Dan Coxon's Blog, page 6

Oh My Golly! The Pixies, The Weeklings, and a site called Salon

"Yo soy playero pero no hay playa / Oh my golly! / Bien perdida la surfer rosa / Oh my golly!"

For the last week I've been humming the Pixies' 'Oh My Golly!' to myself. Never mind the X-rated translation.

Why? Literary website The Weeklings published my essay Echoes From The Planet Of Sound a couple of weeks ago, and I can't stop buzzing. The essay is one of my most personal projects, a recollection of a seminal Pixies concert at Crystal Palace Bowl, and the various repercussions it's had throughout my life. It's an attempt at a different kind of music journalism, one that embraces the subjective and the personal rather than the objective.

But my excitement didn't stop there. Shortly after its publication on The Weeklings, Echoes... was picked up by Salon. Yes, that Salon. The sprawling, hugely popular arts and culture behemoth. Okay, so they renamed it. And yes, for reasons known only to them they renamed it The Pixies Blew My Mind . But man, it was Salon...

Oh my golly.

Words and Music

As a writer, you're always asked where you get your ideas from. The question has become such a cliche that it's incredible how often we're still asked - but people want to know. They really want to know.

Usually there isn't a simple answer. Stories often spring out of nowhere, or string themselves together from ten or twenty different sources. An anecdote you heard, a book you read, a person you saw at the train station. That really strong cup of coffee you downed that morning.

In the case of my story 'Not The End Of The World' (recently published in The Portland Review ), the answer is far simpler than that. For once there's a definite starting point for the words on the page, a source from which the rest flowed. It wasn't a book, or an experience. It wasn't even a person.

It was 'We Used To Wait', from Arcade Fire's album The Suburbs.

To cite a single song as the inspiration for a 5000 word story sounds simplistic, but in this instance it's as close as you're going to get to the truth. The song's lyrics inspired the story's central concept; the song's tone imbued the narrative with its sense of melancholy and loss. I like to think that 'Not The End Of The World' is 'We Used To Wait' coalesced into narrative form. Clearly it's different, but they share the same pulse.

You can check out 'We Used To Wait' here, in a fantastic interactive video app. To read 'Not The End Of The World', get your hands on a copy of the Summer 2013 issue of The Portland Review.

And if you're looking for similar inspiration yourself, here are my top five bands/musicians for inspiring fiction ideas. Somewhere in here there's a story just waiting to be written.

1/ Nick Cave. Okay, so Cave is an author too, and many of his ideas have made it into print already. But what ideas they are. Mean, moody and dripping with atmosphere, many of his songs sound like Gothic thrillers waiting to happen. All they need is your input.

2/ David Bowie. If Cave is too Gothic for your tastes, take a journey into space with Bowie. I've lost count of the number of times I've heard one of his songs and had a flash of inspiration. Literate, packed with imagery, and irrepressibly weird, these should get your creative juices flowing.

3/ Laura Marling. Not as well known as the other names on this list, Marling's songs are nonetheless perfect food for literature. The day she writes a novel, I'm first in line to read it.

4/ Johnny Cash. The Man in Black was one of the greatest songwriters ever, and his grasp of character and narrative is second to none. Throw in some of the weary moodiness of his later recordings, and that's one potent stew.

5/ Arcade Fire. Yes, yes, I've mentioned them already... but they had to make the list. After all, they've just inspired my latest story. What more proof do you need?

From Fife to Syaung-un: a Personal Remembrance of Iain Banks

It's hard to know how to write this; it's hard to even know where to begin.

The tributes and obituaries have already been flowing from thousands of pens, as writers and readers across the country remember Iain M. Banks following the announcement of his death yesterday. To that chorus I will add my own sorrow and sense of loss. There are few authors I have followed as closely as Iain Banks, and few that I have held as close to my heart. Not every novel was perfect, but each seemed to make the world a little wider, and the act of reading filled with a little more wonder. His wit and his wisdom will be missed in equal measure.

