RLLauthor@outlook.com and @RLL_author GO TO AMAZON KINDLE STORE AND TYPE RLL. YOU WILL FIND MY BOOKS.

Monday 29 October 2012

SECRET GARDEN.

Sometimes, blogging, you lose the topic. It skids from beneath you. My blog entry on BOOK SNOBS was originally split across two posts. I lost the second part to a spot of research. The facts undermined what I’d hoped to say about an appalling book I’d read.
   Disaster. I tried turning the whole story around in light of new information, but the amount of welding involved killed that idea. The blog post worked just fine in part one. I went with that, and filled the gap with the adventures of Sergeant Jock MacBastard.
   So here I am, with those thoughts frittering away, wondering what to blog about this week. If I could, I’d fill the whole blog wondering about that. Waiting for Blogot. As it is midnight, and as fatigue is getting to me, I’ll sleep on it. This generates a high risk of writing about my dreams. Is the world prepared for yet another Zombie Apocalypse blog entry?

Disrupted entry. I’ll talk about imagery. How I view social networking for authors. Sometimes I’m on a strange military mission as Sergeant Jock MacBastard. Often I sit on the chilly deck of my DEATH STAR, plotting destruction. Occasionally, I crawl across a COLD WAR landscape in search of truth. I haven’t spoken of the other image that springs to mind.
   Welcome to my Secret Garden. I while away the hours in here, writing stories. Tending fragile tales. Cultivating epics. Raking over the leaves of yesteryear, in the quest to revive half-forgotten strains of tale-tellery.
   How did I come to this place? I inherited the key from writers long-gone. The key just about fits in the forgotten lock of a shrouded door. This garden’s high walls hide many things. Slivers of the writing past, buried in the long grass.
   Off I went. Hunting around. Preparing to admit the world to my thoughts on writing simply by opening that door. This was alien to me. Discussing writing with close friends only reinforced the need to avoid doing so in a wider sense. Talking to masses of strangers. All 0.75 of them.
   The world changed. And I changed with it. I left the secret door open as I pottered around. Weeding. With a flamethrower. Karen Woodward popped her head around the door a few times, encouraging the cultivation of this blog. I cleared a summer seat for visitors. Set up a Facebook author account that I’d swear I’d get back to. Though all I did after that was swear. The account remains unseen, with good reason.
   My Secret Garden gives up some hints and tips. Twitter flitters in and out. I make a few contacts. Business topics are discussed, briefly. Frances Hodgson Burnett was the name you were looking for. Literary references in a blog on writing? Whatever next.

Another disrupted entry. I came here to set out an image of a Secret Garden to which I’d opened the door, letting the internet in. So much happened after my last blog post, that the talk I had in mind simply rolled over and fell between the cracks.
   I’m forced to blog about something else. About a signpost leading to Kacey Vanderkarr’s forthcoming novel. Initial indications were that the book would be out around now. The date was pushed back to 2013.
   Any celebrations I had in mind must be postponed. I still get to wish Kacey well in this entry. After all, I’d promised to chop her head off by February 2013 if she didn’t publish/secure a deal. Sir Gawain has earned a reprieve from the Green Knight. Kacey can stop dressing up in armour, and I can shet my Connery accshent ashide.
   Perhaps it’s an ideal time to rehash the topic of plans and why they change. I participated in authorly contact. Learned more. Experimented with writing. Considered new plans. Old plans. Saw different opporchancities ahead of me.
   Publishing an entire DOCTOR WHO novel as fan fiction on my blog was an ordeal. The curious thing about that lay in noting the death of so many gremlins. As soon as the book was lodged on the blog pages, gremlins stopped plaguing me.
   I had to go back in and tidy a few formatting issues, and encountered no trouble. Didn’t understand that. Placing the book on the blog was hellish. One day, the gremlins just croaked. They soon respawned, and troubled me in other areas.
   The blog has seen a modest rise in traffic over the year. Now, we’ve reached the heady summit of 0.75 readers. Quite an achievement. I am concerned at some of the word search entries that lead here. People who are looking for curious forms of pornography, or cigarettes, end up washed ashore on the blog. I can’t help but wonder.
   Sometimes, unassociated sites throw readers my way. Art galleries. Shopping forums. The dating site for people who have a desire to cheat on their partners. (?!) Plumbing concerns. Spammers, tempting me with the prospect of owning more Rolex watches than I could feasibly wear.
   Ditzy spammers praise and condemn my writing in equal measure within the same sentence. They then offer an invitation to visit a site allowing me to purchase assorted items. Beware any blog comment which praises/condemns your work entirely in abstract terms. I loved/hated this article.
   People reach this blog from all over the world. Not many people. But they are out there. My readers come mostly from America, where a form of English is used. This form of English shocks the English. Being Scottish, I have a Scottie dog in that fight and am less-inclined to be shocked by what the Americans have done to the English language. Especially in cases whereby the Americans have preserved English linguistic forms no longer maintained by the English themselves.
   My blog is a Secret Garden, to which visitors may flock. Authorly contact is available. I potter around, though make no pottery. That makes me ponder the whole business of authorly contact, and contact with readers.
   Do readers expect too much of digital authors, now that everything is connected? There’s a whole cult on the web dedicated to pissing on George R. R. Martin for taking so long to write his books. Are readers really prepared to lynch the goose that’s laying those eggs?
   I take a slight knock in confidence here, there, and think over my approach to authorly contact. Deep thoughts. How do I conduct myself? Am I doing the right things? Are there items that come across on the internet as unfortunate, though they wouldn’t seem that way otherwise?
   Never state in print what you wouldn’t say face-to-face. Going by that old saw, and updating it for the Digital Age, I think I’ve managed to acquit myself well over this first year of blogging. Unless I’ve misunderstood this, any misunderstandings have been cleared up.
   I tried to imagine authorly pursuits symbolically, and using the internet as itself didn’t cut it. Hence the garden image, a lost key, the garden in need of a fix, and a gang of visitors, strolling through, random adventures in publishing.
   Electronic publishing, I should say. For I am that hybrid creature, neither fish nor fowl. I’m an author who publishes electronically, though I read paper when it comes to consuming fiction. Old-fashioned papyrus leaves, by the banks of the Nile.
   Just looked at the price of those hardback books. How much?! And that’s the discounted cost! The greatest lie I tell myself is the worst. No more books. I reorganised bookshelves AGAIN, and I think I’m good for this year and the next.
   It’s a strange mixture. The electronic world, with its real-life portal. Or is that the other way around? For a moment, I sense the door in the high wall closing. My latest blog series is soon to cease. I’ll collect the posts in an e-book, bundled with short stories. What next, after a year of blogging?
   Do I just seal the Secret Garden? Advice I offer is offered freely and may be ignored. I don’t mean to come across as saying DO THIS. (Except for blogging ENTIRELY in white text. Switch to black. DO THIS, and those of us who have poorer eyesight will be able to read your writing.) Self-publishing is an experiment. We have to question everything.
   The big question, in this fractured entry, is easy to ask. Hard to answer. After a year of blogging, should I end the blog and use that extra time to write more fiction? I’m back in that COLD WAR landscape. Not sure whose side I’m on.
   In that case, there shouldn’t be anyone to betray. Earlier, sitting here, knowing I’d left a gap in my blog, I thought about shutting the whole thing down. I blog ahead by writing blogs in batches. The structure was established in the first few moments of blogging. I blog eighteen times per cycle, publish weekly, every Monday, with a minimum 1,500 words per post.
   Then I bundle eighteen blogs in an e-book, with exclusive content filling the bulk of the volume. On average, I blog in the 1,500-2,000 range. Do I stop here, at the end of the latest cycle? I could go further and erase the blog entirely – the collected editions preserve the blog posts in any case. However, I’d muck up quite a lot of links to and fro. And I’d hate to do that. Very fiddly business, preserving links by leaving some kind of legacy blog.
   Never considered that, until now. I’ll go off, and consider some more.

