David F. Porteous's Blog, page 4
June 1, 2012
The Death of Jack Nylund
My second book - The Death of Jack Nylund - will be released on Kindle and in print 1st October 2012. This will be the first of nine novellas in the Gods & Monsters series.
The Death of Jack Nylund follows US Federal Marshal Clay Falk and private investigator Walter Black as they move from different sides of the country searching for Jack Nylund - who is lost in all the ways a man can be. Set in an alternative 1922 where the ancient oligarchs work in shadow to rule mankind, and war against each other for wealth and power, The Death of Jack Nylund brings the horror of H P Lovecraft to the criminal world of Raymond Chandler and George V Higgins.
Expect more information about The Death of Jack Nylund as publication date approaches. But for now you can check out the Map for a few location-specific paragraphs from the new book and scan the Wurdle for character names and key words.
Exciting times :)
The Death of Jack Nylund follows US Federal Marshal Clay Falk and private investigator Walter Black as they move from different sides of the country searching for Jack Nylund - who is lost in all the ways a man can be. Set in an alternative 1922 where the ancient oligarchs work in shadow to rule mankind, and war against each other for wealth and power, The Death of Jack Nylund brings the horror of H P Lovecraft to the criminal world of Raymond Chandler and George V Higgins.
Expect more information about The Death of Jack Nylund as publication date approaches. But for now you can check out the Map for a few location-specific paragraphs from the new book and scan the Wurdle for character names and key words.
Exciting times :)
March 16, 2012
That book what you wrote - what was that all about?
Singular was finished about a year ago. I always say the best way to appreciate a book is by reading all of the words in the book in sequential order. But a close second is reading only the most common 100 words in the book, as a big mashed-up pile on a page. Enter Wordle.net - one of my favourite free text summary tools.
Now you can, by looking at this simple image, identify the names of the key characters in Singular and see that I have quite the passion for similie. I like like like a man who likely has issues with the word love.
Now you can, by looking at this simple image, identify the names of the key characters in Singular and see that I have quite the passion for similie. I like like like a man who likely has issues with the word love.
January 28, 2012
"Let's Dig Up Austen and Hang Her" - One Easy Way To Misrepresent My Point
I follow Tim Ferris on Twitter, because this time last year I harboured a secret belief that I too could transform myself with kettle bells and roughage. A successful non-fiction writer and life-guru, Ferris occasionally posts writing-related things and so my interest in him out-lasted my interest in combination vitamin supplements.
This is all preamble, but he posted a link to an article about the value of classics and said that he wouldn’t read any new books for a while. The author of that article made the point that people don’t make the effort with classics because they’re difficult, though ultimately that much more rewarding and worthy than new books.
This put a bee in my coif and I’ve been twitching about it since. Old books are better. New books are too rooted in the now, too trendy, too blah. Whereas an old book is a memorable evening of dining and dancing with an elegant, thoughtful lover – a new book is a hand job in the back of Hyundai: immediately satisfying in a very unsatisfying way. Like as not you’ve heard this argument before. Like as not you’ve heard very smart people agree with it.
Piffle.
I’d recently treated myself to a Kindle and decided that I’d read a few classics – by which I mean free books out of copyright – which I knew by reputation by experiencing them in other media. A few years ago the BBC did a wonderful costumed adaptation of Tom Jones: A Foundling. A thundering, rollicking story full of sex and off-colour humour. I was looking forward to Tom Jones the novel as much as a coach load of elderly ladies on a trip to Vegas look forward to Tom Jones the singer.
I was disappointed. The language in Tom Jones is still entirely accessible despite being more than 250 years old, but it was about as badly written as any book I’ve ever picked up. I sashayed through the first oddball chapter where Henry Fielding berates the critics history has forgotten for opinions they haven’t expressed yet and pushed into the book expecting a little more focus and directness.
I was disappointed. Imagine if you could load sentences into a shotgun and fire them at a page to form paragraphs – that’s Fielding. And indeed most of his contemporaries. The effective, direct structuring of English was yet to emerge and it was perfectly normal for novelists and essayists to wander with the same deliberate purpose found in cats chasing butterflies.
