Black Notes from a Dark Building

A New Voice

2010-08-15T13:16:00.001+01:00

1616 words.

Paul's been hogging the show since day one. He's in every single scene and every single scene is being written from his point of view. Well, not any more. There's a new character, with a new voice, and she's going to be making the odd appearance throughout the story. There's always a little wobble when such a decision is made. It might disrupt the feel of the novel (Blonde on a Stick was rejected by one major publisher who didn't like the sudden injection of a new voice half way through the novel). But I think such risks can pay off, if you get the voice right, and if the story isn't affected in any deleterious way. And this needs to happen, for plot reasons and pay-off reasons.

I remember the shock I had reading The Insult by the superb novelist Rupert Thomson. The first 250 pages are narrated by Martin Blom, who, after being shot in the head, is told he will be blind for life. It's an amazing narrative, very compelling. Towards the end of part one, his sight returns, but with a twist: he can only see at night. The second part starts with a different narrator. A different story, too, albeit one that overlaps with Martin's... a serious WTF moment. It works, but there's a slight tinge of disappointment that a character you've grown with, whose voice you've trusted and been entertained by, has suddenly departed, never to return.

With Blonde, I knew there was going to be a similar wrench. I warn against such moments when I run writers' classes. You get jolted out of the story, out of that zone; you become aware that you a reading a story constructed by a writer. It can be damaging. There's the danger of losing your audience. But sometimes you have to run with your instincts. There was no way I could write the stories of Joel Sorrell and the Four-Year-Old as parallel narratives: that would have been even more of a distraction because the Four-Year-Old's story is presented as a series of flashbacks and current events. So I had to separate the two halves of Joel's narrative with an interlude devoted entirely to the Four-Year-Old's rise. I liked it. My agent liked it. Maxim Jakubwoski (bless him) at John Blake liked it, but some editors didn't.

You have to write for yourself first, don't you?

Listened to: Symphony no. 3, by Henryk Górecki

Friday the 13th

2010-08-13T21:53:00.001+01:00

1565 words.

Today I bypassed the 60,000 word mark. Not an unlucky day for me. So far...

I first saw Friday the 13th in a mental institute when I was about 12 years old. I wasn't a patient...

My best friend, Naeem, lived in a house nearby; his father was a doctor who worked at Winwick Hospital, a Victorian mental asylum (the largest in Europe), in the days before Care in the Community. I used to visit him a lot during the summer. We would play cricket on the cricket pitches, or tennis on adjoining courts, or go fishing in one of the gravel pits on the hospital outskirts, or climb through the window of the lodge house to play snooker on a full-size table.

Once a week we would sit in the main hall and watch a film projected on to a white screen. With about fifty heavily-sedated patients. I watched a fair few horror movies and tense thrillers on that screen, and in that company. I remember watching Still of the Night there, and Jaws and Friday the 13th. And then the lights would come up and it would be like being on the set of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Happy times, good memories... believe it or not.

Winwick Hospital Tower was a landmark that I would search for whenever I was coming home. It was a beautiful structure, but it, like the hospital, was doomed once community care was introduced. The entire complex was razed in the late 1990s. Housing replaced it.

My affection for Winwick Hospital meant that I was bound to write about it at some point, and I did, twice, in Decay Inevitable and Blonde on a Stick (its name changed to Slow Heath and Summerhead, respectively).

Listened to: The Ghost & Mrs Muir OST, by Bernard Herrmann... beautiful.

Nitty gritty

2010-08-11T07:12:00.000+01:00

1087 words.

Not a dedicated writing day, but I managed to hit 800 words in an hour this morning before taking over munchkin duties. I might have written more, but I was in a gnarly, knotty section that was research heavy. What colour are Qantas cabin crew uniforms at the moment? How much runway does a fully laden 747-400 need in order to take off? And while we're at it, what speed does the beast need to be pumping at in order to leave the ground? How big is the wing? Etc... Stuff that, probably, your average punter couldn't give a flying felch about, but it kind of matters to me.

