A Bite-Sized Story: Suitcase

This blog has been dead for a little while. This is mainly due to very little happening in my life in relation to writing. I have had a few things happen more recently, though, and will be talking about them here later in the week. For now, here's another bit-sized story.

Suitcase

All at once I found myself single, equal parts freed and now shackled to a new whipping post of emotion. Though I could not have been surer of my feelings and ultimate decision, I still found myself consumed with a feeling of missing something. I explored this feeling and found I did not miss her, for I knew I had never felt encapsulated by her presence with force enough to warrant such post-entwinement grief. I missed something else entirely, something I was still so deeply in love with yet was heart-wrenchingly unable to define. It was the lights in her high-rise apartment at 3 in the morning, the way the glasswork turned pointless sky into glitter on oil. It was the tired morning that felt so fresh and open. It was the quietest room in the loudest house and the echo of tears on concrete.

In the months that washed over my now mundane self I found that despite the heavy longing that pinned me to the seabed of time I could not bring myself to search for these moments. I instead resigned myself, in my mind so starved of the oxygen of feeling, to a fate of mediocrity. A few good beers and a few bad ones, a late train but getting to work 5 minutes early, a cycle funerals and weddings. My world was an unremarkable oscillation from high to low and I withdrew my heart from my sleeve so as to dampen the force of the water.

A singular question tugged at my consciousness, and I found it was the one thing time did not free me from. What happens when we reach for each other? I had known what happened when I last reached, and the result was unsatisfying. So why did I feel so implored to reach again for what would only be a scientific purpose? Following due process I first searched for a meaning to the experiment my anchored brain begged to be untethered for. I did not desire a more spectacular result, feeling that spectacularity would reach for me if it would ever feature in the years to come. Researching one's own mind is a terrifying task filled with bias and pain, so despite my better judgement I chose to forego that second step.

The hypothesis kept me locked for months in the quagmire of shifting sand on the ocean floor where my head's heart still lay, and by the time I had established one I found I was able to pass the experiment by. My mind asked me what happened when we reach for each other, and of course it already knew the answer. The fundamental issue was 'why do we reach?'. I had never loved that for which I had cast myself out, adrift on the tide. I reached not because I loved what reached back, but because I loved the act of reaching out. I did not want to meet someone and hear a chorus of angels signalling I had found the one, I wanted to fall madly in love with one of the transient angels.

In this endless sky, where we reach out by the billions and still feel like the world is empty, we find ourselves forced upon vessels of our own creation that are somehow alien to us. We fly these kites and sail these ships, hoping to catch someone else's line, or spot another brig on the horizon. We reach so that we might find someone who reaches the same way we do. It is with this person that we will settle down and understand that fundamentally we see the world through the same pair of eyes. It matters not that we found each other, but that we reached out in our personal way and found someone who loved that same brand of reaching. It is not the destination, it is not the journey, it is the suitcase stapled to our hands full of everything we are.

Am I Small?

Today I had a phone conversation with a publishing company which claimed it was in the self-publishing business, which is an entirely oxymoronic statement. I was sat on the receiving end of a long spiel that told me absolutely nothing of legitimate use (such as who I'd need to send things to, how they market their books, where they would be sold) and in the end I terminated the call (politely) knowing nothing more than what I knew from looking at their website except for one crucial thing. I learned that they were under the parent company Author Solutions Incorporated.

Author Solutions was recently acquired by Penguin Publishing, which makes them seem very attractive. They are also being sued by three separate clients for fraudulent activities. Suddenly they don't seem so attractive anymore. The company I talked to, Xlibris, are essentially the modern equivalent of a vanity publisher. I would be able to say 'Yay I got published', but I would have nothing to show for it except for maybe a hole in my bank account.

I have no intention of continuing discussions with these sorts of people, and Xlibris aren't the only ones out there like this. I've come to the conclusion that I would ideally like to be working with a literary agent. This seems like it might be the harder option, but look at me, I'm 18 years old, I'm only just finishing my first novel, I have no experience in the publishing industry and I am terribly vulnerable to companies like Xlibris who won't actually do my novel any good (aside from turn it from a word document into a physical book). What I need is someone who has the know-how, the connections and a legitimate desire to see me get published and maybe even become successful. What I need is a literary agent.

Yes, I am small. I am very small. I am tiny. There are thousands like me, who want to get published. That's why there are dozens of companies like Xlibris who will publish your book for you in a way that satisfies only your sense of achievement. Don't get me wrong, I want that sense of achievement, I just also want a paycheck.

I am also big. I am very big. No matter how many companies like Xlibris there are out there, I am the one that gets to say 'no'. I am the one that decides who publishes my book. I absolutely run the risk of never getting published by holding this mentality, but I would rather hold on to what little power I have at this point so I can leverage it into a substantial amount of power. That's what I'd be losing if I went ahead with something with Xlibris. The money is something I could earn back, the power isn't. I'd be banking on having some literary agent notice my book on a shelf and I don't even know where that shelf would be. That's like paying someone to go catch a fish for you so you can eat dinner when for all you know they're trying to fish in the kitchen sink.

Am I wrong to want some level of assurance before I move into publishing? I'll find out. If I am wrong for wanting that then I wouldn't be able to help but wonder why anyone would bother with trying to publish in the first place. A few months from now I will have had some conversations with some hopefully knowledgeable people and frankly I've never been so excited in my life. I'm at 60,000 words and for the first time I actually feel just a little bit like an author.

