Tim Newton Anderson's Blog, page 13

Lockdown Stories Number 12 – Stranger Tractor

This is number  12 of my lockdown stories –stranger tractor. This is another one of my own ideas as life intruded so I didn’t get a chance to write any of the ides that have been suggested.

As I hope you know by now I am writing a story a week which will be collected in book form at the end of lockdown with the profits going to a local food bank. If you want to make a suggestion just give me a genre, lead character and location and I will write a story around it. Comment on this post in my blog https://wordpress.com/post/atjentertainments.wordpress.com (where you will find the rest of the stories and more) email to timnewtonanderson@gmail.com or message me on my facebook page Tim Newton Anderson.

This story is partly inspired by a family in joke and partly by Connie Willis’ At The Rialto (we are not worthy). It is an attempt to write a story using Chaos Theory as both a key element of the plot and the structure of the story. 

 

Lockdown Stories 11 – We Missed You

Here is number 11 of my lockdown stories suggested by my wonderful friend Filip Meuris. This one is We Missed You When We Called.

Filip’s idea was a present day thriller set in the UK under lockdown with the lead character being a delivery man who notices something strange as he does his drops. I hope I have done the idea justice.

Don’t forget you can still put forward ideas for stories which will be collected in a book at the end of lockdown with profits going to a local foodbank. I just need a genre, location and character sent either by messenger to my facebook page Tim Newton Anderson or emailed to timnewtonanderson@gmail.com

Lockdown Stories 10 – Walking on the Air

This is number 10 of my lockdown stories – one I did in a burst of inspiration while waiting for new suggestions to come in. IF you would like to send me a genre, character and location I will write a story dedicated to you which will be published in a book at the end of lockdown and profits go to a local food bank.

This one is walking on the air and is my attempt to write a Laffertyesque story (we are not worthy). R.A. Lafferty wrote stories so unique he has a genre all to himself. Like some other great science fiction and fantasy authors who specialised in short stories (Avram Davidson and George Alec Effinger spring to mind) the novels are of variable qiality but the shorts are almost all brilliant.

IF you want to give me any ideas for further stories email me to timnewtonanderson@gmail.com or message me via my Facebook Page Tim Newton Anderson. Or you could comment on this post on my blog.

The Cartomancer – Lockdown Stories number nine

This is the ninth of my Lockdown Stories The Cartomancer.

As I hope you know I am writing a story a week based on suggestions from you all of a genre, a character and a location. They will be printed in book form at the end of the crisis and all profits given to a local foodbank.

This one is based on an idea from my file of potential stories as I did not have any external suggestions – if you would like to help and get a story dedicated to you including in the book, please send me ideas to either timnewtonanderson@gmail.com, via messenger on my Facebook page Tim Newton Anderson, or in a comment on this post in my blog.

Like the earlier story “The Sea’s Gift” this gave me the opportunity to invent a new type of magic. In the earlier story it was based on the exchange system Potlatch and in this it is based on maps.

 

Inspiration – and its alternatives

As some of you may have spotted I’m doing a project during lockdown to write a story a week based on people’s suggestions. These will be published as a book when the crisis is over with the profits going to a local food bank.

It has been a fascinating experience in terms of its impact on my creativity. The first change being it forces me to sit down and write as, even in lockdown, there are other things which I could be doing and which are less challenging than writing.

The other thing that is a bit of a revelation is that the initial seed of “genre, character, location” is all I need to come up with a story that works reasonably well. Not that I should be that surprised when I think of the way constraints encourage creation within OuLiPo and the interesting results of the Surrealist experiments with automatic writing and their Exquisite Corpse game. I am also reminded of Harlan Ellison’s experiments sitting in a bookshop window and writing story after story for the customers.

Part of the creative process has also been thinking “that is the sort of story X might write” X being one of my literary heroes. In my first real job as a journalist on the Shields Gazette, colleagues and I would fill in quiet times of the day with what we called Two Finger Exercises (referring to the number of fingers we used to type, of course). We would write news stories in the style of a famous author. Not all of our parodies were successful but it was great fun.

