I have been too long away from the scrap paper and the dictionaries and now my pen hand is itching. I want to get back to Colin and McHarry. Yes, when I’m writing, I do seem to spend my day cursing and moaning. Counting words and commas, and wondering if it is going well, how it could be done better, and why can’t it go faster, faster, faster… But at times like this, I miss writing, and knowing where the story is going, and the excitement of getting it there…

Soon.

I have also decided that Pirates will probably not have the name that I intended to give it. This also came to me under the shower. People close to me might say this might mean I should take showers more often. For the ideas, of course, the stink takes far longer to go away. All lies, all lies.

I thought:
The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He’ll sit in a barn and keep himself warm
and hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

Yes. I thought. That’s it. Fine. Bring on the dancing horses…

. . . . .

For those who don’t know, deed poll is the old name given to changing your name. It wasn’t that, but the form of particular contract, except that form of contract has more-or-less dies out, except for name changes. And so the words “deed poll” are used familiarly to mean a change of name.

There you go.

For about two weeks now, I haven’t been working. Not that I was working before, since I am officially unemployed, but not working on writing, that sort of not working.

Again, that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t doing anything. I completely rebuilt this site, and read a [large] couple of books [The Rotter’s Club and What A Carve Up!, by Jonathan Coe, Hogfather by Terry Pratchett and Free for All, by Peter Wayner. I may have also read books by Jonathan Carroll, and Cory Doctorov…]. I started a new blog, scribbled, read hundreds of stuff online, downloaded dozens of [legal] free mp3s. What else did I do? A major clean-up on this domain, shovelling out dead sites and files, renaming a small pile of material that I don’t want to erase yet, but don’t want Google to find anymore… I configured my logs to allow me to follow that. Oh yes, and wrote a short story that I will probably abandon for reasons that are too complicated to mention here.

That’s what not working is all about, no?

Yesterday, I went back to Pirates and tried to pick up the thread. I had a look at Chapter Eight and wondered, sincerely, if I was trying to fit too much in there… I will see. I was going to print out Chapters Seven and Eight and read them through, but this morning when I was having a shower, I realised that something that should come along in Chapter Eight calls for a remark from Tom, the Smithy’s apprentice, but that Colin’s reply would be stronger if I rewrote Chapter Three to include a scene that he could reference… If you follow me. Chapter Three is probably the longest surviving text so far in this story, having been written about eight or ten years ago. The even earlier parts, in fact, all that concerns Stone, have disappeared into generalities, background and passing remarks. There is no longer anything in there that remains from that twenty-odd-years-ago version.

Now I know the danger of having these nice flowing paragraphs that have been smoothed to pretty pebbles over time. I am too attached to them. I have no clear judgement on them. Like an old rickety chair, we have lived together for so long, even though it might have faults, it fits your bum so well after all these years… And so I absolutely want to use it, even when my back says that, No, I shouldn’t. Not really. Not at all. You will regret it, believe me. So, Chapter Three currently starts with that archive file…

So, while the water pounded at my head, and I massaged my scalp [probably to stop thinking about the thinning patch that everyone—so kindly—keeps pointing out to me], I was thinking about the Changes That Must Be Made.

If, I thought, I took the beginning of Chapter Three out, and put it in the blurb, it would still be there somehow, still have its effect, still roll off my tongue in that old familiar way. But it would also free me up to do the rewrites that I need…

We shall see.

I sent a mail to a soon-to-be-published writer, Tamara Siler Jones, [found through Neil Gaiman’s blog]. The letter pointed out a mild blooper on her site [since corrected] and asked a couple of question arising from my quick read of the sample chapter of her book Ghosts in the Snow. She replied, quickly and politely—I was very touched—telling me that these were not mistakes but her intention, that there had been debate and hesitations, but there were no mistakes. This is fine. These are her words, and she has obviously enough spent years on them; she should know what she wants to do with them. I appreciated the possibility of being able to just fire off a mail, ask a sincere question, and get a reply like that. Thanks.

And, this morning, as I was doing the washing up after the very nice curried noodles that Ludivine had made for us last night—her brother and Akio came over after they had all gone swimming—and trying to freshen the house up in order to survive the day, I was thinking over this, while composing the entry about the heatwave in my head.

I have read blogs that are beautifully crafted. I can imagine—not only because I’m like that, but also because I have met people like that—some of these bloggers and writers just dashing off a quick piece, and hitting the ‘publish’ button without doubt, hesitation, nor a spellcheck. And I hate those horribly talented people, most sincerely.

I sweat over each comma. And that’s not just because it’s so hot…

I determined that if I wanted to ‘write’—that is, let this be more than just a hobby—then I should do just that. Everyday. 1000 words on the current novel, or die. And the blog. Use this to practise different pieces, styles, to throw out ideas. The sandpit.

