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Stuart Ayris - The Truth About Trees
It's been a while coming, but I've finally finished Chapter 3 of This Naked Earth. Three months to write three chapters is something of a record for me - It usually takes me 8 months to write a full novel! I guess with this one, it's kind of different. I've visualised almost the entire story in my mind and I'm taking my time with each word. Feels like the right way to go with this kind of novel. Here's a little snippet from Chapter 3..."Oblivious to all but the beat, the woman danced. The woman would not be beat for the woman was beat. Ah and she danced in the air like a rising comet and fell to the floor like a twirling sycamore leaf only to rise once more heavenbound. She smiled miles wide and her eyes burst open on occasion just to be sure that what she heard was more vivid than any sight, more tangible than any object. For she was music and she was dance, she was boom and she was sliiiide - rhythm, sex, hope and cheek all squeezed into a charity shop dress and a pair of scuffed red shoes. She sweated for sure, but her fragrance was of the sea and of the earth, of the deep down doingness and of the utter space of the skyway. She was beat. She was beatles and both Angelina and Matthew were in awe of her.
I want to hold your ha-a-a-a-nd.
I want to make love to you.
I just want to make love to you.
Ain’t that the darling truth?"
Just passed the 10,000 word mark..."The clouds clouded in on this strange day that was only just beginning in the lives of these people. Days are days but people can be magnificent just whenever they choose to be. It’s just sometimes they’re so deep down restricted by the lives they have ended up living that they lose that spark that first ignited them. Allow me to cut the rope or you’ll keep on swinging. Leap down onto this naked earth and roll around for a while in the soil and the silt and the slosh mud. Woosh into a river and gurgle yourself clean with that ancientworld mountain water. Then you’ll be just fine mate. Then you’ll be just fine."
From This Naked Earth -"It’s a slushfuel feel as the wheel of the deal turns, Matthew’s bare feet padding onwards in silence, complete silence, to some form of inevitability - for he had long since lost the will and ability to determine his own future. A drifter he be and a-drifting he would go, from moment to moment, from day to day, like a bland tug boat upon the outershores of society, leaving nothing in his wake but this indiscernible debris that nobody really needed at all. His wife looked on all lighthouse forlorn just wondering what had, or would, become of him, shipwreck that he was, fool that he was, husband that he was."
I've just written a blog post about how a book comes into being.Hope you find it interesting.
Cheers!
http://stuartayris.weebly.com/blog.html
With Elysian Wonderland going well (almost at the 20,000 word mark) and the story all sorted out in my head, I thought I'd post a list of the characters:Matthew Daniel James
Angelina James
Flo
Purple Alice
Angel
Freckle
The Ringmaster
Jonny Fumo
The Cook
The Man Who Cries Tears of Joy
Montgomery
Hepburn
Well I've now written over three thousand words in the last couple of days and Elysian Wonderland is moving on a-pace. Furthermore, I have just learned that this year marks the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Alice in Wonderland - what a fantastic coincidence!
yep! Will be done by then - hoping to get a final draft finished by May so plenty of time for a little bit of pre-publication publicity. Aim to do it properly this time around!
From such a simple idea, Elysian Wonderland is becoming intricate as hell but still simple on the surface. Very proud of it so far. Almost like it's writing itself! Being one of my favourites and my publisher, do you fancy a sneak peak?
Aw, you say the nicest things. :)Yes, I would love a sneak peak!
ok! I'll email you the prologue first then just let me know when you're ready for more!
I've now written the first 34,000 words of Elysian Wonderland and have the story fully in my mind. The cover is complete - and I love it - and I'm aiming to finish the first draft by April 27th.It is strange, but I think, lovely book which I hope will appeal to a wider audience. I'm really enjoying writing it.
Having finished the chapters about Jonny Fumo and Big Al Gattusso, I am currently half way through the chapter entitled The Tale of Valentine Groove...
I'm looking forward to it. When it comes to character naming, you're our 21st century Dickens.
Thank you BJ. Very kind of you. Your beloved Dartmoor even gets a brief mention in this book and - coincidentally - the sentence I've just written mentions Dickens!
Stuart wrote: "Thank you BJ. Very kind of you. Your beloved Dartmoor even gets a brief mention in this book and - coincidentally - the sentence I've just written mentions Dickens!"Synchronicity!