One of the story prompts I was given was a one armed salmon poacher on the Wye river. The Wye rising in Wales, and that being the home of Rhys Hughes – who wrote one of my favourite parodies of all time in “Crash -With Shopping Trollies – I did a homage to him using elements of the plots from Moby Dick and Casablanca. The latter was because my mind threw out the phrase “we’ll always have Powys.”

Another Welsh location I was given was the Brecon Beacons and the characters were a T Rex and a Brontosaurus. As the dinosaurs were named after the suggester’s children I tried ti make the story age appropriate, but ended up with a story inspired by Italo Calvino’s T Zero tales and Roy Lewis’ The Evolution Man.

As I was worried I would not be able to keep to my commitment if no-one made any suggestions I have also been working through my story ideas file and writing up some of those. Many started as just a title or a character or some other nugget of inspiration, and have since been added to as other ideas popped into my head followed by the thought: “That would work well with that.” I’m not worried I run out any time soon as I tend to add at least one story seed a week and I have a few dozen to work through without adding any at all.

If you have any thoughts for the Lockdown Stories though, email them to me at timnewtonanderson@hotmail.co.uk or message me via my Facebook page Tim Newton Anderson. Cheers.

21st Century BC Boy – lockdown stories No 8

A two for one this week: 21st Century BC Boy suggested by Steve Cluer about a T Rex and  Brontosaurus in Wales plus an unsolicited story The Vanishing Customer whose main character is (minor) celebrity medium Beryl Crystal who is the heroine of a potential TV series.

Please remember I will be publishing all of the lockdown stories as a book when things go back to a relatively normal state and profits will be given to a food bank. Please email a genre, character and location to me at timnewtonanderson@gmail.com or messenger them to me via my Facebook page Tim Newton Anderson. 

Hope you enjoy 20th century BC Boy and The Vanishing Customer.

We’ll Always Have Powys – Lockdown No. 7

Here is the seventh of my lockdown stories – We’ll Always Have Powys from a suggestion by Ange Starkey. A comedy about a one armed poacher called Bobby on the River Wye.

You may spot a couple of other influences: Moby Dick, Casablanca and the Tom Jones karaoke favourite Delilah.  It’s also a bit of a tribute to two of my favourite authors (both Welsh) Rhys Hughes and Malcolm Pryce.

We’ll Always Have Powys

Don’t forget it would be great if yiou could make me more suggestions for stories – just put a character name, genre and location on either my facebook page Tim Newton Anderson or email me at timenewtonanderson@gmail.com.

The Parable of the Talents or Charity

This is the sixth of my lockdown/isolation stories. Remember if you can give me a genre, character and location by messaging timnewtonanderson on facebook or emailing timnewtonanderson@gmail.com I will write one especially for you.

All of the stories will be produced in a book with the profits going to a local foodbank.

This is the third of a series started with Letters to My Daughter and continued with The Sea’s Gift. It is an alternate future to the Sea’s Gift splitting off from the world imagined in Letters to My Daughter. The Parable of the Talents

The Riot Considered as One of the Fine Arts

[image error]Throughout history mankind has engaged in rioting.

This may be triggered by differences between groups on politics, religion, labour relations or policing, but a riot is a riot is a riot. The reasons for the riot are inconsequential – the circumstances that provoked it change and the triggers often seem bizarre to later generations, but the riot itself is a constant. The obvious conclusion is it is the riot itself that is important and not the ostensible cause.

One must differentiate between the “pure” riot and the riot sponsored by rulers or demagogues – described in telling detail and with great passion by Elias Canetti in Crowds and Power. The “pure” riot is composed of individuals who are willing participants, not subject to press ganging or coercion, whether that is overt or covert. There may well be those who inspire the participants to take part, but, as stated above, the reasons for the riot are irrelevant. In its purest form it is a bacchanalia. A Saturnalia. A celebration of mass civil disobedience and disruption.

