I’ve never really been much into new year’s resolutions, but this year decided that I shall make a list of my aims and goals for the year. It goes something like this…

1. I aim to spend absolutely no time in hospital this year. None. Zero days. In 2007 I managed a grand total of 1 month in hospital, which is a bit excessive, even for me! 2008 I fared better and spent only 4 days as a resident of one of the NHS’s best establishments. For 2009 I’m aiming to get that down to 0 days, on the grounds that one of these years it’s got to happen! Routine clinic appointments and such like obviously don’t count, but we’re aiming for no time as an inpatient.
2. I shall be aiming to write something here every day.
3. (Bliss will like this one) Possibly doing some form of writing on one of my various creative projects every day is asking a bit much, and some days time commitments, prior engagements, and falling asleep at strange times due to the damned buprenorphine, make committing to creative writing every day a bit of a tall order. Instead I shall say that I will commit to doing some form of creative writing on a weekly basis. As I have a habit of starting off new projects before I’ve finished previous ones, I shall start no more until all my current projects are finished. So that I make some progress on all of them, I’m going to be trying to do some word on each every week. Every year for the past four years I’ve said “This is the year for Fallen Angel” (long term novel project first started when I was in college, rather a long time ago now), but this year, though I’m not committing to finishing it (a couple of shorter projects that require less research will probably get finished first), I shall make significant in-roads into getting it well on the way to getting there.
4. I will make time to read every day. I did make significant progress on this towards the end of 2008 after I drew up a list of “must read” books and went shopping at Amazon, and am pleased to report I actually managed to finish two books in the space of a month, which is a first since IIH struck. Reading’s still pretty hard going at times (it’s a lot easier to read on screen where you can resize text as necessary), but I’m determined to keep up with reading, as not only is it good for the soul, but it’s also a prerequisite for successful writing – read a lot, and write a lot.
5. I shall not ignore emails in my inbox and let them pile up so it takes hours to wade through them all and to reply to them where appropriate, file as necessary, or otherwise dispose of (as I ended up doing yesterday, trying to clear the backlog going back to October!
6. Finally, I’m going to be me. Not the me everyone thinks I ought to be, or thinks I am, but the me I know I am, and that means no more hiding behind stuff and actually getting back to being what I want to be. Again, I made significant in-roads in progress on that in 2008, and I shall continue that in 2009. If everyone else doesn’t like it – tough!

And finally…

fettle \FET-l\, noun:
A state or condition of fitness or order; state of mind; spirits — often used in the phrase “in fine fettle.”

dictionary.com

Now although I have heard the phrase “in fine fettle”, around here, to fettle is a term used to describe having a damned good clean of something, as in “That floor’s filthy; I’m going to give it a good fettle!”

It’s not a phrase I’d say I’ve heard often, or used an awful lot these days, but according to the Steel Founders Society of America, it is,

British term meaning the process of removing all runners and risers and cleaning off adhering sand from the casting. Also refers to the removal of slag from the inside of the cupola and in Britain to repair the bed of an open hearth.

SFSA

That kind of makes sense actually, because it’s not a word I’ve heard commonly in other parts of the country, and here in Derbyshire we’re not a million miles away from the borders of South Yorkshire, and of course areas of Yorkshire, and in particular Sheffield, which is only a few miles up the road, are, or formerly were major steel producing centres, and my mum, who’s the one person I know who regularly uses the word, grew up in Yorkshire (though she doesn’t like to admit it ). I also remember my granny, when I was much younger, and in the days when they had an open coal fire talking about “fettling the grate.”

So there you go; a local word that comes from the area’s former heavy industry. Obviously no-one told those nice people who wrote the dictionary that though!

My own reaction was that it’s an integral part of the story, and quite apart from adding the detail of a sense of place, and at times mood and emotion to the story, as well as giving the reader a rich array of sensory stimuli encompassing visual, auditory, sensory (in terms of touch), and olfactory cues that all add to the whole experience and the world the reader conjours up in their mind, that those descriptions are essential to the whole story. So far the weight of opinion seems to be firmly, infact unanimously that these detailed descriptions are an important part of the whole thing.