NEXT BLOG: YEAR’S END.

Monday 22 October 2012

OPERATION JOCK MACBASTARD.

 SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: (RUDE STATEMENT DESIGNED TO MAKE RAW RECRUITS PAY ATTENTION.)

RAW RECRUIT 1: I’m having trouble with his accent.

RAW RECRUIT 2: He’s staring at you. Now he’s staring at me. Ulp.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Fearrr! Aye. Whit is it guid fur?

RAW RECRUIT 1: He’s always talking about fur.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Fur fearties, that’s whit fear is fur.

RAW RECRUIT 2: What if I have fear of fur?

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Aye, ye luik rah type. Whit is fear o’ fur fur?

RAW RECRUIT 1: We’re going to regret asking every single question.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: I will now speak more slowly, for the elucidation of the Americans in the audience. Those of you who appear to be having difficulty with my accent.

RAW RECRUIT 2: He sounds scarier now that I can actually understand what he’s saying. Which means I’ll be able to follow orders.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Worried aboot rah sub-pre-pluperfect past-indifferent?

RAW RECRUIT 1: What is that?

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: It’s somethin’ ah jist made up.

RAW RECRUIT 2: Ulp.

RAW RECRUIT 1: Do we have to learn it?

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Naw.

BABY SEAL: Hey Sarge.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: This Baby Seal is Vanderkarr, newly-promoted wi’ her erse-lickin’ rank o’ Corporal. You’ll notice ah picked up three stripes fur erse-lickin’.

RAW RECRUIT 2: Fur again. I’m afraid to ask…

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Corporal. Ah’ll let ye dish oot a wee bit punishment…

BABY SEAL: Drop and give me twenty paragraphs soldier!

RAW RECRUIT 1: Ma’am, yes, ma’am!

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Ye ca’ this a story? Whaur’s the sterrrt o’ it?

RAW RECRUIT 2: Er, I, started in the middle. Got that from #badwritingtips. I thought it was a good writing tip.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: An’ the end. If ye can ca’ it an end.

RAW RECRUIT 1: Giant marshmallow man attacks New York. Sometimes you just pluck these ideas out of thin air.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Seems gey familiar tae me.

RAW RECRUIT 2: Did he just say guy, or something else?

RAW RECRUIT 1: Sarge, we just can’t get through. Take our collaborative novel, for example.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Whit’s the haud-up?

RAW RECRUIT 2: This stubborn character won’t reach the end of the chapter. We’re top-heavy with characters as it is. He’s quite useful in a tight spot, but he’s coming across as a coincidence-bound miracle-worker whose only task is to dig the writer out of a hole.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Lay doon some expasishun.

RAW RECRUIT 1: Sarge, we just don’t have the room for heavy exposition at this point. That’ll demolish our readers. This chapter’s tough-going as things stand.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Nip back therrr, see it. Yon drivin’ scene. Blaw it up.