Is there such a thing as the researchless novel?

Listened to: The Esbjörn Svensson Trio.

Controlled Flight into Terrain

2010-08-09T19:59:00.000+01:00

1109 words.

It came a little easier today... possibly because I was writing about my fear of flying, or rather, my fear of the pilots losing all control of an aircraft at 36,000 feet and going into an irretrievable spin...

Listening to: Possibly the worst free CD given away by a newspaper in the history of the world. Ever. Free and Single, volume 2, courtesy of The Independent. Starring Mel C, Nick Heyward and tons of other shite.

Third trimester

2010-08-07T10:33:00.000+01:00

733 words.

Another slog. Which is odd, because I know where this chapter has to go. Maybe I've got end-of-novel nerves. Everything is set up for the climax, and now it's a matter of getting Paul to where he needs to be. Maybe I'm looking ahead too much and should try to get back to the present. It's difficult, though, when you know you've turned the final bend and it's all about closure from here on in.

This book deals partly with pregnancy, and I've just realised that I've written it (or rather, it will have been written) in three chunks, much like the twelve-week periods that govern the major changes in physiology concerning both mother and baby. I kind of like the poetry of that (although I'd much rather have got the thing done in one big, er, push). My notes tell me that I wrote the first 20,000 words at the beginning of the year before hitting a wall. I managed to get going again in March, eventually, thanks to Graham Joyce's idea of blogging about each day's work. And now my navel has popped and the foetal head is descending into my pelvic cavity, as it were.

At least delivery, although probably just as messy, won't be anywhere near as painful...

Listening to: Eyes Wide Shut OST, (Various artists)

Pulling teeth

2010-08-05T16:07:00.001+01:00

1037 words.

See you on 01.08.10… hmmm. I’m only four days late. An overdue short story and arrangements for a book signing got in the way. Honest. But this first chunk of the last third of the novel… it was very hard to get that thousand words written today. I've been easily distracted of late (although still managing to get a chunk of words down here and there) so I needed something to help me focus. I decided to try out a little anxiety-eliminating method called the Pomodoro Technique.

Basically you choose a task you need to get done, like, oh I don't know, WRITING A NOVEL, set a timer for 25 minutes and get on with it. You're rewarded at the end with a five-minute break before the next 'Pomodoro' begins. After four of these 25-minute chunks, you get to enjoy a longer break. And that's it. It's pretty simple (well, I say 'simple' but there's a book and various social networking sites and probably a help group too), and strangely effective. I do intend to jettison my little clicking timer once I'm comfortably back inside Paul Roan's world. I'm ruled too much by the clock as it is.

Listened to: Inception OST, by Hans Zimmer
Reading: Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill

Home Straight

2010-07-28T09:03:00.001+01:00

I’ve decided to devote August to the novel again, in one final push to get it finished. If I manage to write The End on or around the 31 August, that will give me two months in which to get feedback from test readers and work on a second draft and a polish before I have to deliver the book at the end of October.

A couple of things got in the way of writing the novel during June and July. Mainly holidays, short story deadlines, public readings, and fretting over Blonde on a Stick (which is to published imminently). But there was also a problem with notes. Until recently, I’d (rather foolishly) been an advocate of ‘one notebook per project’. But this never worked out, mainly because I’d sometimes have an idea and have to write it down in a different notebook because I couldn’t remember where I’d put the relevant one. Cue madness.

So from now on, it’s one notebook for everything, until it’s filled. As I mentioned elsewhere, I use a hardback Moleskine notebook, the kind that has ruled lines and an elastic closure. I number the pages (which gets me quickly past that tricky ‘how can I bear to deface its pristine loveliness’ stage) and mark on the side the date when I started using it. And now I take it everywhere. All ideas go in there. Also, if I see a picture I like, or an article in a newspaper, I’ll paste it in or store it in the back wallet for processing later. They’re not cheap, but they last me a long time (I write small… two lines of text to one line of rules paper) and I need something that isn’t going to fall apart after six months in my back pocket.

