Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes! pt 2

I was going to write about bread next. In the end, I realised that there's no point. Who on earth is going to be interested in my opinion of bread, and who on earth is going to change their eating habits on account of my blog?
Ridiculous. The idea, that is.
So, the first sequel to Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes! is rather shortlived. And there will be only one. I'll just change my life quietly, and my presence here will be proof that I've survived. Unless I become a ghostwriter!

While we were chatting this evening, Solvey reminded me that the Man Booker Prize winner was being announced. How could I forget the timing! Oh, what it must be like to stand upon the stage, making the acceptance speech. No point in dreaming about it. Have to keep things real. Actually, yes there is a point in dreaming about it - it's a great way to start the reality. So first, I gotta get published. Erm, first I gotta get an agent.
No: first-first, I gotta write this story...

More surprise

(I've been standing behind the prologue and looking along the line of the story, trying to view the future.)
No wonder I was struggling to come up with a way forward after the second chapter: the second chapter seemed to be in the wrong place. That is, I put it in the wrong place. As good as I believe this chapter to be, the impression given is that the story is jumping from one place to another, or from one person to another. If I place another chapter before it (one I'd already written), the story stays with the hero and moves in a more natural line towards the narrative, and forces me to focus on the narrative. And there is another chapter already written to follow on from that. They just need me to review them. The replaced chapter, coming later, will allow a rivulet or stream to form afterwards, adding a further layer to the story.
Once again, I surprised myself with my initial idea - that the story should begin with the hero and stay with him for a while until a natural break occurred. I was right the first time. I must learn to trust my instincts more. Introducing other people is an art, and not only in 'how', but in 'when'. Timing is vital.
Of course, I can't show this to you, like I can't show you anything else to do with the story. But that is where I am.
I feel more at ease, but I think I've stated this before, only to change things again. I don't think so, this time. This change should prove to have been the right one.

Study

Tonight, I'm looking to the movement from chapter one onwards. How the beginning merges the introduction of the hero and the flow of the story into the next chapter and subsequent chapters. Now that I've established a beginning, it's time to consider everything else and form the river that must flow throughout - the main story narrative.
This means that I will be looking at everything I have, feeling out the way forward; deciding which is a part of the river, and which is a rivulet slipping back and forth from the river, running alongside it, now and again affecting it, or being affected by it.
Lol, you might think my analogy is a bit odd, I don't know, like my colour association, but that's okay - I like how I do things and I like what I'm doing in my latest work. It's my way, that's all. It works for me!
How I get on will probably determine the future of this chronicle. I've enjoyed it - most of the time - but I need to concentrate and don't think I've done that properly. I need to think about that. But that's the far future. The immediate future is tonight, and progress!
Keep you posted!

Inspiration

Sunday night saw me searching for inspiration. I was worried that I was losing my way with my latest work, and even that I was blowing it a bit. Not sure where the feeling of panic was coming from, but it was there.
I looked at the scans of my handwritten stuff - I scan everything, which allows me to have two copies in case I lose the originals.
Suddenly, just by looking at the names of the people in the story, and some of the things they say or do, I found the fear disappearing. I was being inspired by my own work! Amazing!
I saw, too, that the second chapter after the prologue probably could come later. As I already had further chapters typed up, I found I had another version of the beginning to hand, so really I needed to consider which was the more likely version of the beginning. I have to remember that I will not be able to judge the strength of the beginning until I have gone further into the future with it. I love the chapters I've done so far, so no criticism of myself is necessary. It's an evolution, and I have to understand that. Beginnings, middles and ends will appear and then shift around, whatever the level of planning.
Planning is funny - in life, whatever you plan, things change and you have to be ready for this change. Writing must reflect life, no matter what kind of fantasy you place within it, otherwise your readers won't be able to associate with it. So I can't advocate planning as the way to write, if it doesn't also reflect change, or unexpected change. It must also reflect fluidity. If you can see the joins, that you are writing by numbers, then it will show. That's my main concern: I'm not a natural planner, so I'm mixing and matching. It's all part of the evolution of the story. The people in it are all different, and they each have their own ticker going. Like they should be. Just reading them again kickstarted my head into action. That's gotta be a good thing.

