1001

A great week last week, where one of my short stories, The Middle Room, was commended as part of Derby Museum’s 1001 objects writing competition.

It was great to hear the winning entries, and get another chance to look around the exhibit again (with added tea and cake – felt a bit weird, but the mugs were nice so I went with it).

The items are arranged in collections of what they’re made of, rather than their historical or social setting which means you get an interesting mix of momentous and everyday items rubbing shoulders with one another.

The contest was to write 1001 words based on one of the items – choosing from this amount of inspirational material was not easy (I’d started writing something about the bottles for Derby businesses in my head before I got halfway around the exhibit), but after a long time of looking back at my snapshots, this was the item that stuck.

It’s a Congolese antelope horn, highly valued, and given as a gift.  I wondered about who would normally get such a stunning thing, and who would be least likely to receive it, to get it almost by accident.  About two hours later, The Middle Room was there on the page.
I’m really pleased I took up the challenge, and I’m really pleased Derby Museums has taken such an interesting approach to showing us the things we collect in the ongoing story of who we are.

Harbours

This week, Appletree Writers are getting ready to publish an anthology to raise funds for the Dunbar RNLI, with stories based around the theme of ‘The Harbour’ – and one of them is mine. 

‘Captain’ began life as a family story (one of the legends re-told and re-argued at Christmas), which began to change as I began to retell it.  I don’t know how – the true story is vivid, and funny, but the story I had to tell took another direction.

By the time I’d edited it, I was somewhere else entirely.  Off the map, in open water.  I had no idea whether anyone else would connect with it, but I knew the only way to find out was to submit it – and I’m really pleased they did. 

I’ve learned a valuable lesson from writing this little story – begin writing what you know, and when your story begins to have other plans, follow them.  Leave the harbour, and see where the story takes you. 

If you'd like to read it for yourself, The Harbour is available to order from the Appletree Writers website.

5k, 29’ and change

I’ve been running on and off for over three years now, and I finally got organised enough to enter my first race last weekend - a five kilometer race around the park - and I feel great for finally making it happen!

The distance is pretty much what I run when I manage to get out and hit the road, but the real achievement was to stand alongside fellow runners and say ‘I can do this.’  I had no idea how long it would take me to run the route, and I underestimated my finish time by about five minutes.  I crossed the finish line just after the average time for the race – should have fired up the Van Halen soundtrack a little earlier…

But that’s the point of standing up and showing the world what you’ve got –  on Friday, I had no idea how good a runner I was.  Now I do, with a benchmark time that shows I can run competitively, and a goal to beat.

And a medal.  Don’t forget the medal.

In Pursuit of Inspiration

Ideas come from everywhere.  Some good, some bad, some only worth a shrug before they go in the bin, some worth pursuing.

The trick is to work out which are the ones worth pursuing.  And then, pursue them.

After a week on a mountain in Wales, this was the last stop before home: Penrhyn Castle, a 19th century palace with all mod cons, paid for with the vast income from coal and sugar sales (the equivalent of investing in Microsoft and Apple way back when).  Wealth like that and land like that means you can build what you want (it's enormous!) and keep what you want, like steam engines: 



The railway museum lets you get up close to the engines, some narrow gauge from the Welsh highland railways that cross the country, some standard gauge that could still feasibly run on the rail network we inherited from the Victorians.

Our classic idea of steam comes from the 'Golden Age' between the wars; Agatha Christie, Brief Encounter, even the Hogwart's Express tips its hat to the Golden Age.  There's a couple of engines at Penrhyn that reflect that era.

There's a utilitarian beauty to those engines - dependable and sturdy, tastefully painted, a respectable machine for a more genteel age of travel.

But I'm more interested in this one.

She's called Fire Queen (great name), built in 1848 to work in a quarry in Llanberis.  In comparison to the kind of engines you see on heritage railways in the UK, she's old school.  She'll have been replaced because she won't pull as much as the 'newer' engines.  And she probably won't forgive a driver who isn't watching what they are doing.


But the in-your-face boldness of the colours, the bling of polished brass sticking out anywhere and everywhere, the oversized wheels and smokestack, Fire Queen looks thrilling.
Glamourous.  Primal.  And fast. 