But a lot of information destined for Loss of Separation (should that be Loss of Preparation?) has been gathered from various sources and is now safely collected in a folder. I’ve just been through it, assessing, discarding, and tucking new sections into the novel’s outline onscreen. I’ve got the novel pretty much nailed now, in terms of plotting. Here’s a screen grab of the corkboard in Scrivener, to show you what I’m working from.

The orange index cards are completed chapters. The purple cards are ‘action required’ notes appertaining to the chapters to their left. Blue squares are chapters waiting to be written. The green card at the end is the ‘key’ that explains the whole book, the thing I need to keep focused on. It might not mean much to you, but sorting out those notes has helped to open up the novel to me in a way that wasn't happening before. Those colours represent a new balance, a more streamlined and ordered story, and an avenue of escape towards closure (well, that's what I'm hoping).

Writing this novel has given me a bit of a wake-up call in terms of planning ahead. I thought (erroneously) that because this story had been on my mind for a decade, it would write itself. Wrong. This has been the most recalcitrant piece of work to be sweated out of me since the day I picked up a pencil and started tracing ‘a’s across one of Miss Foster's handwriting sheets. I love the idea, the characters, the setting… but I’ve hated writing it. It’s been like chewing gravel. Much of that is down to my preparation. The next book is going to be planned so beautifully it could be exhibited in an art gallery…

So if you have a couple of minutes each day, please drop by to keep me company. As before, I’ll be posting word counts, progress reports, tips and tricks… moans… anything that occurs to me about the writing process while I’m trying to put this novel to bed. Feel free to send me comments and questions.

See you on 01.08.10…

Day Forty-Four... Chess

2010-05-21T19:24:00.002+01:00

641 words.

When I was seven, I taught myself how to play chess. There was something about the board and the pieces... if I'd known the word at that age, I might have described it as fetishistic. I just liked setting everything up and the way that, after just a few familiar opening moves, you could be into a game like none you'd ever played before. I was so desperate for opposition that I taught my dad to play. And then I entered school tournaments and won quite a few of them. But I didn't keep it up. Nobody was into it at sixth form, and by the time I got to Bristol, I had other things on my mind, such as beer, girls and writing.

When I moved to London in 1994 and found work that paid better than anything I'd earned before, my head was turned by the beautiful chess sets being sold at the London Chess Centre on Euston Road (recently relocated to Baker Street after 18 years). I bought a breathtakingly expensive weighted wooden set and I'm using it to teach Ethan, my seven-year-old son, how to play.

However, these days, I play most of my games online. There are a number of places to play free chess with people from all over the world. Red Hot Pawn is my favourite. I keep it running in the background and nip in every now and then if I've hit the wall with whatever I'm writing. I find something that takes a long time to play (while I was writing The Unblemished in France it was this) helps to subtly unlock the congested bit of my brain that needs to be concentrating on who is doing what to whom and why and how best can I describe that using the medium of words...

If you play chess, and you decide to try out RHP, come and find me and challenge me to a game. I'm Salavaria...

Listened to: Aether by The Necks

Day Forty-Three... Back again

2010-05-21T18:59:00.000+01:00

349 words

Short story written and delivered, I can return to Loss for a while, before I go on holiday on the 24th. Ideally, I'll get to write each evening after the munchkins have climbed the wooden mountain to Bedfordshire, but there's every chance I'll be asleep by then too. I hope to add to the novel while I'm away.

Listened to: The Tired Sounds of... Stars of the Lid

Day Forty-Two... Like trying to mine coal with a jelly pickaxe.

2010-05-14T14:43:00.000+01:00

It's not working. I need to nail this Monday deadline. Apologies for those who have been following my posts, but there are too many pies and I don't have enough fingers... I'll try to get back into the groove by mid-June, when I return from holiday. Thanks for your support, and patience...

Day Forty-One... Pesky Editors

2010-05-12T18:14:00.000+01:00

636 words.

