August 4th, 2010

I’m going through a bit of a retro stage. Perhaps my subconscious is gearing up to start working on my Steampunk first draft. I’ve gone on something of a Western splurge, I’m listening to music from my youth (currently Land of Confusion by Genesis) and I’m about to reread an old David Morrell novel. Watching the Westerns and listening to the music brings back all sorts of memories of growing up on the Isle of Man.

My Steampunk novel, so far called Lost Company, is inspired by an old Big Country song Lost Patrol. I loved Big Country when I was a teenager, in the same way I loved David Eddings’s books. I loved all kinds of guitary music - Dire Straits, Gary Moore, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard.

I remember being impressed by Big Country’s latest album, Peace In Our Time, and playing it in a pub on the promenade in Douglas for Simon Rea, now a singer-songwriter. While Big Country clearly weren’t his thing, he said, “It’s good they’re changing, not just staying the same.”

Which is as good a creative philosophy as any I’ve heard. I’m not saying Simon’s words have reverberated through 22 years (God, was it really 1988, when we were in that pub?), driving my writing forwards, but the philosphy behind them encapsulates why I’ve written in so many different genres:

• The Tale of the Birds - Historical fantasy
• The Mask Slips - Contemporary
• The Concubine’s Son - SE Asian fantasy 
• Chess Novel - Young Adults
• Lost Company - Steampunk

So while I’m enjoying wallowing in my retro-phase at the moment, I don’t think it will go on for much longer. Different novels require different music playlists, different styles of writing and different ways of thinking. After the Steampunk novel, I’m planning on writing one of two thrillers I’ve mapped out. I already know the music I’ll be listening to then, and it won’t be Dire Staits or Big Country. They’re perfect for Lost Company, though.

Tags: Genres, Isle of Man, Lost Company
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August 2nd, 2010

I watched two John Wayne films in a row today, all in the name of research, of course. Like before I started my chess novel, I watched a few underdog films. Anyway, Fort Apache, the first Western I watched, is astounding, full of strong character development and with a great battle at the end. Henry Fonda is brilliant, and the minor characters are all well-drawn enough to make them believable and sympathetic.

The second film, El Dorado, co-starring Robert Mitchum and a young James Caan, is more generic, but still enjoyable. The two leads, John Wayne and Robert Mitchum’s characters, had weaknesses that put their ultimate victor in doubt, but the story felt like it was treading water. All the same, the scene where we first meet James Caan’s character should be familiar to all fans of David Gemmell’s Waylander. It was quite a thrill, hearing “Mississippi’s” back-story. I knew David Gemmell was a fan of Westerns - Jon Shannow aside, Waylander is similar to any of Clint Eastwood’s cowboys - but I wonder now if the idea for Waylander’s backstory quest somehow lodged into his subconscious after many hours spent watching similar style Westerns. After all, he once wrote that Legend was his attempt to put right the story of The Alamo.

I think this summer, I’ll watch a few more Westerns. The plot might be familiar at times, but that’s because there’s a pureness to the storytelling that’s hard to beat. Greedy landowner/cattle rustler/bandit picks on a little guy. In rides the tortured/weakened gunslinger to help out. That said, Fort Apache was something different. In a class of it’s own, really.

Anyway, this summer holdiday, if just a little of the magic of Howard Hawks or John Ford can rub off on me, like alot of it did on David Gemmell, I’ll be happy.

Tags: Westerns
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August 1st, 2010

Ages ago, I bought “The Mammoth Book of Sword and Honour.” It took me a while to get round to reading it, as any book of short stories does. I always think I’ll dip in and out of the stories, but never do. Last week, I finally bit the bullet for Queen and Country, raised my bookmark high in the air and then planted it solidly in the first page. 

There’s always a satisfaction in reading short stories, often starting and finishing in the same session.The stories in Sword and Honour weren’t all to my liking. To my surprise, my least favourite tended to be the stories of campaigns in the latter quarter of the 19th Century, campaigns I’d often watched documentaries or films about. My favourite story was probably Joseph Conrad’s The Duel, about two Napoleonic officers who conduct a series of duels over two decades. Paul Finch’s Damned Ranker, about a common soldier who wants revenge on an officer, was also very good. A startlingly memorable one  was One Of The Missing by Ambrose Bierce, about a Confederate soldier trapped in a dark place.  

These kind of stories aren’t really my genre. I’ve never read Bernard Cornwell’s Sharp books, or any other books of that ilk. Some of the prose seemed stilted and slow-building by today’s standards - but the authors certainly dealt with weighty issues, by Jove!