That's the idea I've pursued in Cole: King of the Rails, behind a story which follows my young hero's friendships, secrets and quest for revenge. 

Where the glamour and thrill of those brightly coloured engines takes on a life of it's own... and changes history as we know it.

I'm hoping to share more of my world with you in the near future.  Until then, enjoy the pics.

Epics starting here!

I had an Epic time at Nottingham Festival of Words this month, especially when I hosted my workshop, 'Your Epic Starts Here!' on Saturday.  The idea for a workshop came from a discussion at the YA and Children's writers group at Nottingham Writers Studio - how can you encourage creativity in younger writers?  Being inspiring during the workshop is just the start - the challenge is to keep it going afterwards...

Epics in waiting before 'Your Epic Starts Here!' begins.

Here's what I came up with - an Epic you can take away with you at the end of the workshop- well, the start of one, anyway...

After I talked for a short while about what I thought made an epic story, the writers in the group got on with creating their own ideas. 

Then it was time for the sharing bit...


...and here's the result! 
Note the change from 'In' to 'On' - love it!

Even with advance warning at the beginning (I didn't want anyone to give something away that was super-precious), the sharing part was a tricky bit - how many times have we guarded a character or a storyline like it was the crown jewels?  There was a very nervous two minutes where I thought it wouldn't happen - then one young writer shared (thank you!), and told us what the results were.  It was a lightbulb moment for everyone, which was fantastic to see - everyone wanted to share to make their Epic even more Epic! 

In one short hour, we'd made a clutch of Epics that simply did not exist anywhere before the workshop started - story magic!  The young writers seemed to really enjoy being able to take ownership of their own Epics, and change them to make them something that was theirs to take away, keep safe and develop into a bigger, longer story.

Will I see these Epics on the shelves in Waterstones Nottingham and beyond?  I hope so.  I saw whales being saved over lunchtime, disco kingdoms and exploding ice-cream - imagine what will appear in draft two...

Starting, Growing and Mo'ing

I really enjoyed Word of Mouth: Journeys last week - as did a lot of other people who were kind enough to listen to my story 'Four Minute Warning'.  I was still editing the story as our excellent host Megan Taylor was calling me up to read - just a few words taken out or changed can make a world of difference to something you're reading aloud.  I felt a little bit like a preacher when I stood up on the lectern, then my story's character pushed down on his Raleigh Tomahawk's pedals.  The lectern became chopper-style handlebars and we were away on our race against time.  If you couldn't make it, Oliver Clarke's written a great review of the evening here.

It's a mo' for sho' - if you like, donate!

I got a lot of interest in my facial hair, too - I'm growing a mo' for Movember, and I've finally got my page up and running after my marathon edits.  It's raising awareness (and a little bit of money) for Men's health issues, particularly prostrate and testicular cancer) - it's been fun to see how I would look with a Victorian-esque mo', but it's not sticking around - although it is good to stroke when I'm thinking up new plotlines...

Now the YA novel's current draft is complete, it's time to start on something new.  I wrote three hundred words on one of the stories during a fit of editor's block about a month ago - rather than looking to the past, it's set in the here and now, in a city where green comes through the cracks in the pavement, and our unlikely hero makes a discovery, and a decision that changes his life forever...

Here's to growing things (and shaving some things off) in December.

Journeys and The Next Big Thing

Busy doing final copy checks and A5 printouts of 'Four Minute Warning'; the short story I'm reading tonight as part of Word of Mouth: Journeys.  

It's been a while since I looked at the story because I've been working through the newest edit of my YA novel.  It's been a brilliant and all-consuming journey of discovery as I follow Cole on his journey of revenge for the death of his father.

And it's not what Cole, or I, expected when I first wrote about the accident all those months ago.  If you want to know what it is, watch this space.  

In the meantime, the scriptwriting powerhouse that is Adrian Reynolds very kindly included me in his 'Next Big Thing' blogpost a couple of weeks ago - now I've completed rewrites and edits on my YA story, it's the perfect time for me to answer the same questions he did, and pass the blog baton on to another great writer.

