Christopher Peter's Blog, page 2

Why read books?

Really interesting article here on book reading trends and formats – and if your scroll down, a section outlining the benefits of reading books. I’m sure this is preaching to the converted here, but it’s all good stuff!

Short story: Thank you for the music

“You’re insane!” yells Cassie.

“I’m what?” I yell back. She sticks her tongue out at me. It’s a joke we have. Cassie’s a metalhead, and for half the time (at least half the time, actually) our apartment vibrates to the grinding guitars and strangled vocals of that most refined of sounds. I’d known about it before we moved in together, of course. You get the person, you accept their music as part of the package, it’s the way it goes. As long as she in turn put up with my eighties synth-pop, which pinged out in our living space the other (almost) half the time, we were good.

Anyway, the joke is that Cassie tends to play her heavy metal a little too loud – I mean, it’s all above board and within the government Maximum Safe Volume guidelines (we don’t want the police on our backs, after all) – but let’s just say she pushes the boundaries a little. And the thing with her kind of music: when it’s loud, it’s LOUD. If we ever can’t completely hear each other, there are times it comes close.

It’s also loud enough to play havoc with the voice control, so she’s in the habit of carrying the remote around indoors – this was after I’d complained for the umpteenth time about her screeching, “Half volume!” into the air and the sound system not taking a blind bit of notice because its tinny little ears were clogged up with Metallica.

Now, she stabs moodily at the reduce volume button, then gives me a look. “Happy now? I’m just saying, the last time you ran off like this on one of your novelty jaunts, you came back in such a stinking mood. What is it this time?”

“Yeah, well.” I shrug. “That didn’t work out, but this time sounds really interesting.” I’m still a bit embarrassed about last Saturday, when I’d gone over to see a bloke in Streatham who’d promised “something really far out”, only to be fed some derivative, badly edited pap that was absolutely stuffed with dodgy subliminals. So not only uninteresting, but also illegal. Well, even more illegal. I risked breaking the law, and for what? I’d paid him, then quickly made my excuses and left, as they say. I felt a right prat. There were too many scammers around, and I’d fallen for one. But that was an occupational hazard – if you really wanted something new, something under the government radar, you had to take some risks sometimes. I couldn’t bear the only alternative I could see: numb, dumb conformity. I’ve explained this to Cassie more than once, but she’s so straight it’s untrue. Sometimes I wonder if she’ll ever understand.

“Woman in Wandsworth,” I add. “Notice in Darkchat, you know, the usual. Says she’s got something really different.” I sigh, knowing how it sounds. “Yeah, yeah, I know that’s what they all say. But I’ve really got a good feeling about this one, you know? Like, her ad was so, I don’t know, understated. Like, take it or leave it. As if it didn’t need the hard sell.”

Cassie arches an eyebrow. “A woman, eh? Single, is she?”

“Doubt it. It’s not like that. She’d hardly be advertising something like that if she was after something else, would she? Those ads attract a right bunch of weirdos. Like me.” I grin in what I hope is a reassuring way.

“Dunno. Maybe that’s what she’s into. Look, what am I supposed to think, Pete? You go running off on these weird excursions, seeing who knows who. I just …” She touches my arm. “Just be careful, OK? I saw on the news only yesterday, another of those police stings, breaking up an illegal sounds party in Luton … I just don’t want you getting into any trouble, OK?”

“I know, I know. That’s why I don’t go to those things. Those people are just asking for trouble. They know how the government is about unauthorised music. I’m always careful. Only use Darkchat, which they can’t monitor …”

“Sure about that?”

“Right now, fairly sure, yeah. They’ll probably shut it down sooner or later. But it’s always been the same – whenever they close one way, we’ll find another. Anyway, they’ve got bigger fish to fry than the odd lone weirdo like me. And as I’ve told you, if I go somewhere and get so much as a sniff of anything off, I’m out of there right away. No messing around. And I only go during the day, never at night. So I am always really careful. You don’t need to worry. OK?”

Cassie nods and throws me a watery smile. I know she’s not convinced. But I also know that she knows she won’t stop me. It’s always been the deal, right from the start. I work, I treat her right, I don’t play around. But when it comes to music, I need something new, something different. I can’t explain it. It’s just me.