I enjoyed reading short stories again. I can’t remember the last time I read a whole book of them (it was probably one of Stephen King’s collections). I found that in this anthology, the range of styles and variations in imagination were so enormous I couldn’t possibly like all the stories - but the ones I did will stay with me for some time. 

The last short story I wrote, incidentally, was a version of the Malaysian legend of Hang Tuah and Hang Jabat. And what a story that is!

Tags: Short Stories
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July 31st, 2010

I write like Ernest Hemingway. Proof: http://iwl.me/s/ac075e8f  

I’m quite pleased with this. Does it matter that with other sections of writing it told me I write like Stephen King, Dan Brown, Robert Louis Stephenson and Charles Dickens? I suppose I should be pleased - all the sections were taken from the opening sequence of Lost Company.

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July 30th, 2010

The inspiration for "Life In Shadows."

I wrote a short story (called Life In Shadows) set almost entirely in the Mandarin Oriental, about a freelance writer’s interview with a reclusive novelist. While exploring the hotel, the freelance writer sees a beautiful, but sad, lady framed between two green shutters.

The Oriental Hotel is an inspiring place, with the famous Bamboo Bar and the view overlooking the Chao Phraya River. And of course, there’s the Author’s Lounge, so named because of all the famous writers - from Jeffrey Archer to Graham Greene - who have stayed in the hotel. In Life In Shadows, Michael, the main character, interviews the reclusive novelist in the Author’s Lounge, and meets the beautiful woman in the Verandah restaurant, pictured above.

The Mandarin Oriental is stunning, then, but so too is Bangkok - a city that’s one of a kind, polluted and crowded, but exciting and beautiful, all at the same time. Perhaps my favourite city in South-East Asia, and certainly in the top five.

Tags: Bangkok, Great Places To Write, Life In Shadows, Oriental, Short Story, Thailand
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July 27th, 2010

This pawn's story is told!

I’ve finished the first draft of my chess novel about an Under 11 team of underdogs. By first draft, I mean the longhand creative splurge that is overlong, overwordy and full of ideas and plot lines that need to be culled mercilessly.

I actually finished it in June, just before the silly season at work started (end of year reports, data entry, parents evenings etc). I started it in August last year, so it’s taken ten months. Would have been quicker if not for real life (moving house, doing up new house, finding a job, starting new job). I’m pleased it’s written, as it’s a story I’ve been meaning to tell for some time, but the thought of all the work that needs to be done on it (typing it up for one thing) is intimidating. There’s also the small matter of diluting the chess so it doesn’t get in the way of the plot. After all, not everyone is fascinated by chess. And it needs a title.

I’m putting it aside for now, and returning to a Steampunk Work In Progress that hasn’t progressed for five years. You get all these characters in your head, and you don’t tell their stories, they keep running around in there, like long lost friends you need to try harder to stay in touch with.

It’s the Summer Holiday now, so I’m hoping to write a good portion of the Steampunk novel in first draft. Maybe half. It won’t be a long book, 100,000 words or so. The good news is, this one does have a title, one of the few times I’ve known a title before writing the story. Lost Company, inspired by the old Big Country song, Lost Patrol.

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June 2nd, 2010

How good is the IPad?

Looking at it purely from the point of view of a casual user, I can answer that question. If I bought an Ipad, it would be to read Ebooks, type up documents and surf the net while watching TV (because it seems so lazy watching TV when I could be on the Internet at the same time).

The IPad looks stunning. Swiping and pinching the screen is as great as it is on the IPod Touch or the Iphone, with the added advantage that clicking on links is easier because everything’s larger. This also makes typing on the touch panel easier. In short, it feels and looks cool, and it could indeed be extremely useful - not to mention fun. The thought of having Twitter, Facebook and my e-mail account readily accessible on the IPad is mightily tempting.  

Reading: It’s too heavy to be held comfortably with one hand, which would grow increasingly annoying as time goes on (not to mention tiring). This would probably prevent me from using it as often as I’d like to read books on.

Web Surfing: Not really being all THAT much of an Internet surfer, I didn’t expect the lack of Flash to be a problem. But it wouldn’t play news items on the BBC website, one of the sites I use most.

Typing:  The touchpad keyboard, while an awful lot easier to use than on the IPod Touch, is still not easy. In short, to use the IPad for typing longer documents, I would have to buy a separate keyboard (at £55!).

Price: I wouldn’t resent the cost of the keyboard so much if the IPad wasn’t so expensive, but at £699 for the model I’d want, Steve Jobs is asking for a lot of my money.  Too much. I’ll wait, because there are bound to be other tablets coming out soon that iron out most of the problems that concern me - the weight, the cost and the lack of Flash.