Attack of the killer tomatoes

Or rather: what on earth are we eating?
I decided I needed to change my diet to something healthier than it has been of late. And that a healthier outlook might help my writing, and concentration etc. All this thinking is wearing me out! More roughage, less sugar in my tea, more water, less pastries, more fruit and veg, less sandwiches. It sounded good, anyway.
First off, I'd read the latest milk debate, and felt that maybe milk was not the healthy drink it was said to be. So I tried goat's milk - it's creamy, nourishing, much more digestible than cow's milk and so on. So the container said. Except, there is an aftertaste that suggests unhealthiness. Even tea didn't taste so good with it. Goat's milk was out.
I looked at, and tried, oat milk, soya milk and rice milk. None of them actually replace cow's milk fully - you can't heat them up too much, would you believe, and you have to let tea cool first before putting them in. Cool to what? And I've never seen such a contrived list of ingredients. Who actually gives the okay for these to go on sale? They are now out.
But I like coffee, too. With cream. Hmmm...
Perhaps the answer is to stick to organic milk and cream. Should have less gunk in it to what is apparently healthy enough in non-organic milk. Beginning to wonder what the food industry has been doing to us. And that's just looking at milk!!
Next up is bread. Keep you posted...

Just write!

I've often wondered about the great authors of the past. About whether they knew they were writing something that would be viewed as great. Did they believe it would be great, or did they hope? I know that Tolkien never expected to be published. I also know that he was 62 when the first part of The Lord Of The Rings was published in 1954. What on earth happened (or not) that it took that long? Well, he was married with a family, he was a professor of English, delivering classes and lectures, he wrote other stuff including The Hobbit, so it can be seen that he lived a very full life. Although he couldn't have foreseen the effect his work would cause from the 60s onward, I would hazard a guess that his preparation in life was leading to it. Tolkien was working on a great piece of writing - consciously working on what he subconsciously believed was a great work. It is the only explanation I can give for his writing of the epic and beautiful story he wrote for us. He couldn't know, but his subconscious did, his instincts did.
How about his contemporary and friend C. S. Lewis - did he know how great his own work would be viewed? When we speak of The Chronicles Of Narnia, did he believe that people would speak of it as they do? And how about J. M. Barrie? Or Lewis Carroll?
Dickens? Now here is a writer who wrote a lot of things, brilliant things.
And in the modern world, how about Iain Banks, or Dean Koontz?
Is it belief, confidence, or hope? Modesty would say hope, or even belief. Definitely not confidence - no-one can be confident that they are writing a great work. The thing is that you go ahead and try. Something is telling you that you must try.
Self-doubt, of course, can and will creep in. There may be less of it if you are already published, or have been given a guarantee of publication, but it will creep in with its own depth at some point. That is a human reaction - a subconscious kick in the pants not to let your standards drop. If you have ability, I don't believe it is a self-doubt about your own ability. It is an instinctive, subconscious reminder not to let your standards drop. Failure is only a complacent pen-stroke away.
I think you have to believe you are a writer. I think you have to do the preparation which will help ensure that you are shown as a writer. I think you have to follow your own muse and write what you believe you should write - hopefully, that should ensure the individuality of your work, and help you to stand out from the crowd. I think you should listen to your contemporaries - it's a rare contemporary who would wish you ill-luck, or deliberately give bad advice, and you will know these people, or your instincts will, for sure. You need support - all of the greats have had their critics: Tolkien, Dickens, Keats to name a few, have all taken shots to the heart. Why shouldn't you? And you only have to witness the criticism levelled at JK Rowling to know what's coming whether you make it or not.
In short, I believe that you should do what you feel you should do. As best you can. Believe in yourself. The rest, for good or bad, is out of your hands. Why worry about that?

