My Geri Halliwell Story

Lots of people have tales of celebrity encounters. They bring them out at dinner parties and evenings down the pub. They tweet them, and post photos on Instagram and Facebook. 

I’ve even had a few of my own… 

Hollywood movie star Rod Steiger across the aisle on a Spanish plane

The wonderfully iconic Rutger Hauer in Tiffany’s

Eddie Izzard racing through Pret-a-Manger

Paul Weller in a different Pret-a-Manger buying lunch for his children

And (yes, he is that cool) rock star Nick Cave and some Bad Seeds by the luggage carousel at Heathrow.

But…

My Geri Halliwell story isn’t like those. Not only was Geri Halliwell not a celebrity at the time, but there was a significance to the encounter that struck me years later and turned it into quite a defining moment. 

If you’re wondering why I’m writing about it now, frankly, it’s because whenever I mention it to anyone new, unless I am completely unaccompanied by friends or family, I can guarantee someone around me will groan.  

And I happen to think it’s too important to lose.

So, here we go.

Again.

Living the Dream

I’ve played in bands most of my life, and in the early nineties it was in a group called Watchmaker, plying its trade in original ‘melodic rock’ (according to one pub flyer) across the lesser-known music venues of southern England. On a rare journey north, playing a wedding in Hull, a young woman in a black dress came up to us, told us how good we were, and asked if we needed a backing singer. We chatted to her for a while, said we didn’t, and took her number.

This was Geri Halliwell.

A few months later, one evening when our singer wasn’t available, and still wrestling with the idea that it might be useful, we invited her along to our rehearsal studio. We’d never auditioned anyone before, but figured we’d do that whole what do you know, what do we know thing and land somewhere in the middle.

But she simply said, ‘Shall I sing?’

‘Sure,’ we said, unsure what to expect. 

And she started singing. Just like that. No accompaniment. A bit like Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’. 

It was fine. Not great. But certainly good enough to give us reason to carry on. So, having failed to find any covers we both knew, we taught her our latest original song, a relatively dour ballad I’d written called ‘Gathering Dust’, and proceeded to have lots of fun, mostly involving us coping with the fact that Geri had never sung with a band before so hadn’t quite got the hang of stopping and starting, or the need to wait for anyone else if you did. At times, it was like being in a car trying to follow someone who keeps slamming on the brakes and accelerating for no obvious reason.

Throughout the evening, she told us a bit about herself, how she was working as a game show hostess on Turkish TV, and then, when the session came to the end, she said again how good she thought we were, how much she loved the song, and left. 

In short, she was lovely. She hadn’t changed our view that we didn’t need a backing singer. But we had a great time working with her, all the same.

Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want

Fast forward a year, as The Spice Girls exploded onto the stage, complete with ballsy attitude, all we could do was stare at TV screens, stunned at how this girl from Watford with an average voice, who was probably the least talented musician in the room when we auditioned her, was now one of the most iconic singers in the country.

And I don’t mind admitting, it took me a while to come to terms with that, as The Spice Girls went from strength to strength, and Watchmaker… went from obscurity to extinction.

The Talent to Make the Most of the Talent you Have

Since then, although I still write songs, play and record music, my attention has increasingly focused on novels, attracting a literary agent some years back, though frustratingly still trying to crack the commercial code of traditional publishing.

I became a dad. Twice. And as I watched my daughters grow, and continued to witness the literary efforts of my writing friends go unrewarded time and time again, the lesson of Geri Halliwell, what I chose to take from the encounter at least, lodged itself in me as one of the most important revelations of my life.

You don’t need to be the best singer, keyboard player, guitarist, mathematician, chemist, or indeed writer. You need to be good. That’s a given. And Geri Halliwell was good. Just not that good. But what Geri had, more than the rest of Watchmaker combined, was the talent to make the most of the talent she had. And the hunger to keep at it. To keep growing, chasing, learning. To put herself in the way of opportunity and know how to make the most of it when she did.

Over the years I’ve heard wannabe (see what I did there ;-)) writers deride the fortunes of celebrity authors or best-sellers like E.L.James, whose success seemed to have little to do with the quality of their writing. And I have found myself defending them. If you want to be praised for the quality of your prose, fair enough, set that bar and hold yourself to it. But never under-estimate the importance of knowing what you’re good at and working it for all you can.

If you want to have a writing career, or any kind of career, you need to start somewhere. And that somewhere comes from who you are, not who you wish you were, or think you might be one day. That will come. And, if you’ll pardon the liberty, it comes from knowing what you want, what you really, really want. But, perhaps more than that, it comes from knowing who you are, what you’re good at, and finding ways to make it work for you.

Of course, if you don’t see it that way, if you can’t sign up to that way of thinking… all I can say is, you might as well stop.

Right now.

Looking Back...

As the decade clicked over* and we could finally start referring to a decade with a sensible name (no more 'naughties' or 'teens'), I noticed a lot of people on Twitter in the #writingcommunity were posting their achievements. Of course, with no achievements at all, I was pleased for them, but could easily ignore the trend to share.

And then I got to thinking about what had I actually managed to do since 2010?

So, I compiled a tweet, I was surprised, and so, I have decided to expand upon it here:

Nothing happened from a writing/getting published point-of-view until 2012.

In June 2012 I won a competition run by Biting Dog Press, Science in Fiction, for a while my story was available to read, but the post has gone and Biting Dog don't seem to have updated their website for sometime (2014 according to the copyright notice, so I'm unlikely to take them up on their prize, a free editorial of a novel).

In July 2012, I had my first piece of flash fiction published on the Paragraph Planet website:      

1st piece of flash fiction published on Paragraph Planet website

I would go on to have another 60 Paragraphs published on that site, the last sneaking in just three days before the end of 2019:      

Final piece of flash fiction published in 2019

Also in 2012, in November, I had a short story, Baby Babble, included in the Fantastic Books Publishing anthology, Fusion.

Finally, in December 2012, WordWatchers released their own Anthology, Out of Time, and I had a story, We are the Stranded, included in that.

2012 was a really good year.

I continued to have stories published on Paragraph Planet throughout 2013 (nine to be precise) and 2014 (eight). Also in 2014 I had two pieces of flash fiction included in the charity anthology, Ten Deadly Tales.2015 came and went and I managed to get almost one story a month onto Paragraph Planet (eleven in total).

In 2016, two more anthologies from Fantastic Books Publishing, were released, Synthesis, and this one included two of my stories, All in the Mind  and The House and 666, which included my 'Highly Commended' story, Headhunted.

In November 2017, the Role-Playing Game, Elite Encounters, by Dave 'Selezen Lake' Hughes was released and included five pieces of flash fiction written by me to act as chapter introductions/scene setters. As Elite Encounters was an officially Licensed product from Frontier Developments it's a good feeling to finally have something that is part of the official material of a game that I have loved since 1985.

2017 was also an 'interesting' year for me, having finished my novel in March that year and expecting to crack on with the edits post-critique from the wonderful writers in WordWatchers, I hit a wall in my writing. In fact, I stopped writing almost completely. I was finally diagnosed with depression in November 2017 and despite counselling and medical intervention, I didn't start writing again until the end of January 2018.

In January 2018 I wrote the short story, Elemental Sacrifice, at the annual WordWatchers Writers Retreat. Although the story wouldn't be published until July 2019, in the anthology, The Forge: Fire and Ice, in July 2019, its journey began there, and so did my slow and steady recovery from the worst of my depression.

Also in 2018, I had a piece of flash fiction accepted into a new Science Fiction magazine called, The Martian Magazine, but unfortunately that magazine never made it to publication. I did however, actually manage to get paid in 2018, a whole $10, for a story that appeared in the anthology, Chronos. This is the first time I've been paid for anything I've written in a very long time (pun intended).