One more thing. I know Apple is the trendy company, and Bill Gates, is the old fuddy duddy grandad of the 21st Century Information Age - but I remain hopelessly attached to Windows. It’s what I know. So while I love ITunes for my music, for everything else I’d rather use a system that won’t make transferring all my photographs and Word documents into a technical minefield.

Tags: Apple, IPad, tablet, Windows
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May 27th, 2010

Before You Write - Travel!

“Before you write - travel.” I can’t remember where I first read this advice. Although it seems quite old fashioned,  it’s probably the best guideline to prospective authors I’ve ever  heard. I wrote my first novel, The Tale of the Birds, in Cairo. My second, The Mask Slips, is based on my experiences in Sri Lanka. The Concubine’s Son is set in Medieval Vietnam. Many of my short stories are set in places similar to those I’ve visited. None of the novels or short stories would have  been written if I hadn’t travelled.

It’s not just about describing the sights, either. To write about a place in such intimate detail it’s almost like a character of it’s own, unless you’re prepared to read LOADS of travel guides about it, you have to experience it - the smells and sounds, the way the people live in their surroundings. And I guess more importantly - you have to know how it affects you. Because ultimately, that’s the impression you’re trying to put across to your readers. Sri Lanka affected me, for sure. I tried to show how in the Mask Slips.

If you’re still not convinced, just look at the writers whose travels benefited their writing: Graham Greene, Mark Twain, Somerset Maugham, Guy Gavriel Kay, Agatha Christie, Joseph Conrad - the list is endless. And for a good reason. Because travelling broadens the imagination as well as the mind.

As a postscript, I remember my 80 year old Great Aunt’s advice before I left England to live in Egypt: “Don’t drink the water, don’t eat the salad, and don’t catch diseases off any dirty belly dancers .”

Tags: travel, writer
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May 20th, 2010

THE GALLE FACE HOTEL, COLOMBO

The Galle Face Hotel overlooks Galle Face Green

My novel The Mask Slips opens with the main character sitting on a planter’s chair on the veranda of the Galle Face Hotel. The scene is almost shamelessly colonial, something I wanted for the start of the novel, which is about a young Englishman’s struggle to remain dispassionate and unaffected by the people he meets in Sri Lanka. Whenever I read that opening scene, I taste salt in the air.

That the Galle Face is the setting for this colonal scene is in no way a criticism - or at least, not of its stunning veranda. The famous checkerboard area reflects the sunsets, and the salty breeze coming in off the Indian Ocean swishes through the palm trees, lifting, if only temporarily, the humidity.

The Galle Face’s list of famous guests is long, and ranges from Yuri Gagarin to Mark Twain. Arthur C. Clarke stayed there while he finished 3001: The Final Odyssey. The front of the hotel overlooks Galle Face Green, a long patch of grass that runs parallel to the sea and comes alive at night with people gathering to fly kites and play football and cricket. Colombo itself is a great city for shopping - Paradise Road and Barefoot are my favourite shops - and you can pick up some great bargains.

It’s about six years since I last stayed at the Galle Face. Writing this makes me think that could be six years too long. But then, I’m only thinking of sitting on the veranda, staring out at the sea and the checkerboard area, inspired by the exotic setting. Time has a habit of casting a golden sheen over memories, like the sunsets over the checkerboard. The room we stayed in at the Galle Face was noisy and shabby, and the corridors and great staircase were faded remnants of their past glory. There was nothing faded about that veranda, though. Like I said, the colours were golden. And black and white.

Tags: Colombo, Sri Lanka, The Mask Slips, writing
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May 13th, 2010

I’m writing a new book at the moment, a chess-based one about disassociation in children. It’s all going well, except for the fact that all the different elements of my real, non-writing life, seem to conspire daily to prevent me from doing any work. That said, I should have this handwritten first draft finished in the next month or so. By which time I’ll have written around 900 A5 pages. When I eventually come round to editing it, I’ll have a nightmare job cutting it down in size - the original idea was to write a 250 page novel.

Where should I go next?

But there’s another problem approaching. The same one I had with The Tale of the Birds. The same one I’ve had with loads of my short stories. What am I going to call it? The main character is a girl, so I’m tempted to put “Queen” in the title, but that’s been done before, probably many times.

Titles are difficult, and they never seem to come easily. I have loads of works in progress, including this chess one, and precious few of them have even a working title. And titles are so important.

In the end, the reason I went with The Tale of the Birds was because it fitted in with the general saga feel I wanted to create, and also because the sequence in the novel that the title refers to is important, shining a spotlight on Rurik’s (the main character) soul as well as his deeds.  

So I’m wondering - does anyone have a formula for thinking of good, potentially successful titles for stories? Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated.

Tags: chess, novel, the Tale of the Birds, titles
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