Bryan Islip's Blog, page 36
April 12, 2012
Our way to be in Wester-Ross
People who live far away and in big conurbations are mostly too polite to ask but we know they often wonder why we live in such a 'remote' spot as Aultbea. Now, there's nothing sensational in what...
Visit http://www.bryanislipauthor.com to read more about Bryan's writing
Visit http://www.bryanislipauthor.com to read more about Bryan's writing
Our way to be in Wester-Ross
People who live far away and in big conurbations are mostly too polite to ask but we know they often wonder why we live in such a 'remote' spot as Aultbea. Now, there's nothing sensational in what follows but it might go some way towards answering that unspoken question ...
The day before yesterday we took our customary mid-day walk in a place very familiar to us when we had the dogs but never visited since (a) they left us and (b) I put on twenty pounds of excessive weight. I'm pleased to say the latter has disappeared thanks to the shotgun diet imposed by Herself. So we went back to the walk that we always called 'the rocks'.
If you drive north from Aultbea and pass first Laide then Second Coast you will come to the top of quite a big hill. It's a very steep drop from there before the road skirts a series of sandy beaches that we term 'the necklace'. However you leave the car up top and strike off down towards the sea across trackless rock, downrushing burn and heathery bogland. You need to be quite agile and definitely do not attanpt it without your stick. It's that kind of country. Rarely has it felt the tread on Man since the houses now just seen in the tangle as stoney remnants were vacated by their hardy occuoants a hundred years ago.
Once at the bottom of the hill you can walk out across jumbled boulders and rocky shelves until you reach the saltwater waves that roll in to die in white against this Wester-Ross. This is where we used to sit with Sorosh and Mati to consume our customary picnic lunch - soup or coffee, sandwich etc. And this is where we sat the day before yesterday. I'd brought along my lightweight fishing rod so spent an hour watching the red top of my float bobbing up and down (catching nothing) whilst Dee dozed off in the sunshine on her rocky seat.
I took this photo from there for no other reason than to point out to you that jut of rock where we watched an otter at play. He or more likely she came out of the sea and messed about on it before diving in again, several times repeating his manouvre as if to say, how clever an amphibian am I, then?
I know this may not, at least for many, answer that original question as to why we are here. But for us it does and that is enough.
The day before yesterday we took our customary mid-day walk in a place very familiar to us when we had the dogs but never visited since (a) they left us and (b) I put on twenty pounds of excessive weight. I'm pleased to say the latter has disappeared thanks to the shotgun diet imposed by Herself. So we went back to the walk that we always called 'the rocks'.
If you drive north from Aultbea and pass first Laide then Second Coast you will come to the top of quite a big hill. It's a very steep drop from there before the road skirts a series of sandy beaches that we term 'the necklace'. However you leave the car up top and strike off down towards the sea across trackless rock, downrushing burn and heathery bogland. You need to be quite agile and definitely do not attanpt it without your stick. It's that kind of country. Rarely has it felt the tread on Man since the houses now just seen in the tangle as stoney remnants were vacated by their hardy occuoants a hundred years ago.
Once at the bottom of the hill you can walk out across jumbled boulders and rocky shelves until you reach the saltwater waves that roll in to die in white against this Wester-Ross. This is where we used to sit with Sorosh and Mati to consume our customary picnic lunch - soup or coffee, sandwich etc. And this is where we sat the day before yesterday. I'd brought along my lightweight fishing rod so spent an hour watching the red top of my float bobbing up and down (catching nothing) whilst Dee dozed off in the sunshine on her rocky seat.
I took this photo from there for no other reason than to point out to you that jut of rock where we watched an otter at play. He or more likely she came out of the sea and messed about on it before diving in again, several times repeating his manouvre as if to say, how clever an amphibian am I, then? I know this may not, at least for many, answer that original question as to why we are here. But for us it does and that is enough.
April 11, 2012
No fear of flying
Yesterday my blog was headlined, 'Novelists can fly free'.
Readers, also, fly free.
I learned to fly in a Royal Air Force biplane called a Tiger Moth. (Sleafiord and Cranwell 1952!) You know, two wings, two seats, one propeller; wood and canvas and wire. Similarly, in the case of a novel, there's room only for one writer and one reader to roam together those limitless, blue and clouded vaults of heavenly imagination. (One writer and one reader? Oh yes: a book may be read my millions but, as my grandfather General Albert Orsborne (Salvation Army) used to tell me when I asked him about making speeches, 'when you're speaking to however many, you address only one mind at a time, a single pair of ears'. So when I write my novel I write it just for you.)