Milestones

It's been a while since I posted here, but I have good reasons (I swear). Mostly I've just not felt I had anything decent to say here, but it's also been a bit of a busy couple of weeks. I've broken a few milestones in writing Maiden Voyage this last week, including 20 chapters, 200 pages and 50,000 words. Frankly, it's starting to look like a novel, and that's exciting.

It's also starting to look like I might actually finish, which is somewhat mind blowing for me. It's not that I didn't think I wouldn't reach the end, it just looks like so much stuff when I look back on what I've written and I come to wonder how on earth I managed a story with an actual cohesive narrative, characters with coherent voices and scenes that I'm reasonably happy with.

When I've finished the first draft there's a few conversations I need to have with a few friends of friends (of friends) about approaching publishing and all that and I'm actually getting pretty excited to have those conversations. Back when I started the whole notion of actually approaching publishers or even people that could help me get published was a little terrifying.

I'll also have to start going about the monumental task of full-scale editing.That's something I still find terrifying. I don't know what's pointless and terrible in the story so far and have no clue as to how to go about removing or replacing those sections seamlessly. There's a couple of formatting things I need to sort out too, which are simple but oh so time consuming. I'm very unsure as to whether there's any point to getting an editor in to help (or even how to go about getting one).

Anyway, everything is looking very promising and with some luck I should soon know if I'm headed toward being published or not.

A Wandering Shovel Bite-Sized Story: The First Day

I recently got a group of writer friends to start a Wandering Shovel game. The way the game works is someone gets 'called out' and has to write a piece of 1000 words or less based off a prompt they are given. The other parameter is that each and every story must involve someone getting killed by a shovel in some form. Once someone has finished their story they upload it to facebook so everyone else can see it and calls out the next person, giving them their prompt.

Anyway, this week I got called out with the prompt 'the love of mushrooms'. The piece I wrote is set in the same universe as Maiden Voyage. I didn't quite get to develop some parts of it, but then I only had 1000 words (of which I used 973). Perhaps it could become a short story sometime later. Below is the piece.

The First Day

I was born on the first day. The world ended and I began, a miracle child adrift in the sky. My people saw the end as it approached and fled in a ragtag complex of balloons slaved to one another by a thousand ropes. They feared technology, and with good cause. They did not fear me.

I was hope on the first day, an impossible breath of life as the world seemed dead. All thirty of us, all ten balloons, the only living things we could prove were real. All thirty of us to raise one child. We were a castle in the sky, a bastion of safety in clear air. I could not have hoped for a better childhood. There was so little to teach me. I came to understand language and people but there was no schools or masters for an apprentice. There was twenty nine parents. There was me.

I was then born on the 6209th day. They had stolen something, one morsel of technology to satisfy their craving, because they were impure. They were tainted by that machinery and I was pure as the saccharine sky. My purity was sacrificed. I was told it was for a greater cause. As their collective memory flooded my consciousness and became my own I understood why, but I was still made impure and that made me no different to them. Hope died on the 6209th day.

From the first day I had felt nothing constant. Now there was an anchor inside of me. They had tied me, slaved me to the past. My purpose was to remember, to warn, to protect the future. The knots were too tight. The ropes were too short. On the 6210th day nothing was different save for that anchor. Their survival was justification, was leverage.

I did not know that I remembered for them all. There was nothing to remind me of anything up there in the abyss. The end of the world had not made them afraid of clouds or blue sky. They were not afraid of storms, for they had bigger things to fear. The drifting cloudscape was the embodiment of calm. I never learned panic.

I was then born on the 7670th day. I came to understand what land was. Until then I had only been able to remember land. The anchor in me grew heavier. I was pinned to the ground from that day forth, no longer adrift as I should be. Now there were things to be learned, but I did not have to be taught them. Collective memory provided me all the information I needed about survival. Collective memory did not teach me how that need for survival condoned what they had done to me. They gave me an anchor and I became like them. I was no longer a fresh start, a blank slate, a miracle child. I knew that. I did not understand it though.

On the 7694th day I came to understand. All their memory lay in my head and they grew lazy. They absolved themselves of their memories of the End. I was meant to remember the past and warn the future, but only because they were too weak to do so themselves. They forced it upon me.

On that day we had established ourselves on the ground and were finding what the land could provide us with. We had proven there was life other than ours, but we had not proven there was other life like ours. Back to earth. Back to the beginning so far back even I could not remember it. We were scavengers, still thinking we might be kings.

Twenty nine, and me. Number seventeen found mushrooms. He had allowed himself to forget what they meant. He remembered a delicacy. I remembered destruction, the clouds of death, the pool of burned mutants below. I remembered it all and no-one else did because they were selfish. They were victims of the same flaws in people that had caused the End. I understood that and they did not. So much pain. So much anger. It rose, then exploded all at once inside me.

Here I do not understand what happened, but I remember it, and I remember it as my own memory. They lifted into the air around me. A slow explosion with me at its epicentre. Everything else lifted with them. The recycled balloons which had become tents for houses. The food and water. The tools they had selected so carefully. I took them back into the sky for the last time, so that they might feel what I had felt up there. They could see that freedom all around it but be unable to experience it. They were anchored by me now as I had been anchored by them. They understood.

Then they fell. They returned to the home of their graves. They returned to the mother they had betrayed. They fell.

Most were not people by the time they reached that mother, that home. They collided with blank thuds. Some were still people, lying in pain incomprehensible. Their minds were overwhelmed by the stimuli, like I was if I made myself remember. All their equipment followed them down. Of those that had not died instantly and whose minds had not shut down from the overload of agony a few had the luxury of dying to something that they had not brought on themselves. A crushed body here, a torso flayed by ropes there, a head severed from its body with a shovel lying between. Then the last light blinked out.

