Stuart Aken's Blog, page 250

A Partial Success, or a Partial Failure?

Depends on whether you’re a glass half full or half empty type. For me, it’s always half full. Optimist. Always have been. So, this is the 3rd week of the new year and how have I done with my targets?1 story sent to a contest? Missed, but I’ve sent 1 today and will attempt to do another this week.1 story to a magazine? Missed, but I’ll attempt to make that up this week.Reading target is for a book a week. I’m currently reading book number 6, so well ahead of target there. Good.Editing? I’ve done another chapter of the fantasy and a short story.Writing? A short story finished and another written from scratch.
Excuses? Well, I had a doctor’s appointment on Monday, which took up the morning. On Sunday, I took my daughter back to university, which took up the whole day. I’m still doing the day job, which takes up another 2½  days. And I still need to take my regular rests to deal with the ME/CFS. And, from time to time, I like to relax a little, take a walk with my wife, spend some quality time with her, you know?
So, how do I feel about the week? All things considered, I’m satisfied I’ve done what I could.
How goes it for you? Brag about your successes, confess your sins: there’s a space for comments below.
The pie chart explained: 'Writing' includes the creation of stories, blog posts and reviews.'Editing' includes the polishing of all written work to make it suitable for reading.'Research' includes discovery of info for story content, market research, contest info and blog post research.'Reading' includes books and writing magazines.'Emails' includes emails, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook activity.'Admin' includes story submission, blog posting, marketing, organisation and general admin tasks.
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Play With a Tiger, By Doris Lessing, Reviewed.

One thing that can be said with little fear of contradiction is that Doris Lessing's work is anything but simple and straightforward. She loves to wrap her characters and plots in multiple layers, through which the reader must pick his way, often with only minimal guidance as to direction and even, sometimes, intent.
Play With A Tiger was first performed at the Comedy Theatre, London, on 22nd March 1964 and is set in the city. Whilst it's very much a play of its time, it nevertheless carries some of its themes fairly well into the modern day. Attitudes to unmarried mothers have changed for many, political normality has become anything but, and extramarital affairs are now so commonplace as to be almost expected, but the war of the sexes continues, for some, at any rate.
As Anna and Dave reconstruct their pasts and possible futures, their dialogue exposes their sometimes opposing, sometimes similar stances. The descriptive passages that take them back in time explore their development as people and depict the lives of their parents and families in ways that explain, to some extent, the way they are now. But there is an underlying tone of self-absorption and mutual distrust that was, as I recall, a very common situation for men and women at the time. I'm not convinced it is any better now than it was then, but the development of family planning aids has definitely made things different for the single woman in search of love without the wish to raise a family. This aspect of the relationship between men and women is so different now that modern audiences may have difficulty understanding the dilemma facing maturing women back in those early days of burgeoning sexual freedom.
Dave is careless and unaware of the reality of the effect of his philandering on the women he seduces and uses as an excuse to bolster his ego. He's not a character I can find much sympathy for, with his utterly selfish concerns. Anna is singularly confused and seems unable to make up her own mind about much that troubles her in life. She yearns to be as free as she believes Dave to be, and it's easy to understand this desire when set against the strictures society places on her.
There are asides, set-based devices, and other interactions that illustrate the differences between the male and female views of life at the time, and I suspect these would have worked very well in performance.  They don't translate well via the text alone, however. Would I go to see the play in performance?  I wish I'd seen it at the time, when so much more was immediately relevant, but I don't think I'd watch it today, unless it was substantially re-written to accommodate what has changed. For all that, I enjoyed the read.
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The Royal Hunt of the Sun, by Peter Shaffer, Reviewed.