So if we're all ready, here we go...

What is the working title of your book?

It started life as Coalface, but now I’ve finished rewrites and editing, a new title has come up...

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Lots of different places – I’m a bit of a magpie, constantly jotting stuff down wherever I go.  I’m usually looking at stuff like door handles in a stately home while everyone else is looking at the pictures on the wall.

What genre does your book fall under?

It’s YA fiction, in a historical setting, with a whoosh of the fantastic.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I’d be more interested to see who my readers would pick.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A boy seeks revenge for the death of his father after a train accident, because he secretly saw what happened, and knows it was sabotage…

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I’m working with someone at the moment, and I’m looking forward to seeing where that takes us.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

About eight months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Chris Wooding’s ‘The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray’ – it’s a completely different story world, but mixes up the past and his own take on urban fantasy really well.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

The characters inside the book. And the world they live in.  Because their story needs to be told.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It’s Victorian England, but faster.  A lot faster.

Right, that's enough about me, here's someone else with a story to tell about the story they're telling:

Ian Douglas

Ian writes for both children and adults. His first non-fiction book, A Children’s History of Nottinghamshire, was launched at Waterstones and sold over 1500 copies in the first month. The book proved popular with local schools and libraries and Ian now visits schools with his History Roadshow, a lively mix of pictures, quizzes, storytelling, and classroom activities. 

Ian recently won second place in the Meridian writing competition and his work is currently to be seen at the Museum of Childhood. Click here to read more about Ian’s journey through the centuries and here for an interview with the Nottingham Evening Post.

Word of Mouth, Mayhem, and Me

So I've been quiet because I'm working on the next (final?) draft of my YA Victorian Adventure novel - a lot of thinking, a lot of writing, a lot of excitement.  It seems like certain things have popped up at just the right time to help me write it, which I'm really grateful for.  I'm not sure how they'll all fit in just yet, but there's only one way to find out, and that's to get to the finish.

Pic: Mayhemhorrorfest.co.uk

Meanwhile... after the fun we had presenting Sent/Received last year at Nottingham Writers Studio's Word of Mouth night at Mayhem, I'm coming back for a second bite on the 31st October at Broadway Nottingham.

Horror Writing Essentials #23: Spooky Pretzels

Broadway is a great venue for writers of all kinds, and this time there'll be no hiding behind great acting talent - I'll be reading my own short story alongside Niki Valentine, Megan Taylor and a coven of other eerie storytellers.  If you're not stuffing yourself with sweets and hiding behind the curtains on Halloween, come down and I'll tell you all about The Good Books...

Timing

Another trip which came at just the right time.

I've just finished a major edit on my YA novel Coalface - a big challenge, but one that's made the story stronger and shorter at the same time.  So it's time to look at new stories - and old ones...

I found this recreation of a bedsit in Southwell Workhouse.  In the seventies, it became a refuge for people waiting for a council house.  

The kitchenette they've set up got me thinking about the scruffy flat above the costumiers where Hidden Daughter's anti-heroine Penny repairs clothes, tries to do right by her Catherine with soup and fish fingers, and occasionally time-travels.

If you think this is scruffy for the seventies (it was, deliberately so), there's no surprises for guessing what turbulent teenager Cate thinks of coming home to something like this in 1987...

Lots of thoughts, lots of ideas... and a new challenge.  Time to get stuck in again.

Editing and Tailoring

Edits of Coalface continue this week - the great thing of rewrites is I take a fresh look at elements of the story I thought were great, and get the chance to make them even better.
The downside is, when you've resolved one plot point, another three unresolved plot points pop up...

It's tricky work, then something lands in your laptop that keeps you going.

I'm a scribbler when it comes to illustrating the alternative Victorian England of Coalface - drawings with a lot of passion, but not much accuracy.



Stirling Single at NRM pic: wikipedia

I'm always on the lookout for things that reflect what I'm trying to bring to the page, and I have to give a big thankyou to Tor.com for posting some fantastic David Sims pics of Prada's forthcoming range of menswear.  The choice of actors to model the outfits is inspired, turning the shoot into something that crackles with potential for me as a writer.


