Take Us to Your Leader – We Bring Fire

Not wanting to turn this blog into a culture review site I hesitate to follow up my in-depth, Pulitzer prize-winning Derren Brown review with one for Ridley Scott‘s new movie, Prometheus.

Oh, go on then.

This is a movie that seems to really polarise opinion. In the first camp are people (for shorthand I will refer to these as Educated) who understand this is not an Alien prequel and can appreciate a spectacular film made in a familiar universe. The second camp contains people (here I’ll go with Idiots) who  -despite Sir Ridley banging on for months that Prometheus was only vaguely associated with Alien- entered the cinema expecting a direct prequel complete with darkness, dripping chains and xenomorphs with major dental problems.

The answer is of course somewhere in between. As a self-styled Educated Idiot I thoroughly enjoyed the movie -seen in the darkness of Cineworld Didsbury, along-side a number of other lone, forty-year olds wearing U.S.S. Sulaco t-shirts from Last Exit to Nowhere – despite its numerous flaws. There are plot-holes; Idris Elba doesn’t have enough to do and the Space Jockeys turn out to be smaller and less alien than hoped. But it is beautiful -never more so than in the opening scenes of a primordial Earth- and looks truly epic. The benefits of Ridley’s insistence on actually building sets to act against, rather than just going with greenscreen, are really obvious.

Once you realise that the moon all this plays out on is not the same moon as in Alien; different spaceship, different aliens, possibly a completely different time period, it makes a lot more sense. It’s not perfect but it is visually stunning, highly entertaining and though provoking.

Just don’t get me started on the Blade Runner prequel…

What the F*** is Going On?

We’ve been through a lot recently haven’t we? First there was the script rewrite of 180 Days Later following Reader feedback. Then the new feature burbled its way into half-life,  then NaNoWriMo, short stories, the screenplay version of NaNoWriMo, all peppered with new short scripts desperate for writing.

It sounds a lot but some of it -okay, you saw my NaNoWriMo word count, most of it- took place in my head. It’s where most of my stories develop, over weeks and months, until they fall -complete with loud definite click– into place and I can start writing them down. Whilst that fits my idle dreams of being a professional writer -lounging around, having baths, eating peanut butter sandwiches and nursing gin hangovers from late nights boozing with Iain M. Banks (Iain Banks is no fun to drink with, he gets a bit creepy) because underneath I’m really working, gestating my story until it’s ready -with maybe a midwiferly nudge from my publisher, to usher it into the world- I occasionally feel that it might be a slightly, dare I say it, lazy way of working. As I watch others putting in days and days, sweating and straining to produce a first draft, am I deluding myself that honing and perfecting in my head is a short cut to the end of drafting and editing?

Even as I write this blog post I can see the very thing I fear about a traditional process happening before my eyes. What started out as a post to share a useful find that shows how to plot, has quickly changed direction towards a piece of self analysis that I certainly didn’t intend.

I like to feel I understand something before I start. I often find in appraisals at work that I am  described as someone who, whilst quiet, can be relied upon to ask pertinent and incisive questions on the occasions that they speak. I like to have understood, twisted and prodded something before I can vouch an opinion. I feel scared of a new blank page when I don’t fully know where it is going to lead, fearful that the tiny footprints of additional text will upset and unbalance what has come before or what is to come. I need to know what the statue looks like before I pick up my chisel.

This is what happened with NaNoWriMo. I knew the story well, the middle and the ending were just burning scenes in my head aching to be written but they couldn’t be until I knew the characters well enough that their actions and words would flow properly. But I couldn’t start. The gap between the three opening chapters I had written and the final twenty-five just sat there, black and indiscernible. Pretty much the middle of act one where the characters began their dance, met, interacted and set their courses for the story was missing, like a valley that needed bridge.