I was lucky to have crossed paths with Iain on a number of occasions. My university dissertation was on the perception and representation of 'Scottishness' (that slippery, nationalistic cliche) in Banks' works, a decision spurred by my love of and admiration for The Wasp Factory. As part of that dissertation Iain was kind enough to answer the few questions I had, swapping handwritten letters in a snail-paced Q&A. His answers were always entertaining, and all of them found their way into my finished dissertation. In his typical way, Iain knew how to cut straight to the heart of the matter.

Following university I got to interview him twice more, and when The Business was launched at the Edinburgh Book Festival I attended his tented party under Auld Reekie's grey skies. I was able to chat with Iain for a while without the pressures of deadlines or interview questions, and found him to be even more fascinating and charming than he was when wearing his professional suit. Many of the partygoers were close friends of his, yet he welcomed me with open arms, introducing me to his lifelong friend Ken MacLeod and Scottish musician Derek Dick ('Fish'). He even introduced me to his mother, with whom I chattered over a genteel cup of tea. For a writer who was already considered one of Britain's greatest wordsmiths, the lack of pretension was refreshing.

When Iain announced his illness I was tempted to send my essay on his Scottish themes (originally published in Cencrastus) out to magazines once again. Since Cencrastus went under the article has vanished from sight, but it still seemed to have some interesting things to say, despite the young me's writerly naivete. Selling the article felt wrong, however. Instead, I've decided to put it online in its entirety, should any scholars of Scottish fiction wish to put it to better use than I was able. The article is now on Google docs, and can be found here: A Song of Scotland: Iain Banks as Cultural Ambassador . All I ask is that you credit it if you ever feel the need to quote it (Cencrastus No.62, Spring 1999).

Iain will be fondly remembered by any who met him, either in person or in print. His greatest achievement was his ability to move between genres, to maintain his uniquely clean, witty and entertaining voice whether he was writing about alien empires or Scottish pubs - or, indeed, his own cancer.

Scotland - and the Culture - has had no finer ambassador.

Back From The Dead: Interviews with Dan Rhodes and Scarlett Thomas

If you've ever published online content, you'll know that one of the great things about it is that it sticks around... potentially forever. Sometimes you don't want those photos from a party in 2002 resurfacing, but for Internet writers everywhere it's reassuring to know that their work has a longer shelf life than your average mid-list novel. All that hard work hasn't gone to waste.

Except, of course, when the unthinkable happens. While the Internet may seem to be an ethereal, magical place, surviving on dreams and desire, in reality it resides in servers. Physical, mechanical servers. That often go wrong.

Last year that's exactly what happened to respected underground literary magazine 3:AM. Overnight they appeared to lose 12 years of archived material, including original fiction, reviews, essays - and my interviews with Dan Rhodes and Scarlett Thomas. The interviews were old enough that my backups had long since been lost, so it appeared that they had vanished forever.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case. The archive has now been largely restored to the 3:AM site with a separate alphabetized index, and you can find my two articles in the interview listings. Alternatively, if you're chomping at the bit to read my conversations with Rhodes and Thomas, you can find them via the links below:

Fool's Good: an interview with Dan Rhodes
Reality Squared: an interview with Scarlett Thomas

Of course, the entire episode should act as a warning to writers everywhere. Back up your work, cross your fingers - and remember, nothing lasts forever.

(Photo: My own photo of Dan Rhodes taken after the interview, also recently recovered from the sinkhole of server failure.)

Who's the Daddy?

Becoming a father has meant some big changes to my career, and my daily work schedule. No more leisurely mornings playing Mass Effect on the Xbox with a bag of kettle corn and a pot of strong coffee; no more seeking inspiration in movie marathons and back-to-back TV shows; no more indulgent writing sessions that last half a day as the words pour onto the page. These days I'm lucky if I can squeeze in two straight hours at the laptop.

While the wee man sleeps I have to somehow discover the most productive hours of my day - or watch that tiny sliver of free time disappear without a word being written.

