What do you Burn?

This week, our environmental (certainly by comparison with the devices that formerly heated our house) wood pellet boiler stopped. In classic comic timing, it also stopped just as we started to get frost on the ground. Through insight, or possibly sheer luck, we have a back-up stove which is capable of heating our whole house but with coal. Quickly it was brought into action while we waited until Monday to call the fitters to remedy our problem.
Whilst the whole episode was a pain in the behind, it got my old ticker thinking: How do you keep the writing fire burning? I'm not talking about writer's block but rather making sure the fuel is there in the back boiler of the mind so that the creative burning processes up front are not starved! How does one ensure an ever ready supply of ideas and situations to colour our minds?
Writing, by its nature, can be such a solitary pursuit. Ideas are often rampaging around our heads while the outside world is blissfully unaware of the turmoil inside. So I tried to distil what it is that supplies the fuel to myself. I have come up with three items, which are by no means the only sources available. They just happen to be the uptakes that I require the most.

1. Observation - Just sitting and watching people. A dangerous pursuit to be sure and one best achieved at a distance. The stories of lives generated in my head by looking at people's actions without knowing their purpose is like my own personal mine. And its being attacked with charges, not pick-axes! Sometimes I can sit for an hour or two happily telling the story of the blank canvas in front of me. It's similar to when they made the old cartoons. There were different layers in each frame, one of which was just the character on its own. This is what I see and my mind fills in the background. No doubt it would be a disturbing reveal to the poor subject of my thoughts! Little did they realise they were hiding from the spawn of an ancient demon, summoned by a cult of long and twisted history!

2. Read Real Life - There is nothing weirder than real life. If I think of all the bizzare fictional stories I have read, none compare to the weird happenings we get in real life. So sometimes it is justified to read those trashy tales in either glitzy magazines or the obscure "enquirers". Often when I come up with an idea that I think is either unique, or just !way out there", a review of things I have read within the last six months shows where that idea came from. There is nothing new under the sun it seems!

3. New Places - For atmosphere and ambience creativity, you cannot beat a trip to somewhere you have never been. It doesn't need to be exotic, nor popular. This is because it's the little details that you pick up and use in another vista that matters. Like cartoonists we build layer upon layer with our locations, each frame drawn from something we have seen, smelt, touched, tasted or heard. Like how even the sea air varies depending on which beach you are on. A little change does you good!
These are my three bags of coal, lumps of wood or pellets to burn. What are yours?

Where They Lead We will Follow!

Do your characters behave? Do they follow their profiles and those wonderful storyboards that you have placed in your rough notes? Mine don't. They are getting out there with a mind of their own! I start to write and then for some reason the words just take off in a totally unexpected direction. It's good that I write fiction lest I change the history of the world.
The difficulty is not in the initial write, which is more often than not great fun. The problems arise when I start rereading chapters and realise that my continuity has been somewhat shot to pieces. Vital pieces of pre-information have to be inserted into previous chapters and often certain lines or actions obliterated. Scars are formed and wounds miraculously healed. Hidden objects become not so hidden and crucial devices are now laid out to the scrapyard, possibly hoping for a part in a further adventure.
I guess what I am trying to say in all this (and as a writer hopefully with some alacrity - but maybe not) is that these masterpieces we write are not just dead words of a pointless tale. To us writers, they are our children, our window boxes - cultivated  and replanted until they bear true fruit. Even when published we want to rein them back in. Taking our favourites through difficult times become emotional milestones and yet we have never even left the room, or coffee shop in my case.
One must contend though that this is a good thing. It is actually the means by which most of our feelings and passions become real on the page. To live these moments with our impetuous, scallywag characters makes them true and not a two dimensional fraud. So although I laugh at writers who cry and shout at their characters (and also at myself) for getting too personal about these children of ours, I say this: Let them run wild and free, to take me to the places I could never get to on my own!

The Dangers of Character Formation from Friends!

