The trick is to keep blogging...

Step right up, the show's about to begin...

2012-01-28T23:47:00.000Z

“We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images... We slip into a dream, forgetting the room we are sitting in... We recreate, with minor and for the most part unimportant changes, the vital and continuous dream the writer worked out in his mind (revising and revising until he got it right)and captured in language so that other human beings, whenever they feel like it, may open his book and dream that dream again.”

John Gardner - On Becoming A Novelist

Very rarely have I read a book that made me feel like I was dreaming and that made me cry upon awakening at the end of the tale, in despair at the end and joy that I knew part of me would forever remain in that world.

The Night Circus is one of those books and it is the plot, the style, the magic, the everything of that book that makes it so wonderful.

On the surface it is the tale of two men of magic, both with different techniques and beliefs. Unable to prove the other wrong, they train a student each, with the intention of competing one against the other: a rivalry which seems fated from the start every time the competition starts anew. Celia and Marcus are bound to the competition and each other, their lives and magic centred around the forum of their gentile and enchanted battle – the Night Circus.

It is a simple enough plot but it's the Night Circus itself that glows at the centre of of the tale, a character all of its own. Full of wonder, weirdness, enchantments, magic and beauty, the circus is lavishly described, from the white and black powdered grass, each amazing and unbelievable tent and to the tips of the fluttering black and white flags. This whole world is spellbinding, so well has Morgenstern described it. And perhaps it helps that the whole of The Night Circus is black and white – not only does the experience for the characters and readers become dream-like, but it works intuitively with us as readers, after all everything we see on the page as we read is as black and white as the circus itself.

The book even structures itself like a dream, hopping from character, location, time period and perspective with abrupt ease and somehow managing to make it work beautifully, because in the back of our minds we trust and let the dream lead us where it will. And like dreams there are things we don't know, can only intuit, especially towards the end...

But despite the things left unsaid the ending is exactly what it should be... With every book or film I hope for the same things, the rising crescendo of music or emotion at the completion of the tale, the resolution as the characters stand in the real or metaphorical sunrise/sunset – that pay off that is at once a little saccharin and cheesey but ultimately fulfilling none-the-less... And The Night Circus has this in buckets, managing somehow to supply us with a rewarding, heart swelling end without resorting to stereotype or any form of cheese or artificial sweetener.

The final chapter with its implications for us as an individual reader... Morgenstern makes us part of the story, a continuum of the tale, forever immortalised and enchanted. And to do that and make you feel it, make you believe it – that is one of the greatest gifts an author can bestow,

In The Night Circus Morgenstern has even created her very own cult/appreciation society; the followers of the fictional Night Circus who travel with the circus, following it as it flits across the western world, wearing monochrome like the circus itself, the black only being broken by splashes of red, a scarf here, a glove or rose there, marking them as Reveurs, the dreamers who have made themselves part of the dream.

As you watch this author, as you follow her tale and watch her rise above the other words and worlds, appearing at signings and award ceremonies – look out for her Reveurs, for they'll be there showing their appreciation with smiles and scarlet.

If you liked Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell read this book. If you like Neil Gaiman's or Angela Carter's work, read this book. If you love or have lingering affection for childhood fairy tales, the brothers Grimm or Anderson, read this book. Simply – just read this book.

It is a hauntingly beautiful lullaby of a story, full of love, theatre, beauty and enchantment. Read it and you won't want to wake up. Read it and you won't know whether your real life or the Night Circus is the dream.

If I close my eyes I can hear the flags catching the breeze in the starlight, I can hear snowflakes rustling against canvas and the caramel popcorn smells so sweet...

I originally wrote this blog way back in September 2011 and have been lax in posting it. Since then I've attended a signing with Erin Morgenstern as a Reveur, have seen The Night Circus hit the best-sellers chart during the festive season and yearned to read it again.

Erin Morgenstern's next book is going to be a film noir re-telling of Alice in Wonderland, complete with seamed stockings and smoking guns... I can't wait.

2.83 pages...

2012-01-28T23:22:00.000Z

The last time I posted I had hit the 50,000 word mark in NaNoWriMo and was fast approaching the end of November with a fair old chunk of story left to write... The larks of a Christmas in retail and the recovery from Christmas in retail have kept me away from the blog, but now I've caught my breath back... I guess you're wondering if I succeeded?

At 10pm ish of 30th November I validated my word count at around 60,025 words, (and here I and the word count widget at the NaNoWriMo web site will have to agree to differ...) with at least 15,000 to 25,000 words left to write to complete the tale... and the Champagne remained unopened...

Although I'd 'won' I didn't feel like I'd really done it as I hadn't actually completed the novel in a month... I'd hit the word count, but not completed anything... And so I kept going. I kept the 1,667 words a day goal and kept up the pace, finishing 'From The Library Of Parker Prentis' on 12th December at a total of 87,470 words written in 42 days...

I was like nothing I've experienced before... That amount of wordage in such a short time and wholely focussed on moving forward, never looking back, never re-reading and never editing... It felt like a blank cheque for creativity, it felt like every excuse to not do something had been taken away and all that was left was the drive to put a world on the page.

So, what worked?

Well, the pep talks from NaNoWriMo made officially registering completely worth it, especially the ones from Chris Baty. Every time he sent a pep talk I felt like part of the community, I felt like a brother-in-arms, I felt like he could feel my pain on the bad days and share my triumph on the good. The last page of his NaNoWriMo support title, 'No Plot? No Problem!' (ISBN 9780811845052) genuinely brought tears to my eyes with its motivational, reach-for-the-stars joy...

The NaNoWriMo sites stat pages for your progress were incredibly motivational too, offering a graph with the ideal word count zooming up the middle. I swear the notion of falling below that word count curve made me break out into a cold sweat... Especially when right next to it, in cold hard black and white pixels were the number of words you needed to catch up to regain your ideal word count... Seriously, a cold sweat...

But best of all, and I can recommend this to anyone with a short term or long term goal; have a chart on the fridge and buy sticky gold stars... The boxed kit of 'No Plot? No Problem!' (ISBN 9780811854832) came with a month long chart with holes for daily word count and spaces to stick stars or sad faces for FAIL days. Of everything, this fridge display of daily fail or success, on display to anyone who comes into your house, helped me keep track of how well or badly I was doing and shamed me into writing even on the days when the new Assassins Creed game came out and the duvet called to me. I never thought yellow sad faces could chill the very blood in the veins...

And so, what now?

Well, it's been just over a month since I typed the last words of the first draft, eyes full of tears at leaving behind these characters, their world and the whole god-damned glorious experience of it all! And, well, it's probably time to consider editing... So, I'm going to read the whole thing through in the next week or so and then start editing and based on previous experiences, I know I should probably have a deadline and break the whole thing down into daily chunks. I find editing a slower and more complex exercise than writing, so I probably should give myself a couple of months to edit/re-write... It's 150-170 pages depending on formatting which at most brings me to the daily target of 2.83 pages a day...

Oh, here comes the cold sweat again...

Wish me luck and mighty Seshat, make it not shit... Please?

That's a lot of words...

2011-11-26T13:25:00.001Z

It's November 26th, 1:25 as I write this and approximately fifteen minutes ago I hit 50,002 words in NaNoWriMo...

For a few days before the start of November I thought I would never have this moment, that there was no way on earth that I would be able to write 50,000 words in one month, even with a week and a half off at the start...

And now I'm here... Wow. This is a good place to be. There's Crabbies Ginger Ale, bakewell tarts and I ran round the house dancing and singing loudly to 30 Seconds To Mars and Florence And The Machine. I laughed, I cried, (seriously, I did. I think it's the relief and the knowledge that if I wanted to I could just stop right now...), I hugged my Halloween Hello Kitty, (Hello-ween Kitty?), because the cat's asleep on the radiator bed and when I asked her if I could hug her she gave me a look that implied it really wasn't going to happen...

And now?

Well, there's champagne in the fridge for midnight on the 1st of December and at least another 10-25,000 words left to write to finish this story and I have about four and a half days left...

Can I finish a whole novel in a month?

Let's see shall we.

"The time has come," the Walrus said... "Well, almost," I replied...

2011-10-31T05:54:00.000Z

So... I've woken up with less than nineteen hours until NaNoWroMo with the first line of my novel suddenly stuck in my head... and it's dialogue... and I'm never going to remember it. Is it so wrong to write it down somewhere?

Against all rational and sane thinking I have decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo this year. Last year I considered it but had no concrete idea and felt too net-less to be able to tightrope walk into a 50,000 word novel with no idea of what to write about. This year I hadn't really thought about it yet and then about six weeks ago I had an idea for a short story which was about ink...

The idea had come from my hubby, Frankie mentioning a low budget indie film he'd heard about and had ordered by the same name. The moment he said the word my head filled with images and story elements, but when we watched the film, it was nothing like what I'd imagined... Which is not to say it was bad, because it wasn't - it was possibly one of the best, most inventive low budget, indie movies I've ever seen - so kudos to the writer/director Jamin Winans.

But, I now had a bundle of images in my head of ink; ink staining skin, sentient ink, a crime scene covered in ink instead of blood... I thought it might be useful fodder for a short story or two and then I remembered an idea I'd had a few years ago about a children's school library that had a hidden room full of books. Each book held the trapped spirit of the last person who had read it...

I let it mull and then after a few days I realised this was not a collection of short stories, or even two novellas but one big effing tale just laying there on the writing table of my mind like a big naked grinning Burt Reynolds... And it kept winking at me in a knowing way...

About a week later I signed up for NaNoWriMo and have been making notes on character details, plot elements and mentally pacing the floor anxiously ever since.

I've never done NaNoWriMo before.I don't think I've ever written that much in that time scale ever before.
And I'm not convinced that I can do it...

As 12:01am 1st November approaches I have been swaying from a mildly cocky "I can so do this! I'm going to kick that word count's ass!" to "Oh My God. What have I done? What was I thinking..." etc, you get the idea. I keep half telling myself that it's not too late to gracefully withdraw. But it is. I have to at least give it a try... And shouldn't I be excited about this? The creative abandon, the free reign to let the first draft blow but actually get it down on the page?

And I am, in a kind of I'mgoingtothrowup kind of way.

There are three things that are keeping me going:1. My hubby may not have signed up on the web site to be humiliated by a global community if he fails, but he is aiming to be writing the 50,000 words with me. Continuing an idea he's been working on, off and on for a year or so, we may even have a word count chart each on the fridge door and housework be damned! So friends be warned, our house is going to be a filth pit of words and forgotten chores for the next month. I only hope the cat can forgive us... Check out his blog to find out more http://autocratik.blogspot.com/

2. A handful of wonderful, brave and talented writers from work are also going to be doing NaNoWriMo this year. I suggested it, so their families and partners may hate me very soon, but by God we're in this together! Fools that we are...
So far the list of these heroes contains: Rowan, Hannah, Sam, Jenny, Ben, Andrea and Jordan.

3. If you're doing NaNoWriMo donate some money to The Office of light and Letters, the charity who run NaNoWriMo, if only because then you will get exclusive pep talk emails from authors but most importantly from the founder Chris Baty. I've had one pep talk from Chris and I think I need to print it out and stick it on the wall because it reminded me what an adventure I'm about to have. Chris's email was like Dr Seuss's "Oh, The Places You'll Go..." Chris, (excuse the first name use but I feel like he's patting me on the shoulder in a reassuring way), takes the fear out of the leap into the unknown by making you realise that anything can happen during the next month... That I may start December with an almost finished novel... A novel of which, not even one word or sentence even existed before 1st November.