One idea reveals another

Having discussed my new ideas (with myself), and not having written further than the prologue and first two chapters, I then found another idea lurking inside my head. It's a good one, and also an old one i.e. it's been used before and is probably necessary, in that it provides an authentic link between what I'm doing and what has been reported in alien sighting history as fact. I'm writing science-fantasy, but there is factual content contained in what I'm attempting to do.
It's been fun, and also frighteningly difficult, tying up all of the different loose ends. Each of those first three chapters contains links to the other two, and establishes a beginning and a firm base upon which the rest of the story can grow. It's taken such a long time to get to this point, and I almost ruined it after reading something else. Now that I'm back on the right road again, I'm detemined that nothing will go so wrong again. Noel the Ultimate Proofreader has suggested that maybe now is the time when I should be approaching agents. Agents do, after all, prefer to be involved in their clients' projects, and this would be a help, not a hindrance.
Noel is usually right - I actually can't remember him being wrong! I'm not averse to this, but I'm really not sure which way to go: the writing is in its early stages, although the planning and thinking is not. I do feel that maybe I need to wait until I'm a bit further down the road, where I can prove that the story is one worth taking on, and that I can actually write it.
Noel has also asked me if I believe it should be written alone. It's a big project, and I'm expecting to write at least another book after this one. You might think that that was a strange question to ask of me, but as I've said before, Noel is no ordinary proofreader and he doesn't spare a thing. He asks what has to be asked. I've given other writers a hard time when critiquing their work, so why should I be treated any different.
I said to Noel that you could ask a million writers to write it, and maybe only five would write it properly. And each of those five would write it in exactly the same way, so it would be difficult to find someone who could help. Difficult, though not impossible. You have to remain openminded in everything, or you will eventually get it wrong.
All sounds a bit precious, doesn't it? Ha - 'My preciousssss!' I'm wearing this new story around my neck like a ring on a chain - only I'm not about to take it to the Crack Of Doom to destroy it. And if an agent likes it, and offers to take it on, would I howl and say 'He wantssss it, my preciousssss!'
Jeez, I'm cracking up...

In The Shadow Of Peter Pan

Way back, when I was struggling to come up with a style that worked for me in writing Sword Of Isgarion, I was advised to write some short stories a) to improve my vision of story-writing i.e. beginning, middle and end; and b) to possibly help create a fan base if any of them were published.
The Christmas story on the Bedtime-Story website was the very first of my short stories. When I look at it now, I can see what I could have done differently every time. But it was a great help in getting me started.
My main impetus for coming up with an idea was to scan newspaper, magazine or teletext headlines and see what I could come up with as an alternative story. My own take on Bowie's cutting-up of newspaper text and rearranging them into a different order for use in songs.
Of all of these stories, the one that intrigued me most was the one I didn't write: In the Shadow Of Peter Pan. A piece of fan-fiction with a different and sinister slant. I decided I wasn't ready to write it, was never sure that I'd be able to sell it (it being fan-fiction), and I was at a point where I needed to begin writing Sword again. So I never got round to it. I still have no idea when I would ever get round to writing it, but every now and then I will find myself thinking about it.
I do feel that we are all in the shadow of Peter Pan. That we all would live forever or never grow old, given the chance. And that this is part of the subconscious mystery of art: why we do it. It is a form of expression, for sure. But I believe it is the driving force in the recording of history, in recording the development of human existence. It's just a belief, and not a theory that can be substantiated by me. I don't think that art has been viewed entirely in that way - as the driving force. Probably, I feel, because it is seen as a subconscious process. Like my theory on instinct, I believe it is much more conscious than that. It is there for us to use, or control. We know, understand, that the recording of history has been changed, modified, to suit the purposes of whoever changed it - or we know that it hasn't been recorded at all, or fear that it might not. Art is smart! In my story, so was Peter Pan's shadow. We are all in the shadow of Peter Pan.