Back to that Tiger Moth ... before they allowed you to get into the front cockpit and your instructor climbed into the one behind - both cockpits open to the air - you were indoctrinated with the protocal of flying/piloting including the essential pre-flight checks. Move aelerons up and down, rudder side to side, check engine for oil leak, then once aboard check tightness of shoulder harness, etc etc. Boring stuff. So our mechanic swung the prop. She coughed and banged and settled to a roaring crescendo of noise and off we went, my instructor bumping the plane across the grass, lifting off, ascending to 500 feet then - flipping her over on to her back! OMG and - OMG!!! I'd dropped four inches that felt like four miles before the too-loose harness engaged my falling body, left me dangling in the rush of air looking straight down on to a passing cornfield complete with up-looking farmer on tractor. I see him still and hear still the voice in my earphones; 'Do you think, next time Mr Islip, you might remember to tighten your harness as instructed, do your pre-flight checks properly?'
You and I, we have no fear of flying, right?
Readers, also, fly free.
I learned to fly in a Royal Air Force biplane called a Tiger Moth. (Sleafiord and Cranwell 1952!) You know, two wings, two seats, one propeller; wood and canvas and wire. Similarly, in the case of a novel, there's room only for one writer and one reader to roam together those limitless, blue and clouded vaults of heavenly imagination. (One writer and one reader? Oh yes: a book may be read my millions but, as my grandfather General Albert Orsborne (Salvation Army) used to tell me when I asked him about making speeches, 'when you're speaking to however many, you address only one mind at a time, a single pair of ears'. So when I write my novel I write it just for you.)
Back to that Tiger Moth ... before they allowed you to get into the front cockpit and your instructor climbed into the one behind - both cockpits open to the air - you were indoctrinated with the protocal of flying/piloting including the essential pre-flight checks. Move aelerons up and down, rudder side to side, check engine for oil leak, then once aboard check tightness of shoulder harness, etc etc. Boring stuff. So our mechanic swung the prop. She coughed and banged and settled to a roaring crescendo of noise and off we went, my instructor bumping the plane across the grass, lifting off, ascending to 500 feet then - flipping her over on to her back! OMG and - OMG!!! I'd dropped four inches that felt like four miles before the too-loose harness engaged my falling body, left me dangling in the rush of air looking straight down on to a passing cornfield complete with up-looking farmer on tractor. I see him still and hear still the voice in my earphones; 'Do you think, next time Mr Islip, you might remember to tighten your harness as instructed, do your pre-flight checks properly?'
You and I, we have no fear of flying, right?
April 10, 2012
Novelists can fly free
Ever had that dream in which you can fly like a bird? I'm told by my psycholgist daughter that this is relatively common, signifying much not necessarily of interest here. But I've been thinking about a novelist's choice of viewpoint character/s - and that I am a bird dream definitely does relate to this.
When, years ago, I took up the writing of fiction in earnest, I read and absorbed a book on the subject by one Diane Doubtfire. In it she extolled the virtue of writing the entire novel through the mind of a single strong viewpoint character. I took this very much to heart. It seemed to me that the writer should seek actually to be the lead character, so far as the reader is concerned, as opposed to the more common practice these days of seeing (relating) the action through the minds and perspectives of several or multiple characters. It seemed to me that by choosing the latter option the writer was elevating him/herself to some kind of godlike all-seeing presence - a presence made all too uncomfortably obvious to the reader. The reader should not, I thought and still think, have any interest in the writer or their opinions, only in the character and his/her opinions/actions.
Each of my novels to date are thus narrated through the mind of their respective single viewpoint characters. Of course it is far more difficult to maintain pace, focus and therefore reader interest doing it this way because the writer has to be ultra careful not to attribute opinion or understanding out of place. If the viewpoint character is unknowingly heading for big trouble or final redemption the reader must be as shocked as that character when it actually happens.
Worst scenario of all when it comes to viewpoints in a novel is the one where the writer is in effect talking directly to the reader over the heads of his characters. You know the sort of thing; perhaps the character commits a crime and is at once excused, or the backgound explained, by the author because of something that happened years ago outside the scope of this novel.