Well, except for this one sentence that I'm scared I'm going to forget... It's only 21 words, what's 21 words between friends?

Wow. This is going to be an adventure. This month is going to be memorable.

To everyone out there who's stepping up to the starting line, good luck, keep writing and don't stop. Don't slow down if you're uncertain or look over your shoulder to see who's gaining on you. This is your race and you're doing it to prove that you can. And to have the adventure.

I'll see you during the month.

Writing cheques with my mouth that my mouse can't cash...

2011-10-12T21:54:00.000+01:00

Have I experienced a blow to the head? Taken the wrong meds and am suffering from poor judgement? Who knows quite what made me decide to do it, but I've signed up for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month.

During November, despite having a full time job which will be effected by the approaching mania of the festive season; a husband who is, to be fair, fairly low-maintenance; a cat who delights in waking us between 2am and 6am at least once every night and a mildly interesting social life, I will attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days, approximately 1,666.6 words a day....

Admittedly I have two weeks off at the start of the month so there is the opportunity to bulk up the word count to save my own neck later in the month...

But the anniversary edition of Halo and the new Assassin's Creed: Revelations games come out on the 15th of November!!!

Forgot about that when I signed up.

Bugger...

A Song of Steel and Snow, or how I learned to love Jaime Lannister...

2011-09-04T12:08:00.000+01:00

Okay, so I admit it, I’m an addict. I’m addicted to games, chocolate, cake, movies, dvd box sets, twitter and reading, amongst other things. But especially reading. If I could only keep one addiction, I’d keep the books. If I could do a dark Willow and suck all the ink off the pages of a library, I would. If I could jack into a book, Johnny Mnemonic style and experience the world and stories in a teeth grinding explosion of knowledge, I’d stick in the gum shield and say “Hit me.” I think I’d even give up memory space, but only if I got to choose what went...

But with books, and especially with a series, it’s an ongoing relationship, a symbiotic merging of reader and word and that is something worth investing time in. These are literary love affairs with book and reader spending all available time delighting in each others company. And okay, I’ll admit in this area I am a repeat offender; Robin Hobb and I were very intense, as were me and J.K. Rowling, Ursula Le Guin, Garth Nix, Patrick Ness, Brent Weeks and Pamela Freeman. And I’m not even faithful to a genre - I’ve been enthralled by fantasy, horror, teen fiction, graphic novels, crime fiction and general fiction too; Lee Child, John Connolly, Manda Scott, Alice Hoffman, Neil Gaiman, Carla Speed McNeil, Joe Hill and Stephen King have all spent a lot of quality time with me too.

But my newest addiction, my latest literary affair is all HBO’s fault, curse them for their excellent casting and succinct adaptations... I have become obsessed with George R.R. Martin’s Song Of Ice and Fire series and this is despite a rocky start. You see, everyone talking about dwarfs and oral sex on Twitter didn’t really tempt me with the show. It took my husband watching the first two episodes and telling me that I was going to love it to get me to sample Game of Thrones. And for the last seven weeks it’s been hard to get a word out of me or my nose out of the books. So now I’m now half way through Dance Of Dragons, the new HB and fifth book in the seven book series, and I’m concerned about the withdrawal I’m going to go through when I reach the end in about a weeks time.

A wise person might have attempted to pace themselves, drag the five books out for as long as they can in the knowledge that there may well be four to six years before book six. But attempting to stretch out a series over the course of years in order to elongate the reading experience? Forget it! I’m going read through the lot of them at break neck speed, enjoying them all to the fullest and then dealing with the grief and frustration at the end. And at the end, when my heart’s breaking because it doesn’t call or email, I’ll only have myself to blame.

I know they’ll be other series, other authors, other obsessions, but none will be exactly the same. It’s like with Harry Potter; there may be other series which are as financially successful, or as imagination grabbing, as inventive and creative, but there will never be another Harry Potter... Although my heart sinks to say it.

I have never read anything quite like George R.R. Martin’s Song Of Ice and Fire, the amount of detail, the size of the world, the depth of the characters, all comes close to the hugeness of Lord Of The Rings and the wizarding world of Harry Potter. This is a fantasy series where one map isn’t enough - literally! Some of the books even have four... And anyone who knows me knows how important I consider maps to be within a fantasy title. A map in a fantasy book means the author knows the shape of the world and has considered its extremities. A map means an author knows where they are and where they are taking you, and a fantasy book should take you somewhere right? “The road goes ever on and on”...

A Song Of Ice and Fire takes you from one end of a believable if realistically dangerous world to the other. And even better, it takes you a chapter at a time, by the hand of a different character and you walk the world with them, regardless of whether you like them or not. And some of them you really don’t like at all. But make no preconceptions about rugged knights and damsels in distress, in this series no one is what they seem and even if they are, there’s a real chance that they won’t be by the end of the book. This series is full of characters that other authors would consider background; there’re children as complicated and intricate as their adult counterparts; women and mothers braver than Kings; animals who have more honor than half the kingdom and Lords who should be ruling who would never presume to do anything other than their duty...

Jamie Lannister, how I hated you at the start...

Martin has a huge cast of characters and all of them are vibrant and fully fleshed, many of the central characters are female or children and all of them grow, adapt and develop. As they experience the successes and pitfalls of the Game of Thrones, these characters are changed, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. Characters you hated for their vanity and greed have to deal with failure, loss and injury, have to learn how shallow their world was. Characters you absolutely love to hate and eagerly await their downfall, you end up just loving. Characters change, people change. And these are as close to people as you’re ever going to find in a book.

If that isn’t enough to get you reading this series, then the story should be. If you take a step back and viewed the whole picture, the plot for the series could probably be summed up in a sentence - a world of characters bicker and fight for dominance and power only to ultimately have to face a foe who could decimate them all... But this doesn’t do the detail, the motivations, the writing, the intensity of each page any justice at all. This is a book where every fight, every argument, every battle, every kiss, every lie, every decision feels important and potentially life changing for these incredible, lovable, hateful characters. Where a person can change as subtly, unknowingly and as dramatically as the seasons - and if you’ve read the books or seen the first series, you know just how important the seasons are. This is a book where you start off loving a few key characters only to find yourself overwhelmed with emotion at the success or suffering of someone you had considered inconsequential or loathsome. Yes, I’m talking about you, Jaime Lannister...

This is an incredible series and I don’t know what I’m going to do in a weeks time, when I finish A Dance With Dragons... Other than wear black and ashes, wail and mourn during the years between book five and six. I would take the Black to read book six early, I would lose fingers or limbs... But not eyes, I need them to read. Well, at least one anyway...

Two of my favourite characters, Jon Snow and his dire wolf Ghost...

Step away from the Xbox and put down the lipstick...

2011-05-03T14:34:00.004+01:00

Right now I’m at home with the cat, Marla Singer, for company and I’m sitting around in mis-matched clothes contemplating making scrambled eggs and coffee for brunch, ignoring the dusting, the list of incomplete projects, the scripting/writing I should be doing and the large mouse like chunks of cat hair littering the house...and yet I feel like a domestic goddess... Why, you ask, when my house is clearly in a shambles and the How Clean Is Your House ladies would be freaking out in an OCD-like fit?

I feel like a domestic goddess because I’m wearing red lipstick.

You may be wondering if you’re reading the right blog, if some how the http links have frelled up somehow and instead of reading about writing, comics, books, cats and movies, you’ve stumbled upon some a blog about make up and domesticity... Well, you’re in the right place, I’m just feeling a little girlier than normal and I only have a book to blame.

I’ve just finished reading The Girls’ Guide To Homemaking (TG’GTH, amazing! It sounds orc-ish!) by Amy Bratley, a fiction title which is just positively endearing and not the kind of thing that I usually read at all. Tending towards fantasy and horror, I usually think I’m onto a winner if I pick up a book and there’s a map in the front. I mean seriously, if you write a fantasy title and there’s no Road to go ever on and on, or even worse no map to lead the way for both characters and reader...well, you might as well just start again or write a different genre...

**clears throat**

Sorry, distracted there. To come to the point, that’s what I usually read and every now and then I like a literary palate cleanser, something well written and girlie like Alice Hoffman or Sarah Addison Allen, or something completely trashy... I wasn’t sure where TG’GTH fell when I started reading it but quite soon I realised that it is a thing of beauty. Full of heartbreak, complicated relationships, moving house, ignoring housework, cupcakes and accidentally sleeping with the wrong people, this title raises the bar by being crafty and by that I mean it’s full of women who make things. Being a closet crafter myself (I probably have at least a hundred ongoing craft projects hidden in said closet, the spare room and under my desk) it was exhilarating to read a fiction book that shared the excitement of crafting, had craft groups and women who were making a living from making things that they themselves loved. But the icing on the cake was that a great deal of the domestic advice and craft ideas, recipes and cocktails sprinkled through out the book all came from titles published between 1951 and 1975, predominantly from the fifties. With that and a real love of vintage and retro in the story, it’s hardly surprising that the women keep donning bright red lipstick, vintage dresses and just looking wonderful.

At the end of the book, feeling uplifted by the story, the carry on carrying on attitude and the natural women making the most of what they had, I felt inspired to find the pillar box red lipstick I bought on a whim about two years ago...

And suddenly everything was all right in the world.

I may look more Robert Smith than Dita Von Teese, Tim Curry than Marilyn Monroe, but I feel like I could take on the world, whilst drinking cocktails! And best of all, everything seems suddenly more fun! It may be the two cups of coffee I’ve had, when I haven’t drunk coffee for ages; it may be listening to Nerina Pallot (the girliest music I own! And When Did I Become Such A Bitch is the best music for first thing in the morning!) VERY LOUDLY whilst dancing around the kitchen like I’m having a fit, but wearing red lipstick makes me feel like I can do what-ever I want. It makes me feel confident and gorgeous. It makes me feel like I CAN DO ANYTHING. It makes me want COCKTAILS! I know I would look amazing whilst washing up, but red lipstick makes it okay to ignore it! I am independent, I am fabulous, I am going to spend the afternoon playing Dragon Age and kicking ass!

Oh God. Red lipstick could end the world as we know it... Do they have a shade called Pandora’s Box?

Slam! Bang! KAPOW!

2011-04-12T14:58:00.010+01:00

To truly get an accurate impression of Kapow Comiccon you need to imagine a well crafted maze of paraphernalia, populated with some recognisable artists, writers and celebrities and decorated with a sprinkling of hot women, either in superhero costume or wearing tight t-shirts depicting company logos or said merchandise. Add to this a schedule of events and a competitive queuing system operated on an circular balcony above the main maze. Then on a preordained signal, for example the moment when the queue to get into the building becomes hysterical with excitement, let the geeks in! What you then end up with is a packed hall full of people in varying stages of mania and body odour trying to get from one location to another as quickly as possible without missing anything! From above it looked like a really strange version of Where’s Wally with everyone on the balcony either trying to spot missing friends or queuing and passing the time trying to count how many Jane Goldman-haired girls there were, spot the girl in the Black Cat costume with the massive rack or the guy dressed as Bane with the shoulders you could use as a park bench... And I was one of those geeks...