This play was first performed at the National Theatre in Chichester on 7th June 1964, when I was a young man of 16. I've never seen a performance, but I wish I had. Bernard Levin described the work as 'The greatest play of our generation', and I can see why, having merely read the text.
This is a piece of fictionalised history with much taken from recorded sources. It reads as true. It reads as a commentary on the utter hypocrisy of the early Catholic Church, the greed of those who would make Empire their ambition, the incredible courage of some and the cowardice of many. In the characters we find historical personalities and other figures developed to illustrate the generality of those men who accompanied Pizarro on his epic journey to rape and plunder the civilisation of the ancient Incas in Peru.
The motivation of the majority was a desire to escape abject poverty coupled with a promise of untold wealth. In an age when the promise of an afterlife was taken as fact by many ignorant and ill-educated people, the value of real life was held to be low, of course. Others who ventured forth on this great adventure of corruption and theft were driven by political or evangelical ambition. The 'royal' representatives of Spain are drawn with savage honesty, corrupt, self-serving and totally driven by an ideal of royalty that has nothing to do with the older idea of noblesse oblige. Those representing the Catholic Church are drawn with brutal truth as purveyors of a falsehood they are determined to force on the innocent in the hope that conversion of such souls might bolster their own insecurities and bring them the selfish reward of everlasting life for their own souls, regardless of the cost for those they thus pollute.
But it is greed that most drives the characters of this play, as in the real journey. They desire gold, at any price and regardless of the cost in human life. There is no hiding from the facts here. Pizarro, although trying to present himself as a complex character with mixed motives, is, in reality, simply a bully and opportunist with a lust for gold that drowns out all reason. He slowly comes to realise what is defining his life and, to his credit, develops some scruples as events unfold and he discovers that the man he would slaughter as a savage is anything but.
My only slight cause for complaint rests in the depiction of Atahuallpa as an entirely noble sovereign. He is undoubtedly more versed in nobility than any of the western characters, but he is also the head of a state where sacrifice and strict rule exist, circumscribing the lives of his subjects to the extent that they are mere shadows of men. Individuality in this state is definitely not permitted and the word of Atahuallpa is law on pain of death. But I suspect the elevation of the Inca leader is simply a device to make him more admirable than the ruffians, cowards, hypocrites and thieves who invade his land in order to destroy a civilisation simply for monetary reward. The destruction of the art into simple blocks of gold, as a means of sharing, is unforgiveable and underlines the wholly material concerns of the men concerned in the looting.
This is a powerful, disturbing and moving piece of drama. It reads on the page with a presence of power and emotional thrust that performance must render into an amazing experience. If I ever get the opportunity to attend a performance of this play, I will definitely go. In the meantime, I recommend any reader with an interest in the frailty of man, the iniquity of empire, the place of brutality in history, to read the text. It is a worthy use of your time.
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Do Expletives Have a Place in Your Writing?