I leave quickly after that, before I change my mind (or Cassie changes hers). It’s always a wrench, walking out on her like this, when I know she’s worried. It doesn’t help that I never tell her everything – not exactly where I’m going, not the address, nor the name of my contact (not that it would ever be their real name anyway). Always light on detail. I’ve never explained why, but it’s obvious to anyone with even half a brain cell. If the worst ever happened, if I was caught – which won’t happen, but still – I want her to be able to plead at least a degree of ignorance. She might get a suspended sentence for not denouncing me (sorry, “failing to report suspicious activity”), but her record’s clean as a whistle, no previous (or so she told me) – she’d get off lightly, slap on the wrist. Me, on the other hand …

The elevator’s been stuck on Justin Bieber for the last fortnight (I’m sure the landlord has a sadistic streak), so I take the stairs, where I’m treated to some anonymous pan pipes mush floating from the speakers. Kind of nothing-music, but inoffensive enough and you can kind of almost shut it out. Or pretend you can, anyway. The landlord’s not even trying, I think, probably just threw anything on to meet regulations, any continuous mix. Always continuous, of course; no gaps allowed. At least I’m fairly sure there’s no subliminals here – I can usually spot them, though some of the newer ones are very subtle – but then, on the other hand, I reflect that this is probably exactly the kind of music they like to put them in. They prefer it if you’re lulled, not thinking, not noticing; just receiving.

On the street it’s something more strident, a touch of seventies pop. I walk along our road to Mull of Kintyre, but by Brixton High Street it’s London Calling. Which is kind of interesting, because you don’t hear much punky stuff – might give people ideas, probably – but then the local council have always been a touch maverick. Mind you, the traffic noise here drowns out most of it, so the authorities probably don’t care too much. It’s only periodically, in the seconds between the buses rumbling by, that you can hear The Clash in the gaps. Always fill those spaces. Mind the gap.

On the Underground, as usual it all gets more conventional. Mostly classical down here, swelling strings and soothing horns, all the better for keeping the crowds calm. The public health messages are frequent here, too. In the twenty minutes or so I’m underground, I must hear more than a dozen, some more than once. Does your head in after a while. Music is good for you. Tune in, don’t miss out. Illegal music costs lives. What have you been listening to? The government recommends regular sound check-ups – don’t miss yours – they’re free! Don’t forget your night-time sound mix – music makes sleep better, say scientists – and you could get fined up to £5,000 if you don’t comply. Mind wandering? – music helps you concentrate! Do you have noise-cancelling headphones? – if so, do you have a license? – if not you could get fined up to … After a while I put in my earphones and tune into Happy Sounds. That’s allowed. They know what’s on there, because of course they decide what’s on there. Today it’s nineties Britpop. Nothing like a bit of ironic, synthetic outrage; all on brand, check. After a while I get a real craving for Cola-cola. Bloody subliminals. I don’t know what’s worse, the government or the corporations. They both want to control you – different reasons, maybe, but it’s all much the same in the end.

It’s a relief when I emerge blinking into the autumn sunlight in Wandsworth and I can whip off the earphones. Here’s there’s a bit of fifties rock-and-roll – how retro, darling. My old mate Robbie told me last week I shouldn’t use public transport too much, they can track you more easily, know where you’re going and where you’ve been. I told him that was the point. They don’t like people doing too much walking, listening to their own music for too long. If I rocked halfway across London by foot, not only would that take a flipping long time, but they might notice. With CCTV and facial recognition everywhere, there’s nowhere to hide, and they’d soon notice anyone who seemed to be trying to. They’ve got algorithms coming out their ears; if your face doesn’t appear where they expect it to, something gets flagged. I know, my ex worked in the Ministry of Public Order. No, there’s no sense in drawing too much attention to yourself. Hide in plain sight, that’s my motto. Well, not hide as such, that’s not really possible any more, but still. Anyway, I don’t see Robbie so much these days. I don’t know quite what he’s been up to, but I suspect he’s been a naughty boy again. Cassie thinks I shouldn’t have anything to do with him. He’s already served one jail sentence. He should be more careful.

Davies House turns out to be a sombre redbrick low-rise apartment block down a nondescript side street. My heart is hammering as I press the buzzer for flat 9. No matter how many times I do this, I still get jumpy. In the window next to the front security door, a crack arcs from almost the top left down to the bottom right corner like a frozen lightning bolt. I vaguely recall the Wandsworth riots on the TV news a few months ago; they must have been especially bad to have merited a mention. Maybe that’s the reason for the crack. No-one’s bothered to repair it in all that time, then. Probably not worth it.

I press the buzzer again. I wonder what they think when they see me, visiting an apparently random address, somewhere I’ve never been before (and they know everywhere you’ve ever been, at least for the past few years). Going to see a prostitute? Pick up some drugs? Their AI keeps tabs on everyone, but you usually have to do something really noteworthy to get flagged up and have a human being eyeballing you. Though I heard they do random checks too. There’s quite a lot of low-level mischief they’ll turn a blind eye to. Problem is, what I’m doing, they’d probably be interested in. They don’t like anyone messing with the music. It’s too important, too fundamental to how they operate.

“Hello?” A female voice buzzes from the tiny speaker.