Kapow, it has to be said, was awesome. Yes, it had all of the teething problems a brand new convention tends to have: the difficulty of gauging capacity + likely ticket sales - weather + confirmed appearances - confirmed non-appearances = venue, which ultimately leads to the conclusion that it could have been in a bigger venue and still sold out. This might have brought in some more big name appearances but it’s so hard to gauge in advance. The difficult queuing system should have worked perfectly well, but suffered from being populated by the manic and hysterical, acting like they were queuing for the lifeboats on the Titanic rather than a panel on Skins and Misfits... along the lack of raised stages in the panels and screenings which made it difficult for many to see who the disembodied voices were and the lack of onsite food venues. A few of the coffee stands seemed to twig that they could be making a killing selling caffeine and doughnuts and opened on Sunday - they were probably very happy with the results...

But the things that worked, worked well... The panels were varied and covered comics, film and TV without being too biased towards any one; the stalls were populated by genuinely lovely people who had obviously been pre-exposed to geeks and knew exactly what to expect - including the babes at the London Rockin’ Rollers roller derby stand who dealt with the oogling with grace and knee pads - the independent publishers and artists were enthusiastic and diverse... Everyone was interesting and interested, even we geeks, who on the whole smelt a lot less than I remember UKCAC smelling.

IGN deserve specific praise as their arena provided the essence of all the panels in a far more intimate venue; the interviews with Joe Cornish and the cast of Attack The Block was brilliant despite them all seeming flabbergasted that it was actually happening! Their enthusiasm was infectious and has changed the film from something I wasn’t sure about into something I definitely want to see - even if Adam Buxton might have been the inspiration for the aliens, being stout and hairy... (yes, that was me heckling Joe...). The Misfits appearance was equally entertaining but felt much more like a taster for their event in Gallery Hall, which despite being shared with Skins series five actress Dakota Blue Richards (Franky) was totally owned by Misfits actors Iwan Rheon (Simon), Lauren Socha (Kelly), and the series Executive Producer Petra Fried. The news that Robert Sheehan (Nathan), is leaving the series was a shock to the audience but I can’t help but think it’s going to make series 3 even more watchable - yes, he will be missed, but this is a show with such a phenomenal script and stunning visual style that I can’t help but think that not only will they pull off losing such a favourite character, but that by the end of the first episode we’ll have forgotten that he’s gone!

Other high points are of course the preview footage of Thor, featuring Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) on a panel, including 20 minutes of new unseen footage. As you can imagine the panel was packed and people were queuing for about two hours to get in. I and Frankie (husband, better half and on the day - birthday boy!), only just got into the auditorium by the skin of our teeth and it was so worth it! The film looks spectacular from sets to costume, and the intensity of Hemsworth’s performance really steals every scene. The thing that did surprise and delight is the humour - it is genuinely funny and not at the expense of the story. This really will be a film to see.

Finally, the secret screening on Sunday afternoon was Super, an 18 certificate gritty, violent, realistic superhero comedy - that I didn’t see... By Sunday afternoon my energy was waning, the venue was very warm with varying degrees of air con and the queue for the film was INSANE... I opted for an hour an a half eating lunch in the park with my current proof of choice - Love You More by Lisa Gardner (ISBN 9781409101062), out 21st July. The sunshine was glorious, geek spotting a fun sport and the proof is one of the best crime romps I’ve read for years. I think I may have made the better choice as most of the Cheesemints went to see Super and on the whole were entertained but not blown away by this extremely violent Juno meets Kick-Ass movie.

Kapow certainly had some punch and I can see next year’s event being bigger, bolder and probably at a different venue. Whilst the Business Design Centre provided an intimate venue, don’t we all want something big enough to blow us away? Don’t we all want to be overwhelmed by the incredible choices available? Don’t we all want Cheesemint to have a booth and some panel time? Don’t we? C’mon you know we do!

So, you read it here first - Cheesemint for Kapow 2012! Get to it...

A patchwork of books and a cat...

2011-02-08T20:54:00.013Z

I realised a few weeks ago that I haven't updated the list of books that I've read for forever... And I thought I'd post most of them as a list here, as I think I've read about 30 since I last did the job properly...

Full Circle - Pamela Freeman 5/5

I, Coriander - Sally Gardner 3/5

Need - Carrie Jones 3/5

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson 5/5

The Ghost - Robert Harris 3/5

The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson 4/5

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest - Stieg Larsson 4/5

Wintercraft - Jenna Burtenshaw 3/5

Lonely Werewolf Girl - Martin Millar 4/5

Already Dead - Charlie Huston 4/5

Fallen Grace - Mary Hooper 3/5

The Passage - Justin Cronin 10/5!!!

Horns - Joe Hill 4/5

Under The Dome - Stephen King 4/5

The Poison Diaries - Maryrose Wood 2/5

The Woman In Black - Susan Hill 4/5

The Black Prisim - Brent Weeks 4/5

The Dragon Keeper - Robin Hobb 4/5

The Discovery Of Witches - Deborah Harkness 4/5

The Suspicions Of Mr Whicher - Kate Summersdale 3/5

Killing Floor - Lee Child 4/5

Die Trying - Lee Child 4/5

Tripwire - Lee Child 4/5

The Visitor - Lee Child 3/5

Echo Burning - Lee Child 3/5

Monsters Of Men - Patrick Ness 4/5

Without Fail - Lee Child 4/5

One Day - David Nicholls 5/5

Toast - Nigel Slater 3/5

Persuader - Lee Child 3/5

Secrets of East Anglian Magic - Nigel Pennick 3/5

The ones of significance were of course Justin Cronin's The Passage, that I spouted and drooled about just before publication - and The Discovery Of Witches, which I had the pleasure of receiving a proof of well before publication this month.

Written by Deborah Harkness, (excellent name btw, how very Stoker), it offers us a modern universe of vampires, witches and daemons, an ancient treaty between the three races and a discovery of a book that may well destroy the peace and all the creation myths the races hold. It reminds me very much of the old school vampire tales, of Anne Rice especially, with its atmosphere, character description and progression, the way the relationships bloom slowly but passionately...

This is a book for horror-fantasy fans who remember Interview With A Vampire. It is the book for Meyer fans to read once they've left their teens... Not that it should be considered a work of an adult nature! More that it has a passion and maturity beyond the simpering crushes of your typical paranormal romance. If the relationships in The Discovery of Witches fail, it might actually be the end of the world, rather than just feeling like it and having to sulk in your room eating ice cream whilst listening to Paramore...

An excellent read, published 3rd February 2011 - but be warned, it is the start of a series. It wouldn't be a fantasy book if they could sum up the whole story in one volume!

Another title worthy of note is One Day by David Nicholls - and I'm guessing a lot of people have already read this... It is incredibly well written, full of the torments of aging over the course of 15 years, from graduation day to something approximating adulthood, full of the social anxieties, pressures, disappointments and hopes of both sexes, as the two lead characters Emma and Dexter fall in love, drift apart and spend their whole lives hoping to fall into each others arms again. This is a love story for all adults that will leave you wanting to live everyday to the full...

Well, I'm averaging at less than a book a week at the moment, so I'd better get back to the current papery chunk of wonder... I so need to get my reading speed up...

Oh, btw the cat is Marla Singer and she is appalled by my book choices - there's no Chuck Palahniuk...

Star light, star bright

2010-10-28T10:40:00.003+01:00

Our lovely kitty woke me up in the middle of the night last night, something she regularly does as she is greedy. But she sometimes does it when she wants company and last night I couldn't complain - the sky was the clearest I've seen it for probably a year. Even with all the light pollution that the city usually throws up... I did consider getting dressed and walking up to the park to get a better view, see the real abundance of the heavens... But it was late and I knew Frankie wouldn't appreciate being woken up to go for a chilly walk, so I wrote instead. As I was writing, I was thinking about what could happen to reduce the light pollution...maybe the night was so clear due to the thinning of the ozone, maybe a distant solar flare twisted into a natural EMP taking everything out. Maybe it's aliens... Maybe it's just writing practice from a half dreaming mind - that way it doesn't have to make sense... :-)

* * * * *

Jenna woke up. It was just shy of 2 am and she was all of a sudden, inexplicably wide awake. The flat was silent around her, just her grandmother’s clock ticking in the living room two open doors away. She reached out a hand to her left and found the large furry mass of the cat, Marmite, prooting awake beneath her touch. Jenna frowned, yawned and rolled over, feeling Marmite get up, spin round and curl up against her spine.

Five minutes later she was still laying awake, her eyes staring into the clutter of her bedroom and her mind full of things that she could be doing if she were up - like washing up that plate peeking out from the edge of a jumble of clothing. And maybe actually folding up and putting away that jumble of clothing. Jenna blinked and looked at the window, wondering if the nieghbours had left their garden light on again. But the light ghosting in through the curtain was cool and blue, silvering everything in the room.

Jenna eased her way out of bed and peeked through the curtain, feeling the cool breeze of Marmite walking past her bare legs before he jumped up on the window sill beside her.

“Look at that Marmite... So many stars.”

The sky was a deep distant blue and completely clear. The moon, although waning and half empty was bright enough to read by and the stars...the more she looked, the more stars she saw. There hadn’t been a night this clear since she’d been a child, not one that she hadn’t slept through anyway.

Jenna ran her hand across Marmite’s thick fur and smiled, suddenly energised and excited. She knew just where to go.

Her breath was pluming around her in a silver mist as she crested the top of the hill and approached the top of the pavillion at the edge of the park. With every step the stars had bred, the curtain of the night sky drawing back further to reveal more and more distant suns, each with their own solar systems, maybe even their own inhabitants gazing up at the clearest sky for forever and smiling with enchantment. And she was smiling as she leaned on the wall, gazing up at the heavens. As were the others who joined her, their faces glowing with simple joy, their heads wreathed in clouds of glowing breath.

They stood and stared, some pointing out the constellations to each other in whispers, not really noticing as behind them the street lights began to flicker out, easing the perfect sky further and further across the city. The orange glow receding to a few distant pin pricks of light that then blinked out.

Only when the chill started to gnaw through their feet did a few turn, still smiling, with the intention of heading home, turning to see the dark city spread before them. Perfectly silvered by the moon and glittering with the beginnings of a frost.

The dark city with not a light in sight.

The dark city and beyond that, the dark world.

Ticking clocks and pumpkins...

2010-10-26T10:56:00.001+01:00

I know. It’s been a while...

I’m sitting at home and pondering the strangeness of spare time. I actually have holiday and I am so unaccustomed to it, I’m not sure what to do with myself... The soundtrack of the house around me is one of a ticking clock and distant washing machine: a clock from my grandmother’s house, now hung on my wall and if I close my eyes I can imagine her living room, the cool silence of a family reading, my gran sitting with a poodle on her lap, her eyes distant, her hand worrying at the hem of her skirt... The sky outside looks like a vast slab of pale marble, the glitter of the rock made up of fine rain.

You’re probably wondering why anyone would take time off in October? When the sun is an irregular visitor, when the house is cool enough to warrant putting the heating on maybe once or twice a day. When even the ducks and swans on the river are questioning the good sense of being half immersed in cold, green water.

I have two words for you... Autumn and Halloween.

I love this time of the year. There’s just something about the early morning mists, the dew laden cobwebs, candle-lit pumpkins, crunchy drifting leaves, being able to wear gloves and jumpers and drink hot chocolate all the time... The Pagan year is coming to a close, the veil between worlds is thin and I feel the magic in the air and inspiration seems to come with every breath...

So why am I being baffled by having time on my hands? I think it’s partially from being inside. I need to get outside and soak up the season and let it work it’s magic on me, even with the rain and the grumpy ducks. I need to be writing again - I feel like I’ve lost a limb and the phantom sensation of writing is eating at me, the shape of the pen almost in my hand and the scratch of paper just out of hearing.

So why am I sitting here still? I feel like the day has stalled...