You may or may not know that right now I am writing a third novel provisionally called The Book. The first four chapters are written through the mind of a single leading character, Marie Mortlock. I'm presently on the fifth chapter. For the first time I have switched viewpoints to that of her injured husband, Ben Mortlock. It's like starting a new novel. On 30th April you can read the results - and the The Book thus far, by clicking over to http://www.bryanislipauthor.com and subscribing free. If you do so now you'll only see chapters one to four, then will get the fifth on the 30th.
Writing a novel is an adventure. So is reading one. Come and share it with me; fly free as a bird.
When, years ago, I took up the writing of fiction in earnest, I read and absorbed a book on the subject by one Diane Doubtfire. In it she extolled the virtue of writing the entire novel through the mind of a single strong viewpoint character. I took this very much to heart. It seemed to me that the writer should seek actually to be the lead character, so far as the reader is concerned, as opposed to the more common practice these days of seeing (relating) the action through the minds and perspectives of several or multiple characters. It seemed to me that by choosing the latter option the writer was elevating him/herself to some kind of godlike all-seeing presence - a presence made all too uncomfortably obvious to the reader. The reader should not, I thought and still think, have any interest in the writer or their opinions, only in the character and his/her opinions/actions.
Each of my novels to date are thus narrated through the mind of their respective single viewpoint characters. Of course it is far more difficult to maintain pace, focus and therefore reader interest doing it this way because the writer has to be ultra careful not to attribute opinion or understanding out of place. If the viewpoint character is unknowingly heading for big trouble or final redemption the reader must be as shocked as that character when it actually happens.
Worst scenario of all when it comes to viewpoints in a novel is the one where the writer is in effect talking directly to the reader over the heads of his characters. You know the sort of thing; perhaps the character commits a crime and is at once excused, or the backgound explained, by the author because of something that happened years ago outside the scope of this novel.
You may or may not know that right now I am writing a third novel provisionally called The Book. The first four chapters are written through the mind of a single leading character, Marie Mortlock. I'm presently on the fifth chapter. For the first time I have switched viewpoints to that of her injured husband, Ben Mortlock. It's like starting a new novel. On 30th April you can read the results - and the The Book thus far, by clicking over to http://www.bryanislipauthor.com and subscribing free. If you do so now you'll only see chapters one to four, then will get the fifth on the 30th.
Writing a novel is an adventure. So is reading one. Come and share it with me; fly free as a bird.
April 9, 2012
Horizons
Horizons ... right now, how far ahead are you looking, seeing? Tonight? Next week? This year? Further than that?After you've left? After your children have left? Classically the answers would be...
Visit http://www.bryanislipauthor.com to read more about Bryan's writing
Visit http://www.bryanislipauthor.com to read more about Bryan's writing
Horizons
Horizons ... right now, how far ahead are you looking, seeing? Tonight? Next week? This year? Further than that?After you've left? After your children have left? Classically the answers would be somewhere in the regions of, respectively, 80%,15%, 4%, 0.9%, 0.1%.
And how far, looking back? Same percentages descalating with distance.
Questions, questions. No answers, only opinions including my above and William Shakespeare's creations' below ...
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more." (Macbeth)"What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! " (Hamlet) Hamlet v Macbeth: Hamlet wins by a knockout.
And how far, looking back? Same percentages descalating with distance.
Questions, questions. No answers, only opinions including my above and William Shakespeare's creations' below ...
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more." (Macbeth)"What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! " (Hamlet) Hamlet v Macbeth: Hamlet wins by a knockout.
April 8, 2012
Rejoice this lovely day
'It is who we become that changes the world, not what we do.'
Interesting blogsite, interesting piece, Betty.Your friend and mine, Michelle Frost, alerted me to it.
http://books-uncaged.blogspot.co.uk/ Not to say controversial, especially in the quoted headline. Controversy of course is the spice of life so let me try some of my own ...
'We' don't become anything. We are as we are, our genetic makeup unalterable; the same from birth to death. We cannot alter ourselves and should not try to do so for therein lies great unhappiness.
Nobody changes the world, either. Not Einstein, not mother Theresa, not Jesus Christ nor Mohammad, not a codfish swimming in the deep nor a three thousand years old yew tree standing in a churchyard.
Homo Sapiens is but a species as transient as are and were and will be other life species. All of them contain the genetic seeds of their own destruction and in the fullness of time we and they are no more ...