The bridge is there, I can feel it. Over Christmas I have felt ropes being fired across the chasm, steel cables pulled over and the beginnings of pilings being built deep in the valley.  One or two people, in the peak of physical health could get across but certainly not all of them. It still needs refining and finishing. Then there’s the doubt that it should be a TV series, rather than a novel…

I think that mulling, or in fact running through and watching my film hundreds of times through in my head, tweaking and changing as new ideas, ways to overcome obstacles and just plain damn experiments come along, is a perfectly good approach. It works for me. I am multi-tasking; 90% done on one thing, 50% on three more and tiny, single figures on a handful more. What I need to realise is that alongside doing that you still need to keep sitting down and writing. Not necessarily the same thing but something. Keep those muscles moving, keep honing the craft so that when my story is ready I’ll be able to put it down to the very best of my ability.

Nanananananana

The global phenomenon known as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is almost upon us, with only 1 day to go. Every November a fully exaggerated trillion people try to write a complete 50,000 word within the space of one month, that month being the fairly slow and innocuous month of November.

This year I shall be attempting it.

Novels are what I really always wanted to write. Like other slovenly people, I decided that short stories were a much more interesting -and achievable- form. Then I discovered screenwriting and got fully into that, with its short description requirements and fast cutting bish, bang boom.

But nontheless there is a part of me that always harks after writing a novel, however bad, before my deathbed beckons. Having tried writing a regular blog as a means to stretching my writing muscles regularly -like training for a big event- I wonder if I am now ready for that very event (change later using thesaurus to think of alternative word to event. Sod it).

Deep inside I’m sure I will make it to Friday then give up. That is probably the wrong mind set to approach it. Oh well.

Interestingly my favourite place that I have never visited, MadLab, is hosting a series of write-in events, allowing local Mancunian NaNoWriMo’ers to gather and gnash and type together.

Probably can’t be arsed to do that either but what the hell. Go if you live near.

Do you think you’re supposed to prep and outline first?

Bugger.

What is up with Waterstones?

Waterstones have been struggling for some time. The rise of Amazon, with their low overheads, infinite stock list, free shipping and low, low prices, has dealt them a blow. People deliver the lowest of blows by going to Waterstones to find a book and then, still standing in front of the bookshelf, whip out their smartphones and order them from Amazon.

The future doesn’t augur well either. The rise of Amazon, with their Kindle, suggests there may not be much life left in the high street book stores. Like a thug who decides to kick a man they’ve found lying, already bleeding, in the gutter, Tesco has also played its part.

Waterstones faces a challenge. Be the best, diversify, get niche or get out, as they say. They’re certainly trying. Recent diversification has seen them selling stationary, or giving over large swathes of shop space to ex-notebook nascent super brand, Moleskine. Beyond this they have tried a disturbing new approach to the shop floor, in an industry where the relationship between the customer and the shop space is exceedingly special.

So, basically the solution to increase sales is employ staff to hurl themselves at customers the moment they enter the store. Then, to really badger them into buying books, the secret is to not allow them time to have a gentle browse and to employ yet more staff -wearing a range of t-shirts proclaiming ‘Ask Me’, ‘I love kids books’, ‘Whip me’, ‘Beat me’, ‘Just buy a fucking book’- to ambush people, one after another, after another by asking them ‘do you know what you are looking for’.

I know what I’m looking for. A book. Something entertaining, possibly funny, possibly thrilling, I’m not sure yet. I’m sure it’ll come to me as I peruse the rather large range you have on your shelves. You see, bookshops are not like other shops where, if you are standing around staring at shelves and not moving, you probably need help to find something.

Some stores are the master at this; in M&S or Waitrose there will always be a reassuring middle-aged woman to help you find what you need; I even thought for a long time that Dixons actually sold spotty sales-assistants, because that’s all the place appeared to contain. Bookshops though, are different. People enter a bookshop to mooch. Mooching is part of the pleasure. You need to weigh up books, examine the cover art, feel the play of their words, how they make you feel, in order to choose the one you want. Much, I imagine, like a high-class brothel.

Only with a 3 for 2 offer.

My Favourite Software

It is a fairly well documented fact that I am a geek, occasionally straying into full blown nerddom in certain fields close to my heart. Computer tech -especially that which makes the lives of mere mortals easier being, as it is, fairly central to the thing I call work (though others might refer to it as ‘being jammy enough to get paid to talk bollocks and play with toys’)- is a particular interest. When you factor in my less well-documented problem with procrastination – documented only, as far as I can tell, on the pages of my annual performance reviews- you will understand that where an opportunity exists to investigate how to streamline my life by buying, customising, hacking, then discarding and starting again, hardware or software, I will follow it, even to the detriment of anything more important. So it is with writing.