RAW RECRUIT 2: But…we must establish character-transfer from there to here.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Jinny drove tae rah hoaspital in a frenzied waste o’ petroleum. Yon’s yer trouble richt therrr. Sterrrt wi’ rat, jist rah same. Wan line’ll dae rah trick. Ditch rah nixt fower pages.

RAW RECRUIT 1: But Sarge, the parking scene will never survive the loss of our driving text.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Aye. She spends too much o’ yer reader’s time parkin’. An’ that’s wan reader. Apostrophe s. Jist me. Luikin’ tae build up a followin’?

RAW RECRUIT 2: The drive sets up her thoughts when parking.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Trouble wi’ you lot is rat ye’re a’ fearties. Therrr’ll be times in a tale when ye’ve nae ither oaption but tae bring oot rah big guns an’ fire aff pages o’ expasishun. Fur it’s expasishun rat’ll blaw a hole through a’ rah boather.

RAW RECRUIT 1: If we cut four pages of driving, we lose four pages of parking. That renders the next six pages of traipsing through hospital corridors obsolete. You’re asking us to take the scene away from her and put it all on the other guy. With exposition instead of atmosphere.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Since when’s a’ rat been mutually exclusive? Did she no’ jist swan through a crackin’ chapter a’ aboot her woes?

RAW RECRUIT 2: Well, yes.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: If she’s oan rah stage a’ rah time, is therrr nae ither character waitin’ in rah wings?

RAW RECRUIT 1: Notice how he rolls his Rs when he froths at the mouth.

RAW RECRUIT 2: I think he froths at the mouth when he rolls his Rs.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Keep writin’! Ah huv tae see tae the richt flank. Vanderkarr, hit oot wi’ wan o’ yer war-stories.

RAW RECRUIT 1: Ma’am, how do we get through this?

RAW RECRUIT 2: We heard you were there. D-Day.

BABY SEAL: Yeah. I deployed a novel. Shot it at a publishing company. My D-Day was hell. That’s as it should be. I almost didn’t make it to shore. Thousands of writers, crammed in there. Looking at the target. Shying away from it. Knocked out by lack of confidence or darn-fool thinking.

RAW RECRUIT 1: What did you do?

BABY SEAL: I was washed up on the beach, and almost washed-up before I had a chance to put my training into action. Yeah, I was there. Feeling lost, alone. There was nothing to see. I’d just crawled out as far as I could, and didn’t know what to do next. That made me the one big lonely fish in the barrel. Fear took chunks out of me. Wasn’t nice. No, it wasn’t nice at all.

RAW RECRUIT 2: How did you cope?

BABY SEAL: I started yelling.

*

BABY SEAL: This is over! I can’t go on! Stuck here on this endless empty white beach. The blank page! What’s the point of it all? I’ll never be good enough to get anywhere. The haze, closing in. Up, down. Left, right. I barely know where I stand.

*

BABY SEAL: So I fired off one of those Twitter flares. That had worked, before.

RAW RECRUIT 1: You had help?

BABY SEAL: A civilian, named Biozarre. We did the Twitter thing. She was all for joining the Dark Side of Publishing™. I didn’t want to hear it. That wasn’t what I’d signed up for. She called a spade a bloody shovel and battered me over the head with that a few zillion times. I just couldn’t turn to the Dark Side™.

*

LA BIOZARRE: Send your work over there. Lob some pages at a publishing house.

BABY SEAL: I don’t know, Missy. Hell, you aren’t even in the army. What are you doing here?

LA BIOZARRE: My own thing. I’m planning to self-publish.

BABY SEAL: You’re a…mercenary?

LA BIOZARRE: A knight with a free lance. Well, lance for rent.

BABY SEAL: Could we tone down the phallic imagery, I’m seasick…

LA BIOZARRE: I’m with the Office of Storytelling Services.

BABY SEAL: Missy Biozarre. O.S.S.

LA BIOZARRE: We can put our stuff out there on the internet. Then it’s not about worrying over what’s ready. It won’t even be about rejection. Build an audience. Just go for it.

BABY SEAL: That sounds even more desolate than what I have planned. I think I’ll go back to considering paper publishing companies. Or combination outfits.

*

BABY SEAL: With that, she was gone. I heard the machine gun rattling in the distance. It was actually her texting thumb, increasing her Morbidly Obese Twitter following. I was alone again.

RAW RECRUIT 2: So what happened?

BABY SEAL: I fired off another Twitter flare. No one answered the call. I slumped on the beach. Telling myself I was doing good work – everywhere except in my writing. I thought I’d lost it. Utterly. That’s when I heard the bagpipes.

RAW RECRUIT 1: Bagpipes.

BABY SEAL: Nutty, I know. He came out of nowhere, with a cold wind up his backside. First out of the landing-craft. I thought he was in the wrong sector. But he’d come for me.

*

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Ye’ll be slaughter’t therrr, Vanderkarr. Pick yersel’ up an’ move yer erse.

BABY SEAL: Huh?

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Tae yer left. Luik. Ootflanked by despondency. An’ tae yer richt. Encircl’t wi’ doobt an’ despairrr.

BABY SEAL: I don’t know what to do, Sarge. What should I do?

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Should ah waste ony time oan ye? Head fur rat blog.

BABY SEAL: Something about rat-fur?

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Move yer erse. Grab some cover here. Hunker doon, hen.