I did not die that day, and I never will. But I will never remember. Their warning to the future, their legacy that they thought they could legitimise, now it lies in bleeding consciousness. I refuse to remember. I hope to forget.

The Zone

Today, at around 4 30 p.m, I found myself in the Zone. I quite like being in the Zone, it's a space that harbours hyper-productivity and I like being able to get a lot done given that I spend a lot of time getting nothing done on most days. I was looking like I would be finishing a whole chapter within the hour and would undoubtedly be finishing another whole chapter by the end of the week.

At 5 20 p.m someone came into my room and made a fuss about who would be cooking dinner, deciding that since I had mentioned I was at home during the day I could cook (despite not being able to plan a meal and get ingredients etc etc etc) even though the task had been prescribed to someone else. To put it plainly, my mother came in to my work space and acted rudely. The interruption in and of itself was frustrating. The death sentence to my precious Zone was that the exchange left me feeling angry. I haven't written a word of that story since, despite being on a roll of sorts.

This post is meant to be about the Zone, not the interpersonal dramas in my home, so I won't go into further detail about my afternoon. The Zone is like a bubble. You can call out to someone inside it and they will be able to hear you, but try and interact with the person inside and the bubble will burst instantly. It's such a delicate thing. Staying in the Zone can be challenging purely because it is so fragile. One can learn, and do so very quickly, how to stay in this Zone provided they are not interrupted. Thankfully the Zone promotes tunnel vision, so it is surprisingly difficult to get voluntarily distracted by things like the internet and food and that spot on the wall that is suddenly very interesting, all of which are common distractions to a person working while outside of the Zone.

The externals can simply not be controlled so easily. I can turn my phone onto silent mode but it will still light up and beg for my attention if someone sends me a message or calls me. I can ask that my dinner be left aside so I can reheat it at my leisure but at some point I will still have to eat it. I can be in the most isolated room in the building and someone might still choose to enter it.

Minimising these external threats to the integrity of the Zone is crucial to prolonging its lifespan, I have found. I have also found that there are in fact simple was to minimise these threats. Leave phones out of sight. Have an emergency sandwhich in your workspace when you start writing. Hang a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on your door. Untangle yourself from headphone cables lest you find yourself in an infuriating spaghetti-esque bundle.

"But Pixie," you cry, "I did all these things and someone still ignored my 'Do Not Disturb' sign so they could tell me off for not cleaning my room!"

Here's a quick guide for what to do when you are, for some reason or another, pulled out of the Zone. Fist of all, let it out. If you're angry, let it out and get the anger out of the way. Then lie down for a bit, maybe watch something on youtube. Numb your brain a little bit and let yourself get distracted. All the explosive emotion released when that bubble burst will get buried beneath the distraction and you'll return to the neutral state you were in when you entered the Zone. If you can't just sit down and pick up where you left off, go do something else creative. Pick up your local guitar, doodle something, make fart noises to the tune of 'Call Me Maybe', go write a blog post...

A Preview Part II

I decided it'd been a couple of days since the last post here and as much as I don't want to be constantly posting things I've written I don't feel I have very much to talk about on here at the moment. Today I'm posting the second chapter of The New Age of Steam: Maiden Voyage. This will probably be the last complete chapter I post. Further previews will be smaller excerpts unless a good number of people ask me to post a full chapter.



Chapter 2
Aeronautics

A dozen Engineers, Malcolm in their midst, stood hunched over a large table with papers scattered about it. They were in the main hall of the Engineer's headquarters, a mass of wood and iron which sat suspended below an overhang allowing a breathtaking view of the lake. The view was largely ignored today, the content of the sprawled papers was far more interesting.

"And you have funding?" asked Giorgi, an Engineer in his mid 30's who always knew what those in the room were thinking.

"The Archaeologist's guild expressed interest when I discussed it with their head guildsman and they've agreed to supply most of the funds." replied Markus, the Engineer's head guildsman.

"Most?" asked Giorgi, again capturing the question on everyone's minds.

"The rest consist of a few small donations from wealthier families and organisations. Nothing unusual." Markus replied in his exceptionally level voice once more.

It seemed that after so many years of life, almost a hundred, nothing anyone said caught Markus off guard. There was very little about him to show his age though, he had been bald all his life, having been born a Purple Eye, so there were no grey hairs to suggest old age. His skin was remarkably smooth, again a result of his mutation, and aside from the creases caused by years of conversation he could boast almost no wrinkles. As far as science was concerned he would live to be even older. The Purple Eye mutation had emerged sometime during or after The Ending and after years of study it was believed everything there was to know about it was known. Carriers of the gene might not have the mutation themselves, so it was difficult to tell who might give birth to a Purple Eye. It was fairly rare, though, with only a dozen or so living in Lucerne. They lived to be very old, often as old as 150, grew no bodily hair and had very tough skin that repaired itself with ease. The changes normally brought about by puberty were somewhat hit-and-miss, with some experiencing most of the normal changes and some experiencing none whatsoever, so a large number were in fact infertile.

"And what are the construction plans?" asked Guildsman Tristan, a small and sharply aged fellow, after a few more moments of quietly poring over the blueprints drawn neatly on the papers they crowded around.

It was perhaps the biggest question on everyone's minds, now that it was understood the costs were covered. The thing was enormous, some 250 metres long, there was no way it could be built in the Engineer's cavern.