I need to go and buy pumpkins...

It's time to get infected...

2010-06-29T11:35:00.002+01:00

I have just finished Justin Cronin's book, The Passage...

At the end of the book, heart in mouth and palms sweating from more than just the clammy English summer, I did something that I haven't done for a while - I found myself flicking a few pages back, skim reading again, turning the last page and staring at the last few blank pages. As if there was something I'd missed... As if by doing this I could make there be more or the promise of more...

Damn you, Cronin!

The Passage is a sprawling epic, very much in the style of Stephen King's The Stand, bringing a refreshing take on the vampire mythos that will have the Twi-hards shuddering... "I don't like it, they're not pretty like Edward, but maybe beneath the glow they have melancholy souls... Maybe if I give one a hug? God! Noooo! Garrrrrrrrrr-herrrrtzzzz... Blerg..." Sorry, a bit distracted there.

The Passage is the tale of a virus, found in bats in the arse-end of some evil heat-drenched jungle. Everything, as you would imagine when mixing said virus, government scientists and a tale of horror, goes horribly, bloodily wrong and gets wronger and wronger with every page. Until the Earth that once was, is gone and all that's left is a pocket of humanity, clinging to the light, no longer living, just surviving. Add to this a special child who seems older than her years, some feisty women, broken families, a brother with itchy feet, a geek or two and millions of glowing feral creatures that want to rip nine in ten of them apart - leaving one in ten with a bite that will forever change them...

This is The Passage.

This is the return of the Vampire as a thing to be feared.

This is a return to horror as a survival epic that makes us glad to be alive when-ever we close the pages.

This is a book that will infect you, just as those metallic teeth gently cut into the soft flesh of the one in ten spreading the disease, a biblio-bite that will leave you wanting more and wanting everyone else to read it as well.

I haven't felt like this for a while, felt exhausted from the journey of reading and catapulted from another universe at the end. Another world which though deadly and full of hurt, I miss and would re-enter in a heartbeat because I miss them, the people I met, the friends made and lost and the story left unsaid...

To say I loved The Passage wouldn't convey how I feel, parts of that book terrified me and I cried more than once. I think my reading life would have been less without it.

But there is a problem... I want more! And now! Luckily in an online interview Mr Cronin said that this wasn't a tale that could be told in one book, but something that would take three to accomplish...

So where is it?

What do you think you're doing, doing a US and UK tour to promote the book when you should be writing?

Seriously though, it's a great, scratch that, phenomenal, no... A superlative novel and I'd like to thank Mr Cronin and wish him all the best on his tour and with the next two books. Just... Faster would be better...

You can read about the creation of The Passage at the end of the product description of the book of Amazon and I can't help but think that it won't be too long before Justin Cronin's daughter, Iris, has a book out of her own...

Check out the following websites for some scary video footage of infected attacks and more info on the book and author:

www.findsubjectzero.com

http://enterthepassage.com

* * * * *

Justin Cronin will be appearing Monday 5th July at 6:30pm at Norwich Millennium Library, Norwich, UK. Tickets are £2 available from the library or Norwich Castle Street, (01603 767292). This may be our only chance to see him in this neck of the woods, before he becomes too cool for East Anglia and the infection becomes too widespread...

Addicted to the cowl...

2010-06-10T22:36:00.001+01:00

I will openly admit that I have an addictive personality and that when I get hooked on a game I pretty much don't do anything else... But I think I only get maybe two or three games a year that I love that much. If that. And some games you play through only because you've started them... A game unfinished is a half eaten cake, it seems a shame to waste it. Although there have been a few I've turned my back on with a smile hoping they wither in misery unopened for months on end, knowing they are unwanted... You know your names...

The first Assassins Creed was a little like that. I started it, enjoying the design, landscapes, plot and game play but found the controls increasingly irritating, until in the end I gave up and cursed it to gather dust behind the pile of favoured titles.

My brother bought us the second game for Christmas '09 and I was unsure until I played it. Everything that I loved about the first game is there, the beauty in the animation, the amazing location designs, crisp rendering and morally ambiguous behaviour – but the controls are a dream. No more creeping up behind someone to slip a knife between their ribs and suddenly pulling a sword – ninja stealth fail. There is just a grace of movement and the perfect balance of flesh and metal – assassination as ballet, with a rogue-ish smile.

I won't deny that there have been times when I've launched myself off of a building to crumple a good six storeys below, due to poor aiming and that there have been moments of pure Tomb Raider vertigo, sweating palms as I try not to look down... (I know it's only a game! But heights totally freak me out!). But I consider those to be faults in the player rather than in the game. No one's perfect, right? But this game comes close – even to the extent that there's some Assassin Tomb raiding that would put Lara to shame.

I think the thing that makes me love the game the most are those moments when it pauses to revel in its own beauty, usually at the top of a synchronisation point. There is a haunting beauty about seeing your character perched on the top of a lighthouse at night, sparks from the fire below floating up past him towards the star filled heavens – followed by the dive down that you feel certain is going to break him in half. (Most of them a four-scream-Lara fall...).

Then he jumps out of the straw and struts away, letting hay fall from his clothes with a swaggering nonchalance...

Now where did I put the controller?

* * * * *

I wrote the above love letter to Assassins Creed II a fair few weeks ago, shortly before finishing the game. Between then and now...well, I got the craving to climb high places, dive into straw, slip that sharp silver between deserving ribs...

I bought Assassins Creed again and gave it another try and going back to it I have no idea why I had problems with it in the first place; the game is exquisite. Yes, there are improvements that they made in the second game that I miss in the first; the day to night game transitions are glorious and really add a dimension to the sneaking and posing at the top of towers; the ability to swim and dive from high points into water; and the story line is a leaner stealthier beast. But... Damn it, I'm as addicted to the first game as I was to the second and that says something.

It just goes to show that first impressions can be wrong; sometimes when you don't get on with a game, it's not the games fault - you just haven't developed enough as a monk impersonating, knife wielding dealer of death to appreciate it.

The problem I now have is that I and the hubby are competing to use the Xbox - he wants to shoot slack jawed yokels in cowboy hats and put women on train tracks, and that's when he's not wandering around in the dark, snivelling into his torch and wondering where all his flares went. Me, I just want to collect flags, kill the oppressors and climb real high. If this keeps up we may have to buy a second Xbox.

Now there's an idea...

Colds and damp sand

2010-06-08T22:24:00.005+01:00

If anyone out there has the cure to the common cold, stop being selfish and share... I think I've either had one cold for five weeks or two colds humping each other for the same duration... I'm getting to the point where I'm prepared to either napalm it out with alcohol and curry or marry the damn thing - Table for two Mrs Twistedwitch-Cold?

Whatever... The last couple of weeks have been a harvest festival of book reading and dvd/tv watching; I cruised through the Steig Larson trilogy, read a couple of urban fantasy titles, a children's fantasy, a horror proof I've had kicking around for about three years and am now ignoring all else for a proof that just may be the next big thing... I'll let you know when I've finished it. Tv-wise, we've just finished watching the final episodes of Lost and 24 and one was really cool and the other was a meta-physical shambles. I'll leave it up to you to decide which was which.

Whilst we haven't made it to the cinema for a few weeks, we keep catching up with films on dvd and Holmes has to be the most recent viewing of note. I have to admit, I wasn't impressed by the trailers at the time, but Downey Jnr really stole the show. The film was a tangental re-telling of the essence of Sherlock Holmes, were he too self absorbed to be socially aware, smug with his incredible intelligence and somehow charming and utterly irritating at the same time... Like House in a frock coat really... The whole film looked authentic enough to soot up your eyeballs and Downey Jnr yet again proves that he's more than just a clothes horse for a cool costume.

Writing... I've done some. We're working on Cheesemint scripts at the moment and I have a short story to try and cobble together in the next week mixing myth and military, so wish me luck. But here's some of the random writing practice that came up in the last week - it started off really nostalgic and golden and turned swiftly towards the sitting-in-the dark-rocking-and-babbling with very little warning. Sorry about that. I'll try and curb that next time...

Deeper Than Damp Sand

The rope trails down the rock face and frays into nothing miles away from the waves kissing stone below. I could remember when there once used to be a path here, little more than a wish clinging onto the cliff and you hung onto the rope for dear life as you crept around the corner to get to the beach beyond. The beach that couldn't be seen from land or sea.

I glance behind me, thinking I hear footsteps scuffing the impacted earth and there's no one there, only the breeze shaking the brambles. I keep looking back, expecting the faces from twenty years before to tumble around the corner, sunburnt and their hair salt-styled from the sea... Somewhere above me I can hear a bird singing, its song mixing with the sea and wind into a perfect moment of summer.

The tension in my gut draws me back to the frayed rope and I grab it, feeling the years coiled in my hand. As if with one pull, the world could cast off years, the path would scramble from the sea to cling to the rock, the lines would fade from my skin and the air would be full of familiar laughter.

“Just jump in, stop wasting the summer...”

I hear him, just like he's there and I spin round, the smile already on my face. But the path's empty, just bramble shadows and dreams.

I look back at the sea and lean over the end of the path, holding onto the rope as I watch the waves below. The water looks less blue now, like grey metal buckling a long way away. My knuckles are the colour of bone around the rope and my skin looks wrapped tight enough to split, all scars and lines.

The singing bird darts out from the hedge behind me and flutters out over the sea, swooping in its song. Before I know what I'm doing, I've kicked off my shoes and jumped. Feeling the wind rush to encourage me, the sun sparking off of those giggling waves.

The water is a cool slap, knocking laughter into bubbles as it pulls me into its blue embrace. I fight to the surface and let the laughter peal, hearing it bounce off of the cliff and ringing back at me like a memory. I tread water, surprised at its warmth, glad that the summer heat has been seeping into it for months. I flip the hair from my smile and start swimming for the curve in the cliff and the beach beyond.

The sea laps my ears as I turn the corner doing a careful breaststroke and there it is, the beach where we used to spend most of our summers. Apart from the path, nothing has changed, the cliff's shielded it from erosion and it remains a sweep of golden sand, with a few boulders bathing in the shallows.

I find the sand beneath my feet and wade through the water to the dry sand, hot and oozing through my toes. I turn, taking it all in, the shelves cut into the cliffs by the sea, the perfect sand, the sky like a polaroid from every summer that ever was. If I close my eyes I'll be eighteen again, standing here at the start of the summer, waiting for the magic to happen.

I open my eyes and walk over to the closest rock, sitting with my bare feet in the water and feeling the heat in the stone drying my clothes. I sit facing the cliff, trying to remember, where it was, where to dig...

My knees sink into the warmth of the sand as my fingers burrow deeper, into the damp layer abandoned by sea and sun, digging until my nails hit metal. The biscuit tin is heavy with emotion as I pull it from the sand, the red paint infected with a crust of rotting wet metal. I go back to the rock, back to the sunlight and rest the cold metal on my lap, watching the sea and listening to the melody of the coast.

I don't need to open the tin to know what's inside it, we each left something behind that summer; my battered yellow Walkman, Rory's horror book he was reading at the time, Paul left the folding knife he'd only just bought, Joe, the watch he'd had since he'd been twelve. And Si...Si left something else, something too big to fit in the tin. Si left his boat, buried in the sand beneath, like a warped Viking funeral, the oaks tucked beneath the seats beside bottles of water, wine and salt, and a bloodied travel blanket.

The thing inside the blanket we all left. A friendship ended, an accident, a body – whatever you'd call it. Our secret. Our oath to silence. Our lives forever changed by dumb bad luck, too many drunk teenagers on a boat and a friend caught in the undertow and washed up on our favourite beach the next morning.