So now I find out that the short story I need to write for the end of the month has a new deadline date of May 17th. I'm going to have to write both in tandem. I can't afford to let Blonde slide for another week. Today's output dealt with something which might, or might not, have happened to my narrator. As you might have guessed, he's an unreliable narrator. This creates its own little host of problems, especially in a supernatural novel. How far can you go with the ambiguity? Is it all right to show something happening that might, in the end, never have happened? Is this a skilful manipulation of the audience, or blatant deceit? Again, I think it's a matter of instinct. The danger is that you build an atmosphere on a foundation that doesn't exist. The story might not be progressing because you're caught up in the smoke and mirrors of the genre's special effects. Best to just press on regardless and see what it looks like when you read it back, much later. Well, that's what I do.

Listened to: Low and Hunky Dory by David Bowie

Day Forty... Seems like... is this a toy, probably?

2010-05-09T17:48:00.001+01:00

574 words.

Another BTGG day, although, for that 40th day, I was hoping for a bigger return. Alas, it was all I could eke out. I'm worried that I might have to take another time out towards the end of the month, as a short story deadline looms. But hopefully, if all goes well, I'll be able to spin two plates at once.

Listened to: Substrata by Biosphere (listening to this a lot lately... just a wonderful album).

Day Thirty Nine... Hard Return

2010-05-08T13:11:00.001+01:00

844 words.

It proved very hard to get back into this novel after a number of weeks away. The edits were completed quite quickly, but then I had to fly to Germany to participate in the Ruhr Lit Cup with the England Writers' Team, a tournament in which, despite playing well, we finished 6th out of eight teams. At one point we were close to securing a semi-final berth, and were only narrowly beaten by Sweden, the holders. In keeping with England's fine penalty shoot-out tradition, we lost against Hungary. Upon returning to the UK, it was straight off to Cropton Forest, in North Yorkshire, to spend five days in a log cabin. The boys enjoyed hunting for bats and building an emergency shelter in the woods. My strained, bruised muscles enjoyed the hot tub... and then it was back to Manchester, and Chapter Eleven.

It wasn't just the effort of returning to writing fiction; rather, it was coming to terms with a story that was completely different in terms of pace, narrative voice, structure and point of view. Blonde on a Stick and Loss of Separation are poles apart, despite both of them being told from the viewpoint of a male in his mid- to late-thirties. I'm hoping to enter the last third of the novel with a good head of steam. It would be nice to finish the book a couple of months in advance so I can let it steep in its own juices for a while, allowing me to give it another pass before delivery in October.

Listened to: The Blackened Air by Nina Nastasia

Day Thirty-Eight... On hold

2010-04-19T13:00:00.000+01:00

I have edits to take in on Blonde on a Stick, so I won't be working on Loss for the next couple of days. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Thanks for dropping by.

Day Thirty-Seven... Southwick to Amsterdam

2010-04-18T09:06:00.000+01:00

2038 words

No, actually, it was 1038 words. But I also wrote 1000 words of a new short story. The novel also crept over the 50,000 word mark. All in all, a very good day.

One of the problems of writing a first-person narrative is knowing when to leave your character to his or her own devices. For example, the main character in Loss, Paul Roan, is currently travelling by train and ferry to Amsterdam, a logistic nightmare of a trip (have any of you ever tried getting away from the Suffolk coast without the aid of a car?) involving a bus ride, three train changes, an overnight ferry, another train and a tram. It's quite tempting (especially from a word count perspective) to sit next to your hero every step of the way and describe, in excruciating detail, the minute-by-minute travails of such a jaunt. The ticket colours, the quality of the stock they're printed on, the view from the window at any given moment...

You can't do that. Well, you can, but don't expect that sequence of your book not to be skim-read. It's important to truncate in some situations. I've actually written more than I might in this sequence, simply because his epic journey is hampered by his serious injuries; I find it interesting to see how he copes with the strain. Also, a key element of the plot is highlighted by what he witnesses during his trip. So I've managed to get away with a bit more scenery than I would under normal circumstances.