Which brings us to 2019. As mentioned already, The Forge: Fire and Ice was released during this year. I managed to have four pieces published on Paragraph Planet, but that's OK, I was actually, finally, concentrating on getting my novel rewritten, which I'm very pleased to say I managed. Indeed, it is currently with the rest of WordWatchers and a few Beta Readers even as I type this. Its critique is just a few weeks away.

So actually, looking back, 2010 to 2019 hasn't been too bad from a writing point-of-view, I'm certainly not giving up the day job, but that's OK, I really like my day job (for the most part). As for 2020 and going forward, well, I plan to release my novel come what may. I'm going to take a tentative stab at offering it to a few people I've met in the Industry along the way, I'll show it to the excellent guys at Fantastic Books, but if there's no takers, I'm happy with it enough now, and confident enough in my own writing, to self-publish.

It will be interesting to revisit this log in a year's time to see if I held myself to the above commitment...I guess that just leaves me to wish you all the very best in 2020, whatever targets you've set yourself, large or small, I hope you achieve them. 

* for the pedants - technically the next decade doesn't begin until 2021, but we've lost that fight...

Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction

I’m a tad worried that I may now be on every international watch list, known to mankind.Let’s start with the facts:

Whilst editing an action scene involving a Hummer - I love Hummers. Mean looking cars, veritable, vehicular beasts that roar - I needed to know what its bumper was made from. I searched the internet, only to discover that the Hummer had actually ceased production ten years ago. My scene was modern day and the individuals involved would drive something more recent. Picturing those big black SUVs, you see in many a Hollywood action-thriller, I searched again, this time enquiring as the make and model of the SUVs driven by the secret service.

Yes, I know what you’re going to say, but hey, smarty-pants, hindsight’s a wonderful thing.Several sites later, I ironically settled on leaving it generic – it’s now nothing more than a black SUV.

At night, I usually leave my laptop in sleep mode, so that upon opening, it springs to life but when I returned to it the next morning, I was met with a black screen. I tapped a few times, checked the power cable and feared the worst. Rebooting it flagged a report from Apple informing me that due to an ‘Unauthorised access attempt,’ my security software had shut down for protection. I checked the scan reports but there was no evidence of this, nor anything quarantined. I pulled up the search history from the night before, in a bid to ascertain which of those sites might have triggered this alert but eerily every site relating to that previous night’s specific search had disappeared.

The plot thickens…

I live in the countryside, and that night, as I walked the dogs, I noticed three drones in the sky. It’s not that uncommon to see the odd one out here at night, but three at once, definitely is. Even more unusual is to be pursued by one. It tracked me as I left my house in pitch-black darkness, all the way down our country lane, and back. Childishly perhaps, just as I re-entered my house, I offered it a single-fingered goodnight. Nothing more than it deserved. I went to bed and thought nothing more of it.

Until that was, the next morning…

When my slightly freaked-out mother phoned to tell me, she thought she’d been followed home by a drone after leaving our house. She’d come for supper and had left just before I’d taken our dogs out and so, important to note, was oblivious to any of the events above. She’d noticed the drone when getting into her car and was then decidedly alarmed to see it still lurking above her when she reached her own house.

Coincidence or not? We may never know. As writers, we spend an inordinate amount of time in our over-imaginative minds, but I like to think I’m an intelligent woman and I’m definitely not a conspiracy theorist. However, in this instance, I think the dots do join, at the very least, to form a very bold question mark.

Which brings me to fiction:This got me thinking. I’d not done anything wrong and I had nothing to hide but it still felt a tad sinister. So, if not the internet, how, or where, as unpublished, debut authors, should we go to research novels potentially involving sensitive data, people, places, and or events? Clearly, common sense should prevail but that doesn’t always get you the answers you seek. Needless to say, my library doesn’t stock books on the kind of topics I need.

If I were a best-selling author of international renown, I have no doubt that doors would be opened, the moment I knocked, but as an unknown, aspiring author, there have been times in my writing, when I don’t even know which doors I should be knocking on, let alone how to open them.

My teen protagonist has been raised in a military community, trained by ex-special ops personnel and seriously knows his stuff. How else therefore, can I ensure this makes for credible reading, other than to really do my homework in and around the subject matter?

Alas, if the powers that be, in their quest for the truth, wish to dig deeper still, they may be even more alarmed. For not only have I researched how to bring down a helicopter (make and model specific), as well as various forms of military weaponry, their uses, assembly and operation, but also how to build a bomb, truth be told, several different types of bomb and indeed, how to trigger them… Yes, this time, you don’t even need to say it… I’m an idiot, but my sole intention in conducting this type of research, has only ever been, is, and will continue to be, the achievement of fictional credibility.Up until now, naïvely or otherwise, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this process. I don’t have a military background, nor do any of my relatives or close friends. Thus, my research has opened my eyes to a world that exists far beyond my own. They say new authors should write about what they know but let’s face it, the highs and lows of Human Resources in corporate telecoms, is hardly the stuff of teenage fantasy.

What then, is the moral of this story? Beware the perils of writing? Be careful what you write, or indeed, how you research it? I don’t know. Take away from it what you will but the issue here is not about Big Brother, it’s about writing.

As writers, we write the books we want to read. For a truly, satisfying reader experience, it must feel credible, whatever the subject matter. Readers are astute beings. They expect nothing less. Might we be having this discussion if I’d written about fairies? Probably not, but I know less about those than I do about guns.

Ah yes, back to guns.

If by chance then, you are from one of those illustrious government agencies, I want you to know, I fully respect the brave and honourable service you perform in safeguarding our nation, both here and overseas. I’m not here to question what you do, or indeed, how or why. The world is irrefutably, a safer place with you in it. So, if you do want to read, listen, watch, track, or hack my progress, knock yourself out, but you should probably know, our paths may very well cross again, because where those guns are concerned, I’m sticking to them. I am going to keep on writing.

Oh, and I owe you an apology for the one-fingered salute. I’m usually a far more polite person than this might suggest, but… you did stalk me, along a deserted, country lane, in the dark, and late at night… just saying.

Since you’re here, I wonder if I could ask a small favour. As I inadvertently, appear to have knocked on your door, do you think, when you have a spare moment, you know, while rummaging through my file drawers, you might have a little read of my novel and let me know if I’ve got all those specialist little details, i.e. my FACTS right? It’s just that… well, I’m guessing you might just be the kind of people who would know.

Cheeky ask, I know, but it really does come from a good place, a genuine wish to write truly, credible FICTION. Thank you!   

What’s wrong with clichés?

What is a cliché? 

It’s simply a phrase or saying in frequent usage, easily recognised and understood.  We use them all the time in conversation and avoiding them would result in a rather affected manner of speaking.

Writers become deeply concerned about clichés and see them as a deadly sin.  And yet in our newspapers, we find them scattered like confetti – that’s a cliché by the way, but we all know what it means.  I could have said that they are to be found randomly distributed within the text of most newspaper articles.   But scattered like confetti is much more visual.  It has been over-used for a reason.  It’s been over-used because it has meaning.

I wonder why we have all become so super sensitive about clichés.  Perhaps it’s the fault of the professional and non-professional critiquer.  It’s so easy to pick one out of an excellent piece of writing and say disparagingly, “a pity about that cliché in the first sentence.”  To me one cliché on a page is nothing to get upset about.  It’s when there’s one in every paragraph that it can become distracting.

A particular cliché can become irritating when it gets too much exposure.  Politicians are guilty of using expressions like “hard working families” until the phrase begins to lose its meaning.   Too many clichés can be indicative of sloppy or lazy writing.  It can mean the writer hasn’t taken the trouble to seek out a more original or apt analogy.  However, avoiding them altogether can result in writing that is less explicit and less accessible. Certainly clichés should be allowed their place in dialogue because an attempt at eliminating them will result in conversation that is stiff and wordy.