I close my eyes and tip my head back into the sun, listening to the seagulls fight high above the waves. The tension in my stomach has gone now. It wasn't nostalgia dragging me back here, just guilt and sadness buried deeper than damp sand.

I go back to the hole and brush the thin layer of sand from the blanket, feeling something shifting beneath, things that were once joined, now rattling loose like promises in a tin. I put the box back and fill the hole, smoothing the sand flat with slow hands. Then I lay down and let the sun sink into me, lulling me to sleep as I wait. If I wait long enough the tide will wrap me in its whispers. If I wait long enough I'll be eighteen again, surrounded by friendship that could last forever.

If I wait long enough I won't care that there's no way off of this beach.

Catching the little fishes too...

2010-05-23T23:53:00.004+01:00

Here's something that came up in writing practice, more complete than usual, possibly a little sweeter than I would normally find coming out of my head; I mean there's no blood, no supernatural goings on... But you can't really throw it back just because it's not the normal fish you catch...

By the way this is fiction. I don't have gold coins in my curtains, or at least not that I know of...

Rubbing Pennies

After two hours of listening to the the wind outside battling to be noticed against the double glazing and the steady breaths of sleep coming from beside me, the ache in my back and my open eyes has become too much. I slide from the duvet slowly, trying not to wake him, hoping to keep him in warm, soothing dreams.

The house is quiet, the whispering clocks getting all of the attention as they tut their boredom at me from one room to another. I walk to the patio doors, part the curtain and look out onto the moonlight barricade of weeds surrounding the house. It’s like a wild green ocean in the wind, flowers tossed from wave to wave, losing petals with every surge. I drop the curtain, noticing that the hem’s loose as it drags across the floor. I mutter a scolding to the cat, who is probably on the bed sleeping beside my husband and crouch to see how bad the damage is. The curtains were in the house when we bought it, already sun faded and thin. The lining has come away from the hem and threads trail across the floor like long albino spider legs. I sigh and add it onto the long list of things that need fixing, or replacing, the expensive list that I keep in my head. The list that makes my back ache and my eyes stay open.

I turn to go to the kitchen and my feet brush against something cold on the floor. The pennies used to weigh down the curtain have spilled out and I bend to pick them up, feeling older as I do it. Pennies in the hems, that was something my gran used to do. She always said that the real weights were just called pennies, but they were lead. Why buy something for more than a handful of change, when a handful of change would do? I smile as I shift the weight in my hand. She’d be proud of all our pinching and saving.

I turn to the kitchen, slide the pennies onto the counter and make a cup of tea by the light of the fridge, drinking standing up and staring at my half reflection in the window. After ten minutes the cold that creeps in beneath the doors has numbed my feet and I head back to bed. It takes some time but my husband’s breath is a lullaby too gentle to resist.

I stagger downstairs in the morning to the dawn chorus of washing up and the kettle boiling. At the bottom of the stairs I catch sight of my husband skipping across the kitchen, singing to himself. I’m confused but I smile. It’s nice to see him happy but I’m not sure why. He turns and sees me, rushing forward to hug me, my feet leaving the floor.

“Where did you find them? Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“What?”

He drops me, grabs my hand and pulls me into the kitchen, picking up the pennies from the counter.

“Those? They’re just pennies from the curtain.”

“Look closer...”

He’d rubbed away some of the tarnish on the side of a coin. It no longer looked bronze, it looked...gold.

I looked up and met his eyes and he nodded.

“I looked on the internet, I think they’re Roman.”

The smile crept onto my face like hope, erasing the bags from beneath my eyes.

“And you said they came from the curtains...”

“The hem’s torn...”

He nodded and took my hand, leading me into the dining room, where the curtains hung askew, trailing on the floor.

“We can buy new curtains.”

The man from the blog, he say...

2010-05-09T22:14:00.002+01:00

10 cls

20 print "yes..."

30 goto 20

yes...

It's not you, it's me...

2010-05-08T09:48:00.001+01:00

Dear Blog,

Before I say anything else, I want to say I'm sorry. I haven't given you the attention that you deserve and my communication has been appalling. I'm so sorry if I've hurt you, I never meant to...

I need to be honest with you, I've been seeing others behind your back.

Assassin's Creed 2 was a constant companion for several weeks, Odeon Cinema, Vue Cinema and Cinema City have all taken me out a few times to the movies, with mixed results... Cheesemint Productions have been demanding and one of the projects is currently being very clingy and I'm hoping to finish it soon. What with this, Dragon Age, Bioshock 2 and Left For Dead 2 coming out and the Halo Reach Beta around for a couple of weeks... Plus the books and tv series I've been flirting with and the short but intense fling with the Stieg Larsson trilogy...

I've suddenly realised that I've been ignoring you, perhaps even been avoiding you. And it dawned on me, it's all a distraction... None of it has been serious and you and writing have been on my mind almost all the time, in the background. Making me realise that this is where my heart lies, no matter what else I'm doing to procrastinate and displace - I want to be writing. I want this relationship to work.

Is there anyway we can get past this? Is there anyway you can forgive me?

Can we start again as if the last four months haven't happened?

All my love

Twistedwitch

When the snow melts...

2010-01-12T18:06:00.003Z

Happy new year one and all!

Ha ha! I bet you all thought I'd given up doing this blog, you all thought I'd lost motivation and had nothing to say!

Well, Christmas and Yule kinda got in the way and having no internet access at home kinda puts a spanner in the works, what with this being an internet blog and all...

I, like many of you, came into 2010 with good intentions of writing more often, blogging more often and generally pulling my finger out and getting on with stuff. And then came the new XBox games and lots of opportunities to go to the cinema for free... Also in the background I was deciding that I wanted to broaden the horizons of this blog and talk about movies, books, music and games more...

Last year one of my intelligent and beautiful friends, fellow Cheeseminter Georgie made an excellent new years resolution to see a new film, unseen classics or new movie, once a week - she achieved this and passed her target sometime during September I think. As I and the husband find it hard to get to the cinema due to work shifts and responsibilities I thought this would be an excellent resolution to adopt.

So far this year I've seen The Princess and the Frog, (Disney, not as good as their best but still enjoyable 6/10), Nowhere Boy, (the origins of John Lennon, genius and moving 7/10) and Up in the Air, (Clooney at his best with a great script and poignant humour 8/10).

I'll update the books read anytime soon... Maybe when we have home internet again.

And I'm working on some wordier posts... I promise.

The devil makes work for idle hands...

2009-11-07T06:57:00.004Z

There are times when I wish I led a simpler life, when I wish I wasn't creatively inclined with a bundle of interests... There wouldn't be so much warring for my attention, I wouldn't constantly feel like I was failing to do something in a scramble to get other things finished...

But I guess life would then be dull!

Right at this very moment it is 6:59am and I'm sitting on a battered sofa in my living room, feeling all my thoughts spinning around inside my head like a hurricane; full of leaves, autumn mists, past, future and present. The cat is trying to climb chair backs and staring at me like I'm sitting in the wrong place and maybe I am. I don't have to work today - I should be in bed...

But there's things to do; props to be made, raffle tickets to fold, train times to check, taxi numbers to find, emails to be written, editing to be done, scripts to be drafted, washing up filling the sink and a brand new laminator to be played with. All of which could be ample distractions from each other and writing this and doing the things that really are important or essential... But I feel like I'm at the brain train station, watching high speed thoughts rush by and not sure quite which route to take. There's decisions to be made and I'm just not sure I'm the right person to be making them...

Enough rambling...

Those of you who know me know that I'm about to take part in a Rockband charity event on Sunday 15th November - I and seven other gamers are doing the endless setlist from Rockband 2, with no breaks, no pauses and no fails and an additional setlist to bring it up to a round hundred, to raise money for The Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust, the UK's leading brain tumour research and support charity. Even switching out with each other to make sure we don't get motion sickness, we'll all be doing at least four hours play each, in public, including singing...

To find out more about this event or to sponsor us visit www.justgiving.com/Cheesemint

More about Cheesemint next post, right now I'm off to write to do lists or maybe go back to bed. Do 'to do' lists count as writing practice?...

Owned...

2009-10-21T22:27:00.003+01:00

My house is full of stuff. Or rather, our house, mine, the husband's and the cat's. It's an Aladdin's cave of colour and texture, a tapestry created by years lived the same place and a multitude of things bought. There was a short story/novella I read a few years ago which equated a character's living space with the inside of an oyster shell, being lined over the years with things considered beautiful. A thickening of the walls by stuff, slowly making the space within smaller. I think it was The Pigeon by Patrick Suskind.

When we first bought our house, before we moved in, every room echoed. It sounded like a big, lonely, soul-less space. It's strange to think that all our furniture, clothes, DVDs, games, music, books, comics and clutter have taken that echo away. It's made our house sound like it has a soul.

But Tyler Durden doesn't like stuff, he said that the things you own, end up owning you. The things we own certainly restrict our choices; a mortgage does necessitate a full time job rather than a career as a drifting surfer - not a dream that I have by the way. Our recreational time is shaped by the things you choose to own. On days off I have an abundance of choices of which book I read, which DVD I watch, which game I play, which of the computers I use to write on - although to be fair, there are two which I don't think could be used as anything other than doorstops.

But there are things that I have that have little function and some of them are there because they are beautiful and some are there because they are a memory made solid. They are things given or found, bought and in a few instances stolen, that embody a place or person, usually gone or too far away to be part of daily life. They are objects that make my heart ache or my memory sharpen when I look at them. They are memorabilia from the life that has shaped me.

If something were to happen to them, I would mourn their loss, but life would go on. But I can't deny that they show me who I am.

They own me.

I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one.

I have an idea about writing a series of entries detailing these reflections of my soul, the memories that they evoke, with a photograph. I'm not sure if I want to do this so that I can understand their hold over me and decide if its healthy; or if it's in case I lose them, so I have a memory recorded.

I guess that's what a lot of writing is - remembered memories. Emotions and thoughts scrawled across paper and screens so that we can remember, even when time and tides have erased all but a lingering whisper of faces and places.

A way to remember who we are and share that with others.

If we are owned, maybe it's because we choose to be and we choose to remember who we are even when the world that shaped us has gone.

Minutiae

2009-09-30T19:48:00.004+01:00

Somebody once said that the Devil was in the details and as writers we're always looking for the little things that concrete the reality of our writing. But how far can you go? Where's the fine line between appropriate attention to detail and OCD?

I'm sitting in my usual coffee house, in my usual seat, by the window on the first floor, overlooking the market. It feels like the first day of Autumn; the sky is a flat mist grey and the awnings of the market look subdued, like off-season deck chairs. The people walking below have slumped shoulders, heavy bags, yawns splitting their faces wide open.

This all seems like appropriate attention, I'm not dwelling on a list of every bloom sold on the flower stall, or describing everything that the man sitting on the bench below is wearing... Although I like the way he stares off into his thoughts as he struggles to zip up his jacket, a cigarette dangling between his fingers.

But the things that mesmerise me, that make me pause; the way the milk blossoms and billows through the tea when I first pour it in, like a fast growing coral, pale against a mineral brown sea... The way one lone white feather flutters on the pavement in the breeze of everyone's footsteps... The way that the woman on the phone behind me has perfect hair except for a couple of loose strands, standing out from her head in a half circle of gold that glints in the light...