“Hello? I’ve got an appointment for 11.30?” I avoid using my real name, obviously. But a fake name can be an equally bad idea. This intercom’s probably online; most are. You use a name that doesn’t match your face, you might get flagged. Again, drawing attention to yourself, not a good idea.

“Oh, right, yes. Sorry to keep you waiting, I was in the loo. I’ll buzz you up.” TMI or what. She sounds older than I was expecting; and indeed, when she opens the door of number nine, I meet a lady in her sixties I’d say; hair greying but eyes bright and keen, regarding me in a friendly but curious way, giving me the once over like they always do. Am I an informer, or an undercover? You get a sixth sense about these things, but of course you can never know for sure. So you take some risks; just calculated ones, and that’s life.

Mind clearly made up, she breaks into a smile and steps aside to allow me to enter. “Hello, do come in.” I smile back and pass quickly through the door, anxious to escape the forgotten third-rate crooner whose boppy schtick is oozing through the corridor. Our dear leaders’ taste in music isn’t usually too bad – I mean, they’d have even more civil disorder on their hands if they put out Agadoo on endless loop – but it does slip every so often, and after all you can’t please everyone all the time.

The front door closed, the woman visibly relaxes. “Come far?” she asks.

“Nah, just Brixton way,” I reply. Vague obviously, but no point in lying. Either she’s legit, in which case I’m OK whatever I say, or she’s government, in which case the flat is has more bugs than a stray cat and they can cross-reference my identity with my real home address in seconds.

She grins, no doubt noticing my wariness. “Don’t worry, this place is clean. All offline. No-one can hear us.” Some classical piano music tinkles in the background, but not obtrusively. “Cuppa? Tea or coffee?”

“Got anything stronger?” I see her glance at a clock on the wall. “Joke,” I add quickly. “Tea please? Thanks.”

“Coming right up. I’m Sheila, by the way. Pleased to meet you. Take a seat.” Sheila may or may not be her real name, but it doesn’t matter, it’s just nice to have one. I perch on an armchair in the sitting room while she clinks around in the kitchen next door. I didn’t really want tea, but accepting the offer buys me a couple more minutes, time to collect my thoughts, compose myself, to look around me, alert to anything suspicious, anything that doesn’t look or feel right. I never know exactly what I’m looking for at these moments; like I said, you often get a feeling, a hunch. Or maybe something more obvious. I remember visiting a grimy semi in Surbiton just before last Christmas, letting Wizzard wash over me as I clocked the restricted literature left lying openly on the coffee table – Sounds of Oppression: How the Government Controls You (that’s been banned for years, and it was only the second time I’d even seen a copy in the flesh as it were); and next to it on the floor, a large Bible, brazen red lettering on the front cover, as if its owner literally doesn’t care, doesn’t keep things like that strictly to themselves and not shout about it, like you’re supposed to. And I remember thinking: this is odd, this isn’t quite right, you just don’t just leave stuff like that lying around, you’re not that brazen, not if you don’t know exactly who your visitors are. What if you were denounced? That’s always a risk – unless … unless you weren’t actually afraid of that. And who has no fear of being reported to the government? Right then I’d decided that this was all too obvious. Like someone had thought about what a deviant’s sitting room would look like, what sort of books you’d see. Too staged. And so I’d ghosted back out through the front door before the artfully dishevelled owner of the house (assuming he really was), the thin middle-aged man who looked a little old to be a goth, come to think of it, had returned from the kitchen with the two mugs of coffee and plate of digestives or whatever. I still don’t know to this day whether he was actually legit and just stupid, and I’ll never know, but I wasn’t hanging around to find out. The alarm bells were ringing too loudly in my ears.

But today, in Sheila’s flat, I don’t see anything so obviously amiss. Nothing sticking out, nothing screaming out: “I’m a dissident! I’m a bit dodgy! I really am, honest!” It all looks very neat and middle class and clean, subtly reassuring, and so I start to relax back into the armchair a little as the piano swells away in the background. I decide, though, that I’m not going to hang around for long. Cassie will fret if I’m out too late. Let’s see what this woman’s got, check it out, and then go.

So, as soon as Sheila returns and places my cup of tea on the table next to me, I ask her. “So … what’s so special then?”

Sheila nods, as if she was expecting the lack of small talk. Me cutting to the chase may be another good sign for her, like I’m wasting no time attempting to reassure her or anything. Not being overly-ingratiating, as anyone coached in this might be. She walks over to a cupboard next to the TV and pulls out a set of headphones. Wired, the old-fashioned type, but noise-cancelling. I wonder if they’re licensed – if not, then they’re the first evidence of deviance so far (well, after the ad in Darkchat, obviously). The long black cable snakes back from the headphones to what looks like a vintage hi-fi inside the cupboard. You don’t see many of those now. You get plenty of modern reproductions of course, fronts for various digital streaming devices, but this looks like it might really be one of the old analogue ones. If so then this really is offline, under the radar. Again, better have a license for that, I think, but I bet you haven’t.