This raises an interesting point though, because how much description is too much description? I’m not a huge fan of “how to write” books, preferring the getting in their and getting on with it and writing by instinct approach myself. I do own a few of these type of books though, and one in particular has a chapter entitled “show, don’t tell”, and it’s very good advice that I’ve always tried to keep in mind. Showing a reader an image, whether that’s created by visual description, auditory, sensory, or olfactory cues, whether a gesture, an action, or a snippet of dialogue, is nine times out ten preferable to a bald description of the fact.

How much is too much though? Presently, ‘Fallen Angel’ is again resting, due to my head being gatecrashed by a couple of newcomers who have been demanding louder and more vociferously than Kerry and co. that I write about them. Unable to ignore them, I’ve been doing just that (although this week I’ve gotten sidetracked somewhat by the demands of my OU courses as I have three assignments to get in before the end of the month), but aside from struggling with the opening line – damned opening lines are always hard work, and in general I tend to start writing a couple of sentences in, and come back to the first line when I’m further into it and have a better idea of the feel of the piece and where things are headed – I’ve been struggling a little with the whole issue of how much description is needed.

In this case it’s not helping that the writing’s not strictly my usual genre, and I’m trying to make sure that I’m getting geographical and historical references right, but as always with something new, at first it’s a struggle to get a measure of how much description’s needed and how much should be left to the reader’s imagination. I don’t want to spoon-feed them (I’m talking in the plural in the hope that maybe more than one person will want to read it) and overwhealm them, stifling a reader’s natural tendancy to form their own version of the world it’s set in, but at the same time I don’t want to make picturing the place too much like hard work. It doesn’t help that in the opening scene there’s only one character, so no chance for any dialogue, and I’m very conscious of not over-doing the whole thought-processes thing.

These are the first couple of opening paragraphs of Before Dreams Die, the working title I’ve given this new venture…

The truck crunched across a little gravel before rolling to a standstill on the scrubby grassy area at the foot of a stand of pines. He pulled on the parking brake and killed the engine. There was scarcely a sound to be heard in the serenity of Willow Creek except for the slow ticking of the engine as it cooled. He closed his eyes and rested his head back with a sigh, letting out the breath he’d been holding for it felt like the whole of the drive. So near and yet so far.

For a moment he let his mind go blank, simply savouring the heat of the summer sun through the windshield, and the slight breath of the breeze on his arm through the open window, the nature quiet hush of the morning, a whole blissful week of freedom stretching before him.
~~Before Dreams Die: Bliss Carrington

I’m still not sure. Like I said, I’m very conscious of not over-doing the description, but on the other hand not skimping on it either. I’m also very conscious other the other little handy bit of advice remembered from my “how to write” book, and that’s to start with the motor running. Starting with the motor running’s about not starting the action too soon and boring the reader to tears before the action starts, but not leaving it so late that they’re thrust into the middle of a situation with no clue as to what’s going on (although at times that can have it’s advantages).

I guess what I really need to do’s to stop obsessing about getting every single word right and get on with the story. I can always come back to the opening paragraphs again later, and of course the quicker I get on and get the damned thing written, the sooner I can get back to Kerry and co. before they start bitching again that I’m not writing about them!

What did we do before eBay came along? I’m not just talking about buying complete tat, rubbish we don’t really need, because there are an abundance of “bricks and mortar” places where we can do that. Charity shops sell all sorts of junk. Then there’s your good old fashioned junk shop, or second hand shop, and those ubititous “pound shops” (those places where everything is priced at £1 = cheap imports that fall to pieces/break as soon as you get them home, and you’re so embarassed to admit you bought something from one of those places you daren’t take it back – quite apart from the fact the bus fare to get there costs more than the £1 you paid for the item).

