68 pages?

I cheated, and tested two books I have recently read - Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and The TIme Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Both books I enjoyed. But on the basis of this test, I would only have bought one of them...

Page 69 of Neverwhere is a dense and descriptive passage, that leaves you as bewildered as the protagonist, Richard. It only really picks up right at the very end, with some tantalising mentions of "Upworld" and "Lord Rat-Speaker" - but not enough to make me like it solely from reading that on page.

Meanwhile, page 69 of The Time Traveler's Wife places us in the middle of a conversation between two characters. It flows more easily, it teases with cryptic hints about the plot, and even throws in some philosophy. It all struck a chord, and on the basis of that page, I would want to know more.

So perhaps the usefulness of the "page 69 test" is only very limited. Rather than sole arbiter of what you should read, perhaps it is an additional tool when browsing for books, to help you choose what to read, and what to leave on the shelf. And perhaps it has other uses too, beyond just books.

For those interested, you can read my 69th blog post here. It is a Fiction Friday piece, and it is from the novel I am working on - so it may very well be representative of me after all!

Tags: Write Anything Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

Review: King of Shaves - Azor

The following is a review post, imported from my old blog. Review writing is a specialised type of writing, so I thought it might find a home on this blog. The review is my own personal opinion of the product, based upon a free sample sent to me. Other than receiving a free sample of the product, I have received no remuneration for making the review

Since 1993 King of Shaves has been enhancing the male shaving experience. Shaving is something of a lost art, a necessary and well conducted habit by gentlemen that degenerated into scraping ever increasing strips of metal across the face then throwing them away, and pretending that this was progress. King of Shaves sought to bring the comfort and care back, with their range of oils, gels and foams that brought a modern edge to the earlier era of potions and lotions from the traditional barbershop.

Back in the day when I used disposable razors, I used King of Shaves products regularly. When I switched to an electric razor, I ceased to use them. Since I began to use a straight razor, I have returned to using shaving foam, but not any KoS products.

Returning to a disposable razor was something of a challenge. The Azor itself (see below) is an odd shape. It is simple and cost effective, effectively one piece, and uses less material in its manufacture. Designed to last longer, but use less plastic, the razor comes with environmental credentials.

                       

Perhaps it was the shape, although more likely the fact that I am now more used to handling a straight razor, but it was hard to get comfortable holding the razor. The grippable pads front and back felt "wrong" to me - I was holding it by the sides and thought they should have been placed there. However, my grip did adjust eventually, making use of the razor a little easier. The shaving head incorporates their new Touch Skin Technology "Living Hinge", a pressure sensitive flexible neck that keeps the blades pressed close to the skin, whilst still allowing the head to tilt back almost a full 90 degrees.

The blades themselves are "Endurium" coated, a new process that keeps the four blades sharper for longer. The theory is that the longer the blades last, the less you need to change them, so the less you need to buy, reducing waste products for landfill, and saving you money. For those who remember my post about switching to a straight razor, that was one of the reasons for switching - reducing the waste that disposable razors generate.

I have to take King of Shaves on trust that the manufacturing process uses less plastic and creates less waste. And for this shaver, the jury is still out on the ergonomics of the design, or the utility of the Living Hinge. I was however impressed with the Endurium coated blades. I used the razor daily for about five weeks before I felt that the shave was poor - with other disposable blades, daily shaving results in the need for replacement blades in 2 or 3 weeks.

So the Azor impresses with the length of time the blades last, but how good is the shave? Again, I'm spoiled in my comparison level here. It really is difficult to get as close a shave as you can with a straight razor, but on the odd occasion, when pressed for time, I have had to resort to other disposables. Whilst the Azor can't compete with a straight razor (nor would it seek to) it is easily comparable in quality to other high-end disposables I've used. Efficient, and close enough for a day. Where the Azor is winning is durability, and price.

I've mentioned that the Azor saves money by requiring less frequent replacement blades. The company also says that the unit is cheaper to make, and that saving is passed on to the consumer. The unit itself will cost you £4.88. A pack of 4 replacement cartridges costs £4.88 and a pack of 8 costs £9.29. Compare that to the Wilkinson Sword Quattro (£4.88 unit, but £5.37 for 4 cartridges and £10.27 for 8) or the Gillette Fusion Power (£7.33 unit, £8.30 for 4 cartridges and £15.15 for 8) and that is quite a saving over the course of a year. [All prices quoted from Boots.com, correct at 13 December 2008]<

Overall, would I switch to the Azor? Yes and no. It is no substitute for my main razor, a Dovo with a 5/8 blade, so no, it would not be my first choice for shaving. But for days when I am travelling, or pushed for time I can see myself switching to the Azor over other brands. It shaves well, has better environmental credentials than the majority of other disposable razors, and has a price tag that won't make you wince. The only thing I can really fault it on was how it felt in my hand, and as I said that may have more to do with being used to the way you hold a straight razor than the design of the Azor itself.

Definitely worth trying it out the next time you are looking for a razor.

For more information on the Azor, visit the Azor site.

Tags: review King of Shaves Azor razor Endurium coating Living Hinge

Happy Human Rights Day

Today, 10 December, is Human Rights Day, and it is a special one. Human Rights Day celebrates the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly.

For some people, the Declaration is an aspirational wishlist of elitist ideals, for others it represents the absolute basic standards that every human being is entitled to, regardless of age, gender or nationality. The UN itself takes the latter view, and since Human Rights Day 2007 has been running a yearlong campaign with the them of Dignity and justice for all.

Unlike other human rights treaties, the Declaration is not in itself legally binding. It is however a powerful and succinct statement of the inherent human dignity that we each owe ourselves, and each other.