She hands me the headphones and then sits on the sofa opposite me. “You won’t have heard anything like this before. It’s completely new.” She gives me full eye contact, but not a suspicious amount. Then she shrugs almost imperceptibly. “I know you probably hear that a lot. But trust me. It’s just …”

“Just what?”

“Are you ready for it? I mean – if you can’t stand it, please do take them off straight away. It’s fine. I won’t be offended. It’s not – it’s not for everyone, this stuff. OK?”

“Right. Yes, of course.” I smile quickly, but privately I’m a little irritated. What kind of schmuck does she think I am? I’m no newbie at this game. I’ve heard it all – original punk, acid house, sixteenth century chamber music, Mormon choir, thrash metal, ambient whale sounds, gangsta rap with lyrics that definitely wouldn’t pass the censors. Some stuff that’s barely music at all, more a jumble of sounds. And quite a lot, too much, of derivative trash, stuff that wasn’t worth the walk from the front door, never mind the traipse from Brixton. Some of it illegal, some disappointingly legal, some I couldn’t quite decide exactly where I’d stand if the police had suddenly come crashing in. Some of it startling, some toe-curling; some surprising, invigorating, thrilling, depressing, revelatory, soaring. Once or twice I’d been reduced to tears, quietly weeping, as if I’d been touched by something truly real. Something the government hadn’t touched, hadn’t approved, didn’t have their grimy fingerprints on. No-one had decided this was good for me, was OK for me to listen to. It was mine, I’d decided to try something off-message, just this time. And that, that choice, that chance was the important thing, even if (as had happened too many times) the music turned out to be rubbish, or even – as on one infamous occasion – exactly the same chuffing Katy Perry song that had been playing on the street outside a few minutes earlier.

I put on the headphones and feel the familiar cold prickle running up my spine and fizzing onto my scalp. All sound from the outside world is shut out and I’m in my own world now, listening to the music only I can hear. It’s subtle, a soft buzz, a hum. The beating of my heart in my ears. It’s quiet – I strain to hear more. But yes, there it is, a throbbing beat, a … what? This is clearly in the “more a jumble of sounds” category than conventional music. And yet there’s something there … it’s just something I can’t quite pin down. It’s … beautiful. But what else?

I shift in my chair. I’m aware of Sheila sitting opposite me, perfectly still. I don’t like anyone watching me at times like this, it’s distracting, but I don’t think she’s quite looking at me. The music rolls on – well, I say music, it’s … I struggle again to identify, to describe exactly what I’m hearing, to categorise, to put limits and markers around it. But it’s elusive. There’s no definite tune, but there’s a rhythm, a strange music underneath it all. It’s wild, and yet gentle. Untamed. Untouched. I know completely, with absolute clarity, that no government flunky has been anywhere near this. It’s too … pure. Any subliminals in this would be like thunderclaps, jarringly and nakedly exposed for what they are, and therefore stripped of all their cunning power.

I know this music is like nothing I’ve ever heard before, or not for a long time; and yet it’s also familiar, somehow. Definitely, in fact. Suddenly I’m remembering my childhood, sitting on my living room carpet, playing with a toy car, my mum singing along to Duran Duran as she does the ironing. That song comes back to me, echoing in my head – and then others follow, slowly at first and then in a steadily growing torrent. I’m hearing Hold Me Now by the Thompson Twins as I cry after Emma dumped me in the sixth form. I’ve heard that song a couple of times since, piped through speakers on a railway platform or my car stereo, but now it means more to me than it has for so long. Possibly more since that sad time so many years ago. In fact, this music I’m listening to now, in Sheila’s armchair, seems to be made up of all sorts of other music, songs I heard many years ago, recalled now with dizzying force. I’m remembering so much. I close my eyes and take a shuddering breath. I don’t know what this stuff is, but it’s powerful. It should be a mess, an unlistenable, chaotic nightmare – like an extension of that brief moment when you’re leaving a shop and for a couple of seconds the music behind you clashes unpleasantly with the music coming from the street ahead of you. And yet, this just isn’t like that at all.

It’s … it’s like it’s a music that encompasses and expresses all my memories, all the music I’ve ever heard, and there’s time and space and freedom for it to blossom and grow and breathe. I can remember, and my own mind can choose and ponder and skip between my thoughts and memories, with nothing else bearing and pressing down from the outside, nothing else dictating what I must listen to, what I remember, and no-one else knowing or monitoring or evaluating my choices. My own truly private playlist. This music is not – how can I put it? It’s not manipulating. It’s standing back and giving me back myself.