I feel I teeter on the brink of over-description constantly, because of the tiny things that catch my eye - shiny, silver details clamouring for the magpie mind. It would be so easy to fall into that cloud world of heat and motion in that grande Earl Grey, or to sit by the market and watch the passage of that feather as it attempts to touch the passers-by with its simple beauty.

The film of the plastic bag in "American Beauty" captivates me, I see the beauty in the disposable, the shape of the wind in that dancing plastic.

But do we get lost in those moments? Does it take us away from ourselves for a brief respite, a reminder of the gloriousness of the overlooked, the minutiae of our lives? Or do we lose connection with each other whilst we are absorbed in the details?

I don't know, but I love the way my tea blossoms and the dance of that feather and I wish there were more opportunity to write about these things without losing track of the bigger picture.

With a little help from my friends...

2009-07-26T21:19:00.002+01:00

Today has been a productive day.

With a little help from my regular Sunday night Rock Band crew, who have been waiting to read the novel I've been working on for-ever, I was placed in the situation where I had to provide them with some of it to read, by today, under pain of mockery or Chinese burns.

I am pleased to say that I handed over the prologue to Matt and Adam this evening with a list of music that kept me company whilst I wrote, or that fit with the tale...

Here's the list, expect the words next week...

The Last Man - Clint Mansell

Darkest Days - Stabbing Westward

Waiting For The Night - Depeche Mode

Crawling - Linkin Park

Disposable Teens - Marilyn Manson

Chinese Burn - Curve

Burn - Nine Inch Nails

Greedly Fly - Bush

The Noose - Perfect Circle

The Kill - 30 Seconds To Mars

Prayers For Rain - The Cure

Something I Can Never Have - Nine Inch Nails

A Beautiful Lie - 30 Seconds To Mars

I Put A Spell On You - Marilyn Manson

Ich Will - Rammstein

Get Your Gun - Marilyn Manson

Bodies - Drowning Pool

From Yesterday - 30 Seconds To Mars

Pet - Perfect Circle

Famous Last Words - My Chemical Romance

Broken Bones - Howling Bells

Blood - Editors

Low Happening - Howling Bells

Teardrop - Massive Attack

Haunted - Evanescence

Haunting Me - Stabbing Westward

Every Day Is Exactly The Same - Nine Inch Nails

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing - Garbage

Diving into unfamiliar waters...

2009-07-16T10:25:00.005+01:00

Today's post is a poem. This is rare for me, I don't generally write poetry, I find it incredibly hard when every word has so much weight and importance, when one wrong adjective can buckle the structure and bring all that emotion and thought crashing down. (Although some writers I know say it should be the same case with prose, but if you're telling a story, shouldn't the pace, flow and cadence come naturally? You can over-think some times, I can certainly over-write and I kinda think life's too short...)

But I love the way poetry works, the way an entire piece can be a Polaroid of emotion, a parable, a metaphor and a riddle of meanings. Poetry allows you to cloak your intent in deep, dark waters, so that on first reading it can seem like a summer's day but it has this edge, a promise of a storm, an unnoticed broken rung on a ladder, something big moving in the darkness of the lake... Poetry is like stealth-prose, usually smaller, sleeker and full of surprises. Good poetry anyway.

I don't often write poetry, but I find that sometimes its size and nature is ideal for emotional writing. It can allow you to write about a subject without feeling the burn of the fire, without diving so deep that you suddenly find you can't breathe...

This is quite raw, I've not worked on it much, but the moment it captures feels true...

The Empty Chair

This chair;

worn and old but comfortable,

the wooden skin polished and varnish thin;

though I sit in it,

it waits for you.

Outside, the blue sky chases clouds,

bird's flight casts shadows.

The wind changes and I know

you're out chasing feathers in it;

following the seasons

from marsh to wood,

from sea to snow.

I can see your glasses pushed up,

high on your head, above binoculars,

Your hair ruffled like crows.

Your stillness and silence

making you part of the earth.

I can hear your key in the door,

The dog barking and your shout,

"Get out you stupid dog!"

The waxed jacket slides from your shoulders,

with a scent of trees, pepper and tobacco.

The chair creaks as you sit and reach for the paper.

We are the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world...

2009-07-02T22:42:00.002+01:00

I'm sitting in the usual seat, the usual place and feeling very aware of the fact that I haven't written or blogged for a while. Has the novelty worn off? Am I in a creative wasteland? Did someone steal my typing fingers while I was asleep?

I'm relieved to report that none of the above are appropriate, it's just been a couple of long weeks and there's a couple more ahead.

There are times when I want to write everything down, record these days in a way more reliable than memory. Snag the moments in a butterfly net of words and keep them trapped forever, so that it's there to experience even after I'm gone. No matter how good or bad I feel I write, there's probably no one else who will write exactly like me, who will live this exact life, who will see through these green-grey eyes...

Then there are days when I want to just get through to the end, ideally intact, with low body counts and no trips to the medical centre.

Writing is largely about communicating, about making a connection through shared experiences and emotions. About letting even one other person know that you've felt the same, whether it be elation, delerium, ennui or boredom. It's also about entertainment, watching created worlds spiral into Hell or greatness with an intimate audience, others who will grin and say, “Yeah, I was there when Highgrave burned... That was a night to remember!”

But sometimes you don't want to remember, you don't want to share. It's too tedious or painful for one person to endure, let alone to share it around. Sometimes the cut goes too deep and those are the wounds that you keep to yourself, quietly picking at them in the darkness of 3am when you can't sleep.

There are times when it may seem that I'm not writing. Sometimes it's because life has legitimately gotten in the way. Sometimes it's because I'm being lazy – no surprise there, it's the whole reason I started this blog.

Sometimes it's not that I'm not writing, it's just that it's nothing I want to share.

By the way, for those who missed it, this blog entry was titled after Tyler Durden from Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club.

Wrapped in plastic...

2009-06-16T19:47:00.002+01:00

Yesterday on the train returning from London, I saw a long white bundle lying in the ditch next to the train lines. It looked like it was wrapped in twisted plastic or fabric, or that the material had bound itself tighter around the matter inside as it rolled down the weed thick slope. The train was moving fast and I was tired, so it could have just been a row of white plastic bags from weeding the line, or illegally dumped rubbish...

But for a while there, I thought I was looking at Laura Palmer...

My heart rate picked up and my mouth went dry. I craned my head to look back at the fast receding bundle glowing unbelievably bright in the pre-storm sunshine, my brain tripping over itself with thoughts of the emergency brake and policemen.

As the train turned the corner, a hill budding between me and that bundle, inside my mind - inside that vast book lined library of everything I've ever learnt and forgotten, every image I've ever seen and every experience I've ever had – the logical Twistedwitch snorted and turned the page of her newspaper, staring over the top of her glasses at the Twistedwitch of Imagination as she climbs on a bookcase to stare nervously out of the window.

“You know it's just rubbish bags...”

“What?”

“It's not a body.”

“You don't know that! It could be a murdered prostitute or a love triangle gone wrong!”

“Do they ever go right?”

“What?”

Closing her paper, Logic sighs and stares at Imagination until she climbs down from her wobbling perch. Imagination walks backwards down the library towards Logic, her eyes on that window, her feet coming closer to tangling with every reluctant step.

“It wasn't a body, it was too visible a place to leave it and forensic science is too good to chance a murder victim being found.”

“Maybe...”

Logic opens her paper again and goes back to reading the psychological dissemination of the dead poet. Without looking she nods towards one of the other windows.

“Go look out of the window, we're going past a wood.”

Imagination runs through the clouds of glowing dust motes and scrambles up the books piled against the wall to press her face against the window.

“Oh my God! There's something moving beneath the trees! It's wolves! No, it's the wild hunt! Wait...it's zombies!”

Logic shakes her head and for one moment feels sorry for the lone deer that raised it's head at the wrong time. She rustles the paper and turns the page. Behind her the Twistedwitch of Creativity steps out from the shadows, a heavy book in hand. Her eyes dart feverishly from Logic to Imagination and the hand holding the book raises. It's a heavy book and it should give Imagination a few hours of unfettered wildness.

This is how my mind works. This is why I never get anything done. Damn my over-thinking mind.

In between days...

2009-06-09T22:18:00.003+01:00

When I woke up this morning the light was grey with rain, the room softened by it, lulled by the patter of drops echoing in the double glazed window sills. In bed, wrapped in the duvet, snuggled by husband and cat, this morning felt so familiar and I tried to snag the drifting trail of this sensation. The cool, pale air, the warmth, the sense of waking naturally without an alarm...

I still can't place it, whether it just feels like a thousand other autumn or late-spring days, full of breezes, dampness and cloud coloured light. Maybe it just reminds me of itself, my brain mis-firing and creating a circuit straight into memory...

What-ever it was, it was delicate contentment. A moment of peace before thought, when you truly were only in-the-moment, in that space between sleep and coherence.

The weather outside is much the same now, the clouds bringing the roof of the world closer, the colour of a mourning dove's wing. It's raining still, small drops shaking the spring green of the trees outside the window. Enough to dapple the ground but too little to make the self-conscious brolly-holders feel justified.

I long to be beneath the duvet, chasing after that moment of familiarity, the darkness streaked with grey light, one foot out of the side of the bed feeling the coolness of the room outside the duvet cocoon.

That in between-ness calls to me, calls to all of us; the twilight between day and night, the dim empty halls between rooms, the space between life and death, the darkness beneath the trees on a bright summer day...

What if you were neither one thing or another? What if you were always between states, places, time? What if you were as intangible as smoke, the pale grey of a mourning dove's wings...

Maybe you are?

Maybe I am too.

Misplaced mis-shape...

2009-05-26T15:00:00.002+01:00

"Your house was very small,

with wood-chip on the wall..."

Pulp, Disco 2000

I'm sitting at my parent's dinner table writing, the radio's off, the back door's open, one of the two cats is asleep on a chair beside me. All I can hear is the clock ticking, the birds fighting over the feeder's in the back garden and the wind in the bamboo that grows right outside the back door. There's coffee at my elbow and not a soul around.

It sounds perfect, doesn't it? The ideal solitude for writing... Instead, I'm distracted by the wealth of history around me, the largely unaltered shape of this familiar landscape. The changes are all sub-terra, felt rather than seen, making what was once my home something like the button-eyed not-home of Neil Gaimain's Coraline.

Maybe it's just weird being here alone, it's a rare occurrence. Before I left home, I would never have been here on my own and at a loss of what to do with myself. The music would be loud, I'd be moving my entire bedroom around again or reading, writing or drawing...

But I'm no longer that person and despite being offered this precious quiet time in which to write, I find myself out of place, like something moved from the mantle-piece, leaving behind a ring of dust where I once was.

This place makes me look at who I was, the past that has shaped me, the generations which have raised me, the places that cup parts of my heart.

Maybe it's just the time of year, maybe it's just being here alone with the other dust ringed holes, maybe I should just go out into the sunshine and take a breath and remember to look forward.

And maybe I should just stop bitching and actually do some work...

Thoughts of summer...

2009-05-23T09:50:00.003+01:00

Summer is finally here and I know this because I'm sitting in Caffe Nero having my first Iced Mocha of the year. I've managed to grab my favourite table, first floor, front next to the windows, overlooking the market and the town hall. This is great for three reasons;

one – natural light. Although I'm a shadow hugger by nature, I can appreciate the sunlight with the best of them, mostly from indoors or beneath the dappled shade of a tree.

two – I can see the town hall clock perfectly from here, which is great on days when I'm cafe writing before work and I've forgotten my watch i.e. today.

three – with the sun shining on the squad of market stalls, the striped roofs look amazingly cheery and make me feel nostalgic for deck chairs, buckets and spades and those ever so slightly salty/crunchy picnics on the beach...