Stuart wrote: "Thank you BJ. Very kind of you. Your beloved Dartmoor even gets a brief mention in this book and - coincidentally - the sentence I've just written mentions Dickens!"Spooky! Unable to pass up a chance to give Devon a plug, I'll mention that Dickens loved the county. He was a regular visitor to Exeter, where he met his wife. He leased a cottage in Alphington (less than three miles from what is now the Dartmoor National Park) for his parents. They lived there for nearly four years. According to the great man the area is - 'the most beautiful in the most beautiful of English counties.' Plug over.
Wonderful! Heading down in that direction in May I think!
Well having no choice but to blot out the real world, I've carried on with the novel - Here's a snippet:"In a roundhole ancient oaktree homestead heaven you get no leaking pipes through your kitchen ceiling, no distraction from the television, no debt collectors’ letters through the door and no phone calls from strangers offering you a better deal than the last better deal you agreed to. You have no radiator hum, no dripping tap, no creaking creaking and no fear of somebody taking something from you that you didn’t even own in the first place. In a roundhole ancient oaktree homestead heaven there’s just the pungent smell of moss, the deep echo of echoes and the fundamental conscious beauty of knowing that you are forever rooted to this magical earth, this Elysian Wonderland. All that's missing is the wine."
Nice. I always admire the way you weave the words. I like how this is mirroring reality - loved your plumber comment on FB earlier. Keep up the good work!
Thank you Jamie. Very kind. The pipes are still leaking but what the hell. I've got loads of saucepans and don't have to leave for work until 7am - so plenty of time to write whilst pretending I'm by some sort of stream. Just have to make the most of it in these weird old days!
I've reached 43,000 words now in Elysian Wonderland - reached the stage where the second part of the novel begins. Before I start it though, I'll be going through the first part from the beginning to make sure it kind of adds up to what I want it to add up to, filling in some gaps and adding in some colour splashes and fragrances as well as whatever comes into my mind at the time.Here's a little snippet to be getting on with...
"If the sun could weep like Valentine Groove could weep then surely it would have done. What am I saying? The sun did weep because it did weep. All of this is real on this February afternoon when I’m drunk and writing it. The sun wept cold groove tears at the sight and the sound of these two lost children waking on a summer morn in a cabin in the forest, waking to two strangers who gazed upon them as if they were all the gold in the mountains. There is no religion and there is no god. There is just children waking on a summer morn in a wooden cabin in the forest of this earth whilst fools such as I sway to record player bluesness in Tollesbury on a Sunday afternoon all wined up and blootered, nine hundred miles from my home yet so close to the baptismal rivers of my youth. Wined up and blootered. And swaying."
Just eased on by the 50,000 word mark now - just six more chapters left to write to take it to the 75,000 word approximate finishing point. Still looking to have the first draft completed by end of April (well ahead of schedule!) and a release date for the finished novel of 6th July 2015. The cover is complete (Mr Wailing has had a sneak preview) and I love it.So onwards and upwards into Elysian Wonderland!
Here are the Chapter Titles so far:
1. Don't EVER Believe We Can't Be Rockets
2. Clarion Call To The Stars
3. Ain't That The Darling Truth
4. Purplesplash Gorgeoys
5. Sky Blue Sighlence
6. In The Falling
7, An Angel Doth Descend
8. Ah For Fu...
9. Curious and Curiouser
10. The Rambling Tale of Hedgehog Paul
11. The Magic is Beginning is all
12. The Tale of Jonny Fumo
13. The Tale of Big Al Gattusso
14. The Tale of Valentine Groove
15. The Tale of Montgomery and Hepburn (Midgets in Love)
16. Behold Now
17. Hmmmm Yeah in the Cool Blue Air
18. Pooh Bear in Heaven
19. And Then I Came Here to You, Jonny Fumo
Just gone by the 61,000 word mark in ELYSIAN WONDERLAND and still loving it. Aim to have the first draft finished within the next couple of weeks and perhaps looking at a release date of end of May 2015. Hurrah!
yep - all going well. Amazing how you can have a final scene in your mind that is with you in every detail and then it takes eight months of writing to work out what it's all about!
I am now part way through Chapter 6 of the revisions for Elysian Wonderland and the word count has just ticked by the 74,000 word mark. My mind is beginning to turn to the blurb but I may have to ask my beta readers to assist me as this is both a very simple and a very complex novel!