So I missed out on thousands and thousands of extra words because of the necessary lacunae of long-haul travel. The change of scene, however, provides a fresh impetus that's allowed me to open up the throttles a bit. But I can't help but gaze wistfully at my notes. How much more might I have written if Paul was to have travelled to Odessa, as I'd originally intended?

Listened to: The Didsbury avian choir.

Day Thirty-Six... Diary panic

2010-04-17T11:43:00.003+01:00

35 words.

I'd just got started when I saw a tweet from Tom Fletcher (the writer, not the McFly guy) about Hulme, Manchester and remembered I had to be in Hulme too, later in the day, to have my photograph taken and to read a bit from my novel at an event organised by the excellent (and excellently named) Ra Page from Comma Press. But first I had to rehearse the extract and have a shave and find something half-decent to wear that didn't look as though it had spent the winter in Creaseville before travelling to Deansgate to get a mock-up of the cover done, which took for ever to sort out.

Hulme. So named because it's surrounded on three sides by water (the rivers Irwell, Medlock and Corn Brook). The Old Norse word for island is hólmi. Morrissey came from Hulme (he produced a VHS/DVD of promotional films called Hulmerist... see what he did there?). He also, apparently (and this is pre-The Smiths), wrote a play called Eating Toast in Hulme. He gave the only copy he owned to Tony Wilson and asked for his opinion. Wilson lost the manuscript and they fell out over it. Didn't Tony Wilson fall out with everyone? I didn't like him because when Bill Shankly resigned as manager of Liverpool Football Club, Granada TV sent a reporter to the city centre to conduct vox pop interviews with some of the fans. The reporter was Tony Wilson, and I remember he gleefully upset a lot of young LFC supporters who weren't aware of the news.

Anyway, I decided to walk from Deansgate to Hulme for this appointment at Kim by the Sea. I'd navigated the traffic island beneath the Mancunian Way and, noticing that I couldn't proceed down Princess Road without descending into the subway (don't like subways), I decided to cut through the housing estate. I emerged opposite a little park just by the eye-catching Hulme Arch Bridge. There were about a dozen guys sitting at the edge of it, shirts off, whip-thin, with the kind of scary-looking dogs that look as though they'd be much happier spending the day rootling around inside your body cavities than chasing balls or sniffing other dogs' backsides. They all, men and beasts, turned to watch me walk by.

Sometimes it means nothing. Sometimes it's just a bunch of guys people-watching while they bitch about work. But sometimes it could be that you made the wrong choice and you've wandered into a place you don't know at a time you shouldn't have. The only thing you can do is make sure the A-Z is rolled up and hidden in your pocket, open your body up and look as though you know where you're going. While getting ready to motor if someone shouts out: 'Hey, you! Knobhead in the creased clothes!'

Note to self: when talking to a printer, don't expect him to understand what a 'B' format paperback looks like.

Listened to: Our Love to Admire, by Interpol

Day Thirty-Five... Continuity Errors

2010-04-15T16:50:00.001+01:00

1086 words.

In my first novel, Head Injuries, a character's eyes change colour. People who start a scene drinking from a bottle of cider end it by necking beer from a can. A car taken from an alleyway becomes a different make and model by the time it reaches its destination. It was a supernatural novel, so I can kind of get away with some of that. Eye colour change... woooh, spooky. But I obviously hadn't been paying attention to the details. I was young and excited by the fact I was writing a novel; I was into the story, to the detriment of the little bits of decoration I was hanging from it (but what's my proofreader's excuse?). I'm sure I'm not the first, nor will I be the last, writer to suffer from this sort of... oh no, I did it again!

The main character in Loss of Separation can only wear jogging bottoms because of his injuries... so why has he just turned up wearing a pair of jeans? Oh well, at least these days I'm noticing continuity errors like this.