BABY SEAL: Uh. Okay. This is my blog. Hey. This is MY blog. WTF?!

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Need tae stock up oan ammo. Whit huv ye goat fur us?

BABY SEAL: Goat-fur now?

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Fower buiks. Ye’ve written fower buiks, but cannae pit them oot. How no’?

BABY SEAL: They’re duds.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Whit’s this? Extract? Luiks fine tae me. Ye can write, lassie.

BABY SEAL: Uh. Yeah. I know that. But, I feel…

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Ne’er mind a’ yon. Dinnae fash.

BABY SEAL: I wasn’t going to. Fash. It’s awfully quiet out here. I’m too exposed. Look at that emptiness.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Blank page. Fill it. Lay doon some paragraphs, an’ open up a saycont front.

BABY SEAL: We can’t. There’s nothing.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Ye’ve written a’ these buiks. Fire wan aff.

BABY SEAL: Er.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Ah’m movin’ up tae launch a massive quarter-mullion wurd epic.

BABY SEAL: Holy Eff!

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Aye, ah ken. It’s nearer a third o’ a mullion. Ye ’hink you’ve goat troubles…

BABY SEAL: Goats again. I don’t know.

SERGEANT JOCK MACBASTARD: Ah huv tae get a message through tae yon DEATH STAR…

BABY SEAL: Oh. I thought that was a small moon.

DEATH STAR COMMANDER: Transmission from the planet’s surface. The plug for Terry Moore is all set. We’ve cleared the ©, Milord. There’s nothing to stop us now.

DARTH SINISTER: Excellent work, Commander. You may edit when ready.

DEATH STAR COMMANDER: With pleasure. Well, it is a porno.

*

BABY SEAL: The Sarge had taken time from editing porn to talk to me.

RAW RECRUIT 2: Wow. That’s dedication.

RAW RECRUIT 1: What kind of porn?

BABY SEAL: Gerbil porn.

RAW RECRUIT 2: Er…

BABY SEAL: Gerbil-on-gerbil action. None of that funny stuff.

RAW RECRUIT 1: Er…

BABY SEAL: Well, there was some chocolate sauce. I didn’t look into that too closely. Anyway. I faced the worst thing in combat. The waiting. It’s the waiting that gets to you. And the clichés. But mostly the waiting. The cliché of waiting. Finally, I made a breakthrough. Signed a deal. Hybrid. Paper and electronic.

RAW RECRUIT 2: Wow.

BABY SEAL: I didn’t go it alone. That mercenary resurfaced in time to help whip me into shape for the final assault. Missy was all over my manuscript like physicists hunting for bosons.

RAW RECRUIT 2: She’s a mercenary, though…

BABY SEAL: Well, she does a lot of covert stuff. Best not to ask who she works for. The next I knew, I was signed to a deal. Though, you should know, that’s when the campaigning really begins. Leading into winter.

CHURCHILL: We will write them on the beaches, we will write them in the streets and in the fields…we will NEVER surrender. If the English language were to last for a thousand years, men will still say…this…is a thieving magpie language, written by people with thieving magpie minds…

NEXT BLOG: SECRET GARDEN.

Monday 15 October 2012

BOOK SNOBS.