Then of course eBay provides us with a place to sell all those embarrassing 80s records we don’t usually admit to owning, or those jeans we’ve outgrown from 1995, which we post advertised as “vintage denim” (sounds much better). No, where eBay really comes into it’s own is in the fact that you can buy practically anything on eBay. “And this is a good thing?” you’re wondering. Well yes.

Say, for the sake of argument (having just had a quick look on eBay at auctions ending in the next few minutes), you wanted to buy a “Job lot of 71 Marvel/QC/Cliffhanger etc. – must see comics!” or a “Dual Hosepipe Shut-off connector fits Hozelock” – where would you even start searching for something like those online? Okay, so presumably you’d head on over to Google and start searching, but is there a particular shop you know of that sells those sorts of things? Do they have an online presence? With eBay it’s all under one roof, so to speak, and you can compare similar items from a number of sellers, and pick up some stuff that’s either common tat, or something really rare and unique. Then of course there’s the thrill of beating off the competition to bag that bargain just a nano-second before the auction ends…

“BUT WTF HAS EBAY GOT TO DO WITH THE CREATIVE PROCESS?” you’re still wondering. Well my recent purchases on eBay include, amongst other things, a brass ashtray, an old road-map from the 60s, a hotel room key from the 60s, assorted postcards, an old car licence plate, and a model toy truck. Where else but on eBay could you find such an odd assortment of things? How would you even start searching for such things elsewhere?The sellers may have described them as “vintage”, and some might describe them as “rubbish”, but to me they’re something far more important. They’re inspiration.

To actually be able to hold something in my hands, to look up close at, and to study things that come from the era and the area I’m writing about brings part of that world into my world, and actually being able to see those things infront of me, rather than just trying to imagine in my mind’s eye what they would have looked like, makes them real. They’re more real now to me, and maybe, if I do it right, they might be more real to readers of my story as well.

Little did those eBay sellers know it, but when they posted those packages to me, sometimes from far away, that those “vintage” items they posted on eBay to clear out some room in an over-stuffed cupboard or attic, or on the off-chance that someone just might be interested in them, for whatever reason, they’d cease being just old bits and pieces that might possibly be of interest to someone who collects odd things, but now they’re momentos of a story.

So now their transformation begins in earnest, the transformation from inspiration into momentos, because as my story progresses they become more than inspiration, and actually become part of the story itself, because each of them, in their own way, plays a part in the story. Nowhere else on the web could you find the ‘props’ to make that happen.

Anyhow, here I am, at long last ready to re-commence work on “Fallen Angel”, and what happens? A couple of gatecrashers take up residence in my head! That’s what happens!

There I was at work the other week, quietly minding my own business and eating my sandwiches, when out of no-where these two gatecrashers appear in my head. No introductions, no “Nice to meet you”, they just waltzed in there like they own the place!

Fortunately as it was lunch time everyone else was out of the office, because otherwise they’d have thought I was crazy. There I was, eating my coronation chicken sandwich and trying to update some records on the system without getting coronation chicken all over the keyboard, when these two muppets appear out of no-where, make themselves at home, and start up a conversation.

So there I am, in the middle off the office, thinking I must be going slightly crazy, because having two complete strangers wandering around in your head (only they’re not complete strangers because they’ve been wandering around there in the shadows for a while now and I’ve been trying to ignore them, but I digress) is not quite normal really.

By this time I’d given up any hope of trying to do any work, and fortunately I’d finished my sandwich. I ended up sitting with my head in my hands, with my hands over my ears, talking out loud to them. The conversation went something like this:

Me: PLEASE guys, keep it down will ya? I’m trying to work here!
Muppet #1: Huh? You talking to us?
Me: Well unless anyone else has taken up residence in my head, yeah, I’m talking to you!
Muppet #2: [whispers something to Muppet #1 who starts giggling]
Me: And you can cut that out too!
Muppet #1: Sorry, we’ll try and keep it down.