The French – and the Parisians in particular – have developed the riot into fine art. The eruptions in theatres in the city in the late 19th and early to mid 20th centuries were almost exclusively more significant than the art taking place on the stage. However groundbreaking the work being performed, within a few decades it would move into the mainstream and become merely another commodity. However, the riot cannot be bought and sold and is always the property of the people rather than the elite. It is always All Fool’s Day when the servant shall be master and the master servant.

The riot has a consonance with the Joking Relationship in anthropology. Originally identified between individuals it describes a socially sanctioned way of deepening bonds by an outward show of aggression. The butt of the joke – normally a person who otherwise has seniority or other advantage – is enjoined by the society to accept the ritualised ribbing. The jokes are not merely verbal but can also include theft and destruction of property and in the case of the Welsh community described by Evans Pritchard are carried out by groups rather than individuals.

However a common element – especially in avuncular or asymmetric joking – is the jokers are traditionally the younger generation and this echoes the riots within the arts in Paris where it is the younger generation of artists challenging the established elite. There is a similar element in political riots where it is the excluded, often younger, groups who riot against the older established elements of society.

Nevertheless, for the purposes of this essay, these anthropological analytics are as irrelevant as the particulars of the argument. Both are generalisations, and as we know the general is not as important as the particular. All theories are as suspect as the feulitades of Fort – fired into the damned areas of evidence contradicted by mainstream science as to ignite a conflagration whose fertile ashes can sponsor more fertile growth.

We tend to look at riots in terms of causes and outcomes, but an area always neglected is the aesthetic of the action. The balletic nature of the event.

The players assemble on their stage – as the ostensible audience in a theatre or as a crowd in a public space. There may be a principal performer – someone who speaks to the crowd or leads them into conflict – but all are equally important once the event is underway. There may also be more than one self identified group of performers. The pro and anti factions. The rioters and the police. The participants and the passers by. All have parts to play in the spectacle.

There may be a signal to start – the first catcall, the first projectile, the charge of the police horses or riot shields. It is important to observe the mathematically perfect trajectory of the thrown objects as they criss-cross the performance area in a display as perfect as official fireworks in the New Year sky. You can then bring your attention to ground level and see the intricate steps of the dancers as they move in a seemingly unconscious tarantella. Rarely do they move as a single mass. Each has their individual weave in and out of the crowd.

It is hard to appreciate the riot in all of its glory at ground level – especially from within the performance area. At that location it may seem like arbitrary chaotic Brownian movement where only the cause and outcome are significant. Viewed from a distance however, away from the noise and fervour, you can appreciate not only the large scale but the individual details. There have been few successful attempts to film the riot in all of its glory. Like a battle witnessed from within, the pattern cannot be seen because one is absorbed in details and one’s own part.

As the riot moves through the streets it can transform one landscape to something alien – lit by burning cars and bejewelled by the broken glass from shop windows. The tide of the event scatters players in its wake as some are arrested, others desert, and a few are left broken on the ground – having given the ultimate sacrifice to their art.

At the end, as all of the players leave the stage, there is a sense of having witnessed something transcendent and even transgressive but ultimately significant in its artistry and beauty. An event which is complete in itself, but also a single stage in the standing wave of the development of the riot as an artistic creation.

The Sea’s Gift. Lockdown Story 5

This is the latest of my lockdown stories – no-one requested this one so I did a story linked to my first one: Letter to My Daughter.

Remember, I would love to have ideas from you to write my weekly stories which I will publish as a book at the end of this and give any profits to a local foodbank. Either email me at timnewtonanderson@gmail.com or message me via my facebook page with a character, genre or type of story and a location and I will write a story which I will publish dedicated to you next Friday.

This one is set in the future several centuries after climate change has caused global catastrophe and melting ice has left the human race living on what had been mountain tops. Enjoy The Sea’s gift – subtitled Faith as it is part of a trilogy of Faith, Hope and Charity. The third may be published next week.