That term conjures an image of the fur-clad Duchess of Literati sneering at ill-mannered urchins from the safety of her mink-lined Rolls-Royce Silver Spoon. What is a book snob? One who reads only the BEST. No.
   The term was used by fellow-scribblers to worry over the grim prospect of never again reading stories for the sheer fun of it, Jeeves. Becoming a writer may destroy you as a reader, if you let yourself fall into that trap. I’d walked that clifftop path before. What to say of it? Everything has its behind-the-scenes viewpoint.
   If you are a police officer, you will glare at the travesty that is the cop movie. Medical dramas placing emphasis on the heroism of overworked doctors are bound to leave nurses feeling cold. Stories about vampires will, inevitably, piss werewolves right off.
   And writers? Don’t get me started. Oh, if you insist. Crank the starting-handle on the front of that Rolls-Royce Silver Spoon, Jeeves. The Duchess of Literati wants to go for a spin. She has her quota of ill-mannered urchins to mow down, after all.
   My fellow-scribblers bemoaned the occupational hazard a writer must inevitably deal with. This is the business of READING. At some point, readers decide to become writers. A few of those writers actually manage the transition after penning five or six novels.
   How harsh a reader do you become, in reading as a writer? Do you read for enjoyment? Are you prepared to read a story just to see how it was constructed? Do you find a book so badly-written that you simply abandon it?
   Where, along the way, do you transform into a book snob, mowing down lesser books from the back seat of your Rolls-Royce Silver Spoon? (All 0.75 regular readers of this blog will glean that the spoon in question must be non-runcible.) The difficulty for the writer, in reading, is one of being a back-seat driver. You want the story to go in a particular way, but you aren’t the one at the wheel.
   I said that I’d walked that clifftop path before. Luckily, I didn’t fall. I didn’t find myself reading a book for pleasure only to discover, shock-horror, that I was merely reading to study technique. Why not? Was I capable of disengaging the writing brain and using the reading brain to get from start to fart?
   Not exactly. I pulled stories to bits, to see how they worked. And I enjoyed doing that. I decided to read certain authors to see how particular stories were constructed. If I enjoyed the fiction along the way, great. That’s the point I’m getting at. Enjoy reading, even if you are reading as a writer.
   This was the case with the detective novels of Raymond Chandler and the Bond books by Ian Fleming. I read them to see how they were done. Sat down and planned it. I’ll buy these books, and look at particular authors. And I’ll learn. My time in the company of Sherlock Holmes was spent absorbing structure. But it was with one eye on fun, just as the other eye dealt with the mechanical side.
   Reading books and seeing faults in them from a new stance just because you’ve labelled yourself a writer…is a losing game. A clifftop path with a sudden halt. Don’t get too tangled in that pursuit of the BEST in fiction. Oh, I read GREAT stuff. But I also read GRATING stuff. I think you really have to go slumming, same as I did. You have to be prepared to read books that you suspect you may put down and give up on.
   It’s a RARE book I’ve done that with. Once I start a book, I’m meant to go through with it to the bitter end. And sometimes that end has been world-class bitter with a patent pending. I’m struggling to think of the books I gave up on. One, two, three, four. I’ll struggle some more. How many? Not many. Perhaps no more than half a dozen in a reading lifetime…oh, the crap I forced myself to read. And the crap I wrote. The books I should have given up on…let me count the ways. Ah, no time.
   See the positive side of reading. Let your stance as an author enrich your enjoyment of the experience. Better that, than to let your writerliness taint your views. Yes, you’ve read some stinkers. But the ones you finish are the ones you finish. Those finished books, good, bad, indifferent, taught you much I’m sure. I’d hope you came away from reading having enjoyed reading.
   You may demand great fiction, but you won’t always get it. I’ve read great books with appalling typos in them. That didn’t destroy my reading experience. Flip that over. Wonderful typesetting couldn’t disguise a crap book. Who decides whether a book is crap or not? Each reader. Individually. Inside each tiny mind. Thus endeth the lesson.
   So, writerly ladies, gents, and all those caught between or far outwith, are you book snobs? Writers, reading and coughing up blood simply for being writers? I think you are just trying critical hats on for size in an attempt to flog yourselves over your own worst imperfections. Nothing to do with the stuff you are reading. Everything to do with the stuff you are writing.
   Remember, those imperfections of yours may actually be key indicators of your wonderful writing style. Tread carefully. Don’t squash your own unique telling-points. Here are a few books to consider. They are not bad books. Quite the reverse.
   Does it matter to me that the characters in Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth should probably die off from lack of supplies with all the to-ing and fro-ing underground? No. It doesn’t matter to me at all. No book snobbery there.
   What is Dracula’s rationale for avoiding the major population centre of Berlin? It’s closer than his destination of London, and he has a greater grasp of the language in Germany. Why not set up his undead empire as a Berliner? He heads for London. Does this destroy the book’s plot? Certainly not.
   Dare we mention the books that JUST HAPPEN TO TURN UP in front of Frankenstein’s monster? Really, Mary? No, seriously. REALLY, Mary? The monster must be educated, so here’s Paradise Lost. WTF?! I glossed over this. Almost became a writing snob, but I reined the mare in. The clifftop path I walked that day was signposted. So I came back down, unscathed. (I like what Mary Shelley did with that book. She’s a fucking superstar. I gladly say that of the author of the next piece…)
   Okay. I have a slight problem with Jane Eyre, in that she just happens to fall in with her relatives after wandering in the wilds. But the family situation is explained. There is foreshadowing. Even so, it does come across as a thumping geographical coincidence.
   My shameless bias in Charlotte’s favour excuses this literary excess, as Mary Shelley’s excess is similarly excused – but only just. I look askance at the connection, bundled up in a sub-plot concerning inheritance, and move on. The walk along the cliffs is not for me, for there is much enjoyment to be had from Frankenstein and Jane Eyre. (Suddenly, I have a deviant literary mash-up in mind. Dr Phibes, the screens!)
   The Hound of the Baskervilles…plays a very strange game of pitting the occult against Sherlock Holmes. Is there really a huge spectral hound out there on the moors, Sir Arthur? Er…
   In Kipling’s case, style intrudes. Both editions of The Jungle Book contain a story not set in the jungle. Snow and ice intervene. Should we return the books as not representative of content under the Sale of Goods Act…
   The Nine Tailors, by Dorothy L. Sayers, houses a wholly improbable cause of death within its mysterious pages. Yet that sits perfectly well within the self-contained atmosphere of the story. And that’s a few books in on the series featuring her aristocratic detective. She went out of her way to contrive many an arcane scene in her books, did Dorothy.
   Does that matter? Have His Carcase has one of the most outlandish plot-devices going for it. The scramble to secure evidence from a corpse before the sea washes clues away. Mad writing. But it works. Because, as readers, we want it to. As writers, we should want it to, too.
   Find me a book you can’t find fault with, and I’ll find fault with it. Not out of spite. This is just the way things are. A book isn’t a wheel, or a meal. You’ll know a broken wheel, or an awful meal. A book is harder to place. Flip that over. A book is harder to excuse.
   Your terrific book may not be mine. So, I say again. Find me a book you can’t find fault with, and I’ll find fault with it. With that in mind, I warn of the path to the shaky cliff. Don’t go out of your way to climb to that high spot, with its winds buffeting you.
   If you can’t read a book without finding faults, you are reading every book you’ve ever read. Buck up. Enjoy what you read. That is the point of reading. Worry about being a writer when you are WRITING. The Duchess of Literati crashed her Silver Spoon up her own backside. Don’t join her in that pursuit.

NEXT BLOG: OPERATION JOCK MACBASTARD.