Meantime we all, of course, will try to 'change the world' or at least the tiny part of it called Mankind. We will try to do so via bending the thoughts and opinions and lifestyles of him and of her and of them. But such efforts will create more unhappiness as surely as clouds create rain.
In spite of us, this world (i.e planet Earth) will change - for like all things that live (and this planet is as much alive as anything else that moves and breathes) is has a time to be and a time not to be.
Rejoice in what you were, are and will be; and in what you do with yourself this lovely day. Rejoice in the world as it is. It is what you have, all that you have; such a wonderful miracle so far beyond your, or my own comprehension. It is enough. To ask your mind for more is akin to asking your thermometer to tell you the colours of the sun.
Interesting blogsite, interesting piece, Betty.Your friend and mine, Michelle Frost, alerted me to it.
http://books-uncaged.blogspot.co.uk/ Not to say controversial, especially in the quoted headline. Controversy of course is the spice of life so let me try some of my own ...
'We' don't become anything. We are as we are, our genetic makeup unalterable; the same from birth to death. We cannot alter ourselves and should not try to do so for therein lies great unhappiness.
Nobody changes the world, either. Not Einstein, not mother Theresa, not Jesus Christ nor Mohammad, not a codfish swimming in the deep nor a three thousand years old yew tree standing in a churchyard.
Homo Sapiens is but a species as transient as are and were and will be other life species. All of them contain the genetic seeds of their own destruction and in the fullness of time we and they are no more ...
Meantime we all, of course, will try to 'change the world' or at least the tiny part of it called Mankind. We will try to do so via bending the thoughts and opinions and lifestyles of him and of her and of them. But such efforts will create more unhappiness as surely as clouds create rain.
In spite of us, this world (i.e planet Earth) will change - for like all things that live (and this planet is as much alive as anything else that moves and breathes) is has a time to be and a time not to be.
Rejoice in what you were, are and will be; and in what you do with yourself this lovely day. Rejoice in the world as it is. It is what you have, all that you have; such a wonderful miracle so far beyond your, or my own comprehension. It is enough. To ask your mind for more is akin to asking your thermometer to tell you the colours of the sun.
April 6, 2012
The fact of writing fiction
I have in recent days been studying a few things pretty well new to me. For instance VaR (value at risk), the disability called spina bifida, the ancient history of the Jews, how to distill uisca beatha (whisky to you and me).
Having reached the age of seventy seven one might be forgiven for thinking enough is enough of learning stuff - even if my guide and mentor Ernest Hemingway said something along the lines of "... the little new that each one learns from life is very valuable, in fact the only thing of value they have to leave to those who come after." I think he must have been quite right although the immediate legatees would probably not see it that way.
So why this recent voyage of discovery? Because I'm writing a novel provisionally called The Book and if it is to have any value, much less the value I believe it must and will have, my fictional imagination has to take wing from the hard rock of hard fact.
You can read the story so far. http://www.bryanislipauthor.com and subscribe free thereon.
Having reached the age of seventy seven one might be forgiven for thinking enough is enough of learning stuff - even if my guide and mentor Ernest Hemingway said something along the lines of "... the little new that each one learns from life is very valuable, in fact the only thing of value they have to leave to those who come after." I think he must have been quite right although the immediate legatees would probably not see it that way.
So why this recent voyage of discovery? Because I'm writing a novel provisionally called The Book and if it is to have any value, much less the value I believe it must and will have, my fictional imagination has to take wing from the hard rock of hard fact.
You can read the story so far. http://www.bryanislipauthor.com and subscribe free thereon.
April 5, 2012
I'm a believer
There is a rather lovely local legend about a massive hen salmon caught in the nearby river Ewe some one hundred years ago. If true - and I have no reason to doubt it - this fish was of a set of dimensions fit to eclipse Mrs Georgina Ballantynes's famous rod caught UK record of 64lbs, caught on the river Tay in 1922 and still unbeaten.
This story has featured in a local history booklet, written I believe by the grandson of an actual witness. It seems that a local lad went down to the river one spring evening with rod and line, hooked the monster and brought it to the gaff after a three hour struggle. In those days the angling was strictly for sustenance rather than for sporting fame and glory. The giant was at once cut up and shared out between Poolewe residents, so we shall never be sure ... and Mrs Ballantyne record lives on.
They say that fish can sense and are actually attracted by human female pheronomes but that sounds like a bunch of male sour grapes to me. Personally I can easily empathise with the fish. I am a believer.