…I try to do some more work, and a few minutes later obviously I’ve become invisible again because now the conversation’s even louder and they’re laughing uproariously at something and I’m not in on the joke (though from the near empty bottle of whiskey at the side of them I’m guessing they’re drunk)…

Me: Guys!
Muppet #1: Sorry, we’ll [giggle] try and [uncontrollable laugher]
Me: Just come back tonight! I don’t care how late, but I NEED to get this finished, so just give me a break, huh?

Of course the end result is that they’re louder and more demanding than Kerry and Finn and co. and they’re demanding that I write about them first. Naturally Kerry and Finn and co. are none too impressed by this news, but when they’re real and they’re in your head, you just have to write about them (especially when they’ve rather conveniently mapped out the story and told you the ending). Finn just shrugs, but from Kerry I get one of those looks, the ones that proceed World War 3 starting up in my head. When Kerry gets pissed off the result isn’t pretty. The good news is that the gatecrashers aren’t asking for a full blown novel to be writen about them; they’re quite happy with a short story, which at least means that if I’m lucky I won’t have to endure Kerry sulking for too long.

Why do these characters suddenly take it upon themselves to invite themselves into my head? I have a theory, but I’ll save that one for another day. In the meantime I shall sellotape my eyes shut and stick some cotton wool in my ears tonight when I go to bed in the hope of stopping any more damned gatecrashers getting in while I’m not looking. It’s getting far too damned crowded in there!

It’s fifteen years since the inception of Fallen Angel – fifteen years! I can hardly believe it sometimes. Fifteen years and I’m still only up to Chapter 7 and currently on re-draft #4. (though I seem to recall that draft #2 did get as far as Chapter 13) There’s no doubt about it, RL gets in the way, and it’s a god damn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation alright. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently though, and reading, and reading’s always good for me. Food for the soul. That and the fact that Finn, and Kerry, and Rob, and Chrissie, and the rest of them are whining in my ears, “You’re not writing about us damn it!” has got me thinking again; thinking and planning, and I’ve come to the conclusion that RL can wait damn it!

I have four basic problems, and the problems are thus…

Problem #1: Lack of planning

Fallen Angel started out way back 15 years ago as a “what if..?” and at the time never particularly had a plan. I just started writing because I had to. The characters were there in my head and they demanded to be written about, so I got on and did it, but there was no particular plan, no particular plot from the start. In the early days, draft #1 was very much influenced by Stephen King’s “Strawberry Spring” from his short story compilation “Night Shift”. The opening scene in fact (which was the final scene, but appeared in version #1 as a prologue) was a scene inspired by ‘Strawberry Spring’. It wasn’t how I’d intended it to end at all, but it just felt right (even though I hate sad endings damn it!) ‘Strawberry Spring’ was set in a US college campus, which I guess was what caused that original ping in my mind, being at college myself at the time, and later on “Hearts in Atlantis” influenced it a fair bit too.

Apart from the fact there was no plot in my mind, no plan to speak of, for how we were going to get to that final scene, I realised that I didn’t really know the characters either, and after a period of “what-the-hell-do-I-do-now?!” I realised I needed to go back to basics and really get to know the characters before I could start to write about them with any conviction. And so began a spell of writing the story of each of the characters from their point of view, their childhood, their experiences, their hopes and their dreams. Two A4 note books became my constant companion, and gradually the characters became not just the original people they were loosely based on (I freely admit that the original characters may not have been entirely fictional), but people in their own right, and from then they’ve become individuals themselves, with wills of their own (they rarely do what I expect them to do), the people who live inside my head, my constant companions.

The plan for getting to that final scene developed around that time. It was a loose plan, but it was a plan none the less, and though there’s a kind of plan in my head, that’s the first problem, because the plan’s not detailed enough. I knew I needed to do a fair bit of background research, so off I’ve been researching this, and researching that, and gone off a-wandering down many a sidetrack on something that interested me, and may be of some use, but I’ve neglected the fact that the plan’s just not detailed enough to get me to where I want to go to. It’s like going off on a trip to visit “my friends in the south” and knowing their address and the road they live on, but forgetting to look up the road numbers inbetween.

