Stuart Haddon's Blog, page 5

In a Varicose Vein

When Juli and I go on a road trip, we take a 'talking book' with us. It's an excellent way to help pass the time. The choice of title in these circumstances is crucial, of course, and we have had some occasional disasters.  For a start, the quality of the narration is crucial. Anyone with a tendency to boring monotones should be avoided. And an actor who can create characters' voices and maintain them throughout is a definite plus. A recent trip started with an American narrator trying to do several voices in a Cockney accent. If I tell you that he was worse than Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins," then you may get some sense of how bad it was.

A very complicated or convoluted plot is also a no-no. For the person driving, there are bound to be points where it's heads-up.  Come to think of it, the driver really should have her or his head up throughout.  The passenger, on the other hand, is likely to be drifting in and out of sleep (especially as our road trips tend to start at stupid o' clock) and cannot be expected to cling to all the plot nuances involved.  This can lead to tricky discussions.

(Pauses the disc) "Who's the woman with the triplets and the wooden leg?  She seems to have appeared from nowhere."

"Sorry, haven't a clue.  I must have been negotiating the George Washington Bridge at that point. I'm struggling with the role of the dwarf and the Russian guy caught with the llamas in his trunk."

All of which leads to Dean Koontz. For a couple of trips, well-narrated versions of his stories provided the perfect accompaniment to the unrolling of the Interstates. We thought we had struck a productive seam and selected him again for our next trip. Error. Your Heart Belongs To Me turned out to be a swollen, knotted mess of a novel, an example of what happens when a talented writer gets to like the sound of his own writing voice so much that it plays havoc with his judgement.

I've since discovered lists on the GoodReads website which separate the good Dean Koontz novels from the clunkers. I'll take that with me, next time we go to the library.

Sequelitis

Sequelitis (n): A severe condition experienced by authors who have committed to writing a sequel, especially to a first novel. Characterized by mental stress, plot confusion and an inability to decide on a working title. May be alleviated (though only temporarily) by copious amounts of alcohol, administered internally.

The working title. Hmmm. At the moment, it is "Sequel to The Butterfly & The Bull." A couple of days ago, I spent the best part of an episode of "Grey's Anatomy" probing the quagmire of neural chaos inside my skull for inspiration. And was I successful? Let me tell you. Today, I couldn't find the four draft chapters I'd completed so far. Several moments of raised b.p. later, I discovered them in a folder named "The Consummate Paradox." I kid you not. Forty minutes of mental gymnastics, and I came up with something that I couldn't even REMEMBER, never mind relate to.

People who make movies don't seem to have this problem. So I guess I could call the sequel "The Butterfly & The Bull 2″ or "The Butterfly & The Bull – The Reckoning" or even "The Butterfly and The Butterfly – a Tale of Two Fritillaries." A rich seam? I think not. Perhaps there is inspiration on the bookshelf.  Take somebody else's bright idea and modify it – a touch of justifiable plagiarism. Unfortunately, from where I'm sitting, it doesn't look promising. None of: Guatemala – A Visitor's Guide, The Farmers' Almanac 1992 or Estate and Trust Administration for Dummies seem like very fertile ground.

It seems so simple.  I know the plot (roughly), the settings and the characters. You'd think I could come up with something inspirational – or at least mundanely acceptable. The McLennan Six (or Seven or Eight)? Donnie's Revenge? Jura to Edinburgh – A Traveler's Guide? Nope. I give in for the moment. Pass the Pino Grigiot, for goodness sake.

A Little Jura in the Night

Good friends came to enjoy dinner with us this evening. Mark brought a bottle of Jura whisky which I had given him as a thank-you for looking after Joe The Dog.  He hadn't yet sampled it, so we had a post-prandial bottle-opening session. This is the whisky I like best – robust, yet not heavy and with hints of oak and notes of honey and caramel, soft liquorice and roasted coffee beans (OK, I got that from the Jura Distillery site – it just tastes like a stonking good whisky to me!). Mark only knew that this was a Scottish whisky, so I showed him the Island of Jura on Google Earth and then some photos of the place. This is my favourite place out of all those I have visited in the world. That's why it features in The Butterfly & The Bull. Although it's only about seven miles from the Scottish mainland, it has a wild and isolated feel about it.  It is rugged, with wild moorland and rocky coastlines.  And yet, at Jura House, there exists the most luxuriant walled garden with shrubs, herbs, vegetables and herbs galore. About one hundred and fifty people live on the island. There is one road, one hotel, one store, one distillery.  In the novel, I envision an island bereft of its absentee landowners, its tourist trade and its reliable links with the mainland.  The island community pulls together to bridge the gap between one set of circumstances and another. They are helped in this by one of their own. Colin McKay. A modest genius. The character is based on a real Juraman I met in 2009. He liked the local whisky, too, as I remember.

A Trap for the Unwary Author

So. After almost two years of gestation, I was finally delivered of a bonny, bouncing novel on 20th October 2011. Thanks to the wonders of CreateSpace and Kindle, it is available on Amazon (and in other places) as a paperback and an ebook (http://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Bull-Stuart-Haddon/dp/1463756259/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326047471&sr=8-1). At that point, I raised my head wearily from the keyboard and sat back, wondering about the sequel. But a huge, black cloud gathered even as my thoughts were doing the same thing and I realized that there was something I had forgotten.  The bane of all self-published authors – the terrible twins, Marketing and Publicity. It's not that the advice isn't out there, it's just that lots of us choose to ignore it until after the event.  In my case, I found myself unexpectedly on a scree slope of things to do, furiously scrabbling for purchase.

At least I had a website. And a Facebook page. "But you need a blog," they said. So here it is. I just have to grit my teeth (what's left of them) and write in the damn thing.  I'd rather be working on the sequel. But maybe it'll grow on me, especially if people find it interesting.