IMG_1075 (Photo credit: tantek)
Swearing in literature is probably as old as the written word. It offends many, amuses probably as many, and huge numbers remain indifferent to it. So, its use results in mixed reactions. Is there justification for it?
'Fuck off, mate. 'Course there is.'
Okay, so some of you flinched, others smiled. Others expected this sudden interjection.
'You're a cunt!'
Different? Of course. For two reasons, I think. Firstly, of course, this statement is an insult, downright offensive in intention as well as tone. Secondly, the word 'cunt' is possibly the last expletive available that has any real shock value. We're all subject to the once taboo 'fuck', and its derivatives, on a daily basis. It's used by all classes, all ages, both genders. It no longer has any emphatic value and has become merely a 'filler' for those without the intelligence, imagination or energy to come up with a more apposite epithet. It's a shame that something once so full of the power to startle and shock has, through too much usage, become no more than a lazy way of filling space whilst the speaker has time to think of the next thing he wishes to say.
'Cunt', on the other hand, is most definitely taboo is many circles, profoundly shocking in others and considered offensive in most. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives its root as the Old Norse word 'kunta' and I recall coming across it in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which I studied for my 'A' Level English Lit exam, as 'queynte'. Its definition is straightforward; meaning either female genitals, the vulva; or a person who is either very unpleasant or stupid, or both. Why the name for the most desirable part of a woman should also be used as an insult referring to horrible or stupid people is a matter for another discussion. Suffice it to say that it probably reflects on the way the Abrahamic, and most other, religions have viewed women from before Christian times.
In my youth, had I referred to my father as a 'bugger', I'd have received a clip round the ear. Later, as we both aged, I was able to call him, 'the silly old bugger' as a term of affection understood by all, including him, and make him smile. Such is the fluidity of language subject to usage. The same could be said of 'sod', once a pejorative term for a homosexual man and now a word used so casually that many have no idea of its original derivation as 'one who engages in sodomy'.
What, for one person is an offensive expletive, is, to another, a harmless epithet with little or no real meaning. I know, for instance, that in the Bible Belt of America, where the myths of ancient misogynistic men still have greater relevance than modern inclusive philosophies, words such as 'hell' and 'damn' are more than merely frowned upon. In the more enlightened cultures of the West, they are, of course, viewed as mild in the extreme and few parents would consider reprimanding a child heard uttering such innocuous words.
So, if you're tempted to use expletives in your writing, it's essential that you consider your readers. There is absolutely no doubt that whatever expletive you employ you will offend some. It's inevitable because of narrow-mindedness, cultural implanting, ignorance, taste or simple preference. Therefore, I suggest you think very carefully before you use words that some will see as 'bad'. That there are no 'bad' words is self-evident, of course, but there is 'inappropriate usage', and it is this that the writer should avoid.
It may be perfectly acceptable and, indeed, essential to the story for the writer to place long strings of extremely offensive words into the mouth of a character, because that is the way that particular character would speak.  The quoted speech of a coarse man may be absolutely necessary to the understanding of his character. And 'You fucking, shitty cunt!' may express exactly what such a character would say to another in certain circumstances, and therefore be perfectly acceptable. But, as the author, the narrator, it might be very unwise to employ the same string of words in describing that same character. The reader frequently reads the words of the narrator as those of the author, regardless of how inaccurate that assumption may be. So, beware.
Context is everything in this issue. If the use of an expletive is appropriate in the circumstances, then it's incumbent on the writer not to substitute it with something mild in the hope of avoiding offence. It is less than honest to turn down the heat, so to speak. But remember the old expression; call a spade a 'spade', by all means, but perhaps avoid calling it a 'fucking shovel', unless that's how the speaking navvy would refer to it.
I hope this has been useful. I'd appreciate your observations and comments. We can all learn from each other and that's my intention in these short posts that are intended to help writers entertain their readers without unnecessarily offending them.
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So, How's It Going For You So Far?

Some time ago, I posted a piece on time and the way it can be misused without us really noticing. At the end of last year, I posted a piece on my activities during 2012, detailing the results of my work as a writer.For this year, I've decided to post at the end of each week on my activities. This is as much for me as it is for visitors to the blog. For me, it will act as a motivator and keep me on track, I hope. For visitors, it will illustrate the value, or otherwise, of those activities we engage in as writers.
I was unprepared for the first week, so I've combined the first 2 weeks here. In any case, that first week of the new year is always a little different, with the aftermath of the holiday season inevitably encroaching on normality.
Let me explain the pie chart: 'Writing' includes the creation of stories, blog posts and reviews.'Editing' includes the polishing of all written work to make it suitable for reading.'Research' includes discovery of info for story content, market research, contest info and blog post research.'Reading' includes books and writing magazines.'Emails' includes emails, Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook activity.'Admin' includes story submission, blog posting, marketing, organisation and general admin tasks.
And, for this post, I also had to spend some time both devising the timesheet I used for recording my time usage and learning how to render the results into the pie chart that illustrates it.
I'm hoping that this visual presentation will make the reality of my time usage much clearer. Certainly, I'm staggered by how much of my time has been spent on the various 'Emails' activities. I accept that much of that time has been used in reading webpages that some emails have introduced, and that, as a result, I've learned things about the current state of the book world. But a good deal has also been spent on less fruitful pursuits, such as Pinterest. One thing is clear already; if I'm to spend more time actually writing, I need to reduce the time I'm currently spending in what are largely irrelevant pursuits.
I set myself a couple of targets at the start of the year. I intend to submit at least 1 story to a magazine and 1 entry to a writing contest per week. I'm pleased to report that I've achieved both. 2 contest entries and 2 stories sent off to magazines.
Under the heading of 'Writing', I've created one new short story of 4,000 words and written 3 book reviews. Not enough, but a reasonable start.
Under 'Editing', I've edited the 4 stories I've submitted and 3 chapters of my fantasy trilogy. Again, not enough, but better than it might have been.
It's my intention to return to the weekly posts on writing, giving views, opinions and advice where I'm able and, hopefully offering useful, or at least, contentious information to stimulate thought and debate on writing topics. It's possible I may indulge in the occasional opinion piece on other matters from time to time, when an issue particularly fires my passion.
But, more than anything else, this year I intend to spend as much time as possible in creating new writing and in preparing the fantasy trilogy for publication. The first and second books are written and the first edited. The second is currently undergoing the penultimate edit and, when that's complete, I shall start writing the third book. I shall also, at that point, publish book one. Watch this space for announcements.
One further post that might be of interest dealt with procrastination.
So, that's how it's going so far for me. How's it going for you in this new year? Made and kept your resolutions? Let me know. It's easy to add a comment at the foot of the post, you know.