"We have secured a warehouse in the lake districts. If we allow this project to go forward then construction will start tomorrow provided a few of us Engineers lend our services for the build. We will be undersupplied on manpower given that most of the city's men will be returning to full-time Spring work." replied the head guildsman.

Silence again fell until slowly they began to drift away from the table.

"If we are done examining the designs then I would like to call an official vote." Markus said, letting the silence gracefully fall away beneath his calm yet authoritative tone. "Those 'for' may vote now."

Every hand was raised.

"For formality's sake, those 'against' may vote now."

And the silence held control of the room again for a brief moment.

"Now, then, for the more important matter. Who will offer their services for the project?"

And silence invaded in full force. It was a loaded question. Those who lent their time and skills would have to temporarily abandon their own projects, or in Malcolm's case their freedom, until the project was complete, and this looked to be a very big and time-consuming project. Most of the Engineers were working on their own inventions and few of them were young enough to leave them behind, if only temporarily, without risking their comfortable retirement. Those that were young enough, such as Giorgi, had largely been pursuing funding for their own projects. Benefactors were generally difficult to come by and finding them was often the most time-consuming part of a project. Malcolm had been lucky since the factory owners saw the benefits to themselves his invention offered and Frederick, the present project's mastermind, had been similarly lucky in gaining interest from another guild. In short, nobody was overly prepared to give up their life's work for this project, no matter how groundbreaking it was.

The silence hung for too many moments and Markus, sensing Frederick's growing nervousness, chose then to break it tactfully.

"Perhaps we should allow everyone some time to consider the question and ponder the matter. We will hold another meeting three days from now, which will mark the final time at which one of us can express interest. If you wish to express it between now and then you are more than welcome to. Frankly I don't want to bring in junior Engineers to the project, especially without any interest from our longer-standing guildsmen. This meeting is adjourned."

Everyone, save for Markus and Frederick, made for the door. In the main hallway of the headquarters the silence was again broken as the thought of discussing the project became too exciting. Snippets of conversation made their way into Malcolm's ears as he walked with his fellow Engineers.

"... remarkable thing, though. The implications would be enormous..."

"... possible military applications. One has to wonder..."

"... but how long until the Francians take interest...?"

"Say Malcolm, you're one for Aeronautics. Do you have any sort of opinion here?" Giorgi asked him.

He hoped Giorgi hadn't asked the question on everyone's mind, he was terrible at addressing crowds, even small ones of familiar people.

"Well," he began as slowly it became apparent he would indeed be speaking to everyone, "It's marvellous." he stammered.

He took a moment to pause and arrange his thoughts into sentences.

"First of all the superstructure means an unprecedented amount of integrity, and I'm slightly annoyed I had not thought of such a thing myself. Then the stabilisers, provided they do work as Frederick claims, could mean he has in fact brought us close to achieving this breakthrough. There would have to be all manner of tests though, and I wouldn't dare to dream that the first one built is entirely successful. I'm willing to wager there's something he hasn't thought of or taken into account, or perhaps something we have yet to discover that could ruin his design. I..." he drifted off, giving way to the expectant silence of the others. "I'm hopeful, but at the same time sceptical, and I'm not usually one for downright cynicism."

"You have to involve yourself in the project then." responded Morton, who had worked with him on the Skytrain. "I must say, there were problems on your own project you predicted that had not even crossed my mind, you have a sense for this sort of thing. Frederick needs you."

"Yes... well..." he began to reply, even though he had really nothing to say.

"Oh, stop by your office. I've left you a parting gift of sorts, to help you enjoy your indefinite hiatus." Morton said, graciously interrupting Malcolm's needless words before turning off to return to his own workstation.

Malcolm stood for a moment, watching the others, before turning around and heading to his office as Morton advised. Upon arrival he noticed a fine looking wooden box. Sliding back the cover he found it contained a single bottle of brandy. It seemed the world was trying to intoxicate Malcolm, and as he left his office he decided he would merrily succumb.

*     *     *

He returned to his room only a few short hours after he left, having stopped at a few shops on his way home. Again as he opened the door he found his roommate already there.

"Hello." he said chirpily.

"Someone's lightened up since this morning." replied Douglas.

"Well I've decided to have a proper celebration this evening, so there's plenty to be happy about."

"And what are you celebrating?"

A cheeky smile was spread across Douglas' face as he asked the question.

"My various achievements, which far outnumber yours at this point." he responded with a similarly cheeky look upon his face.

Douglas laughed and responded with a slightly heightened level of good cheer.

"I'll get in touch with the lads then."

"Wonderful. Have them turn up around eight. We'll have a few here then go find a beer hall."

And he left for the kitchen smiling. There was plenty to be happy about. He was looking forward to a night on the town, he had no work commitments for however long he chose and he had just examined the blueprints for the new world's first long-haul airship.

A Bite-Sized Story: Occupation

It's a day late but here is the small story I wrote a few years ago in English class I said I would post. It is very loosely based on the experiences of my grandfather but the characters are entirely fictional.

Occupation

I was born in 1933, the year Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. This meant that by the time war broke out I was only six. My older brother, Roald, was fifteen when France officially declared war. My parents were a part of a generation for whom war had left a wound, still fresh, on the memory. My father was older than my mother and was almost in his forties when the Nazis began conscripting men in occupied Holland. He managed to avoid conscription thanks to that and the expression he wore in those years changed between fear and relief every few days. I didn’t understand much more than smiles or tears back then but it still made sense that my Papa was glad to not be fighting after his own Papa was killed in the First World War. We’d visit his grave when we visited Belgium in the summers. He was one of the ones in Flanders. We didn’t know which cross was his though so we’d walk along in silence while Papa paid his respects to every grave. I would think about how impossible it was that somewhere so quiet and peaceful with playful zephyrs and motherly sunshine could serve as a place of remembrance for a time of shrieking artillery, staccato choruses of gunfire and the howls of dying men. Of course, I didn’t know war was like that until I was a little older but when I was five and I went to Flanders I knew that war was loud and scary and dangerous.

