Of abseiling and avoidance
Oh my fine fat furry friends, this time last week, I was stuck. The door to my Shed of Ideas was jammed and I couldn’t lay my hands on a crowbar, or even a flat-bladed screwdriver and a dab of oil.
And this week? The door has been flying open in the wind. There are ideas – dusty but beautiful – lying all over the floor, spilling off the shelves, getting tangled up in twine and squashing the seedlings.
There is enough stuff here that I already know what I want to tell you next week and maybe even the week after that.
But, for now, one little bit of housekeeping:
Because Covid is a pest and because lockdowns are boring
AND
Because we got lovely feedback on my live self-editing webinar a few weeks back (one that was open to JW members only)
AND
Because we love each and every one of you, not just the wise souls who pay us money,
AND
Because self-editing is the only sure and certain pathway to a book as beautiful as you want it to be,
WE THEREFORE DECIDED
To offer a live self-editing webinar to everyone.
*** For free ***
You just have to pitch up.
It is on 19 November at 19.00 GMT
What we’re going to do is take chunks of YOUR work (see the PSes for more about that) and edit it live on screen. I’ll show you exactly how I would change the text, if it were my own piece of work, and I’ll talk you through my thought process as I do it.
You lot, meanwhile, can use the live chat to pour scorn on everything I do, offer suggestions of your own and generally participate.
The webinar page is here. Remember that although the event is free, you do have to register, because otherwise the system doesn’t know who to admit. Registration is sweet and simple. You’ll get emails telling you exactly what to do. All you need is a computer and an internet connection. More details in the PSes if you need it.
Right-ho.
The Shed of Ideas.
Last week, I told you that you don’t have to be good at everything. That’s true if you only think about marketing. That’s true if you think about writing. It’s most certainly true if you consider yourself as an author in the round.
That was – to judge from the responses I got – a useful, bracing, encouraging message. It permits you to be a bit shit at certain things and still to feel OK about yourself. It matters more that you have genuine dazzle in one or two respects, than that you can handle every aspect of an author’s craft with real competence.
OK. Good. But even knowing this, it’s still easy for us to get stuck.
In my Life Before Kids, I used to do a bit of mountaineering, and I remember one time in the Alps where my buddy and I were descending a mountain. The ascent had been a bit more scary and painful than we’d expected and we were tired and very much wanting to get down to somewhere warm and with hot food.
We were following a ridge that we thought would take us all the way down to the valley, only then – our nice little ridge turned into a 250-foot cliff. There was no way we were going to down-climb that, so we had to abseil off, belaying halfway on a crappy little ledge that wasn’t built to Switzerland’s normal excellent standards.
I’m not scared of abseiling in general, but I do remember being afraid this time. I was cold and tired. I knew that cold, tired descents is where most climbing accidents occur. There was just something about that long, wet drop which I still don’t like to think about. I remember tying a knot at the bottom of the rope to make sure that I couldn’t just abseil accidentally off the end. That’s not something I normally do, but I was scared of my own dulled reflexes.
Anyway. It all turned out fine. The crappy little ledge halfway down already had a bit of climbing tat fixed to the rock, so we hadn’t been the only climbers to have chosen the wrong way down. We got down to the valley. Got warm. Got fed.
But – that fear.
That’s something we all know, isn’t it?
We’re 60,000 words into a manuscript. We know the start of the story, because it’s written. We sort of know the ending (because the thought of it has been keeping us going for that long middle-of-book slog.) Only then, we hit an unexpected plot obstacle. A wet 250-foot cliff that faces north and whose granite has a tendency to come away in your hands.
The fear halts us.
And, OK, your plot obstacle may come earlier in your book, or later. And the metaphor you might choose to describe it might be different from this one. But this I bet is true:
You avoid contact with the obstacle because you’re afraid of it.
Instead of tackling the problem directly, you engage in any kind of displacement activity. You re-edit the stuff you’ve already written. You follow idiots on Twitter. You walk the dog. You hoover the floor. You (ahem) waste your time reading this email.
But you need to tackle the problem directly. You need to take that rope off your back and throw it down that dirty, wet cliff and do what needs to be done.
In plainer language, you just need to write. Don’t know what the next chapter is going to be? You don’t have to know. Write the next sentence. Any sentence. Just get it down. Then write the next sentence.
The trick is to force your character into motion. Force yourself into motion. Yes, it’s possible that a chapter you write in this way is rubbish, but even the act of writing a rubbish chapter will show you the way need to go.
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
That’s a Picasso quote that one of you sent me a few weeks back.
And damn the man – he’s right. With plotting problems more than anything else, m’lady Muse will only solve your problems if you put a shift in.