So there are two types of writing here; well, three in fact, but I’ll come to that…

So there are two types of writing here: there are the diary pieces [“Today it was hot, I only wrote 418 words. Life is rough.”]; then there are the set pieces where I try to say something, with a point of view, a bit of effort, a start-a-middle-and-an-end, perhaps a chuckle along the way. Now these may end up looking like the journal entries but being just a bit more laborious in tone… I don’t know. In fact, the set pieces are divided into two categories: the quick ones, that I dash off, generally touching on a film, an event, a happening. And then those that I write, rewrite, correct, chop and change, read out loud, and generally chew over until I find them acceptable, and I can copy them out of BBEdit and into Pivot.

But there is one thing that should be clear. This is about ‘Writing’; it is not about ‘Truth’. I’m not worried about leaving an accurate trace of my home life, my writing life, my—ahem—working life, or whatever. I am concerned about working on the rhythm and the flow, the words and the style. If, when I am writing this, I feel I need to twist the events in order to better make a point, to milk a joke, or just because I prefer it like that, then… I will. With no hesitation.

Finished revising the short story. Tightening up a few sloppy paragraphs. Found it a better title [The Housekeeper] than the previous ones [Untitled and A Smell of Beeswax, respectively]. Incorporated a scene that I had wanted in there, but hadn’t included as I wasn’t sure, but finally saw exactly where it should go.

Finished The Rotter’s Club, and continue to think that it is marvellous, one of the best books I have read this year. Laughed [and cried] over Benjamin’s Molly-Bloomish soliloquy [wondered how Jonathan Coe could have gotten into my head so much, in order to know exactly what I was thinking at 17, but just realised that kids at the time, at that age, of that type, of that background, with those tastes, had probably pretty stereotypical lives: the proof—OK, either that, or he is listening in to my brainwaves.]

Then closed the shutters and the windows against the heatwave, brewed Ludivine a tea, and wondered about rewriting Juliet and what I have of Pirates in the light of the short story. Decided that it is best to just plough on ahead with Pirates, that it is better to a finished, albeit mediocre, novel, than an unfinished, albeit brilliant, one. And that once it is finished it can be improved, changed rewritten, but it will be there. However, if I am forever going back and rewriting, it will never even get finished.

Disatisfaction, looking back, improving… all this must be part of the process of learning to write. And I was so happy with Juliet when it was finished, even if now I do see/feel/fear all the faults and problems in it. That’s life. That’s writing, I fear.

As ever, when I finish a piece of work, I have absolutely no idea of its qualities, interest, whatever…

So, I have finished the short story that I mentioned the other day. I am currently raking over the old embers, making sure that I have left no burning whatsits in the wrong places. If you want to give me your opinion —either general, or blow-by-blow, comma-on-comma; as you wish—on this [8000 words, available as PDF or RTF, mild horror] them mail me, preferably at the general.dogsbody address below, stating your preference, and I’ll make the file available.

Please note: there is a non-Night Shyamalan twist in this story [ie. if you get the twist, then it’s a bonus, not the whole story; and if you don’t get the twist, it doesn’t take anything away.] Once you’ve read, mail me with your idea on the twist and I’ll tell you if you get it or not…

Yesterday, I started noting down material for a new story [more on the story itself later, that’s not the… story]. As I just wanted to get the ideas down I typed this up instead of writing it longhand. Perhaps the fact that I had been coding, and thus typing, for over a week meant that I wanted to do other than just code-code-code. As often happens in that case, the notes start to form sentences, and then paragraphs. And tonight, when I looked at it after the second day typing, I already had 2000 words just sitting there.

But because this was just beginning, and because I don’t feel [yet] particularly attached to it; and because this was typed, I could try an experiment.

I duplicated the file, then opened the copy and erased all the adjectives. Most of the adverbs too. I simplified a couple of sentences that had depended on adjectives for their meaning, and erased at least two others. Another couple of sentences needed a complete rewrite because they had a wishy-washy structure with subclauses popping up all over the place.

Then I reread the text.

To my surprise, I thought that the absence of qualifiers would weaken the writing. But all that was left was the story. And it was improved to find itself like this, leaner, tighter. This was something that I have suspected for a time: writing is not just pouring on more and more material, but making sure, first of all, that there is a good structure in place. Then finding the right places to underline, or reinforce a line, to darken a colour.

I read over these two pages from the beginning again, looking at them in this cleaner, starker light. I rewrote a sentence here and there, added a couple of adjectives, pared off a bit more. And then read through everything again.

Now it runs to 1500 words. And reads a lot better.

As I said, ouch!