After Hitler thrust his tanks through the Ardennes and France fell we stopped going to Flanders. I didn’t know why we stopped going but I had this almighty sense that the world was just bad at the time, like God himself was separated from earth by a black screen. My brother started to take it upon himself to keep me happy and oblivious to the dangerous Europe we sat on top of. By 1942 I was nine and Roald was eighteen. It was in those times, I now realise, that Papa had the fear on his face. He feared his son would be conscripted and, in hindsight, I can see that my brother was scared too. For me it was almost an adventure sometimes. I would be frightened but it was a fun kind of frightened because at the age of nine I just didn’t know what getting caught meant. It was hide-and-seek to me and it could happen anywhere at any time if I was with my brother. We had been in Rotterdam for the day one time and were only a few streets from our home in Ridderkerk when my brother told me we would be hiding again. It was good to be outside when it happened, I learned, because they came inside the houses and if that happened Roald would have to go out the side window and climb onto the neighbour’s roof where he would crouch in the shadows, trying not to hit any loose shingles. This time we had to dive under a bridge as the Nazis marched around a corner and out to the edge of the canal. We were deep enough in the mud that it didn’t squelch noisily as the drum sound of boots rang out from above us. One of the Nazis slipped on the wet wood and landed awkwardly on one foot and one knee on the bank opposite us. As he collected himself his eyes caught our two faces adrift in the mud and matched frantic movements with frantic words before wrenching us out of our failed hiding spot. He looked at me the way all adults looked at me in those years. Now I realise they were all thinking how unfortunate I was, just a little boy, too young to understand. And I was too young to understand as one of the men spat German at my brother’s face while another translated it into equally angry Dutch. I don’t remember what was said and am not sure I knew at the time what they were saying.

They marched us home where the rest of the day happened in brief images and dreamlike scenes that were seen with clarity but heard and experienced from a distance. Shock is how I describe it now but even though the symptoms of the aftermath would suggest shock I wonder whether my nine-year-old mind was capable of such an emotion. Mama cried, her tears adding new dimensions of flavour to the tea she gave the waiting soldiers. Papa cried too, but he only told me that soon before he passed away many decades later, while he helped his grown son Roald pack under the supervision of one of the Nazis that had played seeker in our game. Roald came downstairs with a suitcase and gave calming hugs to hysterical Mama and received silent advice from Papa about life and death and everything. To me, suitcases meant holidays to Flanders, and holidays to Flanders meant coming home again afterwards. It wasn’t until 1947 when I was a bit older, about thirteen or fourteen, that I came to understand that Roald wasn’t coming back home.

When I was eighteen I packed my own suitcase and gave calming hugs to hysterical Mama and received silent advice from Papa and left to start my own life, like Roald would have if he hadn’t been spotted that day, if his nose had been smaller, or his eyes less blue.

Bashful Prose Sweeping The Nation

I remember reading somewhere that there are two types of writers. Some of us are Sweepers and some of us are Bashers. I've never found something that seems to so accurately summarise the two approaches to writing. I may have tried a bit too hard to incorporate a pun into this post's title.

Sweepers, like myself, are writers who get it all down first. They write, and they write a lot. They will do big chunks before going back and editing. These 'chunks' might just be a single chapter or might be the whole book. After it's all down on paper they go back to the start and begin editing. This makes absolute sense to me as I tend to get 'in the zone' when I write and need to keep going until I comfortably reach a point where I can stop, at which point I walk away and spend some time thinking about how to continue. Rinse and repeat, hang out to dry for a few hours, bring in, fold, first draft done. It also makes sense to me from an editing standpoint. I can't edit the beginning until I know what the end will be like, otherwise I'll end up editing myself into a direction I don't want to take the story.

Bashers are perfectionists. For them, writing and editing are synonymous. They fight for every sentence and by the time they reach the end of the novel it's a completed work. Where a Sweeper might edit a whole act at once after finishing it, a Basher will instead opt to edit each scene as it is completed. This gives them a clarity of direction and helps soothe the pain of constantly questioning oneself about whether the last thing they wrote was 'right'.

I don't want this whole post being about the pros and cons of Bashers and Sweepers, or a bashing of Bashers, or an extensive list of notable Bashers and notable Sweepers. I want it to be about how us Sweepers seem to get catered to a little less than the Bashers.

I do think the writers that edit as they go are more common, and I do think most Sweepers do some small editing as they go (changing sentences here and there, correcting spelling errors, etc). I also think that the advice often given surrounding editing is geared heavily toward Bashers.

I would, given the above, like to offer some of my own advice. Edit. Definitely edit. If you don't do full-on edits where you re-write entire scenes and alter character arcs and so on until you've totally completed the first draft then that's ok. If you finish writing a bunch of pages, then go back and edit them before moving on then that's ok too. What's important is that you do, one way or another, edit your work before you call it 'finished'.

Bashers, go a little easier on yourselves from time to time. It could be worth your while to write that next little bit before editing lest you write yourself into a corner.

Sweepers, don't get discouraged. You may not have edited yet but that's fine, you'll find it easier when you've completed the novel's first draft as the whole story will be clearer in your head.