You will also note reading the above that, as someone who recently wrote a blog post lambasting long, langorous sentences, I am something of a hypocrite. My only defence would be that I do not write langorous sentences; merely long ones, with embedded, multi-nested footnotes.

Procrastination is something I am good at. Not normal ‘I’ll do anything to avoid work’ procrastination but real, truly focused procrastination that feels like it’s going to pay for itself in the long run. I have had more guitar effects pedals and guitars than I could possibly ever need to acheive a great sound but still lack the basic skill to know what note I am playing. I have spent hundreds of pounds on backup solutions, home servers and printers, all to avoid sorting through my photo collection. Some could say I collect albums rather than listening to them.

And now, I seem to have spent half an hour writing about procrastination, rather than anything else, particularly, considering I only started this post due to a desire to promote a wonderful piece of software I use that is so perfect that the only thing I could admit that it lacks is an ‘Insert freakin’ lasers’ button.

Perhaps another time…

I will, however, leave you with a wonderful picture called The Evolution of the Geek.

Sentences

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking recently (see Procrastination) and unfortunately read a few books which made me feel bad about myself. One particular book, (Reading like a Writer, Francine Prose, 2006), reminded me of how so much of this writing world is about Literature. You see I hated English Literature at school, with it’s rambling stories about nothing or dense plays which seemed to get in the way of whatever the hell was going on. I hated English Language too, because I couldn’t really see what we were being taught, mainly due to the fact that I already had a fair grasp of how to spell or string a sentence together using a semi-successful technique I call ‘keeping your eyes open’ whilst walking around and occasionally reading books.

We are taught that everything about the written word is encapsulated in two fields; one the science of syntax and assembly, the other the curation of the works of the Masters. There is no place in between, we are taught, for someone who just likes to write stories, to paint a picture or thrill with a twist.

That’s is why screenwriting seems so much friendlier a community. The artistic, the thriller, the documentary and the avant-garde are all equals. Books focus on structure and tips, how best to tell the story, how best to make the characters real.

I like this because the focus is on being a writer who conveys a story with clarity.

Many of the books I mention earlier, seem to dwell on writing as mastery of The Sentence, the more languid and multi-clausal the better. More emphasis seems to be placed on the presentation than the actual purpose. I can’t stand these “sentences as a paragraph, or even page”, filled with endless description, divergences, alleyways and guinnels.

Take, for example, this opening line from “Farewell to Arms”.

“The mountain that was beyond the valley and the hillside where the chestnut forest grew was captured and there were victories beyond the plain on the plateau to the south and we crossed the river in August and lived in a house in Gorizia that had a fountain and many thick shady trees in a walled garden and a wisteria vine purple on the side of the house.” A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway, 1932

Blimey. You begin to wonder if typewriters, back then, lacked a full stop key and it was too arduous to add them in later with a pen.

And this is from Hemingway, a man renowned for his brevity of sentence.

Cormac McCarthy has no such excuse, as he must have had access to a wordprocessor, even one of those Amstrad jobbies with the funny size disks. Most of this must have been underlined in wavy green.

“When the wind was in the north you could hear them, the horses and the breath of the horses and the horse’s hooves that were shod in rawhide and the rattle of lances and the constant drag of the travois poles in the sand like the passing of some enormous serpent and the young boys naked on wild horses jaunty as circus riders sang as they rode and hazing wild horses before them and the dogs trotting with their tongues aloll and foot slaves following half naked and sorely burdened and above all the low chant of their traveling song which the riders sang as they rode, a nation and ghost of a nation passing in a soft chorale across that mineral waste to darkness bearing lost to all history and all remembrance like a grail the sum of their secular and transitory and violent lives.” All the Pretty Horses, McCarthy, 1992

I really don’t understand. Are people who like this stuff readers too, or do they just like rubbing words over their bodies?