Skip ahead a century and a half to Oscar Wilde – a man better quoted than read – and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde seems to have written a novel only as a way to link together his witty remarks, which are in concentration actually rather annoying and clearly of the same form.
A few years back an author tried sending in the subtly altered books of Jane Austen to publishers and was baffled by the response he got – nobody wanted them. I was less baffled. As far as I was concerned that response was inevitable because, while the books are a delight, they are read today not because of their literary merit but because of the strength of the Austen brand. (Mark Twain, most famously, was not a fan of Austen’s style or characterisation).
The difference between old books and new isn’t just the language and it’s entirely possible for a book written rather in arcane English to be published and be successful – such as the unexpected noughties hit Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. But Clarke has a modern – and better – understanding of the mechanisms of fiction than any of her influences. The book is a success not because it reads a bit like Dickens, but because it reads like Dickens would write a book today.
The snobbery of declaring that all the good books were written before we were born and that all of modern literature is trivial is manifestly false. There were contemporaries of Aristotle who felt that all art and reason belonged to a previous age and every generation has been awash with people ready to dismiss to the present. The truth is that modern books aren’t just the equal of the works of previous centuries – they are objectively better. An Austen book submitted today should be rejected by a publisher and there is no classic book that would not benefit from an editor and another draft. Pretending that it’s somehow noble to plough through language abandoned for its uselessness is silly and does considerable disservice to the current generation of writers.
This is all preamble, but he posted a link to an article about the value of classics and said that he wouldn’t read any new books for a while. The author of that article made the point that people don’t make the effort with classics because they’re difficult, though ultimately that much more rewarding and worthy than new books.
This put a bee in my coif and I’ve been twitching about it since. Old books are better. New books are too rooted in the now, too trendy, too blah. Whereas an old book is a memorable evening of dining and dancing with an elegant, thoughtful lover – a new book is a hand job in the back of Hyundai: immediately satisfying in a very unsatisfying way. Like as not you’ve heard this argument before. Like as not you’ve heard very smart people agree with it.
Piffle.
I’d recently treated myself to a Kindle and decided that I’d read a few classics – by which I mean free books out of copyright – which I knew by reputation by experiencing them in other media. A few years ago the BBC did a wonderful costumed adaptation of Tom Jones: A Foundling. A thundering, rollicking story full of sex and off-colour humour. I was looking forward to Tom Jones the novel as much as a coach load of elderly ladies on a trip to Vegas look forward to Tom Jones the singer.
I was disappointed. The language in Tom Jones is still entirely accessible despite being more than 250 years old, but it was about as badly written as any book I’ve ever picked up. I sashayed through the first oddball chapter where Henry Fielding berates the critics history has forgotten for opinions they haven’t expressed yet and pushed into the book expecting a little more focus and directness.
I was disappointed. Imagine if you could load sentences into a shotgun and fire them at a page to form paragraphs – that’s Fielding. And indeed most of his contemporaries. The effective, direct structuring of English was yet to emerge and it was perfectly normal for novelists and essayists to wander with the same deliberate purpose found in cats chasing butterflies.
Skip ahead a century and a half to Oscar Wilde – a man better quoted than read – and The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde seems to have written a novel only as a way to link together his witty remarks, which are in concentration actually rather annoying and clearly of the same form.
A few years back an author tried sending in the subtly altered books of Jane Austen to publishers and was baffled by the response he got – nobody wanted them. I was less baffled. As far as I was concerned that response was inevitable because, while the books are a delight, they are read today not because of their literary merit but because of the strength of the Austen brand. (Mark Twain, most famously, was not a fan of Austen’s style or characterisation).
The difference between old books and new isn’t just the language and it’s entirely possible for a book written rather in arcane English to be published and be successful – such as the unexpected noughties hit Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. But Clarke has a modern – and better – understanding of the mechanisms of fiction than any of her influences. The book is a success not because it reads a bit like Dickens, but because it reads like Dickens would write a book today.