Commenters, seeing as I have some now, which of these are you? Are you a methodical Basher or an unbridled Sweeper?

Tomorrow I'll be uploading a short piece of fiction I wrote a few years back. In true Sweeper spirit, it will be completely unedited.

The Private Punchline

I love inside jokes. Inside jokes are the only thing that allow you the opportunity to grunt at a friend while rolling your shoulders backwards and make them laugh. It's a unique form of humour that can make or break the believability of a friendship in a story.

Maybe I've just read too much terrible fiction lately but I've come across so many stories that have had characters do or say incredibly weird things around a friend, have the friend laugh, explained that 'She laughed because it was an inside joke' and expected the reader to find it funny. It might be amusing to picture someone doing the macarena behind the back of an unsuspecting teacher in a hallway but it's not funny to be told it's funny. This breaks the believability of that friendship, because suddenly the reader is being told that the friends are friends and they have this inside joke because they are friends and it is funny because it is a joke. Maybe this boils down to show-not-tell, but I definitely think there's something more to it than that.

Some inside jokes in stories are good, and not just because the joke is funny to the reader. In fact, the entire point of an inside joke is that it's only funny to the people that are in on it. A good inside joke should be explained in a way that ends with 'I guess you had to be there'. It should seem weird to an outside observer. It doesn't even have to be funny to the characters anymore. The hilarity of it might have worn off and now it's a force of habit for those friends.

That seems boring though, doesn't it? What's the point of a form of humour being placed in a story if neither the reader nor the characters are laughing? It's simple really, the reader believes the friendship very quickly. I distinctly remember reading John Green's  'An Abundance of Katherines' wondering why the main character and his best friend kept saying 'fug' instead of the notably more offensive 'fuck'. It wasn't even explained to me directly that it was an inside joke of theirs (which, for good measure, had lost its humourous quality and was now a habit for them, which added to the implied closeness of the friendship). It was eventually explained to another character and only then did I come to understand the origin of the joke. Up until that point I had seriously been questioning whether Mr Green had simply been lamely censoring himself.

I think this all links to a wider opinion I have on writing humour into a story. In it's most basic form, the theory goes something like this:
Only write the humour in if you understand why the humour works.
Everyone has laughed at jokes before. Some of us have had the pleasure of making others laugh at jokes before. Few truly understand why they made the other person laugh. Even if they do understand it all, they must always keep in mind that when writing you lack the ability to truly apply things like comedic timing, intonation and rants about the Oxford Comma.

A Preview

I feel the most natural part of the story to preview is the first chapter. A part of me considered showing something later in the novel, trading off mystery for action, but I decided against. Anyway, here's the opening chapter:



Chapter 1
Ice

In the city dug into the cliffs above Lake Lucerne winter was becoming spring. The ice on the walkways slowly vanished and only the out-of-towners still clung to the handrails as the world grew warmer. Below the cliff districts the rest of the city began to make its way back out onto the water as it shifted its blue from a harsh white-tinged shade to a deeper, glistening colour. Ropemen rappelled in ever increasing numbers down the many levels of the cliff districts, checking for cracks in the rock that had been pried further open by the frost. As the numbers of Ropemen scouring the rocks increased, the numbers of Ropemen on the de-icing shifts decreased and slowly they all moved into a new season of work. The air was still cold and thin but the city, as anyone could tell you, was alive once more. Malcolm Chevin hadn't rubbed his eyes out of tiredness in weeks.

The last de-icing shift on the Skyrail was a week or so after all the other de-icing work had dried up. There was no such thing as too cautious when it came to the new invention's first peak season. During the winter the trains had floated to and from the lakeside only when factory shifts began and ended but now in spring it would be running non-stop up and down  between the two halves of Lucerne. Malcolm Chevin was on this last shift, suspended far above the ground by a mass of ropes and clips, scraping away the solid water on the highest stretch of the railway before the 5 am train set off with the first few Factorymen. Malcolm wasn't a Ropeman though, he was an Engineer, a very dedicated Engineer. The mastermind behind the Skytrain. He'd put in hours designing, planning, constructing and, over the winter, de-icing the whole gorgeous project. He knew his invention better than anyone else, down to every rivet.

The Skytrain was perhaps the most notable, and important, project Lucerne had worked on in decades. The freedom of movement between the lake districts and the cliff districts was revolutionary. It would have probably been easy in the Early Times, but that was before the cliffs were settled. The train relied on the new discoveries in lighter-than-air flight. Essentially it was an airship that ran on a line of cables so as to avoid the dangers of crosswinds, for which Engineers now claimed they would soon have a solution. The train was the first of its kind and, if the peak season went well, the first of many.

The last ice was off by 4:30 and Malcolm scrambled his way up and off the wire with the Ropemen, marching back to their headquarters and turning in his ropes for the last time. The busiest season in the city was beginning, but for Malcolm the hard work was done.

"Happy retirement, Mal m'boy!" called one of the older Ropemen as Malcolm dumped his ropes in the collection box, feeling surprised that he had been spotted among the relatively taller Ropemen.

There was meant to be a presentation at the Engineer's headquarters at eight but aside from that he hadn't the slightest need to be anywhere in particular for a long while. It was a pleasant freedom, afforded to few in his line of work, but since he had contributed something of massive importance to the people through his invention, the Skytrain, his guild's law dictated that he was not obligated to do any professional work until he chose to. It was initially written in as a way for Engineers to retire. Someone's life's work would come to completion, the fruits of their labours fully ripened, some brilliant new piece of revolutionary technology would be revealed to the Swiss masses and the old genius behind it could live the rest of his life on guild payouts from his invention. Malcolm was far from an old genius though. Some considered him a genius in any case, but even then he was still young and had no wish to retire. He was more than happy to take a break, though, even if only for a few months.