New ideas

Ran into a couple of old friends today, one of whom nearly died last year after suffering a brain seizure of some kind. He looks fine now. There's a bunch going out on Friday night and they wondered if I was coming. I couldn't say no ;-) I'm under doc's orders not to drink for a month or so, so I shall exist on orange juice or water on Friday. Should be fun, though I will feel out of it without being out of it.
This is good, writing-wise, as I'll be taking a proper night off: I've had a couple of new ideas for my latest work and I need time to consider their effect. It looks like a further bout of planning will be necessary. I'm not too concerned - if the next three chapters turn out as good as the first three then I will be extremely happy. I've got a feeling I may be writing everything in waves, as opposed to writing clean through. We'll see.

Perhaps I should explain...

A friend who works down London way came up to Shields for a flying visit.
"Here, Pete - have a read of this and tell me what you think." And he gave me a book, entitled 'The Damned Utd'. The story of Brian Clough's 49 days in charge of Leeds United, written from the point of view of Cloughie himself. I couldn't resist.
The book was a great read. I can recommend it to anyone - and it's a must-read for anyone with an interest in football.
The problem was that I picked up some of the writer's style and transferred it to my own. The effect was poor when mixed with my own, and that was what caused me to become angry with myself after reading the second chapter of my latest work.
I can read newspapers, magazines, teletext, trawl the internet and even critique stuff without being affected in a literary sense. Anything in book-form and I'm immediately affected by it.
One for the men in white coats! I won't do that again.

Belief, not hope

About a week ago, I looked at the beginning of my latest work. As much as I was pleased with what I'd done thus far, I knew that there would be some things I wouldn't be too pleased to find. I wasn't wrong. After moving things around, deleting, adding back, putting in something new, then re-reading it all, a slight feeling of depression came over me. I couldn't put my finger on it - well, I could really: I was more angry with myself than feeling depressed. I was horrified at some of the mistakes I'd made. Great ideas almost ruined by some shoddy thinking.
I immediately rang Noel the Ultimate Proofreader and asked him not to read what I'd given him as I had made some changes and was planning more changes. I think Noel had second-guessed me (I've done this before) and he was pretty casual about it: he hadn't read anything and was busy, so wouldn't for a while. Thank heaven he hadn't read it.
A couple of days later, I looked again at what I'd done. Still some rather moderate writing in places. So I changed things some more.
Last night, I was rewriting again. At about 1.40 a.m., I was copying the revised prologue and first two chapters onto disk. At last, I felt I was getting to the heart of what ailed things.
The result today is that I was dying to read what I'd done, and I felt in a much more buoyant mood. I've kept away from it, though. Friday night will be my next look. But I already know that I won't be disappointed. All of the ideas I'd had during the prolonged and intense planning were all there. Initially, they had been moderately executed in places, but they were at least there. But the last few days had seen them come to life. There was a soul there. I could see it, feel it.
Reflecting on all of this, I wondered if I was again doing what I always seemed to enjoy doing: being hard on myself. Noel has mentioned this to me quite a few times. After all, leaving my work alone for a while was actually part of the writing, a part of the plan. Fault-finding is a part of the plan.
For the first time, I don't feel in any way scared of my new story. I'm looking forward to it because I'm feeling so much happier about it. I really do believe that I will stand and not fall with my latest work. It's not just a hope that I feel.
I hope!

Pavarotti

As soon as I heard about the death of Pavarotti, I hightailed it off to Youtube to watch one of my favourite music videos: Pavarotti singing with James Brown. As ever, I found myself smiling all of the way through. Can you believe it? Two of the most recognisable and iconic songsters ever to have graced the musical stage, singing together on the same stage. Bowie's thoughts on texture being the most important ingredient in music are heard coming to pass in a rather unlikely, but emphatic, way. It doesn't get much better than this. The video has now been added to my blog playlist.
I'll shut up now and let you listen...