Ross, by Terence Rattigan, Reviewed.

First performed at the Haymarket Theatre in London, on 12thMay 1960, this dramatic depiction of the life of T.E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, uses insight, perception and historical events in an attempt to convey something of the reality of this enigmatic man. Of course, most readers will have seen or at least heard of the slightly later David Lean film, Lawrence of Arabia, written by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson and employing Lawrence’s own writings. The two productions are very different, of course.
Rattigan employs backstory, setting the play initially on the RAF camp where Lawrence, in his other persona, Aircraftsman Ross, attempts to escape his past. After some illustrations of the banality and pointlessness of a service life I recognise from my own short days in the RAF, we are taken into those now famous events that both made and destroyed the man we all know as Lawrence of Arabia. Using dialogue and character to explain this complex figure, Rattigan is able to get at least partially beneath the skin of his protagonist. What he also manages to achieve is the exposure of the prejudices of the times, the blinkered attitude of the military, which appears to continue to this day, and the necessary duplicity that prevails amongst those senior figures during war. But what he reveals, more than anything else, is the sheer, brutal indifference of violent conflict. On the page, the horror and torment are palpable: in performance this must have been so very difficult to watch. Yet, I imagine that audiences were so captivated by the personal will of the lead character that they were unable to escape the performance.
Rattigan has brought to life a man who has defied explanation, a man both reviled and loved, hated and worshipped, honoured and despised, during his lifetime. But he has also tried, with some success, to explain the way in which exposure to different cultures and values, different sacred creeds, colours so absolutely the outlook of those who live within their influence.
This play is much more than a biography of a remarkable man; it is a statement about hypocrisy, the expedience necessitated by war, greed, betrayal, loyalty, friendship and love. A truly remarkable piece of theatre, even when read only on the page. Were this to be recreated as a stage performance, I would do all in my power to attend. If the power is so great in the text alone, performance must render this work one of the most outstanding theatre experiences. Thoroughly recommended. Read it.
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A Few Words of Explanation for Regulars

No, the blog isn't going to become a place only for reviews. I've been taking my time, at the beginning of a new year, to review, regroup, and formulate a plan. A cunning plan! The reality is that life sometimes interrupts the writer's world and must be accommodated. It's my intention, tomorrow, to give a more detailed description of the first 2 weeks of 2013 as experienced from this seat. So, hold on for a little longer, please. I will let you know what the future holds for the blog and how I've been preparing for what I expect to be a significant year.
Thank you.
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Sea And Sardinia, by D.H. Lawrence, Reviewed