Writing is all about communication and as long as we are communicating in a way that the reader understands, it’s serving its purpose.   We all know not to judge a book by its cover and that it’s little use flogging a dead horse.  How sad if writers were to avoid these picturesque expressions and allow them to die out of common usage.  Sometimes it’s possible to be too clever by half!

These expressions are a sort of shorthand.  They say a lot in a few words.  We shouldn’t sneer at the hard-working cliché when it is conveying exactly what we want to say.   Of course, we should look for new and original ways of expressing what we mean, but beware, if successful, that clever phrase may soon become a cliché. 

The Mislaid Art of Storytelling

It's July of 2019. If you're reading this blog, you can likely write creatively. You're probably thinking about writing a novel, or you're already writing one. At some point, some way down the line, at the back of your mind, you're probably thinking it might get published.

The chances of that are very high in the era of 2019. You have various options. The least likely is traditional publishing, although you will spend a disproportionate amount of time pursuing it.If you want your book available to a broad audience rather than ignored by a few, to own a real physical copy of your book, then indie is an option.Whether you are going traditional or indie, there is one crucial detail you will probably mislay along the way which is story, or rather good storytelling.

There are two types of book writers in my experience, and you can work out which you are by how you describe what you're doing. If you're writing a novel, congratulations, you are among the 99.8% of writers who can write, who have a great idea but are unable to give that idea to an audience, and by give I mean make it an entertaining story. Call it stubborn, ego, apathy, self-interest, insecurity or a lack of insight.

If you're a writer who believes you're telling a story and the only thing that matters is the wider audience, then you're very rare. It has to be said neither is more likely to be successful, but one is more likely to entertain an audience.So how do you become a storyteller over a novel writer? The first step is to realise what an audience expect from a story, in a nutshell, they want to know:

The world and timeframe, to be hooked by dynamic characters very quickly, to understand the story stakes and dramatic theme.What is the false goal the characters pursue during the extraordinary journey that has them fall in love and discover hidden qualities and even a few nasty traits? What forces them to take control in the middle of the story, what truth do they learn fighting increasing odds, in the face of despair and even death?

How do they use this uncertain truth to face the bad guys, and how does the conflict resolve? How does the theme punch you emotionally, have you thinking about the characters after the credits or the last page has turned?

If a story doesn't deliver all this, the audience instinctively knows something is missing without necessarily knowing what that something is. As a fully paid-up member of the audience, how will you know your novel is hitting the required marks as a storyteller, as an author?I thought you'd never ask.

If I tell you story requires structure you will roll your eyes. I know, right! You're creating art! You're not writing to a formula!

Let's consider whether you would buy from an artist who visibly doesn't understand the foundations of composition? Or from a musician who audibly doesn't understand the principles of rhythm?

The problem with novel writing is that our entry point is an ability to write well, we're well educated, the page to page works, it's misleading. Our broader perspective of story is built on a lifetime spent as a consumer. It's instinctive.

It should be no surprise to discover telling a good story is as challenging to master as fine art or good music. While a few take to it naturally, 99.8% of us will have to graft to gain insight.

Getting hold of the right material to learn from can be confusing, there are a lot of people ready to take your money, a whole bunch of books to buy. I would buy just two:

Blake Snyder's Save the Cat (great for the essential structure)

K.M. Weiland's Creating Character Arcs: The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story structure, plot and character development (the absolute reference for blending everything else).

Then understanding story structure and character arc is just the beginning, seeing it implemented across a broad scope of fiction is necessary to build our storytellers muscle memory, our point of reference.

These past few years, I've been doing just that, breaking down story to gain insight into how it's put together. The last year I've been figuring how best to breakdown a story as a video, to learn and share that knowledge. I think I'm getting there.

The first video is linked below: Monsters Inc. The breakdown is on YouTube. It's free. You're welcome.

You don't have to be mad to be a writer...

I haven't really talked about what happened to me back in December 2017.

It's taken me quite some time (and quite a bit of therapy) to work it out for myself which means I can now cut to the chase and tell you that I had a breakdown. I was signed off work for three months with depression and spent another three months gradually building back up to working full time.

During most of 2017 I wrote not a word, save vomiting up the odd sanity preserving (or so I thought) piece of flash fiction. Each was a little darker than the last. Each a little harder to write.

Just before Christmas 2017 I started counselling with a fantastic lady called Julie.For six weeks I cried like I have never cried before.

Crying is underrated - it's incredibly cathartic.

Julie asked me what I wanted to get out of her sessions - I didn't have an immediate answer, but eventually we got to the point where I knew what I wanted. I wanted my head to be empty of the noise that filled my quiet place and I wanted to be able to write again.

It seemed impossible. I could not see how I would ever find my quiet place again, my brain a constant, torturing buzz of angst and doubt and failure.

Julie knew I had my writer's retreat just after our penultimate session together. Somehow, she got me to a place where the noise was at least subdued. A slim chance that I might be able to write something at the retreat. I didn't know what, just something...

I decided that I was going to try and write a story for the Fantastic Books Publishing Fire and Ice Fantasy Anthology Competition. Somewhere, amongst the dusty shelves of stories long abandoned and jars filled with the pickled remnants of old ideas there was a flicker of life. There was an old story, a really old story, that was the seed for a novel that I started when I was sixteen (but never finished), joined WordWatchers twelve years ago intending to resurrect (I never have). It was a story about Fire and Ice and, to get away from the buzz, I went back to my childhood quiet place and there was the story - dusty, tatty, neglected, but still alive, waiting for some love and attention.

So, amazingly, I wrote that story. I'm a much better writer now and I wrote the 1500 words over the weekend and was confident enough to read it out to the rest of the group on our last night at the retreat. We literally told stories around a roaring fire...

The story was well received, sensible suggestions were made. Edits were duly undertaken and then, with nothing to lose, I submitted it to the competition ...... then ... nothing. Months, indeed a year went by before I found out story had indeed made the longlist for the anthology. I waited with baited breath - would I make the final cut? It would take a couple more months, but yes, I would be in the anthology.

My edits came back from the FBP's editors at the end of April. They were reasonable and very doable. Unfortunately they arrived exactly when I was also struggling with my mental health again. I procrastinated for a whole month. Eventually I begged for, and was granted a one week extension to the deadline for the return of the edits and, reminding myself of something important I had promised myself, I finished the edits one Saturday morning a few weeks ago.

So, that's it. The Anthology 'The Forge' will be available in early August 2019, over 18 months since I wrote, 'Elemental Sacrifice'.

I'll be buying the usual number of copies to have on the bookshelf at home, but I'll be buying two extra copies - one for my GP who has been amazing during the last 18 months (and only discovered I was a writer during our more in-depth heart-to-hearts in his surgery) and, of course, a copy for Julie, who got me writing again, when I truly believed such a thing was not possible.

Before I go, I'd also like to say that I could not have done any of this without the support of my amazing family and without my brilliant friends in WordWatchers.

I love you all.

Last week (at time of writing) it was Mental Health Awareness Week - but every week should be Mental Health Awareness Week - we don't talk about it enough, it comes with all sorts of negative connotations, but, at the end of the day, Mental Health is just 'Health'.

Take care of yourself and, as always, thank you for your time.         

UPDATE (24th July 2019): 'The Forge: Fire and Ice' was released on July 14th in Paperback: http://www.wordwatchers.net/books/the-forge-fire-and-ice/ 

Author John Hoggard is smiling while holding up a copy of the Sci-Fan Anthology 'The Forge: Fire and Ice'

How to Deliver a Writer’s Group Critique*

This is a wry but honest series of observations on the peculiarities of human behaviour that sometimes distract us from the true path of offering good advice to other writers. Frankly, there are as many opinions of how to do this properly as there are members of my group, but this is my take.

Delivering a good critique is not all about nailing all the defects in a piece of writing. Everyone is different, and how person on the end of the critique will receive this information should determine the way it is delivered. So, as well as being experts at communicating ideas to on the page, we need to use emotional intelligence to determine the best way to deliver the critique to someone we probably know well.