At the same time, however, fatherhood has brought a new perspective on life, and a new professionalism that asks - no, demands - that I learn to stop wasting time and knuckle down to do the hard graft (and the hard drafts) whenever and wherever I can. I've learned to write on the iPad a few sentences at a time, to jot down every inkling of an idea before it disappears forever. When you only have a couple of hours a day to write, every word becomes precious.

Becoming a father also allowed me entry to an elite club of writer-dads. Many of us stay home to look after our kids, having the kind of job that almost allows for that. More importantly, it also meant that I was able to write a story for Daddy Cool, the latest anthology from Artistically Declined Press. Edited by indie-lit guru Ben Tanzer, Daddy Cool assembles some of the hippest, savviest writer-dads (and me) for a collection of writing for fathers, and for their kids. The end product is effortlessly cool, uncannily timely, and also a damned good read from start to finish.

My own story, 'The Claw', combines some of the elements that I most enjoyed in stories from my own childhood. There's a mystery, and a superhero, and a tragically geeky narrator to appeal to budding book nerds everywhere. There's even a Scooby-Doo reference or two. It's aimed at 9-12 year olds, but hopefully the adults will discover a chuckle or two along the way. My 15-month old even laughed at the opening page as I read it to him. Although he laughs at his own feet sometimes, so...

Daddy Cool is available now from the Artistically Declined Press website, or via Amazon (for UK sales, click here).

Madness? This is Sparta!

Just a quick note this time. My short story 'Mapreading' is online now, in the latest issue of Spartan. The story is about paint, sperm, Brad Paisley, maps, and learning to be a father. It is also pretty short. Much like this blog post.

The end.

'Mapreading' can be read here, on the Spartan website. Spartan is a literary journal based in Seattle, Washington, with the motto "Minimalist Prose. No Strays." It is also full of awesome - in a minimalist sort of way.

Letter from America: Notes on 'Man Overboard'

Occasionally I like to post notes on my short stories on this blog. Think of them as footnotes to the published work, a bonus 'Making Of' featurette. I find it helps clear my mind of the clutter that has built up around the original idea. You might even find them interesting.

'Man Overboard' started as nothing grander than a call for stories from Gutter , the Scottish journal of new writing. A friend had recently been published by them, and I liked the look and the ethos of the magazine. A visit to their website told me that they wanted stories about what it meant to be Scottish, and especially the experience of Scots living overseas. My interest was immediately piqued. I could write that.

The story first came to me while staring out across the waters from our house in Gig Harbor, Washington. We were living there at the time, three years into an overseas assignment that had brought my wife and I to America. It made sense to write about the scenery I saw in front of me, the tall stands of pines, the mountainous horizon. It was so like Scotland, and yet so different. Anything I wrote would have to be imbued with its moss-cloaked wildness.

The first draft of the story sat on my laptop for months. I knew I liked it, but there was something missing. Something that would make it special, unique, engaging - something to make it stand out. One day, by accident, I stumbled across the answer in a piece of local mythology. There was something almost mythical about the story, the way it happened on the fringes of society and the wilderness. Alexi Zentner has used the phrase "mythical realism" to describe his debut novel Touch, and I realised that I needed just a little sprinkling of that magic to make my story come alive.

I hope the end result was successful. I hope someone reading it feels the air of mystery and magic that surrounds some of what happens, the sense that our hero is drifting through a timeless landscape that - at times - seems far more concrete than he does. But most of all, I hope you enjoy it. That, after all, is the point.

'Man Overboard' appears in Gutter #8, available now via the official Gutter website.

'Ka Mate' eBook FREE for Waitangi Day

Yes, you read that right - this blog post is all about getting FREE stuff. Everyone likes free things, right? That's what I thought.

February 6th is Waitangi Day, the Kiwi holiday celebrating the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, and the birth of modern New Zealand. To celebrate, the Kindle ebook of my travel memoir Ka Mate: Travels in New Zealand will be free from midnight on February 5th through February 7th (all times are Pacific Time). If you haven't already read it, now's the chance to get your hands on a copy gratis. If you have read it... well, tell everyone you know. Everybody likes FREE stuff, remember?