The snobbery of declaring that all the good books were written before we were born and that all of modern literature is trivial is manifestly false. There were contemporaries of Aristotle who felt that all art and reason belonged to a previous age and every generation has been awash with people ready to dismiss to the present. The truth is that modern books aren’t just the equal of the works of previous centuries – they are objectively better. An Austen book submitted today should be rejected by a publisher and there is no classic book that would not benefit from an editor and another draft. Pretending that it’s somehow noble to plough through language abandoned for its uselessness is silly and does considerable disservice to the current generation of writers.
December 7, 2011
"The Event" ... At Central Library
"It's a very small room," he said. "Watch out for the light when we go in".
The room is at the top of Central Library in Edinburgh, a George Washington Brown building constructed eccentrically with Carnegie money in the late nineteenth century. It is an office that would adequately accommodate four people so long as none of them were trying to run a photographic studio.
I'm to be part of a series - authors who have done readings at the library. Those already shot include Ian Rankin and Alasdair Gray - who earlier in the day won the Saltire Society's Book of the Year Award, declined the honour, and was given it anyway. It's an exhibition years in the making and I'm sure whether I actually feature in the final line-up will depend substantially on the sales of the second book.
With the umbrella-sized battery of light tubes a few feet from my face, I adopt the pose that all previous sitters have adopted; turned slightly away, but eyes toward the camera. I'm repeatedly told to open my eyes wide, because as it turns out I've been squinting since the mid-80s.
All of this is a prelude to the event itself - my first public reading and a discussion of what it's like to have written and published your first novel. Certain fathoms below the microstudio the guests are assembling in a basement space, expecting to be entertained. I feel like I felt when I did stand-up almost a decade ago - nervous and powerful, like I'm carrying a static charge that makes all my hair stand up.
"Have a look," the other of the pair of photographers bids me and I shuffle around the equipment to peer at a Mac screen. The photo itself is very good, but is let down by the subject.
"I'd be grateful," I say, "if you could trim it so you can't see the contour of my man boob".
The first photographer nods soberly, adding, "Don't worry: we've done this
before".
Mark Douglas-Home and I pass in the green room as he goes to have his picture taken next. He's the other name on the bill and by far the more credible - former editor of the Glasgow Herald and possessed of enough sense to write a crime novel; you know, something people actually read.
I'm presented to the event chair - Scottish veteran journalist Jackie McGlone, who is an immediately appealing mix of Muriel Spark and Mary Portas. I try to correct a few details in the biography she's been supplied with, but she already knows; she's done her research.
When Mark returns, the three of us are mic'ed-up and we all firmly express no preference as to where we sit.
"I'm sure I have a good side," I say. "I just can't tell which one it is".
We laugh, but I'm not writing that one down. Eventually we settle on me on Jackie's right, Mark on her left and descend to the basement where the audience is waiting, the lights are dimmed and the microphones go live.
The room is at the top of Central Library in Edinburgh, a George Washington Brown building constructed eccentrically with Carnegie money in the late nineteenth century. It is an office that would adequately accommodate four people so long as none of them were trying to run a photographic studio.
I'm to be part of a series - authors who have done readings at the library. Those already shot include Ian Rankin and Alasdair Gray - who earlier in the day won the Saltire Society's Book of the Year Award, declined the honour, and was given it anyway. It's an exhibition years in the making and I'm sure whether I actually feature in the final line-up will depend substantially on the sales of the second book.
With the umbrella-sized battery of light tubes a few feet from my face, I adopt the pose that all previous sitters have adopted; turned slightly away, but eyes toward the camera. I'm repeatedly told to open my eyes wide, because as it turns out I've been squinting since the mid-80s.
All of this is a prelude to the event itself - my first public reading and a discussion of what it's like to have written and published your first novel. Certain fathoms below the microstudio the guests are assembling in a basement space, expecting to be entertained. I feel like I felt when I did stand-up almost a decade ago - nervous and powerful, like I'm carrying a static charge that makes all my hair stand up.