There are all too human quirks that we all possess to some degree that need some attenuation to deliver a good critique. Most of these are traits that I have observed in myself, both in giving and receiving critiques. It is useful to identify the tell-tale signs in terms of their outward manifestation so that we can identify these tendencies in ourselves as we slide over the rim of the fiery pit of self-indulgence!Receiving the critique is like having red-hot coals inserted into your brain. Receiving a critique is nonetheless a good thing. How can this be? The trick is to listen to what’s being said, establish exactly what the critiquer is saying, then move on. This is easier said than done. I’ve observed mature and well-adjusted people either close to tears or wailing in despair (mostly me) during this process, so it’s important to remember what it’s all for.

No matter how perfect we think our story is, it’s quite likely that unless we’re God’s-Gift to the literary world, there will be many issues that need attention. The aim is for a group of writers, used to searching for errors in their work, to do the same with our own work. If they are doing their job properly, they will find a lot of areas of concern. There are two reasons for this: we will have become overfamiliar with our own work, and also because their strengths and weaknesses will be different to ours. This applies equally to published writers and those of us still toiling in the foothills.

Critiquing in a writers’ group follows two principle pathways: a considered written review and a discussion face to face. However, both methodologies are susceptible to being handled badly by the unprepared critiquer and critiquee. The individual being critiqued needs to be aware of the potential pitfall of not being receptive to criticism, in which case all the hard work of the rest of the group will have been in vain. Equally important though is the need for those delivering the critique to fulfil the primary objective of this process: to assist with improving the work of the recipient. What can interfere with this process?

Let’s deal with the most obvious and overarching problem: to forget that the objective is to help the recipient. The job is not to merely find fault, but to pick out the areas that need attention, and present them in a way that will help the writer to improve. Bombarding the writer with a blizzard of petty faults  will not help this process; they’ll just switch off and move on to the next issue. Far better to pick out one or two glaring examples. This principle applies to writing defects large and small, but you’re wasting your time by flagging them all up without supplying underpinning evidence.

But this is not about what, specifically, these individual faults might be…

All common sense, you might say, but if we drill deeper, what areas get in the way of following this simple principle? The answer is, unsurprisingly, human nature.

When we start to review another person’s work, one emotion we experience is relief. It is our opportunity to remind ourselves that others in the group are human after all. If not properly checked, this relief can give way to overconfidence: the conviction that surely this evidence of fallibility must be the result of one’s superior writing skills. The horses are then in danger of bolting in the direction of showcasing one’s own skills, rather than gently guiding the perhaps fragile ego of the recipient in the right direction! Rather like the Roman Emperors of glory past, we need to have a slave standing on the footplate of our chariots whispering in our ears to remind us that we are merely human.

Character clashes can get in the way of delivering an objective critique. There seems to be no such thing as a generic writing personality: we are as diverse as the society we occupy. As a result, we might enter into the process with a preconceived notion of the kind of faults we are looking for and our comments can be coloured by our view of the individual. This also works in reverse, of course, and we might be susceptible to judging a friends work more favourably. Whilst this is common practice in the book endorsement world, we should try to hold ourselves above such pettiness. We are not helping our friends by giving a ringing endorsement to a book that everyone else judges as flawed. Furthermore, that friend will not be able to trust you to deliver an objective view on later critiques.

Some purists, be they of grammar, history, logical consistency, or setting out on the page, become overheated in the process of reviewing a piece of work. We are usually out of our comfort-zone, not only in terms of writing style, but also of genre. As a result, quite naturally, the process of hacking though unrelenting pages that we are not necessarily enjoying, generate a tension. If we then encounter one or more problems in the course of reviewing the work, our language can become more emotive and more combative.

Closely related, and perhaps linked to the above, is the critique that’s been completed with a side order of beer/whisky/Merlot: name your brew. The symptoms are similar to the foregoing and can slide further towards hyperbole as the evening progresses. Yes, I do like a drink now and again!

These problems can be easily be remedied once we acknowledge they can potentially exist. We have an obligation to do the best job we can for the others in the writing group. As someone said to me recently, it is a high complement just for someone to want to read your work, whatever the basis. The simple solution to all these problems is to reread and edit before sending.

None of this relieves the recipient of the responsibility of intelligently interpreting the critique, no matter how painful the process. Very few people will undertake a critique with the intention of doing anything other than giving good and helpful advice.

As a worst-case scenario, I have read, though not personally experienced, instances of what I call the nil-sum reviewer. Such people populate the internet, especially online review sites and chat-rooms. I have heard stories about such a person in a writing group saying to another “Well if you managed to get that published, then we’re all in with a chance”. The objective here was denigrate others work in order to elevate his or her own. The giveaway here is when the reviewer leads with a value laden judgement of the piece, clearly designed to have an emotional impact rather than something to help the recipient.

Each member of the group will learn from the experience of critiquing. The process of spotting problems within a piece of writing serves to consolidate our existing understanding of writing techniques, as well as affording the opportunity to learn a few new tricks in the area where the subject writer excels. Critiquing work is therefore as much a part of the normal writing day as much as any other work production.

The vital final stage of submitting a critique is to re-read, especially the inline comments, on a later occasion. Have I been heavy handed in communicating that point? Am I needlessly using emotive language in putting that point across? Do the comments I’ve made represent my overall view of the MS – is the criticism proportionate? It only takes a few extra minutes to carry out this check. Overriding all of this is the consideration that you are helping the subject of the review, not airing your own knowledge or trying to identify every single error. To forget this simple principle risks doing more harm than good.

Good writing is not undertaken fearfully. The imagination of good writer is uninhibited and the ideas will flow directly onto the page unencumbered by self-doubt or the fear of harsh criticism. The overall objective of a writer’s critique is to improve the quality of the subjects writing by offering constructive advice. Clearly, the critique has to be honest, even if that means delivering unexpectedly bad news. But the tone and method of that message is key to the difference between a good and a bad critique. 

Oliver Randle

7 May 2019

* (as painlessly as possible without losing the message)

Fiction Therapy

Long before I started writing fiction, I was aware of the therapeutic benefits of writing, particularly for someone like me who is not quick thinking and articulate.  It takes me time to put words together and by then the opportunity to speak them may have passed. 

I first started to understand how it could be therapeutic for other people when I worked for a number of years for a boss who had an unfortunate habit of always speaking his mind.  Some saw this as a virtue, but it didn’t always make him friends.  However, outspoken remarks can be glossed over, re-interpreted and explained.  The written word is less forgiving. 

It became a problem when a letter came into the office that contained a complaint.  He found any criticism difficult to cope with.   ‘Let me draft something for you’ I would say. ‘No, no need.  I can reply to this’.  He would take it away and cover several sheets with angry scribble, pressing so hard that his words punctured the paper.  The sheets would then be put on my desk for typing.  ‘This is what I want to say and I don’t want you to change anything.’ Having read through the pages of vitriol, I would set about drafting a response that took quite a different approach, one that would promote better understanding while avoiding antagonising the recipient.  He always signed without a murmur and once it was in the post, I could shred the closely written sheets. This made me recognise how important it was to him to be able to write down his feelings, but how equally important it was to be careful how these words were shared. 

When I started writing fiction, I realised what a perfect vehicle it is for feelings and emotions that can’t otherwise be easily expressed. Fictional characters almost always develop from real life models.  The unpleasant characters are sometimes the easiest to create. 

When I shared my first novel with work colleagues, one of my characters made them fall about laughing.  This was not because the character was in any way amusing, but because they recognised the source.  I had been on the receiving end of this person’s unpleasantness many times and writing the character had given me great satisfaction.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have given him a name and occupation so similar to the model.  I’ve now changed a few non-essentials, but kept the essence of this character’s unpleasant nature.  Every story needs a villain or two.