Here’s another thing: it may not be fun.
Abseiling down that cliff was not fun. It did a job and delivered an outcome. (The blessed, blessed valley floor!)
We mostly think of inspiration as joyous, but that thought can be a blocking one in its own right. Sometimes, the right thing just isn’t going to be entertaining as well.
So, if you are facing a problem that you don’t know how to fix, just say to yourself:
- This isn’t going to be fun
- I don’t have an answer
- The chapter I write now may be rubbish and have to be deleted
- But in doing these awkward and unpleasant things, I get myself closer to the valley floor and the full joy and happiness of writing my lovely denouement.
- What’s more, the gifts of invention and understanding will only return to me if I get stuck in. If I move my character and story along.
- The best solutions are always specific, which means they mostly come when you are working at very specific issues. (Not, “where should the book go next?” but “What paragraph follows this one?”)
And heck. My self-editing style means I edit as I go. I hate leaving crappy chapters in my book and want to scrape them free of barnacles before I proceed. But that’s me.
If you want, just write your bad chapter – your wet, dark, dirty abseil chapter – and move on. Leave it. Finish the book.
When you come back to that place as you edit, you come to it from a place where you know everything else about your story. Exactly what happens and when and how and why. And if the chapter still feels wrong, it’ll be a hundred times easier to fix, because you know so much more and because that sense of fear will have left you. Worst case scenario? You have a couple of dodgy chapters in an otherwise good book.
And so what? We’ve all written a dodgy chapter or two.
We’re not perfect and don’t have to be.
Barbara Kerr
Zero-Zero
Literary Fiction
When Samuel unlocked the door to their small apartment, Lily was not there to greet him with the baby in her arms. There were no smells of dinner, which Lily had never failed to have ready at the end of his long day at the hotel.
Samuel paused, his heart beating fast in his chest. He thought he had more time. Time to keep his family safe. Moving slowly, he took a few steps to the kitchen and opened a narrow drawer. He lifted out the knife they used to cut up a chicken for stewing. Through the pounding of blood in his ears, he heard the baby’s muffled cries coming from the bedroom.
“Lily! What has happened? Where are you?”
“I’m here, in the closet,” Lily said, letting out a loud sob.
He pulled the door open. His wife was half-hidden beneath the clothes in the dim light of the closet. The baby, his very white, blue-eyed son, stopped crying as he looked up at Samuel. “Da,” he cried, lifting his arms to be taken up by his father.
Samuel put the knife on the floor and took the baby into his arms. He helped Lily stand up. “You are ill? Sam is ill?”
“They are coming, Samuel. They are coming for our baby.” Sobs choked her voice. “We must leave.” Her eyes were wide and pleading. Tears ran down her face as she whimpered.
“Please be calm, my love. Tell me what has happened.” He wrapped one arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him and Sam. “Don’t worry now. Everything will be okay. I promise.” He kissed her on the cheek.
Lily calmed down enough to speak, her voice breaking. “Angelika has come in secret to tell me. She was here only two minutes. Her husband has betrayed us.”
Stephen Phillips
The Cloud
Genre: Fantasy Science Fiction
Two spears propelled by scaly hands. I’ve got the height advantage, but eighteen inches of dagger are no match for six feet of polearm. The bow is no good. I drop it and draw my second dagger. The spear thrusts are awkward thanks to the uneven terrain. I hop down between them. One slips beneath my arm. A quick jerk pulls it from the fishface’s hands. The move yanks the creature forward. My dagger punches through its chest. Blood spurts over my hand. The stink of its innards invades my nose, fish left out in the sun for a week. The dying monster flails back, pulling my dagger with it. While the second fishface recovers from its thrust, I kick it in the knee. There is a satisfying crunch. It gargles in pain until I slash it mortally deep.
I turn to face the third. A quick flash of black metal.
Sudden pain. Sky. Rubble. Sky. Rubble. Thud. No breath. Everything gray. Blurry.
Something important. Squeeze tight. Hold on no matter what.
The gray narrows as black threatens. No! It mustn’t.
I shake my head. Vicious pain invites an involuntary yelp. The black retreats. The gray vanishes. The world focuses.
I roll over on my back, sure the fishface is there, ready to skewer me. Instead, a moon of blue with a black crater. Blink. The moon becomes the crab, maw wide, mandibles ready as it rushes down. A wave of noxious fumes heralds a death by slow digestion. The thought of it is so horrifying, I stab my hand up. Somehow, I’ve managed to keep my dagger. The blade sinks deep into the shell of the beast, puncturing one mandible and biting into the corner of the maw.