Monday 8 October 2012

ANOTHER BRUNETTE SUPERMARKET INCIDENT.

Hang on. The supermarket was brunette, you wonder…
   Why, it seems like only the other day when a stunning brunette blew me a kiss in the supermarket. Well, it was. I’ve been mass-blogging. With a year of blogging on the horizon, I went back and devoured my blog to see how I’d been doing over that year.
   Just fine. All the repeated themes were dropped in according to plan. Regular readers know my catchphrases, now. Armed with the knowledge I ploughed through new blog after new blog, constructing more themes and leaving themeless sections for random musing – itself, a bit of a theme.
   It’s been weeks (just the other day) since I regaled my readers with the non-story of the brunette who non-blew me a non-kiss. How long before I experience another brunette supermarket incident? Why, mere hours Jeeves.
   I am shopping. A stunning brunette waves energetically at me and smiles a smile that lights up the supermarket. There is no need to look behind me to see if she’s waving at someone else. Miming ME? to query whether I am being waved at isn’t necessary.
   For I know this brunette, this time. I must be careful in identifying people on the blog. This woman would be flattered by the descriptor of stunning. She may feature in my fiction, in an anecdote that I’ll work up into a scene. Caution is advised when it comes to revealing your sources.
   Our paths don’t quite cross. I’m sweeping one way. She’s heading the other way. I find the energy to wave back. Yes, I even crack a smile. Curmudgeons are not known for this. I must curtail non-curmudgeonly activity. After all, I have a lack of reputation to live down to.
   I catch glimpses of her as we shop, foraging from aisle to aisle. How would I describe her in a story? Well, I’d say she once XXX X XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX XX XXXXXX XXXXX, XX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXXXX XXXXX XXX X XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX. XXX XXXX XXXX XXX X XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXX. Which was funny as XXXX.
   Readers, fear not. I had to check every X to see that everything tallied with what I was thinking in my tiny mind. Tedious? Yes. Will I festoon my writing with a forest of X-words? As I said, fear not. Hmm. Quite a few large words in there. What could I have been writing about?
   Doesn’t matter. Our paths uncrossed. I found her suddenly standing behind me, struggling with the vagaries of the self-service non-service machine. She speaks, and I pay close attention to her voice. Which sets me thinking about something I do as a writer.
   I make a point of replicating human speech-patterns on the page. Well, I used to think of it as the printed page, with ink and everything. I also generate non-human speech-patterns on the page. There are a few tricks to that, of course.
   Non-human speech. Ah, we’re in the realm of those much-abused terms, science fiction and fantasy. Where robots and Serpent-Men, and robots belonging to Serpent-Men, wander freely. My advice in fabricating non-human speech is to avoid going all bzzkrktshlurpshlurpkachung on your readers. I speak from experience.
   Surely you type, you say.
   No, I’m reading this aloud as I type. So I speak from experience. The battle to replicate human speech is a separate issue. How far down the path of dialect do you travel? Some tell you not to barge-pole that problem. I say, get stuck in. See how you fare. I was thinking this in listening to the brunette’s voice. How would I replicate those tones, in Times New Roman?
   *When Serpent-Men speak, they do so inside asterisks.*
   My slithery version of direct speech for all sorts of creatures and machines, across many stories.

WARNING. My blog was interrupted by sleep. A pesky activity designed to recharge the batteries. Aside from blogging, I bundle my blogs into collected editions. Throwing free blogs into short story collections is a way of keeping the blog running.
   Last night, I found myself blogging away in this file. I stopped to cross-ref with other blog entries. A few entries had to be copied over to the collected edition. I was sucked into a mire of formatting, editing, and general tomfoolery.
   For fifteen minutes, I worked my way back and forth through files. Updating text. Duplicating material. Staring at the screen. Midnight came and went. I was, to use a technical term, frazzled. Couldn’t make sense of the page before me.
   So I hit the checker for wordage. My wordage in a particular file wasn’t as wordy as expected. A good 500 words had vanished from the tally. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t follow the meaning. There was no meaning. I was just about asleep staring at my work.
   After struggling with the concept of concepts, of things, I realised that I had to take a break from the machine and rest a little while. Seeing the time, I decided that should be a long while. What had I done? Hard to say. The cold light of day would solve all the problems I’d not quite faced.
   Morning. Shopping. A bit of exercise, trudging across the map to reach shops. On the way there, I don’t encounter a stunning brunette. Well, I do. But I don’t. This one has green hair, automatically reminding me of a character with green hair.
   Who is she? Doesn’t matter. That’s for a later book. Trust me. The story is in safe hands. Those who read Neon Gods Brought Down by Swords would be hard-pressed to pick her out – but she is there, somewhere.
   Refreshed, motivated, resupplied, I return to my office. I tackle the problems I had the night before. It takes a few seconds to see what I’ve done, and about a minute to trace the complex trail of editing events that led to the problem of the misplaced text. The fix is in.
   And the fix is worth mentioning. In abstract terms. Take breaks from writing. Have a drink. If you are writing at home, fix that annoying domestic problem you’ve promised yourself you will tackle one day. Put the hours in at your desk, but try not to fall asleep at your desk.
   I sailed close to the wind last night. For some reason, the whole blogging thing gripped me. Because I mass-blog, then automate the results, I can go off and do the actual storytelling without being caught up in a relentless blogging grind.
   Last night, I worked my way through to the November blog post that ends with a celebration, of sorts, of the fact that I don’t have to chop a fellow-author’s head off. I’m talking about a weekly eighteen-blog cycle that I’m finishing a few days before the first in that series hits the internet.
   Do I want to write that far ahead? I can always unplug a blog to make space for something else, if I have news. Yes, I do want to write that far ahead. No, I don’t want to write that late into the night. I have, in the dim and distant, spent the whole night writing. Not something I recommend.
   Occasionally, the amount of text you must type will fall into conflict with the minutes you have left before a crucial event occurs. Too bad. Happens. Exceed your limits for a short span. Don’t burn the reflexes, zap the synapses, or lay waste to your reserves over nothing. Hell, if you have to, do so. But do so for something.
   Last night, I had to be sure of the details. I wasn’t. So I quit for the night, though the night had quit to make way for the next day. I should write about hijacking blog posts. A telephone call interrupted one blog and generated material for another. I came out ahead on that score.
   Sauce fell into my computer keyboard, and hijacked another blog post. In this entry, I was going to write about replicating human speech-patterns and dealing with the depiction of non-human patterns too. But I had to go to bed.
   Zombified, fritzed and frazzled, I was no use to…
   I diverted there, to check on zombified. Should the word have an extra e in it? Zombiefied. The answer, based on ease-of-reading alone, is NO. Though being zombified, I was zombielike. I’m inclined to suppose the zombifying process is zombefaction. Have I just coined a word? Oh dear, I hope not. That rapscallious activity can get out of hand.
   This blog entry should have another title. I started with the brunette waving at me in the supermarket. But I veered into talk of rest. And, inevitably, I brought the conversation around to zombies. How do I feel today? Rested. Unzombied. And close to the end of this blog post.
   Your writing routine isn’t my writing routine. That’s irrelevant. Every routine must include a break from routine to qualify as a routine. I believe you shouldn’t be able to tell how a story is written, based on the end-result. Going by what I was doing last night, I can say without fear of contradiction that the blog post I edited was one edited by a zombie.
   The rest of the time, when I’ve had time to rest, I edit in Regular and Spearmint. Though you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between them.