"Have a look," the other of the pair of photographers bids me and I shuffle around the equipment to peer at a Mac screen. The photo itself is very good, but is let down by the subject.
"I'd be grateful," I say, "if you could trim it so you can't see the contour of my man boob".
The first photographer nods soberly, adding, "Don't worry: we've done this
before".
Mark Douglas-Home and I pass in the green room as he goes to have his picture taken next. He's the other name on the bill and by far the more credible - former editor of the Glasgow Herald and possessed of enough sense to write a crime novel; you know, something people actually read.
I'm presented to the event chair - Scottish veteran journalist Jackie McGlone, who is an immediately appealing mix of Muriel Spark and Mary Portas. I try to correct a few details in the biography she's been supplied with, but she already knows; she's done her research.
When Mark returns, the three of us are mic'ed-up and we all firmly express no preference as to where we sit.
"I'm sure I have a good side," I say. "I just can't tell which one it is".
We laugh, but I'm not writing that one down. Eventually we settle on me on Jackie's right, Mark on her left and descend to the basement where the audience is waiting, the lights are dimmed and the microphones go live.
November 21, 2011
RLS Day
Chances are you missed it, but last week was the very first Robert Louis Stevenson Day. Promoted extensively on Twitter by @EdinCityofLit and @TalesofOneCity using the hashtag #RLSDay, this was an attempt by UNESCO and my alma mater Edinburgh Napier University to draw attention to one of Edinburgh’s least forgotten, but least acknowledged sons.
Robert Louis Stevenson produced volumes of literature, poetry and travel writing over his short life, but standing well-above the crowd are three novels that are globally adored: Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Kidnapped (also 1886). Discounting all his other work, these three novels alone mark Stevenson out as one of Scotland’s best authors. And although Stevenson is generally regarded as a children’s writer, I hadn’t read any of his books before I was 25 – I’d recommend them to people of any age.
What prompted me to blog about this is the imbalance in recognition paid to RLS in relation to Robert Burns. Recalling my primary education I have drawn pictures of Burns, illustrated Tam O’Shanter, learned his poems and taken part in a Burns Supper – all in a classroom environment. Time spent on RLS? None.
I have been to Ayrshire and to Burns Cottage, which was locked up tight the day I was there, before the multi-million pound restoration. But I needn’t have feared, because the Robert Burns Visitor Centre was open for business and doing a roaring trade, with several coaches in its car park and a host of tourists buying shortbread in tins bearing the likeness of Scotland’s National Poet.
Tins of shortbread with Robert Louis Stevenson’s face on? I have no idea – it was years ago and I never imaged I’d need to know something like that. Also it was the Robert Burns Visitors Centre, so you can forgive them for being a bit biased.
The broader point is this: google “Robert Louis Stevenson visitor centre” and you’ll find there isn’t one.
How about monuments? Visitors to Edinburgh’s Princes Street
are rightly impressed by the Scott Monument – the so-called Gothic Rocket with the white marble statue of Sir Walter Scott enthroned beneath it like a
philosopher king. Scott’s fame has declined immensely since his death; it’s now hard to imagine just how famous he was when Ivanhoe reinvented the Robin Hood myth. But RLS, whose total book sales are greater, has only a couple of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them “monuments” in Edinburgh.
I’m not arguing for a RLS visitor centre, or for us to start building a hundred feet high stone pirate ship. I am saying that UNESCO and Edinburgh Napier, Ian Rankin and Nigel Planer and everyone else involved in the first RLS Day should be commended for drawing attention to this under-praised writer. I hope the celebration goes from strength to strength.
A note for your diary next year – RLS day is the 17th of November.
Robert Louis Stevenson produced volumes of literature, poetry and travel writing over his short life, but standing well-above the crowd are three novels that are globally adored: Treasure Island (1883), The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Kidnapped (also 1886). Discounting all his other work, these three novels alone mark Stevenson out as one of Scotland’s best authors. And although Stevenson is generally regarded as a children’s writer, I hadn’t read any of his books before I was 25 – I’d recommend them to people of any age.