My working days though (the non-web ones) I spend making plans. I work in strategy damn it, so surely working out a strategy for getting from A, the beginning, to Z, that final scene isn’t beyond my wit! It’s worked successfully in the past. The as yet unfinished “Womble Casserole” had a detailed chapter by chapter, and scene by scene where necessary, plan, which although not written in stone, and had the flexibility to accommodate the odd change of plan, or the odd extra scene, was detailed enough that we knew where we were going when we got to the next junction. So did the “Greatest western which shall never see the light of day” written with my good friend Peter, and that sort of lurched it’s way to an alcohol fuelled conclusion too.

So, next step, the detailed plan for Fallen Angel!

Problem #2: The devil’s in the detail

Now being obsessed with research (I’m a researcher by trade) of course when I realised that to get me to that final scene, I needed more knowledge to fill in the gaps of the details, I set off on a gargantuan quest to equip myself with the aforementioned knowledge, but I’ve been so busy researching that along the way I forgot that the fundamental goal of this is to write the story, and there’s no reason why I need to equip myself with all the detail as a prerequisite to getting going. Something comes up that I need to fill in the details of, of check something out for the sake of accuracy, then I can toddle off and check it out.

Step 2: stop with the obsessive researching and get on with the damned writing!

Problem #3: No such thing as happy ever after

RL’s kind of been a bitch just recently, more so than usual, and I’ve been down for a while now. When I’m down, that affects my writing, sometimes in a positive way, depending on the character, but when I get too low I lose motivation, and I lose objectivity, and it clouds my judgement and my writing.

Recently though I’ve realised that I’ve got to chill a little more (or rather a lot more) and I’ve realised I need to reassess my priorities. I’ve been doing some reading, in fact a lot of reading, and reading some damned good work by some very talented writers, and allowing myself space take time out and escape into another reality. I really needed that, and it’s made me realise that not only is anything possible in fiction, and that I can, if I really want (and if Kerry and co. don’t object too much) change the course of Fallen Angel, but I’ve found my smile again.

Realisation #1: In fiction anything is possible.

Problem #1: Let them speak

The final problem is in a way the easiest to fix. It’s been so long now that I’ve been slogging my guts out trying to be superwoman and trying to do everything, and more on top, that for far too long I haven’t let myself escape into the world of fiction. I’ve been doing just that recently, and exploring a whole world of fiction out there on the web (so much easier than traditional books because a) I don’t have to leave my beloved Diva to read it, and b) I can ramp up the text size so I can read it easily) and there’s some damned good stuff out there. The quality of some it, and the honesty with which it’s written has reminded me of something that’s badly missing from ‘Fallen Angel’.

The fact is that I’ve been seeing the story through my eyes, and it’s not my story, it’s Kerry’s, and Finn’s, and Rob’s, and Chrissie’s, and the rest of the gang’s. To do what I set out to do I need to take a step back and let the story through their eyes, to let them speak and let them tell their own story with full brutal honesty.

They’re in my head, and they talk to me, they talk to me all the time. They’ve been known to butt in when I’m trying to concentrate on work, and when I’m dozing off to sleep they come and whisper in my ear, and when I’m at work and I pop out for a quick smoke they chatter away (that’s their favourite time for chatting). They tell me when they don’t like what I’m doing, and just lately they’ve been telling me, “You’re not writing about us damn it!”

I want to tell their story, and I want to tell it through their eyes, and I hope I’m up to the job. So I asked them if it’s okay.