NEXT BLOG: BOOK SNOBS.

  

Monday 1 October 2012

SPAM ALERT.

Last week’s post (which I wrote moments ago/months ago) was all over the place for a reason. I was describing my writing projects, which were all over the place for many reasons. This week, I thought I’d talk about junk messages that reach you across the internet’s airwaves.
   This has nothing to do with the purchase of a Jaguar internal combustion motor vehicle. That is a determinant of whether or not you’ve made it as a cad. Bought a Jag? Cad. Had your wife’s sister over for more than dinner? Cad. She doesn’t have a sister? The old standby then. Mother as well as the daughter? Cad.
   I have veered off. How can you tell when you’ve made it in publishing? Made what? Publishing what? If I decide that having been given a prize for writing fiction in my schooldays marks me as an award-winning author, then by Jove I am one.
   Perhaps I should point out that I don’t own a Jaguar internal combustion motor vehicle.
   Yes, there are all sorts of tricks writers will stoop to. I don’t post my own reviews of my work on Amazon. Occasionally I’ll plug other authors on Twitter, but I won’t post Amazon reviews of authors whose entries you’ll find on my blog. That handy page on other fugitives, since you ask.
   Finding an audience takes time. The 0.75 persons who habitually read my blog stumbled on my site by accident and became stuck in the glue. It would be nice if visitors to the blog considered purchasing my books. Those of you who didn’t drop by looking for cockroach porn. You’re a tad early for that.
   Sales? Irrelevant. Reviews? Not an indicator. Bank-balance? Tells you nothing. Forget all that real-world financial stuff. There’s an easier way to tell how you are doing. It’s unseen. For it is filtered. Yes. Spam.
   My blog has started receiving spam. Every attempt to plug my work on Twitter. That’s spam. Twitter is a giant spam-generating machine. The only fun I had on Twitter was in creating a few bad writing tips for a thread on #badwritingtips.
   This spam wasn’t Twitter-related. My article on KDP Select was described as an article that couldn’t really be written any better. No? Mechanically-recovered praise indeed. The spammer’s invented roommate talked about that topic (Amazon KDP Select) constantly. I was thanked for sharing. There then followed an exhortation to visit a particular website. For the life of me, I couldn’t think why.
   What if I hadn’t written about Amazon KDP Select? Suppose I’d written about the curious side-effects of using fulminate of mercury as barrier contraception? I’m leaving aside the main effect of EXPLODING, showering fragments of ex-copulators to the four walls and beyond.
   Fantabulosa! World-class article, dude! My Rabbi swears by it. He’s always getting down and non-dirty with that cleanliness-is-next-to-gnarliness approach that the old fulminate of mercury provides. Now visit my blood diamond exchange site.
   Oh yes. This blog has made it. I’ve finally cracked the eggshell of social networking to discover the soft runny yolk that is spam. My name in coloured chalk, at last. Admittedly a step down from seeing my name in energy-saving lights. Still, a Darth can dream.
   How long before the quality of spam dips? Oh, spam post two. The honeymoon ended in a heartbeat. No more praise for my scintillating wit. Just breadcrumbs leading to a site sure to help me with that particular problem.
   Of course I can’t list the problem. That’s doing the spammer’s work. Besides. Chlamydia is no joke. How did it come to this? It didn’t. The spam filter catches these messages. I should just let them through. In the sick twisted minds of needy bloggers everywhere, those spam votes count.
   I wonder if it’s something I’ve written. A blog post on a subject that has swept my blog into the spammer’s sights. If not sites. Perhaps this is geographical. Colour-coded. Arranged alphabetically. I have no clue.
   Time-lag? Months. The e-mail contact address for REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE was hit by spammers almost as soon as I started the blog. Why no spam in the blog’s comments, during all that time? Who knows.
   As for those e-mail scams, I don’t habitually bank with two banks at the same time. This is a technical issue which appears to lie beyond the purview of your typical scammer. If you are trying to hoodwink me into handing over my financial details, shoe-size, and eye-colour, then don’t pretend to be two banks.
   Randomly guessing my actual bank at the bottom of an e-mail won’t aid your nefarious cause if you open the top of the e-mail by pretending to be an entirely different bank. Why don’t I come to your house and scam you? Don’t have the time.