Liam Gordon
Elementa: The Deception of Mankind
YA, Science Fiction/ Fantasy
‘Wow they really pulled out all the stops for this one.’ Isaac said.
‘Well it is the World Olympics and it’s also a once in a lifetime it comes to your country.’ Eva replied, emphasizing the fact that it is the most watched event on the planet as she looked at Isaac.
‘Woah! Look.’ Isaac said in complete shock and disbelief, pointing at the TV.
‘What in the world?!’ Eva shouted, gripping the chair as she leaned forward.
‘Malcolm is there.’
‘That’s right. Malcolm went there.’ Isaac said to himself as his heart stopped and then started beating heavier and heavier becoming louder and increasingly aggressive.
‘Is this a joke? It cannot be. All that screaming, all that despair. This is real.’ Eva said as she jumped up from her seat in panic. Isaac and Eva watched on screen as portions of the stadium were instantly destroyed by heavy explosion, scores of bodies half blown off. Blood and flesh everywhere. The crowds running wildly, stampeding, trying to escape the madness. Plumes of dust and rubble overflowing. Screams of agony ringing out. People hanging off collapsed crowd stands, and people being crushed to death beneath them. In that moment, the coverage of the Olympic Games was disabled, the events of the scene just witnessed by millions was removed from live TV.
‘What? I need to know what happened, I will try the news channels’ Eva said as she frantically grabbed the remote from the coffee table in front of her and changed the channel to the news.
‘Still nothing? What are we supposed to do?’ Eva went on to say. Isaac himself began to panic as he watched his mum lose her wits.
‘Finally, the news is showing something, look.’ Eva said turning up the volume, clutching the remote firmly.
Name: Rick Yagodich
Title: My Life in Crime
Genre: Psychological thriller
—
How was I supposed to react when my half-brother showed up at my SoHo penthouse – not a month after father’s passing – to propose that the Family invest in my business? I know what the Family expects from its investments; I know the consequences of turning down such an offer. I grew up amongst them.
To be honest, I half expected him to put in such an appearance within two days of the funeral; the other half of my brain expected him to wait another month. We can’t all be right all the time, I suppose. This is not to say I was unprepared for him, or for the proposal he made. I have spent much of my life being ready for him, preparing for this day. I may have been Father’s favourite – the fruit of his overly-eager teenage loins – but Danny was always destined to be his heir, first-born son of a political marriage.
The bodyguards – Joe, one of Father’s old hands, and Ace, a fresh-faced punk still euphoric from his rise to prominence – remain in the entrance hall; the closest I can offer to outside the front door, short of leaving them twenty floors below in the lobby. Danny would never have allowed that. And I could not afford to have the elevator stuck up here.
I smile. Tilt my head to the left.
Danny is used to my slow, appraising regard as I consider how best to respond to his requests. His opinion of me has been moulded over many years. Not that I need time to think what I will say. My left hand is under the countertop, unlocking the phone cradled there for just such an occasion. Typing blind, on an inverted device, with my off hand. A single word: Now.
Title: Call My Ass Delightful: A Memoir in Fact and Fantasies
Golden Triangle, Thailand, Fantasy Time
In fantasy life: I shiver at dawn. I slurp instant coffee from a bamboo cup as the cloud-mist unveils the banana, banyan, and bamboo jungle of Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle. Outside the elephant coral, I wait for Yom, my gentle giant. The “arrow” brand on her rump tags her as once a logger—a pusher and hauler of teak. Now, she’s the sixty-two-year-old matriarch of this family of “eles” rescued from the streets of Bangkok and Chiang Mai. They help train wannabe mahouts (elephant trainers/caretakers/handlers) like me.
Yom emerges from the mist following Amp, our instructor, a petite Thai woman in official blue mahout garb. A sterling-haired man strolls beside Amp, his pale yellow and blue plaid shirt, open over a bleach-white T-shirt, marks him as a fellow wannabe.
Yom lumbers toward me with her trunk held high and curved like a periscope. She waves it over me conducting her morning inspection. With one whiff, she knows who I am, where I’ve been, my mood, my bathing habits, my breeding status, and where I’ve hidden the oranges. She flaps her ears when I pass muster her golden-green eyes twinkling under the triple-layer of luxury lashes.
A crowd of chattering, giggling Thai kids forms for the mounting spectacle.
“Song soong,” I suggest to Yom. Nothing.
“Song soong,” I venture again, louder. Seconds tick by.
“Song soong,” Amp sings. Yom raises her front foot rearward to make a step. In the ideal world, I would grab her ear, bounce up on her leg, and hoist myself onto her neck.