I'm not sure how many people are out there reading this blog (not many, I reckon), but a couple of writers have been in touch to tell me they're finding it helpful and/or inspiring. Which makes it all worth while. Thank you.

Listened to: Soundtracks

Day Thirty-Four... Nessun Lavoro

2010-04-14T07:57:00.000+01:00

0 words.

Another sleepless Zac day. Another workless Conrad day. Had to deal with unexpected admin. Normal service shall be resumed tomorrow, hopefully.

Listened to: Granules of sand slipping through the hourglass of my life.

Day Thirty-Three... Nessun Dorma

2010-04-14T07:53:00.000+01:00

259 words.

Zac has suddenly decided that he no longer requires a two- to three-hour nap. He was asleep for thirty minutes today. I missed the morning slot, and was co-ordinating a Fiction Factory session in the evening, so that half an hour was the sum total of my output.

Listened to: Zac, mostly.

Photographic Interlude

2010-04-10T15:21:00.003+01:00

Perigee, Didsbury, January 29th 2010

It was Opposition Friday too... but I couldn't squeeze Mars into the shot. My lens was too long.

Day Thirty-Two... Lovey Day

2010-04-10T15:08:00.001+01:00

621 words.

Zac (2) opened the curtains at 6 a.m. and looked at me, crumpled into my bed like something that had fallen from the sky, before declaring, eyes wide, hand outstretched, trying to convince me: 'Lovey day!'

He was right, though. It was, and is, a lovely day. A friend tweeted that he had witnessed two woodpeckers mating in nearby Didsbury Park. So it must be Spring. The first really consistently bright day of the year. And I spent it in my room, writing about a child's skeleton being discovered in a dilapidated hotel room. Cheery. I decided I would work until three on Loss, then spend the final two hours of the afternoon either fleshing out notes for Project X, or getting on with one of the short stories that are sighing in the corner of my Mac, tapping their watch faces.

But there's also been the promise (or threat) of wine on the patio with friends this afternoon. When they arrive, will I remain disciplined or will I cave in and absorb some sunshine and Chardonnay? I don't fancy my chances much...

Listened to: New Maps of Hell (I and II) by Paul Schütze.

Day Thirty-One... Out and About

2010-04-10T13:48:00.000+01:00

539 words.

Sometimes I like to get away from the chair and the desk and the screen and go for a wander. I like to find a good place to have coffee and sit and write in my notebook. This is a good place for coffee. This is not. If I have to drink chainstore coffee, I go here.

Today I caught a train into the centre of Manchester and had a mooch around. I looked at insanely expensive things I would like but cannot afford and wouldn't buy even if I could. Fountain pens. Watches. Then I found coffee and wrote words and made some notes on a new project and listened to Spinnerette.

Day Thirty... Lacking prolificity

2010-04-09T16:47:00.000+01:00

0 words.

Didn't get up till late. Didn't have chance to write in the evening. Woe is me.

Day Twenty-Nine... Prolificity

2010-04-07T19:00:00.001+01:00

1072 words.

Some people have described me as prolific. I suppose, compared to Harper Lee or Jeff Torrington or Harold Brodky, I am. But I wish I could write more quickly. I love hearing stories (hopefully not apocryphal) about writers such as Michael Moorcock, who would feed a roll of paper into his typewriter (so that he wouldn't have to tax himself by winding separate sheets into it) and pound out a novel in a weekend.

Georges Simenon is interesting. He would pack a bag, grab his typewriter and head off to some European city or other, check into a hotel and immerse himself so thoroughly in his work that he would have a completed draft of a new novel within twelve days (he could write up to 80 pages per day). He did this regularly throughout his adult life. In all he produced 200 novels (not counting the pulp fiction he wrote under various pseudonyms). There's a fascinating interview with him, available as a downloadable PDF, here.

I managed a novel in four months once. But that novel-in-a-weekend challenge... I'll have a crack at that one day.

Listened to: Bloodsport by Sneaker Pimps.

Photographic Interlude

2010-04-06T10:33:00.001+01:00

Southwold, 2000