Another aspect of writing villains is that you have to explore what makes them the way they are.  This can bring greater understanding and even empathy. The characters closest to the writer tend to have something of the writer in them.  They are the characters that the writers may use to express their own emotions, feelings and views.  Probably they will have some personal enhancements that the writer quite fancies.  They may be bigger and stronger or prettier and more agile.   Almost certainly, they will be more articulate, able to express themselves exactly as the writer would wish.

 One of the great things about writing fiction is the opportunity it provides for exploration.  This can be the exploration of relationships or the environment. Most of my writing has involved the exploration of relationships.  We all want to know what makes other people tick. Once you place one character you have created in the vicinity of another and allow them to interact, the result can be quite unexpected.  As you start to ask the big ‘what if’ question, you can allow your characters to act out your deepest anxieties and desires without any real life bloodshed.  It can be a very liberating experience and teach you a lot about human nature and incidentally about yourself. 

Exploring the environment is something else.  Perhaps you have longed to travel to other countries or closer to home to see what’s behind the door of that house half way down the street that doesn’t seem to fit in with all the other houses.  You can send your fictional character on a journey to find out more.  If your own street seems a bit dull, then you can carry this to extremes and build a whole other world. If you hate the political system, you can make up your own and find out how it could work.  The possibilities are endless and may help to reconcile you to life as it is on planet earth. 

You could start by collecting stories.  They really are all around you and people use them in all sorts of ways.  There may only be seven basic stories, but the variations are limitless. You only have to listen to a television debate or be present at a business meeting and sooner or later someone will come up with a story. It may not start ‘once upon a time’, but you will learn recognise the various openings that people use.  It will probably be a story that has been told a million times and each time it has been embroidered a little to make it more amusing or more interesting or to hammer home a point.  Names may have been changed to protect the innocent or not so innocent. It has become more fiction than fact so that in the end the two may be difficult to separate.

Most children are able to escape into imaginary worlds when the going becomes tough in this one.  At school we are encouraged to write stories.  As we get older and life becomes more serious, many of us lose this ability.  Day dreaming has no place in an adult world obsessed with facts and figures.  Perhaps fiction therapy could help people unlock this under-used area of the brain and find fulfilment in creativity.

Post Retreat

So, it is Sunday February 3rd. One week ago it was our last night at Mill House Retreat in Devon.

The fire was roaring and we gathered in the main room to talk and to read. We talked about lots of interesting technical things related to writing. The use of the passive voice, the five act structure, our plans for the group in the year ahead...

Then we each agreed to read something to the rest of the group that we had written over the weekend. I think this is my favourite part of the weekend.

Pam got us going, reading a beautiful piece about using writing as therapy. As somebody who has a child who has used 'art therapy' as a coping mechanism for their anxiety and depression, Pam's reading really resonated with me. I really hope she turns it into a blog and you get to read it too, because it's wonderful.

I'm not sure who went next, but I think it was Julian, who read from a new chapter on his current WIP that he's been working on while on the Curtis Brown Course in London for the last six months. It was a wonderful insight into how the novel has developed since we critiqued it as a group last year. I like the change in direction and the reasons Julian has made it. There was some feedback from the group - positive plus some suggestions that Julian said he would take away and ponder.

I will pretend Helen went next who read from something very new for her - a children's story. Written from scratch over the weekend. At 1200 words long, she read the whole story out and it was engaging and fun and we can all see the potential for a long running series of stories from this single idea. It was great to hear Helen doing something new in the run up to her starting a new writing course with her main WIP.

I think I might have gone next - I read three pieces of Flash Fiction I'd written/rewritten/remastered from snippets of ideas I had trapped in the amber of my 75-word stories that I often submit to Paragraph Planet. All were well received, I particularly liked Helen's reaction to my final story about a werewolf. The thought of her expression will have me smiling for a long time to come. Of course the group made some very sensible suggestions and I edited the stories the following morning (just before leaving the retreat) and two days later I had submitted the entire Flash Fiction Anthology to the competition I'd been hoping to enter.

I have to say here that trying to chose from well over 150 pieces of flash fiction and then to down select, re-edit, re-write or just abandon some, to make what I hope is a coherent collection of Flash Fiction was much harder than I thought it would be. And, other than this blog, I haven't written a word since I submitted the collection, as my tank of creativity is empty and only filling slowly.

Right - back to the evening. John Potter read next (I'm pretty sure). He gave us a chapter that contained a thrilling, fast paced fight scene from his futuristic but low-tech WIP. The group's only criticism of the piece was that the fight was a little too long. John agreed and, like me, editing that section before he too, finally departed the retreat the next day.

Finally, Maurice, who has put himself in the unenviable position of having two novel writing projects on the go. The piece he read out that evening was from the first novel he started. As ever, Maurice is the master storyteller, he has a knack in both his writing and reading to spin you a yarn that on one level is somehow filled with the mundane and yet is absolutely real and engrossing. I'm really looking forward to reading the whole novel when it's finished.

So, that's it - a blog written almost as quickly as the weekend seemed to pass.I am very lucky to be in such an amazing group and to feel completely safe reading to them (something that I had only finished a few minutes before reading it!), knowing that an points or criticisms will be aimed entirely at making the story better.

Mill House Retreats is a balm for the bruised writer's soul and ego. It also seems to do the group as a whole a great deal of good too - we always seem to leave more invigorated, keener, with just a smidgen more self-belief our unofficial tagline - 'Serious about Writing'.

A retreat, but no surrender

This time next week I will be at Mill House Retreat a beautiful old house in Devon. This will be the second time we will have been there and almost exactly a year since we were there last. Sometimes it's hard to believe that a year has really gone past. In some ways, so much has changed, and in others so little...

In the month before the last retreat, a few weeks before Christmas, I finally admitted that I had depression. It was not the Christmas present I had been expecting. I was off work and at my lowest ebb. I had stopped writing and I didn't see the point in going to the retreat.

My family and my fellow WordWatchers were amazing, they rallied round and got me to the retreat. The atmosphere of Mill House was calming and soothing and over the weekend I tentatively started to write again - unsure if I actually had a story in me - but at least willing to give it a go.

I wrote a story, themed around 'fire and ice' for a competition that my publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing, was running at the time. I wrote the story - I read it out to my fellow WordWatchers on our final evening, sitting round a roaring fire. I could not have asked for a better scene, atmosphere or audience. Responses to the story were positive, suggestions to tweak it were insightful and were, over the next week or so, made.

I submitted the story.

It was long listed.

I was as surprised as I was delighted. I could still write!

The story is currently in a state of limbo since FBP haven't announced how many of the long listed stories will actually make it into the Anthology. I really hope I do make it into the anthology, not for me, not really, but because I told my counsellor that I just wanted to write again. She helped me achieve that. I'd really like to present her with a copy, as a thank-you, for being my guide from the darkness back into the light.

So, throughout 2018 I 'ticked over' - low dose antidepressants, practising my CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and lots of walking. I presumed I was doing OK. I wasn't writing much, but I had several short stories accepted for publication and I had half a dozen 75-worders published on Paragraph Planet.

I took a chunk of November and all of December off work to spend time with my family, in particular my wife, Vee, who was recovering from major spinal surgery. I mostly ignored work, I cut back on my time on Facebook (and was so much better for doing so) and we, as a family, had a lovely Christmas.

I returned to work at the beginning of January to discover, in my absence, a course that I ran, that had been cancelled the year before, was no longer cancelled and that I had less than a month to get it organised to be run again. That's when I discovered that depression, like many other illnesses, isn't cured, it just goes into remission. I felt overwhelmed again, heard the little voices whispering the excuses I could make to not go to work today, or not even get out of bed.

I went back to my GP immediately. We had a really good chat. He doubled my antidepressants (still a low dose, but, also, still doubled) and wants me to get a refresher on my CBT, to make sure I haven't picked up any bad habits over the last year.