There are those who criticise human rights as "a criminal's charter" or internationally as "a terrorist's charter". But it is to those whom we most despise that we most often deny rights, and it is in those situations that we expose ourselves to the question - do we actually believe in the rights that we espouse, or do we actually only wish to extend them to those who are similar, familiar. If they are not available to those we despise as well as those we love, then they are not rights.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises lawful deprivation of certain rights, but not all rights. It also emphasises duties, something that is often forgotten when people criticise the concept of rights - rights and duties are co-dependant.

But it is as a work of writing that I would like you to consider the Declaration - it is not in quite the same technical and legal prose that other treaties are. It is deliberately simple, so that it may be understood, and for that simplicity it is all the more poignant.

I'll leave you with what are my two favourite rights, both in terms of what they express, and how they express it.

Article 1.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 19.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Tags: Human Rights Day Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Burn baby burn From Write Anything - 20 July 08

This is adapted from an article that appeared on the Write Anything website on July 20, 2008. The original text can be found here.

Burn baby burn

In July, fellow Write Anything writer Dale mentioned "covering" your own earlier writing. It sounds like a good idea, and one I would love to try out.

If I had any earlier writing to choose from that is...

I can remember lots of pieces of creative writing I worked on at school, in my spare time, whilst at university. But none of them remain. Unless there is some box somewhere in the attic of my mum and dad's house, or unless some teacher somewhere kept a hold on the, by now, scrappy bits of A4 ruled paper I handed in my work on, then none of my earliest writings exist any more.

This is, without a doubt, a good thing. I reckon the cringe factor on these early works must be pretty high. I remember the first short story I wrote was a rambling, derivative, clumsy affair, that I thought was a work of genius, until I had to read it out in front of the class. Then I realised it was so bad, that at the mid-way point I gave up, and began to re-write it on the fly, making up a new, and doubtless better, ending.

I have a habit of shredding, burning and, in the digital age, deleting a lot of early work. So the earliest writing you'll find from me is April 2007, when I started my writing blog. I was of course writing before then, but the site I was posting the writing on was a bulletin board, with an expiry limit of 90 days. Since I haven't posted any new writing on there since summer last year, all of my posts have since been deleted. And I think of the dozen or so that weren't replicated on my site, I only bothered to save one or two.

Dale mentions

"at some point relatively early in the creative process they become tied to part of their idea. Maybe it's a scene of a story, or a musical bridge they think is especially clever. Either way, through each rewrite that kernel stays with the work. An outsider may be able to look at it and see that it doesn't fit what the piece has evolved into, but the author is so emotionally tied to it that it never even occurs to them that it might need to go."

I don't have that problem. There comes a point when things no longer work. You might like all the individual elements, but taken as a whole, it is a mess, a chaotic maelstrom that fails to be what you want, or need. You can try to fix each element individually, but eventually you realise that the problem is not something that has a quick fix solution. Take one element out, and the new element quickly becomes entangled.

In On Writing, Stephen King mentions that he threw away the first draft of Carrie, thinking it was terrible. Sometimes I wonder if I've thrown away MY Carrie, with all that I've destroyed. But then I think back to what I was getting rid of. Universally, these were pieces that were quagmires of dull plots, unbelievable characters, and overwrought storytelling. Wholly without a single redeemable feature.

It is at this stage that the only thing you can do, is tear it all down, and start over from scratch. And yes it hurts. Yes, you wonder how it came to this, that all these individual bits and pieces you thought were so good, could somehow create something so awful (and believe me, you haven't seen what I was writing when I was 16. I can only apologise to my teachers...)

Raze it to the ground, and rebuild. And carry the lesson of what you did wrong the last time at the forefront of your mind.

Have you ever got rid of something you wrote out of embarrassment, or because it just wouldn't work? Or are you unable to get rid of anything you have created, even if you think it was awful?

Tags: Write Anything Sunday Writer Paul Anderson

Intriguing, yet disturbing...

Wow. Homecoming 2009 is a popular topic. According to the stats, the last two posts are getting e-mailed around all over the place. Ontario, California, Trinidad & Tobago, to name but a few.

The thing is, none of you guys are e-mail subscribers - and you aren't coming here from web searches, you're coming from webmail providers like Yahoo and MSN. So where are you getting the URLs for the posts from???

Leave a comment, yeah?

A little more on Homecoming...

I have noticed that amongst the famous Scots I mentioned at the start of my post, by sheer coincidence many of them are from Paisley, or consider it to be their hometown. Paolo Nutini attended the same high school I did, David Tennant attended our rival, Paisley Grammar, and Gerry Butler, although born in Glasgow, considers Paisley his hometown as that is where his mother was from (and in other interesting trivia, Gerry Butler studied law at Glasgow University, before abandoning it for a far more interesting career - I haven't got as far as the "more interesting career" part...)

Perhaps Paisley does, despite external appearances, in some way nourish and encourage the arts. Singers, actors, writers. In addition to those mentioned above, John Byrne, the artist and playwright, Rafferty and Joe Egan (of Stealer's Wheel fame), actor Tom Conti, writer Stephen Moffat and even hairdresser Trevor Sorbie(!) are all from Paisley. We even produced a poet who, if not internationally recognised, has at least national prominence - Robert Tannahill, a contemporary of Robert Burns.

Paisley as a rule seems proud to have these people once they become famours, but the town still holds a certain hostility towards those attempting to become an artist. I remember how difficult my older brother found it trying to become a professional cartoonist, and it was really only leaving for Glasgow that allowed him success. For me, had I stayed in Paisley, I would have become another one of the high street solicitors, heading down to the Sheriff Court every other day to defend someone accused of breach of the peace and the like, and becoming increasingly frustrated with Land Registry transactions. I would never have believed I could become a writer had I stayed. Maybe you have to leave home in order to find out what you want in life.