With the publication of Elysian Wonderland maybe just a week away, I thought I'd pop on a little snippet of the novel I'm writing at the moment - Merzougaville, Baby..."“This is mental,” I said quietly to myself, the ancient terracotta walls of the city complete with medieval arrow slits, looming above me, throwing out shadows like arrows and light like fire.
“Hah! This is Marrakech!” declared my driver, as an old man with a white beard lost control of his rusty moped and wobbled all Chaplined and Keatoned out of the very edges of my wide-eyed vision.
Within the walls of the city, the congestion and reckless abandon on the roads only intensified. As the pace of the cars - including ours - slowed, the mopeds and motorbikes took charge, raging like colourful rumblewaves, performing impossible feats of defiance against gravity, physics, geometry and bravado. The pedestrians were as nimble as dancers as they skipped and hopped out of the way of the buzzhum machines. It was at once circus-like and gladiatorial. And there was I, the car stopping suddenly and my driver leaping out, right in the middle of it all. He handed me my bag, pointed down a covered alley, grinned, took my money (I have no idea how much) and left me in a puff of dirt and dust as he resumed his crazy battle with the bikes and the ragged dancing people of Marrakech."
Well the first few reviews of
have been very encouraging so thanks to all you fine people who have indulged!
Merzougaville, Baby is going well - I've written over 10,000 words in the last few days (thanks to having fallen off a ladder...) - up to almost 22,000 now so looks like it will completed well in time for the autumn.Here is a little snippet:
"A vision came to me then as the taxi sped on - a vision of my mother alone in her flat. Everything is grey, the walls, the carpet, the chair she is sitting in and her too. All grey - a dark and gleamless grey. I see her look down slowly at her lap as if she is expecting to find somebody there - me as a baby maybe, or Zoff or Salvadore, or even perhaps my father sitting there like he used to do as a joke in those days when he was happy, putting his big hands to either side of her face and kissing her until she couldn’t breathe and had to break away to take enough air to fuel her mock admonitions before they would both giggle hand in hand into their half-decorated bedroom. But in my vision, she just looks up again, finding nothing in her lap at all. And she continues to stare into the mid-distance, moving no more, just as stone-like as the rocks at the side of this North African road I’m travelling on, rocks that are strewn across the landscape like dead birds deemed far too heavy for the sky."
Well it's been a wilder than usual ride over the last few moments but wild comes out of wild as they say and I reckon this will be the week when I complete the first draft of Merzougaville, Baby.I have under two chapters left to write and hope to get it off to Beaten Track Publishing before I travel to Macedonia on Saturday.
Meeting some of you fine folk on Saturday has given me just the right combination of joy and wonder to bring Merzougaville, Baby to its joyous and wonderous conclusion!
I have now completed the first draft of my 7th full length novel - Merzougaville, Baby. It's around 75,000 words long and should be out by end of November in both eBook and Paperback formats. I rather like it.
Merzougaville, Baby is out to two readers and one manuscript reviewer now. Once they have returned their verdicts it will be over to Beaten Track Publishing to do their magic. Reckon the eBook could be out within two weeks and the paperback maybe two weeks after that. Then it's on to the next adventure!
Kath wrote: "Onward and upward! :)"Floating!
Merzougaville, Baby - my 8th novel - is now at. If you give it a go then I hope you enjoy it!
Why thank you! A little nervous I must admit!
Cheers Kath! I like it too!With Merzougaville, Baby off and floating, I am now almost 7,000 words into my next novel - Albion Calling. No rest for the insomniac!
In the last ten days or so, I have been writing like never before. Albion Calling has now reached almost 37,000 words and it is coming out in the way I have always wanted to write. If it ever ends - which is doutbful at this stage - I will publish it. If not then it will be the finest thing I ever do!
After a pretty weird few months (even by my standards!) I'm pleased to say that I'm wild once more! The novel I've been writing (which in some curious way I think almost led to my downfall but maybe the downfall was due to more lifestyle which though in turn fed into some of the most gorgeous stuff I've written...) is almost done and it's name is Albion Calling. It's my most experimental and longest novel to date and will probably sell less than ten copies but who cares?! I'm back and raving and grooving and loving it all!
" I'm back and raving and grooving and loving it all! Love this bit - it shouts with a smile.
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Books mentioned in this topic
This Awful Small Mercy of Miss Miriam Malone (other topics)Merzougaville, Baby (other topics)
Elysian Wonderland (other topics)
The Magical Tragical Life of Edward Jarvis Huggins (other topics)
The Buddhas of Borneo (other topics)
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