Full of detail, contrasts, contradictions and signature Lawrencian repetitions, this travel memoir is a fascinating read. As regular readers of my book reviews will know, an important factor in my enjoyment of any work is how well written is the piece. This one does not disappoint. Lawrence uses language with a mix of expert observation and casual scholarship rooted in instinct. His descriptions of people and place are vital, complex, opinionated and full of character.
First published in 1923, when he and Frieda had been married for 9 years, the book is an account of their travels from Sicily to Sardinia. That he refers to Frieda initially as Queen Bee and then simply as 'q.b.' (yes, in lower case) says something of the relationship between husband and wife. Though it's never stated in any direct way, the reader is left with the impression that the marriage is a strange sort of equal partnership with Frieda accepting Lawrence's particular take on the battle of the sexes. There is almost nothing of their togetherness and, in fact, he rarely refers to her in anything other than an aside, almost as if journeying alone. It's an odd stance, but takes little away from the joy of the journey for the reader, merely excluding the emotional interaction between the pair.
There's an air of the stoic about the way in which he describes various tribulations of the journey. Bleakness, inefficient and argumentative officials, and potential disaster are all taken in his stride. In fact, he seems to actually enjoy some of the privations. Of course, I read this account from the point of view of the modern traveller, for whom the ordinary necessities are taken for granted. Perhaps what the Lawrences faced on their various trips was simply the 'norm' of their day.
Post-First World War Italy and the two islands, under Mussolini's fascist rule at the time, face change and so-called progress with a suspicion that is sometimes palpable. One of the aspects I find so intriguing in the account is that Lawrence, in spite of his often dismissive opinions, is not at all judgemental on most of those occasions when one would expect strong condemnation. He seems to simply accept that things are the way they are.
English: Tunisia, Sardinia, Sicily and The South of Italy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)I've never been to Italy, Sicily or Sardinia but I always associated them with warmth. They are, after all, seated well within the Mediterranean. But the book describes the cold on parts of the journey in such detailed terms that the reader shivers with the chill. The landscape varies enormously over the duration of their journey, much of it through rugged countryside still untamed, rather like the Sardinians who he appears to admire for their almost savage way of life.
The tone of the account is that of a man tired of the relative stability and conservatism he sees as personifying his homeland at the time. This is a man in search of something, though it's uncertain what exactly that is. There is admiration as well as opprobrium and he clearly loves the characters they encounter, describing them in living terms that bring them out of the page to sit beside you as you read.
I thoroughly enjoyed the language of the book; the idiosyncratic English style and use of metaphor and simile. I was entertained and informed, intrigued and stimulated. But, would the book encourage me to visit Sardinia? It's a much changed world now, almost a hundred years later, but there was an underlying history and tradition informing the people that left me feeling I wouldn't be comfortable in their company. So, no, it hasn't left me with a yearning to visit the land, unlike Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières, which had me holidaying in Cephalonia the year I read it. The book is, nevertheless, a very good read and I have no reservations about recommending it to armchair travellers.
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A Sense of Detachment, by John Osborne, Reviewed.

First performed at the Royal Court Theatre on 4thDecember 1972, this play was published a year later. The copy I have was issued by the publishers as a review copy (the publisher’s slip is still loose within the pages), but not to me. No, I picked it up in a second hand book shop some years later.
That the play’s first performance took place in such an august location says a great deal about the theatrical world’s respect for the playwright at the time. Of course, his ‘Look Back in Anger’ had deservedly set him up as a ‘name’ in the literary world way back at the end of the 1950s. But, whether this play would have received such respect had it come from the pen of a lesser known writer is open to doubt.
The piece is partially ‘improvised’. Much of the intended dialogue is specified but there are passages where the cast is intended to react to the audience, especially where public participation might be encouraged by the antics and words of a couple of cast members placed within that audience. I expect that such risky participation was what drew many into theatre. Certainly, the early dialogue given the cast would be insufficient to garner much in the way of admiration. It’s banal and uninspiring on the page. Performance may well have brought it more life but the text is decidedly flat and lacks the humour that’s clearly intended.But, as time passes on the uncluttered stage, we’re bombarded with significant comment on social issues of the time. In particular, the Older Woman is given the task of demonstrating the then growing tolerance of pornography and its detrimental effects on women. At the time there was increasing awareness of the way in which pornography objectifies women and portrays rape as not only acceptable but actually desirable, even by the women thus abused. Osborne’s clever use of a mature but attractive woman to apparently enjoy her readings of graphic female abuse is very effective on the page and, I suspect, even more so in performance. The playwright was, of course, very concerned about social issues and he uses the play to highlight many aspects of life that he wants people to think about. I suspect that audiences would leave the performance with a deeper understanding of the destructive tendencies of pornography.
There are aspects of this play that definitely don’t come across in the text. I can imagine that performance would enliven, invigorate and excite the written words to make the whole experience more meaningful and enjoyable. But there are elements of the piece that defy explanation. Many of the passages are drawn from other sources, often obscure, without reference to those sources, so that it’s difficult to know whether a specific point was being made in any given circumstance. Sometimes, the juxtaposition of dialogue and action appears almost absurd; whether this was deliberate and whether it was a theatrical device employed to unsettle what Osborne probably viewed as a complacent middle class audience is uncertain at this distance. The effect on the page is simply confusing, but, again, in performance, it would probably be more effective.
On balance, this is definitely a play to be seen rather than read. But I don’t think I’d be tempted to attend such a performance now. I think the piece is of its time and unlikely to transfer to the modern day in a form that would render it entertaining or thought-provoking. The debates opened here are now well established and no longer bear the rawness and immediacy they would have had at the time of its writing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2006/apr/29/theatre.biography       for a piece on the biography of John Osborne.