Just visit Amazon to 'buy' the ebook, and you'll find that they're asking for exactly none of your hard-earned cash in exchange. Remember that this giveaway is only running for three days, however - so do it NOW.

Click here to download the book in the UK.
Click here to download the book in the USA.

Here's a passage from Ka Mate about the Treaty House at Waitangi:

The Treaty itself wasn’t signed in the house, this formality having taken place on the lawns between the building and the sea. A marquee was erected there from spare spars and sails that Hobson had brought with him on board the HMS Herald, and as I walked across the close-cropped grass I tried to imagine the makeshift construction that had stood there over a hundred and fifty years ago, billowing in the sea winds. A tall and impressive flagstaff marked the point on the lawn where the historic event took place, but the area was now populated by several clusters of tourists, carefully unpacking sandwiches from their backpacks. In the end the leap proved too much for my imagination, and I had to remain content with the artist’s impression of the signing that hung in the Treaty House. Today’s picnickers were far removed from the gathering of proud Maori chiefs that once occupied these lawns.

Ka Mate: Travels in New Zealand is available in paperback and as a Kindle ebook from Amazon and many other outlets. Click here for Ka Mate availability.

(The photo is from the commemorative wharenui at Waitangi. Credit: Dan Coxon)

Of Monkeys and Bicycles

If you've been following my Twitter feed (or have friended me on Facebook) you'll know that I have a new gig. At the end of last year I started writing book reviews for esteemed literary journal Monkeybicycle, and there are now enough online to make it worth shouting about.

If you're not familiar with Monkeybicycle, check out their online content while you're at it, and consider buying a copy of the print journal too. It's been running since 2002, so it's here to stay. Previous contributors have included the likes of Steve Almond, Ryan Boudinot, Sarah Silverman, J. Robert Lennon and Patton Oswalt, so I'm in fine company.

My reviews to date on the Monkeybicycle site are as follows. I'll try to update this as more are published:

Book Review: Spectacle by Susan Steinberg
Book Review: Building Stories by Chris Ware
Book Review: The Island of Last Truth by Flavia Company
Book Review: Wilderness by Lance Weller
Book Review: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

Kickstart Me Where It Hurts...

Over the last few years there's been a quiet revolution going on in literary circles. It used to be that literature was the exclusive domain of those with deep pockets and vast distribution networks, of penguins and random houses. Smaller projects vanished without a trace - if they got off the ground at all. Unless you had a generous benefactor behind the scenes an indie press might as well fold after the first book.

But the times they are a'changing. Following the example set by the music industry, more and more indie publishers are reaching out directly to their readership, and it's giving the entire industry a much-needed makeover. Even if you've never used Kickstarter, you've probably heard of it. The site allows you to create projects, appeal for funding, offer your fans some unique incentives for their generosity, then sit back and watch as your idea becomes reality. It's funding from the bottom up, and it's turning the current literary scene into one of the most exciting we've seen in years.

 I'm happy to say that I'm now involved with a Kickstarter project myself. The book comes courtesy of the indie overachievers at Artistically Declined Press, and the Kickstarter project is intended to give us a marketing budget for the interstellar launch that it deserves. What's the project? It's an anthology called Daddy Cool : a collection of writing by fathers, for fathers, and for their kids. Featuring writers like Ben Tanzer, Robert Duffer, Pete Anderson, bl pawelek, Caleb Ross, CL Bledsoe, Jason Fisk and Ryan W. Bradley - and yours truly - it promises to be a great read. Plus it recognizes another great upheaval that's happened in recent years: fathers are now squarely back on the parenting map.

Of course, we don't expect any handouts. By contributing to the Kickstarter campaign you'll be loading yourself up with all kinds of goodies, from signed copies and Daddy Cool t-shirts to a lifetime of Artistically Declined Press titles (that surely has to be a wise investment, right?). You can find our Kickstarter page here if you want to read more about the project, and the book will be available next year. In the meantime, I'd best get back to writing - and, y'know, being a dad...