He strode down the worn paths in the rock to his home in the halls where the scholars lived, though he was not a student himself. He let the sweet air envelop him, washing him with waves of the scents of all the early flowers in bloom. Soon the florists would be preparing arrangements showcasing the unique mountain flowers to send down to the lake for the spring festival.

Loveless Malcolm wouldn't be attending, not that that bothered him. It was a celebration for those couples who had survived the winter as a symbol of mankind's ability to survive The Ending, the grand apocalypse that destroyed the Early Times and set the world back to square one. Then there was the long years of hell, according to the few records from the time, where tribe-like organisations were torn between assisting each other for mutual benefit, or slaughtering each other for control of impossibly scarce resources. Slowly the land recovered and more food could be grown, and that is why the first flowers of spring were collected, cut, washed and arranged for everyone to admire and enjoy in the parades, even though only the couples could join in the massive parties throughout the week.

The scholar's residences were dug straight into the rock of the cliff beside the older caverns the early settlers had dug, which had themselves become the University of Lucerne. He pushed open the wooden door and entered the short cave behind it. Though it was intended to match the style of the old caverns beside it, the scholar's building was very obviously a more sophisticated excavation project. The surfaces were smooth, with proper micro-tunnels for the elecs wires sitting just behind them, ferrying power around the structure. Brackets for lights had been purpose-built for the solid rock ceiling so that the bulbs sat uniformly above everyone's heads. Door hinges had small cavities housing them so that the doors sat flush with every surface. By comparison the university building was ever so slightly more haphazard. The surfaces had been smoothed, but they were nowhere near as mathematically precise as the residence's. Occasional bumps and dents were common and there were all manner of small alcoves people could stand in when a private word was needed. The lighting was an absolute mess, to say the least. It was considered far too difficult to convert the whole building to micro-tunnelled elecs, so the wires were mostly exposed as they ran across the ceiling like an absurdly labyrinthine spider web. The bulbs were not evenly-spaced as they were in the residences, having been placed simply wherever old torch brackets had been. In the deeper rooms, dug in a time where the caverns were used as the home of a small community rather than as a system of caves survivors hid in, everything was a bit more uniform. The lighting was well-patterned, the corridors were decently straight, the doors were square and there were even some fireplaces with chimneys channelling smoke to up above the frozen peaks. After a time, when those groups of survivors that refused to fight each other heard of the settlers in the cliffs, the population began to grow. The tunnels went deeper, the rooms got bigger, the construction became more sophisticated. It wasn't until the world began to stabilise that the people of the caves emerged and began to develop the cliffside, by which point their community numbered around two thousand people. Those that couldn't stand the elevation and exposure to vertical death-drops made the journey back down the mountain to settle the lakeside, and Lucerne as Malcolm knew it took form.
He turned his key in the lock of his room and let the door swing aside, shuffling in as he stuffed his key away in a pocket.

"Take the scenic route, did you?"

Malcolm jumped just a little. He knew the voice. It belonged to his roommate, a tallish blonde man with sharp, sculpted cheekbones and rather piercing blue eyes, the sort that had no trouble with women provided he maintained a mysterious air about himself. That was, of course, where he fell short. He was too fond of talking, though he did have a fairly lush and enjoyably deep voice. It was not a voice he often heard at 5 in the morning.

"Every route's a scenic route up here Douglas." he replied with a tiny sigh travelling along with his words.

He was falling into a deep, contemplative mood this morning and he had no wish to be pestered by his roommate. A pestering was inevitably in order though, he realised as he turned to face his friend. He sat there at the table, already dressed for lectures, with a bottle of champagne and two flutes. Seeing the question on his face, Douglas explained himself with a cheer in his voice.

"I thought we could celebrate your retirement."

"It's a shame there's no Bachelor of Comedy programme for you." he retorted dryly.

"Well I'm having a drink, you're well aware of how hard this sort of beverage is to procure." said Douglas, handily recovering from Malcolm's disinterest.

He was right, too. 'France' as it was in the Early Times was a mess. At the moment it was stable, more so than it had been in a long time, but trade with the Francians was still filled with difficulties. Douglas had a grandfather who was a senior in the Tunnelman's guild, so there had been plenty of inheritance waiting for Douglas when he started his studies, but even then this wasn't the sort of purchase someone made lightly. Another light sigh escaped his lips and he sat down while Douglas uncorked the bottle and poured them each a glass.

"Here's to the genius from Switzerland. May he find his way into many history books." Douglas cheered at him.

"You know, sometimes I want to be remembered, but then I realise it will be history students remembering me and I change my mind" he replied with a grin after they had customarily touched glasses and sipped their drinks.

As per usual, Douglas had found a way to lighten his mood. Not that he was one to be in a mood very often. Douglas, however, was seemingly never in a mood other than happy. The constant upbeat behaviour could grow sickening at times, but for the most part Malcolm was thankful of it. Douglas being happy made him happy, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than happiness.

"You're not planning on putting away too much of this bottle before lectures I hope." he said.

"I got up this early to celebrate with you, I think I deserve at least two glasses." Douglas responded, "In any case, it's the first lecture of the Spring semester, I'll bet they don't cover anything I don't already know about old land vehicles."