So, here we are again. The WordWatchers retreat is upon us and I'm depressed again. I'm nowhere near as unwell as I was last year and I'm much better equipped to cope, but this blog is the most I've written in several months. So, I have set myself a target. There's a flash fiction anthology competition being run by EllipsisZine which has a closing date a few days after the retreat. I intend to enter that competition.Wish me luck! I think I might need it.As ever, I thank-you for your time.

National Flash Fiction Day

This isn't actually a blog, which, considering how long it has been since any member of WordWatchers wrote a blog, that's rather embarrassing, however, that's a discussion for another day.

Today, June 16th, is National Flash Fiction Day - or it is, here in the UK - and looking at the links to the flood of tweets with that or the #NFFD hashtag on Twitter has been a delight to follow.

So, this all ties in rather nicely with the fact that I recently submitted 3 drabbles to a new Science Fiction magazine, The Martian Magazine and the editor, Eric Fomley, chose one of them to be included in the forthcoming run of the magazine. He's actually paying for the stories too - 10¢ a word, so my 100 word drabble is worth $10. It's been a while since I was actually paid for my writing and I forgot what a lovely feeling you get from the phrase 'I'll send a contract over' appearing in an email. Also, because Eric is actually paying for work, he's trying to raise funds with an Indiegogo campaign, so he can publishing more stories, more often and pay more writers for their efforts.

So, I have two 'spare' drabbles and I have decided that today, of all days, would be a perfectly reasonable day to share them. 

Enjoy. 

I hope.

It’s a Dangerous Place

Somewhere en route between the Earth and Moon a transport shuttle transmits the briefest of Mayday calls. Two rescue ships power away from the nearest orbital station and head for its last known position. Against the pinpricked blackness of space, a bloom of orange appears. It expands like the time-lapsed swelling of a mushroom cap. Moments later ribbons of swirling fire erupt from the perfect sphere. They are as beautiful as they are deadly. The fires flare and fade to nothing. Sensors indicate that there is nothing left to be rescued. The ships return to dock, crews offering silent prayers.

Life on Mars

The shutter winds noisily upwards, filling the small, metallic room with a pale, red light. I glance at the clock beside the bed noting both Earth and Martian time. The sun is already quite high in the sky, but it’s still early morning for the base as we slowly become accustomed to the length of a day here. It used to be strange, thinking that I would die on Mars, but I look to my side, where Rachel still sleeps, and I realise I will live here, and eventually, like all humans, no matter where they are, I will die.

As ever, thank you for your time,

Guarding your Manuscript against Computer Gremlins

A writing buddy recently lost half the book they're writing to a failing disk drive. That was over 20,000 hard to come by words gone in the time it takes to smack the palm of your hand hard against your forehead.

I'm always stunned when I find writers like my buddy invested huge amounts of time and energy in the creativity of planning, research, and writing their books, to find they spent no time looking into protecting that work from the myriad failures you should readily expect your laptop/PC/Mac to inflict on you. Especially when there's no need for the worst kind of failure to lose you more than a paragraph at most.

Computers are complex, consisting of thousands of small and fragile components. They are designed to last on average 3-4 years, manufactured at extremely low cost to be sold for very low margin. They're susceptible to damage by repeated fluctuations in heat, impact, wear and tear, contact with the environment. Or they will randomly fail because they really were cheap in the first place.

Compounding this is Microsoft's Word, which you're probably using to build your narrative, with the whole manuscript likely contained in one document. Word was designed for writing letters and reports. The bigger the Word document the increased risk you have of something nasty randomly happening.

Let's start with simple steps for minimising risk.

Separate Word Documents

Consider breaking your book into separate word documents which will reduce the size of the working file. If the current document is corrupted or lost at least the rest of the book is retained in these separate files. As a starting point consider breaking the book document into first half and second half, or first act, second act, third act. Separating each act into two documents would be my preference, leaving you with six documents in a finished manuscript.

Backup Copy

Turn on 'Always make a backup Copy' from Word Options, Advanced, Save.

This will make a full copy of your document every time you save. You will always have a pristine copy of the whole document to the point of the last save even if chaos leads you randomly down the rabbit hole after that save.

Autorecover Frequency

Autorecover saves the changes made to the document since the last save. A sudden failure in Word means you will lose up to 10 minutes of work with the default settings. You can change the frequency of these saves from Word, Options, Save, Autorecover. I would drop this down to the lowest level that works with your computer's ability to do this without interrupting your writing, starting at 1 minute.

Don't use Word

There are plenty of alternative and very reliable tools designed for building large text projects. I highly recommend Scrivener if you're in this writing lark for the long haul.

Protecting yourself from your laptop/PC/Mac

If the disk or computer holding your documents fails you have either lost everything or are in the hands of a very busy repair engineer invested in making things work, not protecting your data. Copying your documents from the computer daily, per session or even between saves is a great way to protect yourself against hardware failure.

Flash drive (and file copy)

USB flash drives are very cheap. A single 8Gb drive will hold more books than you could write in five lifetimes. Buy one. Buy two. One for daily copies of your project documents and another for weekly/monthly copies. Label them with a Sharpie. Keep them safe.You must never EVER use flash drives to actually edit the book files. You are far more likely to damage, break or simply lose a flash drive than you will your laptop or computer. That's why we only use flash drives as backup. For those worried about someone stealing your ideas from a lost drive many now come with reliable password protection.

Copying your files

Plug in your external drive and a few moments later it will be ready, often with on-screen notification. Browse to your book documents on the computer and copy them to the drive. You will need to know where your files are stored and how to copy. Both Windows and Macs use a Documents folder by default. You can also specify your own location to save files.

If you don't know where your documents are on the disk or how to copy, then you need to employ the same determination used for book research and planning into finding out. The Google search will go something like 'Copy files from my Mac/Windows Laptop/PC to external drive'. Better still befriend someone who can show you.

Online Backups

If you are open to using the internet for storing copies of your documents then Microsoft - OneDrive, Apple - iCloud, Google - Drive and my recommendation; Dropbox, all provide online services that will automatically copy your important documents to their servers the moment they are changed on your computer. The storage offered by these services for free is more than you will ever need for your books.

If Word fails you, simply roll-back to the last version automatically stored online. Even if your computer spontaneously combusts, not only the very latest versions but previous iterations of the documents (even ones deleted) will be waiting for you when you do log in.Online backups require you understand the basics of file structures. Setting up requires a tiny amount of knowledge. Your Google search will look something like 'Protecting my files using Onedrive/iCloud/Drive/Dropbox' Or call a technical friend if you're not sure.

Writing a book is a huge undertaking. Why risk all that work when a small amount of planning will give you peace of mind.

Elite Encounters

Elite Encounters RPG

Almost exactly four years ago (November 2013), I wrote a blog (here) about my trip to Manchester to meet up with a bunch of people who had all fallen in love with the computer game Elite or one of its many, later, derivatives. Well, a lot of time has passed since then. Elite: Dangerous was released in November 2014, just in time to still be '30 years since the original Elite was released'.

My friend, Drew Wagar, who I knew through one of those derivative games, Oolite, released Elite: Dangerous Reclamation, via my own publisher, Fantastic Books Publishing. Indeed, Dan Grubb, who co-owns FBP with his wife Gabi, had never heard of Elite until, Drew, plus a host of other authors (including BBC Click Tech reporter Kate Russell) produced a brilliant collection of themed special edition Elite: Dangerous Novels. Dan has now fully embraced the Elite: Dangerous family and his own Con, FantastiCon, is one of the many highlights of the Elite: Dangerous social calendar.

Drew has gone on to write and publish the only authorised follow-up novel to the Elite: Dangerous game, Elite: Dangerous Premonition. I can see my own copy sitting on the coffee table from where I am sitting writing this. This novel is rather unique in the sense that events in the game determined the final outcome of the book. If the main protagonist Salome survived an event in the game she'd survive in the book, if not, she wouldn't...