But there’s something else again. My mind goes back to last spring, when we suffered a rare power outage in our neighbourhood. The music stopped, and it was maybe thirty seconds before the local back-up generators kicked in and the speakers blared back into life. There, on the street, in that yawning musicless interval, a man near me had broken into a hoarse, flustered song to fill the gap. And I remember being close to panic myself. A woman across the road clapped her hands on her ears, and even from several metres away I’d caught her expression, a mask of blank terror. What I’d heard then – it was like a bucket of icy water thrown over my head. I was literally shaking by the time Simple Minds came to my rescue. But I’d heard it anyway. Then quickly forgotten, of course. Why remember? No-one talked about it afterwards. What would be the point? If you stub your toe or bang your knee, it hurts like hell for a brief flash of time, but then it subsides and you don’t dwell on it, do you? You go on with your life, grateful that the pain has passed and you settle back into everyday comfort with a sigh.

But that sound, when the power failed: it’s like what I’m hearing now.

And then I understand. And for some reason, I remember something Robbie told me during the last General Election campaign – how many years ago? Must be eight. No, nine. Since then of course we’ve had the State of Emergency, the Second and Third Pandemics, the Baltic War. Everyone remembers the government’s election campaign theme music back then, that old Abba song … thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing, thanks for all the joy they’re bringing … not a bad song in a cheesy kind of way. The government can make you happy, they said. The government’s job is to make you happy, to help you cope. Music is the power, the key; and it needs to be fully exploited, its potential unleased, maximised, for the common good. And what did Robbie say? Something like: this is wrong, they’re taking something precious and powerful and free and sublime, and they’re going to use it against us, to anaesthetise us, to throw a comfort blanket over everyone and suffocate us. Because however great music is, if they take away the power to decide what we can listen to and when, then hey can make it malign, oppressive. They control it. They’ll have wrenched it from our hands. They want to weaponize music – yes, that’s the word he used, weaponize. I remember thinking how utterly ridiculous that sounded. How could music be wrong? The government won the election by a landslide, and within weeks they’d delivered on their promises – all the new speakers went up, all the miles of new cabling, the massive upgrade of wifi connectivity. You’ll never be out of earshot of the music, they promised. Wherever you are, you’ll hear it. And of course you can choose, in the privacy of your own homes, what to listen to, from the extensive menu of choices we give you.

It was indeed an extensive menu of choices. Pretty much any genre of music you can think of. Thousands of tracks at your fingertips. Music to control your feelings, a gloss of happiness over the sadness, a shot of tinny euphoria when you’re low. More and more anaesthetic, endlessly on tap, tune upon track upon song, too much and never enough. Except for the music I’m hearing now – that wasn’t available, that wasn’t on the menu. Not any more.

There’s a word to describe it. A word we rarely hear now, and when we do it’s usually a command, or a rebuke. An anomaly. A shameful word. A word from the wrong side of history. Something that has been denied its right to exist, refused its legitimacy, and become something no-one can choose any longer, the space they can’t let you have in case something else speaks into it. Until everyone’s forgotten it even exists, can no longer even comprehend it, the concept doesn’t compute. For the common good, it’s been banished, extinguished by the music.

Silence.

I don’t know how much time has passed when I slowly pull off the headphones. Sheila’s turned down the piano music to a barely legal whispering minimum, but it still hammers into my tender ears like nails. My eyes meet hers. She looks concerned, kind. Then she smiles. “Well. What did you think?”

“It was …” I smile back. “Thank you.” I feel like I’ve received a special gift, something precious and rare. Then, abruptly, crazily, I laugh. Then she starts laughing. And we’re both sitting there, cackling like maniacs after mainlining the most exhilarating drug that ever existed, tears streaming down our cheeks. Wait till I tell Cassie, I think, and immediately understand that I probably never can.

“Do you see?” gasps Sheila. “Do you see now?”

How long should a book be?

The moment has finally arrived – more than eighteen months after I first had the idea and knocked out the first draft in late 2021, The Shell Keep goes on sale on Amazon on 17 June.

It’s not my first novel – in fact, it’s my fifth – but it’s the first one aimed at adults (BASIC Boy and Falling Girl are YA; the Danny Chaucer’s Flying Saucer series is for middle-grade kids, with 8-12 years roughly the age group I had in mind). It’s also the longest at around 80,000 words – which I know isn’t long by adult novel standards, but it’s more than twice the length of any of the Danny Chaucer books for example.