So you are writing this new novel and thinking about characters. You get the feel of a person in your head, sketch out their looks to your mind's eye and then pick up on their moods and tastes. Then you think of a name. Oops. You just described someone you know.
One of the hardest things is when you take bits and pieces of people and blend them together to create a character. At times I find myself switching into the moods and modes of my friend or colleague rather than the character in the book. Disassociating real life from the book can be fretful, especially when you have been engrossed in the book for hours at a time. Worse yet, you start calling your friends by the name of their characters. And then they answer back! This way madness lies.
So in order to prevent friend-character intertwining observe these simple rules.
1. Never take characteristics of people you have strong feelings for! You may talk to them like they can reciprocate these feelings! Bad if they are not your partner! Especially if your partner is there!
2. Never tell someone you have based a character on them, especially if the description is somewhat derogatory!
3. Always change their hair colour! No one will ever suspect it's them with a different colour of hair, unless they are bald!
4. Never write in their accent! You will get it wrong and get punched!
5. Do these rules apply if your subject is deceased? Well that depends on how superstitious you are!
Let's keep it sane people! Well saner! (if that's a word)

The 4x4 Slicing Machine

It's summer time on the island which leads on to that epic battle between the grass and my weapon of choice. Being June one would expect that the sun would shine and I could stroll along with my little electric mower, producing those smart, neat, thick lines that speak of a well tended cricket pitch-like lawn. Welcome to the Isle of Lewis. It's been raining on and off so an electric mower is out of the question. No worries I have a petrol beast. It's actually been quite warm. Well warm for Lewis. Certainly no ice. And so the grass is sprouting and I reach for the green blade eating machine.

Hold it. Not tonight! They are out! The midges. Tiny, little and very evil flies (or possibly hell-hounds) that get into every orifice and munch your delicious skin until you scratch that very human covering off yourself. No amount of nets protect and clothing cannot truly ever cover all of one's self. Leave it a night.

Okay. five nautical miles per hour wind so the hell hounds have retreated to their bushes. Take out the mower, fuel her up, yank the rip cord. Calmly wait while last year's oil is taken through the system and emerges in a choking grey plume to blow across your face! Cough bravely. Cut the grass.

It's then you notice. Dry on the top, wetter than the ocean beneath. This causes the machine to grind to a halt every five yards as it cannot generate enough suction to remove the wet grass to the collector. Feel your arm muscles improve with each pull of the rip cord. Then swear loudly as the rip cord brakes. Then as the mower does go forward ever so briefly watch the back wheels spin on the wet grass so that it is only your physical effort that keeps the heavy beast going forward.

But the worst is the uneven surface causing the blade to occasionally catch the surface and cut deep into it. The motor invariably fails to protect itself and we have to pull the ever diminishing rip cord again. Why did we think we could make a lawn out of a moor!? Maybe a roller would do it. The size of the unevenness makes me suggest the roller would need to be the sort used on motorway construction!

Still nights are drawing in. Soon be snowing and I'll have my perfectly flat, even and very white lawn. Greens overrated, I love winter!


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My poetry book: "Four Life Emotions"
ebook
Paperback

Hey Mr Postman! Making an eBook a Paperback!

This image has had me on tender hooks for the last week. Everyday, several times a day, this image pops into my mind and in the most strangest of places. Feeding chickens and my mind says "Is it here?" Fending off aircraft from each other in the air traffic control tower and the weather is poor. There's a doubt whether the aircraft will arrive. All that goes through my mind is "If the aircraft with mail doesn't land then my book won't land either!" Even changing the little one's nappy and all I can think is "where's the book?" when normally all I think is let's get this done quick!

This was definitely a new phenomenon to me. For those who don't know I have published an eBook of poetry and am now in the process of self-publishing it as a paperback. Trust me the eBook was easy by comparison. I went with Indie publisher Smashwords and they laid out a whole scheme of how to format the book. I followed that and once it was prepared it was a matter of a day to then actually publish it. Then it jumped onto their site and soon after onto various eBook sellers. No long wait, no grinding nerves. Downloaded it and checked the copy almost instantly.

However the printed word is not so easy. To be fair I went with Createspace and their software and instructions were good and I had the book draft ready fairly quickly. But now they are sending out the proof and it is taking a while. Again to be fair they are in the USA, I am in the UK. They took probably less than 24 hours to get the book printed and underway. But I didn't pay for the fastest delivery as it was extremely more expensive though I did go for the intermediate postal service. If I had any hair left to tear out it would be gone, so praise Him as I am a baldie! The song is right, the waiting is the hardest part.