I jump, catch her ear, and wrestle a foot onto hers. At not-quite-five-feet, my body hangs extended the max.
Name: C.L.F
Title: The Trainee
Genre: ScyFy Fantasy
I stand in front of a living room picture window and stare out at my creation. They’ll be so surprised. I did this myself. I’m utterly mesmerized by my blizzard. Truly. With its’ screaming winds, and razor sharp ninja stars disguised as mere snowflakes. An ice whipped blender of frenzy. It dashes itself about, as it dares for an altercation. It’s poised to take on anyone. I’m certain. None of them will venture out to face that! Yes, I’m quite proud of myself. Now, I wait. I’m a bit nervous. I sense them coming and shore up my breath to face them. As I turn I hear,
“What’s all this?” Charles says. The caretaker is older, gruffer, and creaky around the joints I imagine.
“Just viewing the snow.” I say. I push my gingery hair away from my eyes and detangle it from my earrings that hang like spiked crosses near my cheeks. I bear them one by one as I fiddle.
“Whose handy work is this!” She says. That’s the sister of my inductor, and he hasn’t visited me since the book store, I’ll tell you about that later, as she arrives just now and needs my full attention. And Marie is her name.
I smile.
“You?” She asks. And then she moves in for a closer look. She sees it in full glory and is impressed.
“There are icicle daggers damaging the house!” In bursts Aylin soft spoken, Peruvian and full of wonderment. Today, her voice is pitchier than usual. That’s the second sister, one more to go.
“Oh. Little one. This isn’t the answer.” Luca shakes her head at the icy blanket swirling before her.
Name: Alison Woodford
Title: Web Fairy
Genre: No idea!
In between sips of water Angel answered all Mike’s questions in the pub truthfully and as simply as she could, even the misguided, fruitless ones. She amused Carl by giving Mike the impression that she was some sort of hacker. Were The Web Fairies a network of mysterious internet fraudsters? Carl was going out with one! How cool was that? Mike was never going to understand the truth.
Safe and smug behind Mike’s lack of imagination, Carl basked in Angel’s reflected glory. Soon it was time for a second beer and he got up from the table they were seated at to go buy it.
“What on earth are you doing with him?” Mike joked, semi seriously, as soon as Carl was far enough away. “I’m what he wants.” she answered correctly. Mike humorously observed she was what every bloke wanted and was shocked when she said “Yes I know.” It sounded like pure arrogance to him but she smiled sweetly and made him wonder if perhaps it might have been humour in return.
“What do you think of these?” she said, lifting her foot so he could see her strappy, black, 3 inch heeled shoe, adding “They’re an arse to walk in.” Mike said “They’re alright.”
Back in the flat Angel had some similar with 5 inch heels. She told him she couldn’t walk at all in those. “They’re just for fun.” she said, smirking. He watched her wiggle her toes and when he looked back up at her face to see what she was talking about she said “You should try some.”
Mike laughed and said he didn’t think anyone made size eleven, five inch heels. “Yeah they do.” Angel said carelessly. She knew loads of places where you could get all sorts of stuff like that. There were a couple of really good on line shops based in California and one in Japan which sold what looked like women’s clothes but bigger and cut to fit men. “So you can enjoy femininity in comfort” she said, as if the need for that was completely normal. Nervously Mike made a joke out of wondering what his wife might think of that. “I’m sure she’d think it was better than you stretching the shit out of her kit.” Angel observed with blatant, uncompromising honesty.
“What are you saying?” Mike asked angrily, obviously feeling uncomfortable. “Are you calling me a tranny?” he barked. Angel was surprised by the sudden hostility because that’s exactly what she was calling him, sincerely.
“Has he said anything? What’s he told you?” he hissed at her, then he noticed Carl pay for the second beers and pick them off the bar. “If you breathe one fuckin’ word of this to anyone I’ll kill you.” he snorted. “I don’t know who you are but I’ll find you.” His finger poked the air in front of Angel’s face, threatening her. Obviously frightened and angry, he said “Not one fucking word!” under his breath just before Carl returned.
Where the first pint had been enjoyed in an atmosphere of happy, interested discovery, the second seemed an impediment to escape. Mike threw his down his neck in grim silence then said “Look mate, I’ve got to be off. Catch y’ later.” and almost ran out without looking back, not even at Angel who just looked sad. “What happened there?” Carl asked her. She pretended not to know.
Angel could lie, she could do deceit if she had to. Mike had said he’d kill her if she said anything and Carl didn’t want her to die. So she kept quiet. His interest in the mysterious freezing of their cosy lunchtime chat lasted only for the duration of the ride home, which after a couple of pints in an Audi R8 wasn’t very long. Then it was time to secure Angel into a collection of bolt together bars and tubes which fixed her so rigidly she was unable to resist whatever penetration he thought of.