Having said that, it started life much shorter, as a novella of around 30,000 words. I’ve always had a liking for short fiction, of compelling stories told economically, and when I finally got around to attempting another novel, I wanted it to be short. However, after having the second draft reviewed, I was persuaded that the novella format is a harder sell commercially, especially when it comes to print where the economics don’t work so well. (There will be a paperback edition of The Shell Keep coming soon, by the way.) I was also advised that several aspects of the book and its characters could be developed further, and the rather (though deliberately) abrupt ending be made a bit less … well, abrupt.

So – whereas with previous books I’ve been more accustomed to cutting down and editing out ruthlessly in subsequent drafts (like in Falling Girl where I reduced the number of characters) – with this one I had to fatten it up! Which presented me with something of a challenge. Because I didn’t want to simply add loads more words for the sake of it, and risk ending up with too much padding.

Well, I added an additional main character, and also beefed up the role of one of the existing characters so that the story is told from two different POVs, not just one. The principal villain of the piece is also given a bigger role and there’s more of a resolution to their relationship with one of the central protagonists, Liam (and a more dramatic ending). So, essentially, I was careful to add new characters and more action – all relevant to the plot and to the development of the characters – rather than just chuck in a load more verbiage. I hope it worked!

Flash fiction: The Choice

I was up very early in the morning again. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I slept well. These days I drift through the night in a kind of grey, fitful fog. I doze now and again, but by the time I realise I’ve been briefly asleep, the longed-for oblivion has already fled back into the shadows, the cold grey light is filtering through the curtains and a blackbird is singing its welcome to another unwanted morning.

It was one of those mornings when I first got the message. Come to see me, it said. I’m waiting. You know where I am. I’d put down the phone quietly on the table and mechanically made my coffee. Ten thoughts at once barrelled through my head. Them again? Why do they bother? It’s about time. Where have they been? Brilliant! Awful! I can’t go. I’m going. Why not? What if it goes wrong?

That first day, I very nearly went. I really did. I packed my old rucksack, found my railcard, pocketed my phone and wallet. I’d walked all the way to the station and stood on the shiny rain-lashed platform. Until I heard the announcement about engineering works and replacement bus services, and I’d thought: why does it have to be so difficult? It’ll take ages. I can’t be bothered. I took it as a sign: maybe another time.

So today, here I am again. I pause on the brow of the low hill above the pan-flat landscape, looking down on the small town with its small station. Everything here is dwarfed by the vast sky, I’ve always thought; whether violent sunshine or heavy grey cloud like today, it’s always been the main thing, the star of the show. The land is prone, the marshland stretching to the distant horizon weighed down by brackish water, completely cowed. It looks like it gave up a long time ago; pushed flat by the sky, it never stood a chance.

The saltwater tang on the breeze stings my nose. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs. Below, I watch the train beetling its way slowly across the landscape. I know it’s really travelling fast, hurrying its way towards its destination, but from up here it doesn’t appear that way. Four carriages. The trains used to be longer, but fewer people seem to be making the journey these days. I glance at my watch and resume my walk. Better hurry now. The next train will stop at the station, and that’s the one I’m going for.

I’d nearly arrived when I get the text: pub tonight? I haven’t heard from her in a while. I stare down at the screen, frozen by indecision. Why not? I stand on the grimy high street, looking from the station back to the Kings Arms. I don’t have to go. Not yet; it can wait.

But how brilliant it would be to be on that train again. Gazing at the sun-dappled landscape as it races by, letting the gentle rocking loll me into delicious doze. The destination growing ever closer, ever more real. I would be with them again, at last. That train would be here soon.

The sharp horn makes me jump. The car sweeps impatiently by. I blink, shake my head to clear the daydream, and dive into the newsagent. I suddenly feel incredibly thirsty.

“So, what are you up to today?” The man behind the counter smiles; crinkled blue eyes, grey greasy hair. I’d never found out his name. “Catching the train?”

“No, not today.” I hear my own words with just the faintest glimmer of surprise. Oh. That’s it then. Soon I’d be walking back up the familiar hill. Day after day. I couldn’t say I liked it, not really, but it was here and it was mine, and it was easier.

The newsagent raises his eyebrows. I remember then this isn’t the first time he’d seen me here at this time, looking as if I’m on my way somewhere but turning back at the last moment. How many times have I made this aborted journey? How many days have I made this choice? I feel my cheeks flush; but followed immediately by a flash of irritation. What does it have to do with him? “Train’s cancelled,” I mumble. “There’s a replacement bus service.”

I don’t have to decide, I think. Not today. There’s always tomorrow

The man’s smile had gone. “Is there?”

You Will Always Be Creative

WRITERS' RUMPUS

This post really resonates with me this month, so I’m sharing it again.