I have so many mixed emotions about the summer, whilst I enjoy the weather, albeit from inside buildings or thick with sun tan lotion, it makes me miss the long summers off. That was school's biggest deception, the 6-8 week break. I don't think you ever really comprehend how lovely it is until you've lost it.

I also miss Stoke Beach. From my youngest age I can remember spending my summers with my grandparents in Devon and spending a lot of time at Stoke Beach which is where my grandfather had a caravan. Stoke Beach was a Co-op owned private caravan park full of ramshackle vehicles that probably could no longer be moved, set within the most beautiful bay. Originally a farm where tents had been pitched for child evacuees during the second world war, so many of the children loved the place that it became a private summer 'resort', populated with local holidayers, evacuees and the generations which followed. Many of the friends I made there were the children of the friends my dad had made when he was young. There was such a sense of community that the kids would spend the day rampaging around the beaches, in the woods and stumbling through each others caravans, all the parents utterly content that they were safe and that everyone kept an eye on each other.

Apart from the friends, community and camraderie, the thing that make Stoke Beach magical was the location itself. The caravan site was small and set on stepped layers on the hill which sloped down into the bay, at either end there were sheep meadows full of bitter stubby vegetation that clung to the sandy soil. A wood hugged most of the site, offering ample shade for tree climbing, fort making, knife throwing, child kidnap and nettle diving. The bay the site was set in was about a mile across, holding within it a series of smaller bays, each perfect for different things; crabbing, diving, surfing, swimming, rock pool hunting, sun bathing and exploration. One bay, on the far end of the larger bay, the beach directly below where my grandad's caravan clung on the very edge of the cliff, was full of eroded cliffs that had formed stone passages, twisted and organic, perfect for small bodies to slither through at low tide.

One of the most memorable things about Stoke Beach was the abandoned church. Set in the middle of the caravan park, surrounded by a field of meadow-sweet, grave stones and trees, the church was slowly becoming part of the woodland. I don't remember it ever having a roof apart from in one shaded corner, and wild flowers grew between the inscribed flagstones on the floor. The place felt so serene, so much part of the land that was reclaiming it – I often wonder if this was why I always thought of nature being spiritual, if this was why I became Pagan/Wiccan.

Anyway, time for work...

Strange flesh and lights...

2009-05-18T22:19:00.003+01:00

This last week I have been a stranger in a strange land and the territory has been my own flesh... Funny how not being well makes you feel like a passenger in a meat vehicle. You know how to drive the damn thing, but have no idea of how it really works and how to fix it beyond basic maintenance.

Talking of the freakiness of flesh - here's a short story I finished this time last year. I don't tend to use first person very much, I prefer the part of omnipotent God-like third person, but first person felt right for this piece. Brought you closer to the experience, to that dark, dusty room, the slice of light cutting through the air like a sliver of another reality...

The Unlit Lung

Death didn’t exist before the summer I turned fourteen. That long parched drag of a season my dog, Murdock, would lay panting in the shade of our crabapple tree, his pink tongue dripping until he lay in a puddle. That summer was so hot the blackberries cooked on the bushes and everywhere smelt of preserve.

That was the summer I met death. I learned that sometimes, even if you were nothing alike, you could share your father’s fears, the same genetic fate. That beneath the organic wonder of life there were things beyond the blood, shadows waiting for the light of day to reveal them.

The summer passed. Each sun-burnt, wild day blurring into the next until my birthday came and went. I felt no different, as immortal as ever, but deceived myself with thoughts of being more grown-up. In the last year I’d cut class a few times, smoked my first cigarette and pretended to like it, and almost kissed a girl.

When the phone rang late one evening, not long after my birthday, I ignored it and lay on the floor of the curtained living room watching TV and picking at the scab that covered my left knee. I heard my mother’s flip-flops slapping the floorboards the length of the corridor and when she answered the phone her muffled voice echoed, making the hall sound like a cave. The phone trilled as she hung up and she headed back to the kitchen, her tread slower.

We found out what was going on at dinner, after she’d snapped at my father for reading the paper at the table and moaned when I secretly fed Murdock my greens. She sighed deeply, letting the phone call and stress dissipate across the table in a cloud of stale breath. She looked wearily at my father.
“Your grandfather got his help to call earlier.”

He dropped his knife. It bounced on the floor before he bent to retrieve it and my mother rolled her eyes as he wiped it clean on his trousers.

“What did he want?”

She turned to look at me.  “He wants to meet Paul. Tomorrow.” 

I had never met my great-grandfather and my parents rarely spoke of him. When they did, as they did that night, it was in hushed tones behind closed doors, usually when they thought I was asleep. From the few words I’d heard through the walls or filtered through keyless locks, I could guess he was unusual. He rarely left the house, was sick in some way and there may have been an operation. What I knew for certain, I could tell from my father’s voice; my great-grandfather was terrifying.

The two hour drive from our house to great-grandfather’s was like sitting in an oven as it was pushed towards the edge of a volcano. My curiosity fast turned into nerves and by the time we pulled up outside the detached house, I had been infected with the fear that filled the car.

My father turned off the engine and we sat in silence, listening to the metal ticking as it cooled. The decaying house was large, the paint peeling and the windows yellow. It was set back from the street in a garden of weeds and the houses on either side seemed to be leaning away from it. I looked away in time to catch my parents staring at each other, they may have been silently mouthing things. They turned towards me and my mother cleared her throat.

“Paul. Your great-grandfather is a strange man, a strange sick man. But he’s still your great-grandfather. Be polite, call him ‘Sir’ and what-ever you do, don’t stare at the lung on the mantelpiece.”

I don’t remember much about getting from the car to the door of my great-grandfather’s study, but I think my mouth hung open, forgotten as I tried to decipher her words. Was it a riddle, a joke? I kept thinking of the bag of pink and grey butcher scraps the neighbor sometimes gave us for Murdock. She called them lights and my mother said that it meant lungs. My father always went pale as they slopped into the dog’s bowl. All I could think of was a table lamp shaped like a lung, glowing pink and illuminating the wall with the shadows of veins.

The door seemed big. It was dark wood, made darker still by the blue shadows that filled the house. I remember staring at the door handle, thinking that it looked like brass plated finger bones. It suddenly felt like winter and a chill crawled across my skin as I raised my hand to knock.

“Come in.”

His voice hissed and crackled like a broken radio, rumbling like the end of an earthquake. How he knew I stood there I didn’t know. In retrospect, he had summoned me and had ears that could hear as well as any other man. But I was infected with my father’s tension and the idea of organ lamps. Old men who could see through doors didn’t seem impossible.

I slid my fingers onto the door handle and felt the cold of the metal sink into my bones. The door opened silently, but I think I heard the creak of a coffin opening all the same. The chill of the room rushed to embrace me, the shadows that seemed piled up against the door, spilling out into the corridor. I took a deep breath before stepping into the room and almost gagged on the smell.

It was like something had died or was in the slow process of dying, but to save time had already started to decay. It took an effort of will to not cover my face with my hands, I somehow managed to remember that that would seem rude. But I couldn’t stop the crinkle of my nose or the curl of my mouth. Sometimes the body just does what it must.

The room was darkness divided into two, the halves separated by a sliver of stained daylight falling through a gap in the heavy drapes. Dust spiraled in that slice of light, catching my eye as it turned and I tried to look away, to see beyond the shadows. I stood still as I watched the shape of the room emerge, becoming aware of the chaos piled around me. The walls were lined with bookcases, crammed with leather bindings and jumbled with random shapes. There were cascades of newspapers and books spilling from the shelves and onto the floor, almost as if this clutter were oozing from the shelves, literary blood from dusty wounds. There was an empty path cutting across the floor, darker in the center where feet had polished the dust away in their journey from the door to the desk.

I hadn’t noticed him before, the bundle reclining in an over stuffed chair behind the over filled desk. But my eyes found him just as I became aware of the sound of his breath. My great-grandfather’s breath sounded like salt being rubbed into a wound.

He was thin beneath the layers of clothing, the bones of his cheeks cutting their way out of his face from the inside. It was hard to tell in the light, but his skin looked yellowed and worn thin like the paper of the books surrounding him. White hair powdered his mottled scalp, pale stubble salted his chin and all I could think of at the moment before our eyes met, was that hair kept growing after death.

But the glitter of his eyes drew me. Even as the grey skin sagged around his eyes, beneath the deep skull like sockets, his eyes sparkled with life, wet in this dry tomb where everything was turning to dust. He stared at me with those black glossy eyes and I felt as though my soul were being weighed against a feather.

This was my great-grandfather. An old man who was alive against all evidence except for those eyes. A man who still breathed despite the agony that sound made me share. A man who I suddenly felt sorry for.

He must have seen it in my eyes, the pity of youth, in a body still growing towards its peak. I think if he could have spared the energy he would have smiled. Instead, he channeled his will into lifting his arm, that shaking stick of cloth-covered bone. As that arm defied gravity, his clawed hand unfolded into the pointing finger that led me to the lung.

The lung on the mantelpiece.

It stood in a specimen jar on the shelf above a fireplace full of books. It was clear of dust, like a trophy or a perfectly preserved memory. The lung floated in an cloudy liquid that failed to obscure the dark mass at its base, a growth with tendrils emerging from it, almost like limbs.

What happened next may have been a shift in the light, the reflected movement of the old man’s arm or a trick of my over stimulated mind, even now I couldn’t say.

The lung moved.

It was like a twitch of movement in that dark matter. Like something not quite dead sighing from the wait.

I ran. I bolted for the door and ran through the winter chill of the house to escape, feeling the panic overwhelm me and pour out in a high pitched scream. Below my terror, below my own noise, below the scramble of my parents to intercept me as I dashed through the front door and out into the sunlight, I could hear his laughter. Like metal grating against glass, that sound chased me from the house and a mile down the road, where I collapsed on a parched lawn in front of the most normal house I could find. My parents found me sobbing there twenty minutes later.

That day has never left me, for that was the day I met death and he tricked me. That was the day I stopped being a child and shared the fear of my father.

Which brings me here.

I’ve been sitting in my car outside the hospital for an hour, listening to the tick of metal and remembering every moment of that day. Thirty years on and I can still recall my dad’s expression as he turned off the ignition of the car. I can’t help but feel that he knew. Think that his fear was not only of a crazy old man who lived only to scare people but that he sensed the genetic destiny of that lung.

It was ten years after that July day that I learnt my grandfather had died of lung cancer.

It was this morning that I learnt of that shadow in my father.

But the worse thing of all, beyond the organic fate befalling our male line. The thing that wakes me at three in the morning screaming like a fourteen year old boy, covered in sweat.

I think the old man, my great-grandfather, is still alive.

I think the lung is still in a jar on a mantelpiece waiting for death.

I keep wondering if the death it’s waiting for is mine.

Teleportation and time travel are a memory away...

2009-05-11T22:06:00.003+01:00

Brushing my teeth first thing in the morning, one hand resting against the cold porcelain of the sink, I realise the windows have been ajar all night. I turn my face towards the textured glass as a breeze slips through, full of fresh growth and pooled rain.

I can hear the wind shake the trees outside, seagulls wail and keen as they fly over and I'm no longer here or now - I'm curled in bed, in my grandmother's house in Devon, awake early and eager to pull the curtains aside to see what kind of day the wind has brought, but too nervous to move from the camp bed and over-filled quilt. If it's a good day, with a blue sky, it's a day at the coast; if it's wet, we may go shopping and then spend the day watching my Nan fall asleep in front of the TV, her hand petting one of the dogs on automatic pilot.