What prompted me to blog about this is the imbalance in recognition paid to RLS in relation to Robert Burns. Recalling my primary education I have drawn pictures of Burns, illustrated Tam O’Shanter, learned his poems and taken part in a Burns Supper – all in a classroom environment. Time spent on RLS? None.
I have been to Ayrshire and to Burns Cottage, which was locked up tight the day I was there, before the multi-million pound restoration. But I needn’t have feared, because the Robert Burns Visitor Centre was open for business and doing a roaring trade, with several coaches in its car park and a host of tourists buying shortbread in tins bearing the likeness of Scotland’s National Poet.
Tins of shortbread with Robert Louis Stevenson’s face on? I have no idea – it was years ago and I never imaged I’d need to know something like that. Also it was the Robert Burns Visitors Centre, so you can forgive them for being a bit biased.
The broader point is this: google “Robert Louis Stevenson visitor centre” and you’ll find there isn’t one.
How about monuments? Visitors to Edinburgh’s Princes Street
are rightly impressed by the Scott Monument – the so-called Gothic Rocket with the white marble statue of Sir Walter Scott enthroned beneath it like a
philosopher king. Scott’s fame has declined immensely since his death; it’s now hard to imagine just how famous he was when Ivanhoe reinvented the Robin Hood myth. But RLS, whose total book sales are greater, has only a couple of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them “monuments” in Edinburgh.
I’m not arguing for a RLS visitor centre, or for us to start building a hundred feet high stone pirate ship. I am saying that UNESCO and Edinburgh Napier, Ian Rankin and Nigel Planer and everyone else involved in the first RLS Day should be commended for drawing attention to this under-praised writer. I hope the celebration goes from strength to strength.
A note for your diary next year – RLS day is the 17th of November.
August 30, 2011
Why I Love East Lothian
A few weeks ago the
http://www.eastlothiancourier.com/
asked me to write their weekly column "Why I Love East Lothian". This doesn't appear in the electronic version, but I'm able to reproduce it here. This is my original version, which was very slightly changed for the print edition.
***
I cannot separate East Lothian from my childhood; for me the towns and landscapes are as much memory as brick and weather.
On a stretch of summer-crowded beach past North Berwick I lost a dog for an anxious hour. On the playground of Cockenzie Primary I lost a square yard of skin from my knees (over several years). Likely I’ve forgotten as much as I remember, but some things remain vivid to all my senses.
I can still feel a child’s hands – my hands – pressed to my ears to block the guttural roar of planes soaring overhead at East Fortune. And on an occasional visit to the Museum of Flight, peering on tiptoes into the cockpit of a Vickers Supermarine Spitfire.
But usually we went to East Fortune because of my grandmother. A renowned – and self-acknowledged – raker and hoarder, she found a unique happiness in trawling through the stalls at the Sunday Market. The journey down winding country roads in my grandfather’s orange Skoda was a weekly event and nothing at the Museum of Flight was ever so majestic as my grandmother returning home from the hunt with a clutch of bargains.
When I think about East Lothian as a whole, it’s the view from a car window along that route.
Being from a large close-knit family on my mother’s side, I was never more than six feet from a cousin growing up. We were always playing in a street unsullied by speed bumps, making noise that today people would phone the council to complain about. We had impossibly long summer days entirely without rain and as much nostalgia as we could carry.
I got my first job in 1996 working for RBS at South Gyle. If the tea hadn’t come out of a machine, I would have spent that summer making tea. Instead my inconsiderable skills were employed in collecting the tea from the machine and bringing it to people. My boss, Edinburgh born and raised, referred to East Lothian as “the sticks”. Until then I don’t think it had occurred to me that living elsewhere would be a different experience. Edinburgh was on the other end of every bus route – there wasn’t even passport control between these two foreign lands divided by custom, tradition and language.
I love Edinburgh, I work there and during the Festival there’s no better place on Earth. But it isn’t home and it doesn’t have a monopoly on culture. The growth in local arts and community events – like the Fringe by the Sea happening in North Berwick all this week – has made this an even more vibrant and interesting place to live.