   Parcel-wise, I know what’s coming through the post and when. So I won’t be taking up any Royal Mail offers to urgently confirm my urgent confirmation. Urgently. If you receive an e-mail asking you for confidential bank information and a sperm-count, look askance at the screen.
   Anyway, I was considered fair-game as soon as I had an e-mail account. I was propositioned by a woman who remembered meeting me in the city. She was looking to connect. Horizontally and financially. But mostly financially. If anyone offers you sex on a first e-mail, look askance at the screen.
   On no account travel to Nigeria to meet the hot 21-year-old destitute heir of Sani Abacha who happens to be aged 19 two paragraphs down. I don’t care how much money you have to throw at her to unlock all those fictional millions trapped in Swiss bank accounting hell.
   How many Rolex watches am I expected to wield on my arms? If I actually confirmed all the concert tickets I was asked to, I’d spend my life at concerts. The people who know me would think I’d been kidnapped. Or whisked off somewhere for an alien probe. That’s not a euphemism. Genuine aliens with genuine probes would be involved. They’d have to be, to make the pain worthwhile. I’d be guaranteed a ten-book series out of it.
   Occasionally, I’ve had the odd e-mail drop in by mistake. The most annoying was from one service that I couldn’t talk to unless I was a member. Membership was free. Legitimate organisation. So I joined by creating loads of fake info about myself just in case, in order to ensure that no more rogue e-mails came my way. Two rogue e-mails, and I was done.
   Spam messages resemble those people in the street who want to stop shoppers and talk about the state of the world. Or, as I prefer to think of it, why don’t you have SKY TV? The crowd-stoppers are easy to see and easy to swerve.
   Filters catch spam. Or do they? Isn’t everything spam? Every book you ever read. All the movies you watched. Hell, the thoughts you have. The stars in the sky. Particles in our universe. It’s all spam. Every keyboard button I hit. The meals I’ve eaten – including ACTUAL spam. Going to watch SPAMALOT. Visualising a tin of the aforementioned meat product.
   Songs I’ve heard and songs I sang. (Rule. People who CAN’T sing SHOULDN’T sing. I sang along at the end of SPAMALOT. There was an audience to hide behind.) EVERYTHING is spam, including the concept that everything is spam.
   We detect, filter, reject. Or we detect and absorb. Even spam has its uses. This blog post is currently powered by spam. My blog intercepted it. No. This blog intercepted it. I have a signpost blog that leads here. RLL AUTHOR. That blog, just being a signpost, doesn’t have room for spam, it seems.
   The amazing audiovisual radio station that is the interconnected network is full of wonderful things. Every ocean has its bottom-feeders. That’s not to denigrate bottom-feeders, or to pour scorn on the arrangements within oceans.
   All the world’s spam is probably sent out by one guy, living in his impregnable castle on the far side of the moon. Even he gets spam, inviting him to test-drive Donkey Viagra®. Calm down, I’m not spamming him in revenge. I have nothing to revenge over.
   Suddenly I feel as though I’m a rock-star. Spammers have found me. The adulation is too much. It’s a matter of which rock-star I feel I am. Mm. One of those with a DEMISE. Maybe I have tickets to the farewell concert. Must confirm those. Urgently.
   Now, as the blog post winds down, I come to the multiheaded hydra that is Google. People affected by spam may turn to Google and Google the word SPAM to find remedies. Eventually, my blog post labelled SPAM ALERT will show up on the trail.
   So yes, this is spam. Of a sort.
   We should put out fun spam. In bright colours, with flashing lights. No need to sell anything. We aren’t providing a service. Just having a laugh. Not driving people to awkward sites dealing with awkward problems.
   Someone followed me on Twitter and started a chain-reaction of followers who were looking for followers. Don’t ask who kicked that off – I am uncertain. They are all happy to have 5,000 followers. I know that, as they constantly tell me so in banal automated messages.
   Missy Biozarre, who has kidnapped a Twitter following in the low zillions, wouldn’t care if plague struck half her followers dead – except in the sense that her primary texting thumb would have to go into near-light-speed overdrive to recover from the losses.
   Why are so many people so keen to be seen as so keen when using the internet? You should know by now that my idea of being cheery on Twitter is to sarcastically announce my novel LYGHTNYNG STRYKES by describing it as EPIC PORN. At which point, the sarcasm wears off and I seem like a jolly chap.
   Announcing a novel as EPIC PORN is, of course, spam…

NEXT BLOG: ANOTHER BRUNETTE SUPERMARKET INCIDENT.