Geordie Tolkien

Glancing at the front page of the local Evening Chronicle, I noticed an article entitled Tolkien of the Toon. Toon is the Geordie nickname for Newcastle e.g. Am gaan up the Toon: I'm going to Newcastle.
Well, would you believe it - Tolkien had an Aunt Grace, who lived, and was buried, in Jesmond. The grave she shares with her husband William Mountain was discovered during a makeover of the cemetery.

Wow!
I mean, WOW!

Suddenly, all kinds of references inside The Lord Of The Rings have taken deeper meaning. Longshanks, The Black Gate, the mines of Moria.

Now we have the Northern-rooted legend of King Arthur and Avalon (Lindisfarne) and the Northern-influenced fantasy of The Lord Of The Rings. The two greatest legends of the western world and they can be traced back to the North East. Arthur in Glastonbury? Pah! No chance.

I'd love to rewrite the Arthurian Legend, and also the Norwegian Sagas, perhaps. Probably not happen, but the idea is there in my head. Always has been.

Jeez! Tolkien had roots up North!
All together now: 'And did those feet, in ancient times...'

Did I say five chapters?

Make that seven.
All with varying degrees of unfinishedness (!), but they read how I intended them to. That is, I'm not disappearing off into different tangents. Whatever I saw, has come out in the writing. And I'm at the point where the story has begun to swing into itself.
Got to address the 'unfinished' aspect before I move on to the eighth chapter, but I do like what I am seeing.
Yeehah!
lol

First impressions

Hear ye! Hear ye!
It seems I have a beginning.
Many, many thanks to Solvey, Rich, Noel the Ultimate Proofreader, and latterly to Becca. I needed to be pushed in order to push myself. I'm lucky to have readers with such high standards.
I was getting worried: things seemed to be a bit of a mess and I wasn't sure what was troubling me. But, having looked again, and made one or two adjustments, I realised I had five chapters that ran very well together from the start.
It was doing my head in, I can tell you. My self-belief was fading. Perhaps writing up the flashbacks was eroding my sense of direction. There was a mist, of sorts, hiding the future. But it's gone, now. I'm addressing the story, which I hadn't been doing.
In the background are more chapters still to be finished, flashbacks which belong within chapters and lots of notes from my research. I haven't used a flashback within these five chapters. They aren't meant to be there. They are ready and waiting for the moments in which they will be used.
There is still that prologue, which may be resurrected and rewritten, but that's for another day.
For the first time, though, I do feel quite buoyant about the writing of this story. Hopefully, I will do it justice, after all.
Five chapters that run together... very promising!

Printing

I'm now at a point where I'm able to print out what looks like a beginning of substance to my book. I've waited a long while to get to this moment - far too long, but circumstances decided the length of time. The reason I'm printing this first part is that I'm trying to get a feel of what the written word might look like on paper, which is how I hope it might end up.
I have to be strong with myself, have to make a bold decision about the angle of approach and the manner in which I have written things so far. There are jars I can see already, but I have to consider everything so far and the overall effect of the tale, as well as the micro-effect of certain parts.
Jeez, there's so much still to do, parts I've barely covered - and they won't be until later in time. But it's all becoming a bit more exciting, taking shape, moving through one cycle and into another.
What a life! A lot more fun than my blog, though lol Trying to find something to say when, on the surface, nothing appears to be happening is, well, dire! Maybe one day I'll have something more exciting to say other than 'I'm slowly writing the next chapter'. One day, maybe...

Northern Children's Book Festival 2010

A brochure popped through my door, promoting the above event. Great, I thought, I must go. Being the author of a children's tale (nope, never got further than the first in that area), the idea appealed to the child in me. I only stopped reading The Beano at 33 (Frodo's age - I'm sure he would have loved it!) so there is still a huge kid buried beneath the painfully-slowly-written-adult-mountain of a story I'm attempting to scale.
Then I skidded to a halt: what on earth would people think about an adult male attending alone a children's book festival? All my nephews and nieces are almost grown up. Sly looks, suspicious thoughts, stares??? And that's just me! I realised that I couldn't go. But still, at least I should be able to buy stuff online and find out how it went.
Anyways, authors such as Julia Donaldson (The Gruffalo), Karen McCombie (The Raspberry Rules), Justin Richards (Dr Who/The School of Night), Robert Crowther, The Two Steves (Return to the Lost World/I Hero), Chris Bradford (The Way of the Warrior/Young Samurai) and Steve Cole (Astrosaurs/Slime Squad) will all be there.
Should be fun, and though I'll not be there, I'll buy tickets in support of it all.
Now then, where's that Beano...

Who speaks?

I have friends of differing nationalities, and sexualities. Being straight and white, there are thoughts and attitudes, manners of speech and behaviour that I don't naturally comprehend. So I began a search, to seek out people I don't know about in order that I can represent them properly in my new story. (Actually, it's not a new story any more in my mind, but obviously everyone else will hopefully think it is.)
Nearly finished this research. I'm still in the middle of it. I know, if I hadn't done it, some of the things said and done in my new book couldn't have happened.
If I get published (sigh!), the list of credits (websites etc) will be a revelation and a source of amusement. I've had some amazing conversations with some amazing and striking people. Some of them have disappeared without trace. I do wish I could have met some of them, but I have long known this could have been dangerous and downright silly.
But it's been a blast, and though this research hasn't finished, it has been rewarding. I couldn't have written this book in the way I've done it without the internet. I know it can seem real at times, but great illusions are like that.
Still running with it....

Slow down!