Blistering sex and alcohol got the better of him and he nodded off for the rest of the afternoon, forgetting about Mike completely. He remembered to unbolt Angel later, when he woke up hungry, then she could cook his dinner.
Name: Clive Keyte
Title: Silent Running
Genre: Crime, Speculative Fiction
Nathan Palmer looked towards the horizon as the ground swept past below him. His left hand pushed the throttle forward. He grinned as the aircraft accelerated. A quick look left, up, right and then back to the horizon. The sky was crystal clear but Nathan wasn’t interested in the view.
‘Seven hundred and fifty miles per hour and increasing.’
Nathan looked at the array of instruments in front of him and homed in on the navigation panel. He needed to change course. Pushing the stick to the left the plane banked and turned to follow the Severn Estuary out to the Irish Sea. He flipped his helmet visor down and blinked a couple of times to bring the visor display into focus. Turning to his right he saw a commercial jet icon. Must be on the way to Heathrow he thought, probably from the USA. Turning his head back to the front the screen cleared.
‘Just make sure you stay below seven hundred and sixty until you are over the sea if you want to keep testing that plane.’
It was a tongue-in-cheek warning from the chief engineer and mechanic Walter Brodie who Nathan knew was sitting in a control room surrounded by a mesmerising set of displays. Every aspect of the test was being recorded and would be analysed in great detail over the next few days. Nathan and Walter both know if the aircraft hit seven hundred and sixty-seven miles per hour a sonic boom will be heard from Bristol to Oxford. If that happened, they would be closed down before the plane landed.
‘Walter this is amazing!’ exclaimed Nathan over the intercom ‘It doesn’t seem right going at this speed without an engine.’
What is it then, this mysterious airborne contraption? He’s pushed the throttle forward but there’s no engine?
I’d like to know please.
Hi Alison, aha, you will have to wait for the next instalment 😊
Name: David Williams
Title: Partition
Genre: Literary or General Fiction
Perhaps my father was embarrassed by me showing my fear, my feelings. And perhaps his cutting remark when I was trying, unsuccessfully, to do something practical, which he also couldn’t have done, couldn’t have helped me with, was a product of his embarrassment at his own lack of ability. To my reckoning he was a bit of a bastard. I didn’t think that then, when I was very little, but that’s what I came to believe as I grew older. He had issues did my father, not that I thought of it like that when I began to think that he was a bit of a bastard. It was not until I was really quite old that I began to understand what these issues were and why he was screwed up. Despite this I have never forgiven him. Not really. Even when I started to understand why he might have been like he was. That came very slowly, a piece of the jigsaw here; another piece there. But my dislike of him had been burning away inside me for too long. I couldn’t stop not forgiving him, not liking him, even as the understanding grew and grew. Knowing that adds to my knowledge that I am not a very nice person, that I lack empathy. I feel guilty that I am like that. Perhaps that is my one redeeming feature, my guilt. I do recognise right and wrong even if I am incapable of using this to change my attitudes, the way I behave. But I still believe he thought that because he had a history he could take things out on us. And to my mind that made him a bastard. A bit like me really.
The Depths of Deception – a thriller – by Jackie K
“Thank you.” Was that the sort of information you thanked someone for? Stuart Finlay hung up, gently pressing the button to disconnect, and placing the phone back into his jeans with a forced calmness. Fuck. He didn’t feel very fucking calm.
Rebecca Adams would have been fifteen years old next month. She’d been killed the day before Fin had been hired and found yesterday by a passing motorist with a full bladder. There was nothing Fin could have done to save her, but that didn’t make him feel any better about it. She’d come from a nice family, a nice home. He’d never met her but, by all accounts, she’d been a nice girl. He’d known this one wouldn’t end well. A girl like that, with a family like that, didn’t just run away.
Fin had told the parents to trust the police. Their resources outmatched him in every way possible. The parents hired him anyway. He got a lot of missing persons cases that way. The grief tore at them. They needed to know they’re doing everything possible.
Rebecca had been kept alive for two weeks before they dumped her body, fly-tipping style. After a barely audible call from the father, Fin called the officer in charge.
She’d been raped. Fin had asked. He didn’t need to know, but the thought was in his head before he could stop it. Once it was there, he’d hoped the officer would just deny his suspicions, but the short pause given before the affirmation confirmed Fin’s fears without the officer even needing to say the word. ‘Repeatedly’ was the word he’d used.
Fourteen fucking years old. That was just sick.