Recently, an old friend wrote to say that he feared his days as a writer were nearly done. It wasn’t only that for the first time in many years he was not participating in NaNoWriMo. Reflecting over the year that was ending, he realized that “Other than a few short stories, this has been a year without writing.” He’d done some blogging, plus editing and compiling of past work, but compared with previous years, this one was unproductive. He wrote, “I know for most writers there’s a point when you shut down and you stop writing. I have so much more I want to accomplish. I wonder if the shutdown is in progress, and how much time I have.”

I realized that others might want–or need–to read my response to his fears. So here it is…

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Commonly Confused Commas

WRITERS' RUMPUS

Writers of all ages struggle with proper comma usage. As a writer myself, I agree that plot, characters, and word choice are infinitely more important than grammar. But if those elements form the layers of a cake, grammar forms the frosting.

Consider for a moment that your manuscript has all those qualities and more, but commas are placed without rhyme or reason. Will publishers be inclined to interpret and decode your submission? If your work is especially compelling, perhaps. But in most cases, no. So crack your knuckles and roll up your sleeves. Let’s review ten useful comma rules using examples from some of my favorite books.

RULE #1:

Coordinating conjunctions are the FANBOYS of grammar: FOR, AND, NOR, BUT, OR, YET, and SO. When they connect two complete sentences (independent clauses) into a single sentence, insert a comma before the FANBOYS.

From Holes, by Louis Sachar (p.95): It had been three days since the laundry was…

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Danny Chaucer and the author who’s a glutton for punishment

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Last week I announced the third and latest instalment of the Danny Chaucer’s Flying Saucer series – Mars Mission – now published as a Kindle edition.

Every published (whether self or traditionally) writer will surely be familiar with the heady mix of trepidation, exhilaration and relief that accompanies the release of their precious baby into the big bad world. It’s the culmination of so much hard work, occasional (or frequent?) bouts of frustration and self-doubt – but hopefully also of some enjoyment.

Why do we do it? It can’t be for the money! Like many others I do hold out the hope that one distant sunlit day I might make enough from my books to be able to write full-time, but I also recognize the odds stacked against me in the regard. Simply put, I love writing and I always will. For me to a large degree it remains its own reward.

Mars Mission is my fifth novel (it gives me a buzz just to reflect on that – who’d have thought it?) and in some ways the business of writing has become perhaps a little easier; or at least I’m more confident of the process and the fact that (lazy as I am) I do after all have the motivation and the ability to finish the job. But that’s not to say, of course, that I find it exactly easy. It’s still proper hard work and it takes time and a certain psychological resilience and persistence (or just sheer bloody mindedness) to be able to keep chipping away at my lumpen prose and finally, slowly, transform it into something fit for publication (I hope).

To that end I need help. Writing is such a solitary pursuit most of the time, but I’ve found it vital to get my manuscripts reviewed by someone else. Some use beta readers, but I always pay for a critique from an established author / editor with experience in my genre (in this case, middle grade children’s fiction). The results of this are always fascinating and hugely valuable. Now I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I’d love it if, just once, one day, once of those critiques simply turned out to be: “It’s perfect! It’s brilliant! You’re a genius! The world will buy this book by the truck-load!” But that’s not reality – it wouldn’t be true or helpful.

With Mars Mission, for instance, the critique uncovered one of the book’s central problems, related to the fact that it was the third title in the Danny Chaucer series. This is the first series I’ve attempted, and I’ve realised there are some particular issues and pitfalls to be aware of, as well as opportunities. In some ways things become a little more straightforward in a series: you get to know your characters better, you have a ready-made background and template to work from. It’s interesting to have the opportunity to explore themes and characters in more details and move forward a more detailed story arc, to flesh out a whole new world.

However, one particular issue I had was how much about what happened in the two previous books to include in Mars Mission. I’ve always been mindful of the dangers of the dreaded Info Dump: great slabs of excessive background information weighing down the hapless reader, breaking up the narrative and slowing the pace. There are ways of feeding it in more gradually of course, but how, when and how much? The problem with a series is, you don’t know how many readers will have previously read the earlier books, or how long ago. They might come into a series at any point.

(Also, I don’t want new readers to believe they know the earlier books so well they don’t feel they want or need to go back and read them too!)

I have to admit that with Mars Mission I erred on the side of caution and tended to include too little (beyond a very short prologue) about the earlier books. But worse, it wasn’t just what had happened before that I over-skimped on, but also the characters themselves. The reviewer pointed out that I hardly bothered to describe them, or give away enough about their backgrounds, history or even appearance, and so in general (and with one of them especially) they were sketched rather too thinly. I think that, without really meaning to, I simply expected the reader to be as familiar with the characters as I was. That was a fundamental error and I felt pretty bad about it. As a fiction writer, it’s vitally important that your characters are well drawn, believable and relatable. To present anaemic cardboard cut-outs to the reader is one of the worst sins you can commit, in my opinion.