Facts and Figures for my 2012

English: A pie chart created in Excel 2007 showing the content of tweets on Twitter, based on the data gathered by Pear Analytics in 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
First, I’d like to pass on a heartfelt THANK YOU to all those readers who have reviewed my writing. Almost without exception these reviews, the majority from people I don’t know, have been positive. That, of course, is very encouraging. It strikes me that the best action I can take to truly thank those who have taken the trouble to share their thoughts on my work, especially those who’ve enjoyed it, is to write more. And that’s what I intend for the coming year. So, my thanks, again, for all those who’ve read and reviewed my work, and my assurance that there’ll be more to come and that it will be the best I can produce.
Second, a brief, but fairly detailed, account of my year. Why? Well, in April 2013 I retire from my part-time day job and will be able to concentrate full time on writing. This means an entirely different attitude to what I do and how I do it. At the behest of the so-called experts in the matter of selling books, I’ve spent a major portion of 2012 building an ‘author platform’ online. This is something, we’re told, that’s essential for the serious writer. I have to tell you that my experience places a large question mark over that assertion.At the foot of this post, not very far from here, I’ll insert my facts and figures as they stand at the point of writing this: i.e. 20:30 BST, New Year’s Eve.
The simple fact is, in spite of my efforts to build this apparently essential tool to marketing, my sales of books have been anything but startling. There’s huge competition out there, with thousands of new books published every month. Many of these are very poor. But a reasonable number are good and there are a few that are undeniably outstanding. However, quality appears to be only a small factor in producing sales. I’ve read extracts from best-selling books and found myself appalled by poor grammar, syntax and characterisation. Often, however, these best-sellers have, at core, a good story. What is depressing is that, with a little more care and professionalism, many of these sub-standard books could be really great works; but the book-buying public appear willing to settle for ‘that’ll do’ from these good story-tellers.
So, it looks as though, in order to increase my readership, I need to combine good story-telling (for my readers), with good quality writing (for my personal satisfaction). Oh, hang on, that’s what I thought I was doing! Perhaps, then, I simply need to actually write and publish more. And that’s what I intend for the coming year.
The following list of figures will be a source of motivation for the coming year and of comparison at the same time next year, to see whether I’ve managed to get more work out there. It should also enable me to judge whether such an increase in ‘exposure’ actually bears more fruit than the marketing activity I’ve performed this year.
2012Published work:Sensuous Touches, an anthology of erotic tales (8).Heir to Death’s Folly, a short story in the gothic horror tradition.Rebirth, my contribution to the science fiction anthology published by Fantastic Books Publishing, Fusion.
Writing Contests:4 entries, one of which was short-listed.
Blog:1062 posts in total since the blog began. 447 followers85,511 page views18,882 visitors who identified their location.
Facebook:Author page – 379 ‘Likes’Personal profile – 1599 friends
Goodreads:882 books listed as read (the real number is probably around 3,500 but I haven’t listed them all yet), 52 of them in 2012. 130 reviews written (52 in 2012)2018 friends.136 titles in my ‘to read’ list.49 ratings and 21 reviews of my books on Goodreads.Goodreads reading challenge - 52 books in the year - Read - 52 books in the year!
LinkedIn:2274 connections
Pinterest:662 followers4774 pins on 32 boards
Google +:336 in my circlesIn 183 circles.
Twitter:5,110 followersFollowing 5,01211,823 tweets
So, there it is. If you'd like to connect with me on any of these sites, the links are there for you. Lets' see what 2013 brings, eh?And, for now, let me wish you all a New Year that brings you all the good things you wish for you and yours.
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