Throughout all of this, I had a small vested interest in the fictional world of Elite: Dangerous - the Elite Encounters Role-Playing Game. My friend Dave 'Selezen Lake' Hughes, like Drew, had raised, via Kickstarter, the funds to buy a Writers Pack during the Elite: Dangerous Kickstarter. Now, I didn't feel I could write a whole ED novel and so had not considered trying to raise the funds to buy a Writers Pack. I had also missed out on the opportunity to buy my place in an Elite: Dangerous Short Story anthology when Frontier Developments announced that the anthology couldn't have any more than fifteen short stories in it. However, there was still the Elite Encounters Role-Playing Game. Dave had offered a limited number of slots to write a drabble (a 100-word short story) for the game and as you know, if there's one thing I love, and I'm good at, is flash fiction.

So, I invested in a slot for a drabble, knowing it would also go through the Frontier Developments vetting process, and that if Elite Encounters was signed off, then, so would my drabble. I'd be 'in', I'd have some of my fiction weaved into the Elite Universe - my dream since I'd read Robert Holdstock's, The Dark Wheel, way back in 1985, when I was just 14yrs old.

So, time passed, quite a lot of time actually. Elite Encounters was a massive project and Dave was working on it pretty much completely on his own. I was still writing my flash and so offered Dave a few more Elite themed drabbles that I had written, just in case he need some padding here and there amongst his own words. He took them and filed them away. Then Dave announced via Kickstarter that the project had properly stalled, his 'Lore', the backbone of the Role-Playing Game, reaching back into the original history of the original game had to go, Frontier Developments no longer considered it to be canon, or anything to do with the Elite: Dangerous universe. I was heart-broken for Dave (as were many other old-timers) and figured that would be the end of my drabbles too - figuring they wouldn't pass this new scrutiny and attitude from Frontier Developments.

Dave, pressed on, slashing hundreds of pages, hundreds of thousands of words of the old lore and content from the game. Eventually, finally, Frontier Developments said 'yes'.

Five of my six drabbles survived and are in the game.

At the time of writing this blog, the game has been available for purchase for three days. It's happened. It's real and for my friend Dave and all his hard, hard work and, no doubt, many tears, I am so very delighted to be even a tiny part of this amazing piece of work.

As those involved in the fiction side of Elite (Dangerous) fiction say - 'Write on Commander'

o7

John 'CMDR DaddyHoggy' Hoggard 

Sci-Fi London Flash Competition

At the end of March 2017 I signed up for a short story competition. It was a competition that involved two of my favourite things in writing: Flash and Science Fiction.

The premise was relatively straight forward: At 10am on April 8th, the Sci-Fi London guys would send me a title, a line of dialogue and a scientific premise to weave into a story. The story could be no longer than 2000 words and would need to be submitted by 10am on Monday, 10th.

Brilliant, thought I, two days to write 2000 words? Not a problem.

On April 6th, my boiler blew up and threw the house and my plans for the weekend into total chaos. It was not looking good for my entry to the competition.

April 8th duly came round and my Title and other details became available. The title was, in my mind, utterly uninspiring, indeed, it made no sense. 'Flow Me All' was the title I'd been given. Throw in a truly awful line of dialogue and I was pretty much done with the whole sorry idea. In frustration, I went outside to dig my garden up for the next four hours (having promised the guys coming to fit the new boiler that I would clear it sufficiently of brambles, ivy and jasmine so that they could lay a new gas pipe).

Turns out four hours of digging, scraping, cursing, being cut and jabbed gives the subconscious mind a chance to muse on the writing challenge it had been presented with. I came in from the garden, cleaned my aching hands and dumped a short story into my computer. 1800 words in less than 2hrs. I went about the rest of my day, came back to it later that evening and edited it as best I could. It crept up to 1850 words and, knowing I didn't really have time to fiddle, and fearing more boiler frustrations would make me forget to send it, I packaged it up and emailed it.

Sci-Fi London received over 400 short story entries and, at the time of writing, have not yet presented their short-list. I'm really not expecting to be on it. I was just really pleased that I managed to come up with something in response to an uninspiring title. I'm pleased with the story, especially given all the constraints imposed by life and the competition itself.

So here it is, 'Flow me All'.

(I'll let you guess, what the line of dialogue was that I had to include)

FLOW ME ALL 

Dan waited patiently in the Reception of Unit 4. He stood with his arms behind his back staring at the name that glistened in the Hologlass:

Nicola Jefferies – Head of Sanitation.

He wondered how long she would make him wait today. Four minutes was her average. He turned his head slightly, catching the eye of the girl behind her desk. She dipped her head immediately, refocusing her vision on the data filling her eyepiece.

“You are distracting my trainee,” said the wall mounted ‘Bot, swinging its sensor in his direction. “Can you desist please?”

“Desist from being male?”

The door slid open before the ‘Bot could respond.

Four minutes. She was getting predictable.

He stepped inside and the door slid shut behind him. He was not offered a chair. He wouldn’t have taken it even if it had been.

“You know why you’re here of course?” she said as Dan stood to attention.

Dan nodded. The question was rhetorical. He noted the modulation to her voice, she’d taken another enhancement perhaps? Sub-vocal transmitter? To go with her cybernetic eye from last year? Perhaps she was worried about an up-and-coming junior? Or a new ‘Bot? He’d heard the Series 7 was pretty special.

The air between them lit up in response to a tiny click she made in her throat, confirming his suspicions about the enhancement. The image was a 3D map of the city. It panned and zoomed, bringing them down to street level. Street and ‘Bot sensor feeds of the incident were overlaid on the scene, before the view plunged underground, into the old drain and sewer system, where the only useful sensor overlay became that of Dan’s own visor.

In response to another click, time accelerated.

“How long did the chase last?”

Another rhetorical question, but Dan answered it anyway. “One hour and six minutes.”

It was for the six minutes that he was here.

“Getting sloppy in your old age?”

“No. There were more bugs than normal and they’ve changed tactics.”

“Nothing in our studies of them has given us any indication that they have sufficient mental capacity to have ‘tactics’, despite your repeated claims.”

“I’m sure that’s true, and yet, tactics they have, and those tactics have changed.”

She tutted, partially masking another throat click.

They watched the closing scene of the chase. There were minimal additional sensor overlays now. There was little need to have sensors actually in the Flow Me district, at least not official ones. Nobody worried about male-on-male crimes and their sub-dermals tracked and updated their positions to the authorities.

Except in the sewers of course.

The visor feed showed Dan emerging from a drain and running towards a nearby building. The view became unstable as he raced up a fire escape and in through a window on the fourth floor. A bug was still pulling itself out of the toilet bowl when Dan hit it with the containment field. The bug writhed furiously, managing to break free where the field was struggling to mesh with the ceramic of the toilet bowl. Dan had immediately cranked the field up to max and it had collapsed, crushing the bug, squeezing it out through the collapsing mesh like pushing jelly through a colander. Dan’s visor was covered in a sticky innards and the view was killed, both then and in the office now.

“A failed containment and six minutes over our Guaranteed Service Delivery maximum process time.”

“Indeed. I’ve had better days. One small consolation is that the apartment resident, Phil 16, is a former Sanitation Specialist. He seemed to take things rather well.”

“Yes, quite. We have an audio only transcript of his reaction ‘Geez, what the hell did you do to my bathroom, it looks like you exploded the Dulux dog in there.’ Somewhat of an understatement considering we had to send in a level five decontamination team to remove all traces of bug contamination. The City will, of course, be extracting the cost of this from your Awards and Privileges.”

Dan nodded. He performed a quick mental calculation of his current Awards given he’d moved back to Flow Me rather than keep his entitlement of a Main City apartment. He winced internally when he subtracted the value of a level five team from it. Things were going to be tight for a little while. The important thing was, he’d still have enough to keep his boys at their academy, he didn’t want them coming to him in Flow Me until they’d finished their training next year. A partial trained Sanitation Specialist was an expensive nobody.