Douglas was a history student himself, an Archaeology major. He loved nothing more than finding bits of things from the Early Times and assessing what they might have been and what purpose they served. Admittedly the Archaeologists were great friends of the Engineers, their finds of Early Tech assisting in the rediscovery of many old technologies, elecs being a fine example. It was believed that Lucerne was the first city this side of the Dividers Range to rediscover and install such a thing.

"One day, Douglas, the past will surprise you, I'm sure, and you will soon become a quivering wreck as you ponder on the revelation that men were once apes or something similarly absurd." he mused, staring into is glass as though Douglas wasn't really there.

"One day you'll run out of jokes about history students, I'm sure." Douglas retorted.

"Let's hope by then you've graduated." he closed, raising his glass cheekily before taking a final sip.

He stood and moved to the small kitchen, grabbing easy morsels to top himself up after his early shift, calling out to Douglas as he did so.

"I have a guild meeting at 8 and I plan on visiting a Threadman beforehand, so I'll be going in a minute. Seeing as you have no objection to drinking on your own I'll ask that you leave some of that bottle for this evening."

"What's the point of retiring if you don't let yourself enjoy the freedom?"

He wasn't retiring, and Douglas knew it, but of course he was pouncing on the opportunity to poke fun at Malcolm.

"And at that I'm going." he called with finality as he opened the door.

"See you tonight." said Douglas.

Malcolm closed the door behind him, marching back through the halls and out into the slightly less freezing Spring air with a pastry in his hand, finally letting his mind tick over to wondering what the meeting today was about.


If you want to see something later in the story then tell me in the comments section. I won't be posting the whole story chapter by chapter, but this will certainly not be the last you see if this novel.

Explaining Myself

All zero of my lovely commenters have been asking me to explain what my current novel is about. Seeing as everyone I've told about my book has also asked me this, I'll try and go about explaining the premise in an approachable and understandable way.

Wow, that made it sound like a very complex story...

The most rudimentary way of describing it, and the way I always initially describe it to anyone who asks, is 'it's about a dude on an airship'. I'm not lying to you if I say that.

To elaborate further I feel I must set the scene of the world as a whole. There has been an apocalypse. Exactly how this apocalypse occurred is largely unknown, given that everyone at the time was running and screaming rather than calmly writing down what was going on around them. It has been about 500 years since this apocalypse and society has largely recovered and is now going through an industrial revolution (for the most part). I won't describe each region, only those which are relevant to the story, but do keep in mind that the whole world is not like Europe. Yes, the story is set in Europe.

Possibly the most significant change is that the northernmost parts of the world, from around the tip of Denmark upwards, is permanent ice. There is also a massive and largely impassible mountain range separating Europe from Asia. These mountains run from approximately the Baltic coast down to the top of the Arabian sub-continent. Though travel across these mountains is possible it is not very common and there is essentially no communication between Europe and Asia.

The story itself follows Malcolm Chevin, a young and somewhat prodigal engineer living in the city of New Lucerne in the re-founded Swiss nation. Malcolm volunteers himself for the maiden voyage of the world's first long-haul airship, a journey that will take him over the rest of Francian-controlled Europe, across The Dividers and back again. The journey, of course, does not turn out to be that simple.

I feel I should end the description there and hope it is enough to titillate those reading this post. Tomorrow (or potentially today, if I'm feeling generous) I will be posting an excerpt from the book.

When does mystery in a story (book, film or elsewhere) stop being important? Comment below with your views.

The First Post Should Have a Clever Title

It's almost 11 O'clock. I'm fully clothed, sitting in bed with my laptop having just started a blog. 'Blog' has always struck me as a word that will, in a few hundred years, be a swear word. 'Wot the blog is goin' on 'ere?' a cockney policeman will yell at miscreants in a dystopian future.

I've done a terrible job of introducing myself to my nonexistent audience. I'm Pixie, I need a pseudonym for publishing, my parents did not actually name me 'Pixie' and I have, metaphorically speaking, recently thrown myself into the abyss. That's what it feels like. Here's my tragic backstory:

I have (tragically) been studying at university for the last year and a half after (tragically) leaving high school a year early. I have been (tragically) unhappy with my chosen degree at university and found myself growing increasingly miserable in all aspects of my life. (Tragically) I recently started writing a novel after not writing very seriously for a very long time. This has caused me to (tragically) make the decision to become a full-time author. Maybe it's a premature decision, and maybe that's why I feel I have thrown myself off a cliff.

My backstory is undoubtedly not the most heart-wrenching narrative ever to grace the blogosphere, but the fact of the matter is I now find myself in strange terrain, rocketing toward "real life" (and I wish there was a way I could make those quotation marks extra bold) angling myself toward a career in writing and (tragically) starting a blog.

I guess the latter half of this post is a bad place to start explaining why I'm starting this blog, but if I told you everything from the get-go there'd be no mystery. I want a place to broadcast my journey, even if no-one listens. I fully intend to update this blog regularly with a combination of my writings, events from my life and writing advice (if I'm feeling cocky).

Maybe the real reason I'm starting a blog is I want to have people watching me fall into this abyss, arms flailing as I hope to catch an outcropping of rock or whatever substance is most meaningful in this metaphor. Perhaps I want to make a spectacle of myself so that even if I fail I will have had an audience. Maybe I want someone along for the ride though, maybe I want someone to fall with me. Frankly I'm not sure what I want in most areas of my life right now. I do know, however, that I want to be an author.

I have six weeks of tertiary study left. After those six weeks I will unceremoniously ask for more shifts at my job so I can pay for an array of courses for hopeful writers. Outside of that I'll be writing as much as I can bear, hoping that the light at the end of the tunnel does not turn out to be a dead-end and a flashlight.