This story has featured in a local history booklet, written I believe by the grandson of an actual witness. It seems that a local lad went down to the river one spring evening with rod and line, hooked the monster and brought it to the gaff after a three hour struggle. In those days the angling was strictly for sustenance rather than for sporting fame and glory. The giant was at once cut up and shared out between Poolewe residents, so we shall never be sure ... and Mrs Ballantyne record lives on.
They say that fish can sense and are actually attracted by human female pheronomes but that sounds like a bunch of male sour grapes to me. Personally I can easily empathise with the fish. I am a believer.
April 4, 2012
More Lives Than One
Any of us who happens to have spent a year of their life writing a novel will ask themselves two questions.
The first one: is my book - now it is 'out there' on paper and in electronic format - good enough to attract the hard earned cash of those who read loterary thrillers, the vast majority of whom have never heard of Bryan Islip or his novel 'More Deaths Than One'? Trouble is, this is a question with no definite answer. I myself find it good enough, and indeed much more than that. Of course I do, otherwise how could I justify the devotion of such a slice of my life? So do literally all of the folks I know who have read it. They have told me as much. But ... but ... can I be sure these readers - who are to a man or a woman such nice people - are not being nice to me? Sadly, I cannot.
It's only when total strangers begin to tell other total strangers about the perceived power and the glory of More Deaths Than One, and those other strangers buy the book that I will get that secondary all-time thrill (the primary one having been when one adds to one's manuscript the immortal words 'The End'!)
And then comes the author's second obligatory question. Whether you have convinced a publisher to risk their money on producing the novel or whether you have done so yourself through the self publishing route: how can I sell the thing? How can I light small fires in appropriate places so as to set off an inferno of world-wide reader interest?
One route is through www.goodreads.com - by giving away copies to interested readers in the hope they will review and recommend.
Another way is by enlisting in www.bookcrossing.com . You leave the odd copy here and there (bus stations, cafe's, park benches etc etc) suitably labelled in the fly leaf, in the hope it will be read and passed on and read and ... you get the picture.
Of course each of these options risk your work and your money ending up toot suite in the refuse bin!
How about promoting it on the social websites Twitter and Facebook, Linked in etc? Probably this is the least cost / most effective promotional way ahead, but I'm really not up to speed with the practice and the ethics of this. Having published it on paper using digital technology and having now set it up as an e-book you'd think Twitter etc would be a doddle. But like anything else, the learning curve looks demanding. Ah we;;, I think I'll buy me a book on how to .... !
The first one: is my book - now it is 'out there' on paper and in electronic format - good enough to attract the hard earned cash of those who read loterary thrillers, the vast majority of whom have never heard of Bryan Islip or his novel 'More Deaths Than One'? Trouble is, this is a question with no definite answer. I myself find it good enough, and indeed much more than that. Of course I do, otherwise how could I justify the devotion of such a slice of my life? So do literally all of the folks I know who have read it. They have told me as much. But ... but ... can I be sure these readers - who are to a man or a woman such nice people - are not being nice to me? Sadly, I cannot.
It's only when total strangers begin to tell other total strangers about the perceived power and the glory of More Deaths Than One, and those other strangers buy the book that I will get that secondary all-time thrill (the primary one having been when one adds to one's manuscript the immortal words 'The End'!)
And then comes the author's second obligatory question. Whether you have convinced a publisher to risk their money on producing the novel or whether you have done so yourself through the self publishing route: how can I sell the thing? How can I light small fires in appropriate places so as to set off an inferno of world-wide reader interest?
One route is through www.goodreads.com - by giving away copies to interested readers in the hope they will review and recommend.
Another way is by enlisting in www.bookcrossing.com . You leave the odd copy here and there (bus stations, cafe's, park benches etc etc) suitably labelled in the fly leaf, in the hope it will be read and passed on and read and ... you get the picture.
Of course each of these options risk your work and your money ending up toot suite in the refuse bin!
How about promoting it on the social websites Twitter and Facebook, Linked in etc? Probably this is the least cost / most effective promotional way ahead, but I'm really not up to speed with the practice and the ethics of this. Having published it on paper using digital technology and having now set it up as an e-book you'd think Twitter etc would be a doddle. But like anything else, the learning curve looks demanding. Ah we;;, I think I'll buy me a book on how to .... !