If you want an idea of what Coalface looks like in my head as I'm writing and editing it, (and what I'm saving up to add to my wardrobe as of today) - this is a good place to start - just add one of these in the background...

Out and About - Lanhydrock

Inspiration comes in all sorts of places – one of the strangest things is when it comes back to meet you when you visit somewhere again…

Lanhydrock has been a National Trust house since the 1970s – it’s interesting because the exterior of the building is thoroughly Elizabethan, but a 19th c. fire gutted one half of the building.  The result is a Victorian version of Grand Designs, with the cutting edge of gadgets and ‘in’ designs of 1883 rubbing shoulders with the ancient plasterwork in the long gallery.



It’s my second visit to one of the places that fuelled my imagination as I began to create the alternate Victorian England of Coalface, and has inspired some of the places Cole encounters in his quest to avenge his father’s death.  The whole house exudes a unique character, so much so that it influenced one of my favourite lines in the story.  I’m working through re-edits of Coalface at the moment; fingers crossed the sentence makes the next edit – you never know until you finish.

I took these snaps at Lanhydrock while my tent was being tested to destruction on the Cornish coastline – I lost the tent, but got the pictures –enjoy.

Done.

Another milestone week - I've completed edits for Coalface, my YA Victorian adventure novel, after three weeks of intensive rewrites (there's always rewrites) and editing, while the rain fell and the sun shone outside, turning the back garden into a small jungle.  But now, we're done.  Spellchecked, backed up, saved.  Properly done.

It's a strange time.  I've spent a long time walking with the fantastic characters in the book, putting their hopes, fears, actions and reactions down on paper; but at some point, that has to stop.  I expected to feel a little anxiety about stepping out of my hero's amazing Victorian world, but the truth is, we've only just started.

Two glasses of very pleasant red wine and a page of scribbles later, the second book is underway.  New horizons to explore, new people to meet, new challenges to be faced.

Meanwhile, the grass outside is knee deep, and needs a cut; so I'd better get it sorted.  Well soon, anyway.

Driech

Calke Abbey: inspiration lies around every corner.

The weather is forbidding today, to say the least: not hazardous, but as uninviting as non-dangerous weather gets.  

So I've elected to do a bit of time-travelling in the footsteps of Hidden Daughter's Penny, I'm now in last Friday, in Calke Abbey:

The anatomy of a country house revealed

Calke Abbey is an extraordinary place - a once well appointed country home which fell into slow, graceful decline in the 1920s, leaving entire sections of the house untouched for years.  

Stored in the rafters,
ready for the next season of boating
that never came to pass.

The National Trust arrested it's decline after they began to manage it in the nineteen eighties, but have chosen not to 'restore it' in the way they have with many other properties.

What you get is a sense of the parlour state many forgotten country houses were left in, before they fell under the wrecking ball after WWII.





The result is a place unlike anywhere else I've seen.  

If you want to start a story, you'll find a thousand places and a thousand ways to begin at Calke.  

With it's fractured past, and secret world within our world, Hidden Daughter is one of those stories.  

I feel very fortunate to be inspired by this strangely beautiful place.

Rhubarb

"Some days you have to get outside..."

I've been stuck in front of the typ-o-matic machine  for what feels like ages; so I escaped out on the last good (forecasted) day of March and visited Clumber Park.


Although the manor house is long gone, the rest of the property remains, including the walled garden and glasshouse.  This part of our recent history is fascinating to me; how Victorians built on medieval traditions of enclosed growing spaces, and used them to sustain new plants brought from the most exotic reaches of the empire. 

They're growing rhubarb for the Rhubarb Festival at the moment- looking forward to getting a bunch of Red Champagne, or some of this:

It's exciting to see the cast iron mechanical technology still in working use after over 100 years; the levers, rods and moving panels echo the progressive positivity of science and engineering at that time.  I resisted the urge to try them out (I'd like them to last another 100 years, please).

I'm sure it's one of the aspects of the Victorian era that influences Steampunk writers; and it's been the inspiration I needed to forge ahead with the final edit of Coalface, my YA Victorian adventure.

If my box brownie snaps have inspired to you visit, details are all here - have a good weekend.