We were sitting on the fire-escape behind the office, the sun just setting as they all started the night shift, their favourite spot for chilling and escaping the gloom of their subterranean office space, and it felt right that that’s where I asked them – the place where it all began and their story started in earnest, and I felt honoured to be included in the conversation. Usually I lurk in the shadows just a little way down the car park, watching them quietly and trying not to laugh at their skitting and (mostly) good natured office banter. Rob just shrugged, non-committal as always, and Chrissie said, “It’s okay by me,” looking slightly nervous at the thought, pressing her lips together like she does when she’s pondering on something. Finn, ever the showman scuffed a trainered foot in the dirt, then threw his arms wide, and with a grin that nearly split his face in two, announced, “Yeehaw! You go girl! Let ‘em have it!” Kerry, with piercing blue eyes, simply winks. No words needed.

I guess that’s a green light on that one then.

I just hope I can do them proud.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had the urge to write. When I was nine, my headteacher at junior school, Mr Keating, had an accident. He had a heart attack while up a ladder pruning an apple tree. All the kids in the class made him cards to send and wrote letters to him. I wrote him a story. I think my mum’s still probably got a copy of it somewhere. It was all about the accident and his body. His organs all had names and were all dreadfully shocked and shook up when he fell from the ladder, and they had conversations and chatted together, rallying round to make him feel better.

When I was 10, in the top year of junior school, in an English class we were given the task of writing a story about going into space. We had to imagine what it would be like, what we’d wear, and the things we’d see. We all got down to writing, and by the end of the class most of the kids had finished writing theirs. I was just getting into mine. Next lesson Mr Cook, my form teacher let me carry on with it. It featured most of the class as crew, and we had some amazing adventures. A week later and all the other kids were onto other stuff, but I was working away at my story. At the end of each lesson Mr Cook would ask me if I’d nearly finished, and would give a resigned smile when I said I was nearly there, but could I have just a little more time please? In the end it filled six jotters, and Mr Cook breathed a sigh of relief when I finally put away my pen.

When I was in my teens when my health problems first started to affect me badly and I was out of school for nearly three years, it was writing that kept me going and took me to another world. My mum would get sent to the library on research missions for me, and between school work I’d keep myself occupied with writing.

It was while I was at college that I started my “magnum opus”, ‘Fallen Angel’. In it’s first incarnation it’s characters were loosely based on people I was at college with. Since then I’ve written various bits and pieces. I haven’t had anything published since I was in my late teens when I was in a local writer’s group. We got an anthology of the group’s work published, and I had a short story and a couple of poems in it. For a while I had quite a long break from any serious writing, but then in 2001 when I started a new job, I soon discovered that my manager did some writing too. We never really had a normal manager-underling relationship, seeing a lot of each other socially, along with our section head, and inevitably one day when we got onto the subject of writing, one or other of us said why don’t we write something together? And so Womble Casserole was born. We wrote alternate chapters, and it’s very nearly finished – a least my chapters are anyway – it’s just lacking a final couple of chapters from a certain JMB. Maybe one of these days we’ll get around to finishing it.

That kick-started me into writing again though, and I dug out the early drafts of Fallen Angel and dusted it off, re-reading again what I’d already done to remind myself where I was up to before I launched into it in earnest.

Fallen Angel’s currently on it’s fourth incarnation, and it’s changed a lot since my college days and the characters are no longer loosely based on people I was at college with, but are people in their own right. When I started work on it again in 2001, though I was ploughing on with chapters, I realised something wasn’t right. Something was missing. For a couple of months I played about with different opening scenes, and a slightly different plot, and then I realised that I didn’t actually know the characters that well. I didn’t really know them; not really. I didn’t know what they ate for breakfast, what their favourite film was, what made them laugh, and what made them cry. So I set about getting to know them.

I was in Nottingham at the time, doing some trade union training, and I’d take with me along with my course materials a couple of notebooks. In the evenings after the course finished I’d got about an hour’s wait for the bus home, so I’d take myself off to a pub around the corner and sit and write about their lives, asking each of them a series of questions about themselves, and faithfully write down their answers in their own words. In the end I filled four notebooks with their stories, and I felt I was really starting to know them.