Furthermore, in a series the characters must be allowed to move on, to change and develop. It would be pretty strange if they didn’t. The three Danny Chaucer stories so far have taken place within a very short time period – over just a few weeks – so no-one has aged very much! Even so, their adventures and their interactions together are bound to have some effect on them. One character in particular does move on quite significantly in a very short space of time, but I needed to show some development in all of them.

Phew! Well I worked very hard on the next draft to put all that right. I made sure I assumed nothing about how well the reader would know the characters: they were each introduced fully, and more key memories of their earlier adventures were woven into the narrative. In so doing I strove to maintain the right balance, to avoid too much ‘info dump’ or dragging down the plot of the current story. I hope I succeeded.

Incidentally, as well as manuscript critiques (which I’ve always strongly believed in), with the Danny Chaucer books I’ve also used a professional cover designer, and had the last two professionally proofread too. Covers are just so important … and I was getting fed up with spotting so many typos after publication (you can’t beat a fresh pair of eyes – one or two errors always seem to slip through anyway, but far fewer than before).

Anyway, I could write for much longer about this, but enough for now. I’m aware of how little I’ve blogged during the past year or so, and that’s because I made a conscious decision to focus my limited time on Mars Mission and other writing projects (including the odd short story). Of course blogging is also writing and I do enjoy it, but I had to prioritise and blogging came second.

As for what happens next … well I’m going to be working more on marketing Mars Mission and the rest of the Danny Chaucer series – I don’t think any author who wants to sell any books can afford to neglect that. I’ll be trying a few things and I’ll let you know if I make any breakthroughs or have anything profound to share! Well, it’s possible …

 

Mars Mission: Danny Chaucer’s Flying Saucer 3

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Kindle edition published on Amazon 14th December

‘No-one really likes their kids being dragged off to alien worlds by mega-intelligent super-computers in galactically advanced flying saucers. Especially if they’re late home for tea.’

Danny Chaucer leaves his house one morning expecting a nice normal day out with his friends Nat and Sandy, not to mention BOB the hyper-intelligent but annoyingly smug cockney computer. (If you can call a trip on a flying saucer a normal day out, that is.)

But things quickly take a turn for the worse. For a start, why is creepy Captain Frost plotting with oily bully Chad Wilson? Of course Frosty-knickers is still after the saucer – but what exactly is her plan? And is Sandy up to something as well?

Then before long DISC’s crew are racing across the solar system on a stupidly dangerous mission. What with killer radiation, poisonous air, a monster dust-storm, a slightly depressed Martian rover and an unexpectedly troublesome hologram, it soon becomes clear that being late home for tea could be the least of Danny’s problems …

The third book in the Danny Chaucer’s Flying Saucer series is available now as a Kindle edition from Amazon (links: UK / US) and coming soon (January 2017) in paperback/ hardback.

9 Things That Cost Your Book 5 Stars – Guest Blog Post By An Amazon Top Reviewer

Useful advice here, a lot of which boils down to the usual importance of editing and proofreading (but no less worth repeating for that) along with some good points about characters and characterisation.

The editor who critiqued my first novel, Falling Girl, urged me to drop a couple of the ‘spare’ characters, and although that seemed drastic at the time it was definitely the right thing to do. Now I always look critically at all my characters, asking questions like: what are they doing in this book? What’s interesting or distinctive about them, and how does that come out in different parts of the story? (Remembering to ‘show’ more and ‘tell’ less wherever possible.) And are they even needed? If I like them that much, I can try to find a home for them in another story …

Dan Alatorre - AUTHOR

your humble host

Meerkat agreed to do a follow up post about stuff we writer types can do to avoid getting a less than stellar review from a reviewer.

Here are some of the top pet peeves. (Emphasis added by me)

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There are lots of reasons why I love a book and I usually see something great in all books even if they’re not my favourite genres, but there are definite reasons why I don’t like a book and if these crop up, it feels as if the book still needs editing – and it’s hard for me to give it 5 stars.

1 – Spelling errors, grammar errors, typos, etc.

I know these are perhaps the least important for some people to check and I don’t mind the very odd typo (I’m guilty of them myself) but if every page of a book has typos and…

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Revision: Making a Mess Less Complicated

Useful advice here. My own approach is to kind of mix things up a bit more than this, but all these elements do need attention and it can be helpful to break down the process in this or a similar way. The important things is to find an approach that works best for you, and that may vary from book to book (it has for me at least).

A Writer's Path

by S.E. Jones

There’s a lot you can fix in a first draft. It’s why they’re first drafts. You can focus on character, world building, plot, inner cohesion, the writing, the flow, the pacing–the list goes on and on.

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