Beyond the curtains I know the seagulls wheel above the neat staggered gardens clinging to the steep hill, flying up from the creek at the base of the hill, towards the sea. The coast is close enough that you can smell the salt in the mud of the creek and crabs scuttle from the light when you tip the stones over with your foot.

The memories flood out from that seagull song, like crabs from a rock, too many to catch, so much history and detail of that place and all the places it led to. All from the brush of that rain scented breeze and the screaming cry on wing.

All this, from one scent, one sound. So much life and emotion encapsulated in a trail of memories that would need bread-crumbs to track...

I wish I could give my characters this without breaking the magic...

Time is an abstract concept...

2009-05-11T17:58:00.003+01:00

I haven't blogged for a while, I know, my bad, but in my defence I've been stressed and now I'm sick. It's not swine flu, it's just a cold...

...except for at three in the morning when I can't sleep and the fear creeps in with the draft under the door, that I'm really sick and worse, I'm mortal.

This is something that hits me in different ways. Sometimes it makes me want to write now and write more. Get it done just in case... All those unfinished projects cluttering up my brain, all the big ideas, all the small delicate short stories that hide whimpering from the light... Other times, when faced with my mortality, I kinda go "meh". You can only do what you do and get done what you can in the time you have... It doesn't make me burn with creative juices but it reminds me that all the shit in my head, is at least my shit. It'll die with me. And some of it should.

We all have secrets, we all have stories, things to write. But there's some that should be written and shared, some that shouldn't and some that can't. I guess I should stop being maudlin and get to work on the ones I can write and the ones I want you to read.

I just discovered that maudlin has it's origins in the ecclesiastical Latin for Magdalena, deriving from allusion to pictures of Mary Magdalen weeping. How cool is that... There's a story in every word...

I'll be back later, with less whining and more words.

What if there's no twelve step program?

2009-04-28T21:46:00.003+01:00

I think it's time that I admitted that I'm addicted to buying how-to-write books...

Shameful and disappointing I know, but I find honesty is the best policy and the first step to recovery is to admit that there's a problem.

I blame Natalie Goldberg. Her book Writing Down the Bones, (ISBN 9781590302613), was one of the first books on writing that I bought as a student, way, way back when my hair was it's natural colour. I love her style, the influence Buddhism has on her writing and advice, the way the sand of the desert around her home creeps into the pages, her location inspiring both her and her readers. It's a book I return to frequently for encouragement and writing exercise prompts and no other author of said books has equalled.

But that doesn't stop me from buying them...

My top five books on writing:

1. Writing Down the Bones - Natalie Goldberg

2. Wild Mind - Natalie Goldberg

3. A Writer's Book of Days - Judy Reeves

4. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott

5. The Creative Writing Coursebook - Andrew Motion and Julia Bell

As you can tell by the list, I tend to prefer the books that try to get you impassioned, inspired and writing often. I find the books that try to improve your writing can be cold, formulaic and uninspiring - they don't make me want to write, let alone write better.

The downside of this addiction: sometimes I read books on writing as displacement from writing... I keep telling myself reading is important, but I know in my heart that an essential part of writing is...writing.

So, I guess I should do some.

Write she said...

2009-04-23T22:18:00.002+01:00

So, I wrote... Just over 600 words of...something. Usually, I use hot pen or writing practice exercises to warm up before I start working on ongoing projects. But as I'm out of practice and generally warming up to writing again, I'm really just trying to get those muscles working again.

Most of the time the writing that comes out is...meh. It's usually ragged and uninspired, but sometimes there's something in there worth keeping - a phrase or description. Something true. Sometimes. Not always.

I'm hoping to start putting some of these ragged and uninspired exercises on here soon, just as a window into my writing style, subject obsessions and so that you can see the progression of work, if anything turns out to be worth progressing with.

Promise you'll be gentle with me...

Write or the Mocha gets it...

2009-04-23T15:25:00.004+01:00

I'm sitting on the first floor of Nero's, over-looking Norwich market. The sun is warm through the window and the tops of the market stalls look like striped sea defences, protecting the City Hall from attack by marauding pirates or a moaning of zombies...

I'm sitting here realising that in the space of a week, I have become addicted to writing in coffee shops during my lunch break. I don't know if it's the coffee - regular mocha with a hazelnut shot - or if it's the occasional chocolate brownie, or just the warmth of the sun luring me out, but at the moment I can't bear to stay at work during lunch. And despite the expense and the un-credit-crunch of it, I'm prepared to let myself be addicted. Because right now I'm sitting here with the laptop open and I'm writing.

I figure anything that gets me here, regularly, without the bitchin and moaning, whilst I'm working full time, has to be a good thing. If I can get back into the habit of writing every day, the writing will start to happen on its own - without the need of bribes. Or at least with the aid of cheaper bribes...

So, I've got about twenty minutes left before I have to go back to work, half a brownie and about four gulps of coffee... I think that's enough to get me through a writing exercise or two...

Things are starting to sprout...

2009-04-20T21:57:00.005+01:00

What is it about the change of seasons, particularly the blossom scattered, chlorophyll fuelled shift from winter to spring that suddenly gets the creative parts of my brain working again? After months of dry, bone-dead ideas, I'm having obscure ideas at awkward times - usually when I'm walking, computer-less, without paper or pen - having to rely on saving ideas in txt spk on my mobile.

I think walking and listening to the pod helps. Music has always been an almost integral part of my writing - to the extent that usually I keep a record of what I'm listening to while I'm writing. I love the idea of giving someone a track list to listen to whilst they read...

I'm trying not to think that it might actually be the exercise sending more blood to my brain and making the squishy thing work better... If I thought that, I'd have to do more exercise...

The ideas from today: using a song to trigger a character's memory flashback; and mermaids... I'll let you know how things progress.

And so it begins...

2009-04-17T00:19:00.005+01:00

Well, this evening could be considered productive: I took a look at the book-that-died and despite the nagging certainty that I'm flogging a dead horse, polishing a turd etc, I can't seem to let it go. I just had too much damn fun writing it in the first place... Besides, I did get 15,000 words into the sequel over a year ago and that one was even more fun to write - that one is love triangles and dead bodies all over the place...

So, for the time being I'll persevere with the re-read and tightening, in the hope that maybe I'll have something ready to go up here within the next month.

You ever have one of those moments when you wonder if you should have done it in first person instead of third? When you hate the start and you know that at some point you thought it kicked ass...

Did some hot-penning too; something that felt like the start of an urban fantasy, about being on automatic pilot and unknowingly walking your way out of this world... I love hot pen exercises, sometimes you just come up with something unexpected that you can craft. However, most of the time it's just wordsmith stretches. Warming the muscles so you don't pull something when the real dance begins. Not sure if it should be called hot-penning when you're on the tweet deck...

Colds, hot penning and new tweet decks...

2009-04-15T19:58:00.004+01:00

Yesterday was my birthday and as twitter would put it #birthday success! I may not have done any writing but I got some fine gifts and some touching well wishes and got to stare at Vin Deisel in Fast and Furious. As far as the film goes, it was as good as the first, probably aided by the character history and it was great to see Vin take a bullet and just shrug it off. Lots of shiny things moving very fast if you like that kind of thing. 7 out of 10.

More importantly, my dearest husband has bought me a web book, a mini lap top half the size of the lump of Apple gorgeousness that I currently use. This means I should be able to write, blog and tweet on the move - once my good friend Castellan has finished potty training its wifi. We're feeding him Chinese food in exchange for his excellent IT services.

In case you're wondering, I did write today - a hot pen exercise too dreadful to allow you to read. If I do any warm ups good enough for human eyes, they'll be here.

Oh btw, I have a cold. It is annoying. End of line.

The trick was...

2009-04-13T18:11:00.001+01:00

This blog title was inspired initially from The Trick Is To Keep Breathing, a Garbage single from their 1998 album, Version 2.0. A great soulful song, full of echos of Portishead and the Twin Peaks soundtrack - a song that sounds like a moment of reflection, remorse and self-loathing but with a sweet offer of forgiveness - all wrapped up with that sexy Manson voice and a scratchy orchestral lilt. (I can't believe that Version 2.0 came out over 10 years ago... There are rumours of a fifth studio album this year, but I don't how Manson's acting gig in the Sarah Connor Chronicles is going to effect that).

But Garbage in turn borrowed the title from the 1989 novel The Trick Is To Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway, (ISBN 9780749391737, published by Minerva). Considered to be a contemporary Scottish classic, this book is an achingly beautiful tale of grief, the descent into depression, anorexia and the breaking of a heart.

Both of these creations are works of art.

This blog is not. But I love the sentiment - just focus on each breath, each word, and just keep going until it gets easier. Or until you get stronger. Or better.

It’s a good trick to learn.

The trick is...

2009-04-12T05:30:00.001+01:00

Kinda the whole point of this is to get myself writing again. I've been writing off and on, but pretty much on since...well, since I had words. Admittedly the early works were derivative, 'The Further Adventures of Peter Bunny' leaps to mind and admittedly I was a co-author of that illustrated piece, (acknowledgment to R. Hockey Esq. Elder sibling). But it's always been something I've been unable to stop doing. Mostly...

I have found that in times of stress, depression, melancholy and ennui, the words are either bad, in bad sentences, in bad paragraphs and largely unhelpful for one's state of mind or they've been quiet words, muffled by emotion and a desire to avoid the world and the horse she rode in on. Last year I was writing a lot, doing a course that actually seemed to be helping me improve and life, as it tends to, interrupted.

So, apart from some writing practice and some journaling, it's been pretty quiet on the creative front and finally, and I mean FINALLY, I'm starting to get that itch again... No, not the one that needs cream, the one that can only be soothed by stringing words together into other worlds, other lives. And I have some characters who won't let me go. Their shadows fall over me every time I turn on the computer and if I listen very carefully, I can hear one of them grinding his teeth impatiently...

I suspect that if I had the balls to turn and look at them, they'd be standing like a storm front at the head of a queue of people who are sick of waiting to have their stories told. I think I few may be smiling and waving, they haven't been there so long... But they may be flailing beneath the fists of the others, the smiles just pain clenched teeth.

sigh...

I'm here, right? The trick is to get writing. To keep writing. And hopefully, through these words, this blog, I'll trick myself into the words before the characters turn on me.

Oh, for blogs sake...

2009-04-11T22:55:00.001+01:00

I don't think I can take it anymore, I've been talking about blogging for so long that I feel like I've already started writing about the damn thing and yet there's no blog...

There's no entry a week, for an undisclosed time period, listed backwards chronologically, expressing creativity and emotion into a private forum that no one reads. There's no blog to encourage me to write, to actually get something down on paper/screen even if it is just blog bumpf and nothing of any consequence.

No blog to use as an excuse to not work on something that I'm actually mean't to be doing.

No blog.

Reading everyone's Twitter updates linking to blog updates, it suddenly struck me... So what if I have nothing to say, nothing to promote - only an unedited-half-finished novel that I ignore like an elephant in the room. So what if I'm not funny, interesting, co-herant or lucid. So what if no one reads it... So what if I'm only doing this for myself as a self-motivational tool in order to encourage myself to do the editing, to do some writing, to do SOMETHING.

There could be a blog... There could very easily be a blog...

What's to stop me?

What's to stop you?

Why are you still reading this? Go do your effing blog.