He let out a slow calming breath as Nicola continued to talk at him.

“You’ve had your medical clearance I see. No additional signs of infection or mutations other than those previously logged it would seem. Phil 16, also given the all clear.” His results and DNA profile flashed up above the desk in the space between Dan and his superior. “His mutations are at acceptable levels too. You do realise that the cost of that will also be deducted from your Awards?”

Dan didn’t, but nodded and smiled anyway.

“Very well. Dismissed.”

*

Dan reached ground level and headed for a transport hub before he remembered his Award situation. He’d have to walk back to Flow Me. If there was an incident, they’d send a Sanitation Unit to his location and pick him up.He kept his eyes straight ahead as he walked. He ignored the stares and the gasps. “A man here? Outrageous!” he heard one female say to her companion. The companion seemed less outraged. He knew that look. Curiosity with a small side order of lustfulness. He was forbidden fruit and the attention made him uncomfortable. Give him a bug any day.

The smell of bugs was strong here. He knew that’s what his mutation was. He knew that’s how he tracked them. That was another reason he’d moved back to Flow Me, no bug smell. The bugs did not live under Flow Me. That made him curious. He’d asked the question several times but they just smiled, as if his little male brain might not be able to cope with the answer, or that he’d asked a question that was so silly in nature that even its very utterance was the source of amusement.

He was grateful for the rain which started as he walked. It emptied the streets, and pulled the smell out of the air and down into the gutters. Down into Bugland.

He preferred it down there. Fewer sensors watching his every move. Down there he wasn’t the inferior. Down there he was untracked and free.It was growing dark as he crossed the park that separated Flow Me from the rest of the city and, as the tree canopy thinned, there was the ‘FLOW ME ALL’ sign, glowing red in the darkness.

Home.

The spacing between the letters and words was jarring. He guessed that was a deliberate choice now. He remembered when it used to say ‘THE FOLLOWING OF MEN IS NOT ALLOWED’

It had fallen into disrepair, only ‘F L OW      ME       ALL’ remained illuminated. It had become a tourist attraction, ‘I got me some Flow me’ street slang for a female who had dared to visit a man for pleasuring in the traditional, biological way, rather than the recommended cerebral stimulation followed by synthetic womb pregnancy if so desired.

Dan had tried that, just the once, despite the woman’s best efforts she’d fallen pregnant, with twins. A month’s worth of illicit Awards as payment had quickly paled into insignificance compared to the costs of keeping two boys at a training academy. He’d had to pay for it of course, the pregnancy had been his fault after all. He had seduced a sweet and innocent young woman the court had declared. That’s not how he remembered it, but his opinion didn’t count for much, then, or now.

He entered his apartment, dumping his wet clothes in the cleaning and drying unit on the way to his small office. He slid back a panel in the wall and removed some cabling, hooking up a small terminal to a socket that looked crudely attached to the cable.

The terminal began to bypass the minimal security on the Dataflow. While his actions were illegal, so was the cable itself. He was grateful that his neighbour in the apartment above was so popular with the ladies. Happy to do their bidding via illicit streaming for the sake of a few Awards and Privileges.

Piggybacking the signal, he jumped across feeds, back-tracing towards Unit 4’s Medical Section. He logged in via a test account he’d found left on the system months ago and began to dig.

DAN 33 SANITATION SPECIALIST

The phrase ‘Sanitation Specialist’ still made Dan smile. He was a specialist in sanitation in the same way an outlawed, old-fashioned butcher had been an animal welfare specialist.

PHIL 16 SANITATION SPECIALIST (RETIRED)

The terminal was struggling with the datafeeds. It was not designed to handle the multi-dimensional datastack, but Dan was getting good at down-selecting data even when he couldn’t see all the menus due to their failure to render in 2D.

He looked at the two DNA profiles, his own and Phil’s. He saw now what he had seen, briefly, in the office. He asked Unit 4’s Medical AI to confirm his suspicions. The Medical AI was happy to oblige.

The chance of Phil 16 not being Dan’s paternal grandfather were so remote, they were effectively zero.

This explained a lot about grandma and the attitude of the family towards her, towards Dan’s father and, when he was old enough to notice, towards Dan himself. Not only had she dared to get pregnant ‘the old fashioned way’ but it would seem Dan’s grandfather, her companion at the time, wasn’t actually his grandfather.

How many Awards, how much power, had his family had to relinquish to keep that one quiet Dan wondered. It would certainly explain their meteoric descent from the upper echelons of the new post-Man world order.

He looked at the DNA data again on the terminal which was trying its best to render it. However poorly that rendering was, the mutation was as obvious as it was identical. Dan had not acquired his bug mutation through an early, on-the-job, scratch or a bite, it had come to him via his grandfather, and that grandfather had been Phil 16. Not a carefully selected synthetic sperm.

Dan wondered if this is why his bloodline was cursed and still producing males.

Bug sniffer and Male-Maker.He disconnected, hiding the terminal before sliding the panel back over the data cable.

He put his clean and dried suit back on. He was heading back to the sewers under Flow Me. There were rats, not bugs, in the sewers here. He was hungry and had a sudden appetite for real meat.

He would manage without his Awards just fine.

Tomorrow, bug incursion notwithstanding, he would pay a visit to Phil 16. They had a lot to catch up on.

Not a blog!

EP_Novel_progression_from_2011

Nope, this definitely isn't a blog, because I don't have time to write a blog, because I'm supposed to be editing my novel, and if I'm writing a blog, then I can't be editing the novel can I?OK, maybe this is a blog, but just a little one.So, why am I here? Well, on Facebook, yesterday, it reminded me that, six years ago I promised, on Facebook, that I would finish my novel on the day of my 40th birthday.

I even produced an Excel Spreadsheet, showing the wiggly line of my daily word count against my projected, estimated end point of 120,000 words. So, here I am, 2017, six years on. I didn't finish the novel before my 40th birthday, or my 41st, or 42nd. I got stuck at 95,000 words and sat on my hands for over a year before working my way, painfully, to a massively overwritten 145,000 word total. Then, faced with a monumental edit, I panicked and ran away from the novel for another year, despite having fantastically useful feedback from my fellow WordWatchers and a small select clique of trusted Beta Readers.

I am however, finally, editing the novel. I promised my family at the beginning of January (it was not a New Year's Resolution as I don't believe in such things) that I would finish the edit of the novel and then, no matter what, I would 'do something with it'. So, each weekday morning the alarm goes off at 5am and I drag myself from my warm comfortable bed and sit at the laptop and carry on the edit. In the last five weeks I've managed to get to the end of the novel, cutting it down from 145,000 to 117,000 words as I went. Two days ago, I went back to the beginning and started again, implementing changes at the beginning of the story that I didn't decided I needed until I got half way through the last edit. It's getting harder now, I'm not just cutting fat now, now I'm looking at some of my favourite scenes and ask them the hard question 'Are you progressing the story?' Sometimes the answer is 'no' and that scene has to go. Highlight, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V - and it's gone (but pasted into another document (just in case)). I'm now removing one of my favourite characters, because this is not her story and she's not helping. I feel for her, we've spent many years together, but she has to go. I hope she understands.

I have no idea what the final word count will be, I'm trying not to fixate on it (ignoring the evidence that first time novels that are over 100,000 words struggle to find agents and publishers). I also have no idea how long this will take or how many times I will go round this buoy before I decide enough is enough. At least once more I suspect.

And here's the final rub - the thought that this novel is actually picked up and published is actually terrifying. I've had six luxurious years to play with this novel. I've watched many of my fellow WordWatchers get a publishing deal and then immediately turn into book producing machines. Editing one novel, while writing another, while promoting another with the clock ticking in the background all the time, a constant reminder that they now have to produce one book a year...

I shall make the most of the time I have, because I may never have it again.