From The Lord Of The Rings:

'Away now, Shadowfax! Run, greatheart, run as you have never run before! Now we are come to the lands where you were foaled, and every stone you know. Run now! Hope is in speed!'
Shadowfax tossed his head and cried aloud, as if a trumpet had summoned him to battle. Then he sprung forward. Fire flew from his feet; night rushed over him.
As he fell slowly into sleep, Pippin had a strange feeling: he and Gandalf were as still as stone, seated upon the statue of a running horse, while the world rolled away beneath his feet with a great noise of wind.

Majestic. It took Tolkien about 13 years to write LOTR, writing mostly at night. So why am I rushing to finish mine when I could miss writing fabulous prose such as that? I've taken my time and produced what I feel is good stuff. I have to look after this story and not rush things. It will be done when it is done, and I must judge that properly.
I guess I looked for this piece in LOTR as I had been listening to Susan Boyle's rendition of the Stones' Wild Horses. Mick Jagger said that The Beatles wrote better songs but that the Stones were better live. I am not so sure that is entirely true: to me, other people's versions of Stones' songs seem always to be better than the originals.
I've felt lost for a while. Maybe that's why I've been seeking out opinions. It is the right thing to do, of course. But not as often as I have with these flashbacks. I need to trust myself more. Hmmm. I think, also, that I just needed to be reminded that it is the treatment that is the key. The writing of it, the approach. If there is any greatness within what you've done, then this will bring it out. Allied to a good plot, you're halfway there.
Now for the other half. If I can just find it lol

Star Trek Weekend

And I'm off... Oh boy!

October skies...

I will be off work for nine days from the 16th of October. This falls in nicely with writing the beginning as a whole. Having written some good things, and fallen over a bit with others, I will be using this period to draw everything into a more recognisable passage. It looks like I've written about 8 chapters that link up well with each other.
Looking at my notes, I've surprised myself at the depth to which my early research went. And also surprised myself as to how far I still have to go with it all.
I feel I've taken too long to get this far. That's not to say I could have gone any quicker. Somehow, this story seems to need piecing together, as opposed to writing it out from one point to the next. It's been frustrating, not least that some of the scenes have been rather short on words and, therefore, size. I'm working on that. Maybe I need to be aware of my approach at any given point and to just keep reminding myself of the purpose of the current narrative in the context I'm writing it.
The flashbacks have gone well; there are still a couple more to do - but I know each can wait until a more essential moment. The flashback that is the key moment in the story has been written. It can be improved. But I don't need to do that just yet. Rather, I can use it to draw my thoughts together with regard to this story and decide whether I'm doing justice to the whole project - however many books this might entail (and I've no true idea whether it's 1 or 10, though I do have another book title which makes me think a bit harder that there may be at least 3!) Aah, trilogies! But lets not go there, for now...
I'm aware that I might fail. That I will probably fail. Statistically, the odds are not with me. But I'm writing the kind of story I know I would want to read. That one thought is what keeps me going.

Discovery

I guess I've always been struggling with the idea that planning ends discovery. That, by its nature, planning ends the spark of originality.
The longest pieces so far came out of planning. The more recent, shorter, pieces came out of thought purely while writing, but mainly structure only - or plot, if you like. These were flashbacks, apart from the new first chapter.
I don't think planning hampers the spark of originality, or creativity. Planning seems to free the mind up, thus allowing more creativity.
I'm quite proud of the flashbacks, though - they have action as well as emotion. Both methods worked well for me.
Hmmm... emotion. I need to be careful not to try and gauge the amount. Rather, I must ensure that it is there.
I've now done the flashback that I have always felt would overshadow the others and now feel that I can look at the beginning, and the future it leads into, with less fear. I'm more able to decide what may be wrong, but more important: what is right.
Ultimately, the writer writes alone. There are trusted readers, who know what they like and give valuable feedback. But the decisions as to what, how and when belong to the writer. This is a given. Lately, I think I've been looking for some kind of approval for what I've done so far. That is me being silly: judgement can only be made when full passages are made available for evaluation, and I haven't done that for a while. This is, of course, because I needed to write a compelling first chapter and equally compelling flashbacks. Now that I've got more concrete work in front of me, the job of evaluation must initially belong to me.
I shouldn't release any more of it until all links and narratives are present. I'm now looking at this.
It still nags at me that the original prologue held a lot of important information. Yet I wrote it in such a flat, unentertaining manner that it couldn't remain in its present form. What I should do with it is still an unanswered question.
Things to ponder. I'm less in limbo these days, though, which is promising.

The Last Flashback

Actually, it's the last one I'm going to do for now!
I've no idea how many flashbacks I will need, but this one, the most important one, has been done. It's not complete: it has its own sequel, which I've yet to write out in full. But I need to parcel up everything I've written out so far and take stock of where I've gone. Plus I'm tired. I need to sleep.
This particular flashback is a vital one, and is so full of movement and emotion, that I've given myself lockjaw with the nervous tension it took for me to write it. I can improve it, but I possibly need a bit more information than my thoughts allow. Is there enough emotion dwelling inside the words? Does the whole scene excite/incite emotion? Well, I'll send it off to Solvey, Noel, Rich and Rebecca and see how they feel about it. It's only three and a half pages long. It's a flashback, not a true chapter or passage of narrative within the actual story, so it is deliberately short. Not sure it can be a prologue - I think it needs to be attached to a similar event within the narrative.
Now I must return to the beginning and then look down the line. I need to see where I'm going.
Good...

Ey-up!

Becca has taken her first peek from the outside at Litopia! Could it be that she is about to write something????
Her hubby Craig had better watch out: this is the beginning of the end for normal married life!
I've told her it's safe to join, as I'm not there any more ;-)
Coming to a book-world near you...