So now I having waited the great dread is coming upon me! What if there's a mistake? Did I miss a comma, an apostrophe, a full stop!? How come the smallest things cause the greatest anguish? So please any would be writer's out there who long to see their precious manuscript make that leap from computer type to embalmed delight take it from me - while that wonderful cargo is in the post plan a holiday, somewhere far, far away! Possibly Mars would do. Failing that take the second star to the right and straight on til morning. And Mr Postman, if you return to sender...................


Four Life Emotions, the eBook is available here. Look out in the coming months for "I am Thunderstorm" my first kid's book and also "A Lighter Shade of Dark" a collection of short allegorical stories, both appearing in eBook and paperback format, details when available at my Smashwords homepage.

Looking for Myself I found a Zombie!

It was an exciting time to say the least. I had just sent my first e-Book to the publisher and it was then winging its way through the ether to various platforms, to be uploaded for purchase. Eagerly I got onto my favourite search engine and typed in the various sites using my name as a search. Well what a palava! One site has me lobbed in with Laurel and Hardy and other comedy classics. Another has me in with a baseball prospectus. But the absolute best was one that did indeed have my book and another of an apparently "similar" read beside it. The similar read was the sixth in a series all about zombies! My book: a book of poetry taking you through four of life's emotions.

So I thought, can I get a proper cross over out of this. Do I publish the long awaited poetry book - Zombie life: The Four Primary Emotions? And what would they be? Well hunger for one! Could I manage such delicate material as the insatiable desire for the human brain? "Hair in my Pudding" comes to mind as a good title. Actually taking that through to its logical conclusion that puts us bald people more at risk. Disturbing! Other titles: "Why do I feel like I'm always in second gear?", or, "My Sprinting Days Behind Me". "Arm Ache Blues" also leaps out as a promising title. But I settled with this, see what you think?

I'm Stuck with this Moaning Crowd

I've got in with a really bad crowd,

Indeed sometimes they can be just so damn loud,

But it's not like they party til dawn,

Instead they just drone on and on.

We all dance in the same stupid fashion,

Arms outstretched is our popular passion.

We all seek to be first at the head

But that's where it's at when you're dead.

If you're new and wonder how to begin,

We'll all surround you and help you fit in.

If you keep pace with us through the night,

It's farewell at the first sign of light!

Think I'll stick with the living, it's got fresher subjects!

Four Life Emotions is my book of non-horror poetry.

Vote Maybe!

So the big vote looms upon us in Scotland. We brace ourselves for the casting adrift from the UK or to gird our loins to continue with our fellow Brits. Yes or No! Senses have been inflamed with nationalistic fervour and clamour to maintain the long lasting union. Debate has raged, numbers have been crunched and all sorts of speculations ranging from oil fields to Europe, start-up costs to immigration quotas, passports to governance plans have been voiced. Are you just a little lost too?

Having grown up in Northern Ireland my viewpoint, I admit, is slightly skewed. Raised on the side of the fence that was keen to remain British, I found the fact that the same faith community in my local area was often happy to let such blessed ties go, a little unnerving. However I can understand the desire to be independent. Often I wished Northern Ireland could be on its own and not be fought over. But what are the real things that should drive us to our decision?

Economics? Well both sides seemed to be able to prove whatever depending on what statistics they choose to use. National pride? Both sides show this, be it proud to be a Scot or a Brit. Benefits? Both sides are keen to show how the individual will be better off. After all the discussions and debate I am left a little bemused and definitely uncertain.

I think I'd like to vote for a different party. The MAYBE party. Standing on the principle that ultimately whatever we choose its a punt in the dark. Heading to the unknown. Who knows what crisis will affect us in ten years time or twenty? Will the environmental crisis truly deepen? Will there be war on our doorstep? Will we face an unknown blight in the economic field or even health field?

So what am I saying? Merely this. Whatever the decision made, that will not be what defines Scotland in years to come. Rather how Scotland unites or not, how Scotland reacts to the decision as a nation, how Scotland, the stalwart of invention and engineering over the years, seeks to again make its mark as a small country in a large world, will determine it's legacy to the world. Will we be seen as something small, taking in from the world, or will Scotland be a pioneer again, blessing the world with our skills, arts, culture and faith. Whatever flag or colour we drape ourselves in, it's our actions that prove our mettle!