East Lothian is relaxed, the people have more time to be friendly, each village has its own character and around every corner I find a memory and something new. That’s why I love East Lothian.
***
I cannot separate East Lothian from my childhood; for me the towns and landscapes are as much memory as brick and weather.
On a stretch of summer-crowded beach past North Berwick I lost a dog for an anxious hour. On the playground of Cockenzie Primary I lost a square yard of skin from my knees (over several years). Likely I’ve forgotten as much as I remember, but some things remain vivid to all my senses.
I can still feel a child’s hands – my hands – pressed to my ears to block the guttural roar of planes soaring overhead at East Fortune. And on an occasional visit to the Museum of Flight, peering on tiptoes into the cockpit of a Vickers Supermarine Spitfire.
But usually we went to East Fortune because of my grandmother. A renowned – and self-acknowledged – raker and hoarder, she found a unique happiness in trawling through the stalls at the Sunday Market. The journey down winding country roads in my grandfather’s orange Skoda was a weekly event and nothing at the Museum of Flight was ever so majestic as my grandmother returning home from the hunt with a clutch of bargains.
When I think about East Lothian as a whole, it’s the view from a car window along that route.
Being from a large close-knit family on my mother’s side, I was never more than six feet from a cousin growing up. We were always playing in a street unsullied by speed bumps, making noise that today people would phone the council to complain about. We had impossibly long summer days entirely without rain and as much nostalgia as we could carry.
I got my first job in 1996 working for RBS at South Gyle. If the tea hadn’t come out of a machine, I would have spent that summer making tea. Instead my inconsiderable skills were employed in collecting the tea from the machine and bringing it to people. My boss, Edinburgh born and raised, referred to East Lothian as “the sticks”. Until then I don’t think it had occurred to me that living elsewhere would be a different experience. Edinburgh was on the other end of every bus route – there wasn’t even passport control between these two foreign lands divided by custom, tradition and language.
I love Edinburgh, I work there and during the Festival there’s no better place on Earth. But it isn’t home and it doesn’t have a monopoly on culture. The growth in local arts and community events – like the Fringe by the Sea happening in North Berwick all this week – has made this an even more vibrant and interesting place to live.
East Lothian is relaxed, the people have more time to be friendly, each village has its own character and around every corner I find a memory and something new. That’s why I love East Lothian.
August 4, 2011
Press Cutting
Really nice piece in this week's East Lothian Courier about me and the book. If you didn't already know a bit about how Singular got started then it's a pretty good intro.
I'm now on Goodreads, which seems like a great way to share reviews and current reads. If you're reading or if you've read Singular and you're on Goodreads, then let me know.
Also, quick reminder that tomorrow is the very last day you can "like" Singular on Facebook for a chance to win the proof copy (signed - try and stop me). Links in the bar above.
I'm now on Goodreads, which seems like a great way to share reviews and current reads. If you're reading or if you've read Singular and you're on Goodreads, then let me know.
Also, quick reminder that tomorrow is the very last day you can "like" Singular on Facebook for a chance to win the proof copy (signed - try and stop me). Links in the bar above.
June 29, 2011
Rick Rhodes Review of Singular
"Mr. Porteous manages to blend science ficiton with a dose of sharp humor and pokes at some of the other areas of the science fiction world. The book is a nice blend of both the real and the surreal world"
Read Rick's full review on his website. (He'll also be giving a copy away at some point).
Read Rick's full review on his website. (He'll also be giving a copy away at some point).
June 11, 2011
From the TBR Pile
The most recent stop on the blog tour - Writing Magic.
June 6, 2011
Reviews & Interviews
"At about nine I sat down to write a book and got as far as numbering and naming each of the chapters, having no idea how to do anything else. The story I’d wanted to write was somewhere between the Elizabeth Shue film Adventures in Babysitting and Harry Potter. I think somebody still needs to write that story".
Read the rest of my interview here: http://tinyurl.com/5u64ch4
Read the rest of my interview here: http://tinyurl.com/5u64ch4
