The Word Cloud

            A good writer is sometimes only as good as the reference books they have in their collection. Being one who wrote academic papers for nine years, I understand wholly the value of a well-stocked library. In that same vein, I also understand the value of a well-stocked literary library. I am not merely referring to novels and such here, but non fiction books that can be used as reference works. I good story is researched accurately and presented factually. In this blog I will share some of my “horror oriented” works of reference.

           

            As most of you know by now, I am a horror/dark drama writer, so my library will sway towards the horror field. I have been collecting the books on an as-needs basis, selecting the work when I had a definite need for it (you should also keep an eye out for any bargains at the book store!). I have, for horror, a wonderful encyclopedia on ghosts and hauntings, The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings, Theresa Cheung. It is a phenomenal book and alphabetically lists events, people and haunts for the past century. The book is great for research and inspiration. If you write any horror, it is a must have. While on ghosts, I also have Relax, It’s Only a Ghost, by “Ghostbuster” Echo Bodine. This little book is an easy read and covers some of her exploits in the real-life business of ghostbusting. Great for inspiration and knowledge on the supernatural, the book is also a pleasant read. The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena, Bob Rickard and John Michell, is a great text for all things supernatural. It covers everything from aliens and levitation and strange rains (frogs, ect.) to various swarms and spontaneous combustion. It is great for general knowledge and inspiration. On witchcraft, the books I used were The Truth about Witchcraft Today, Scott Cunningham and The Wicca Handbook, Eileen Holland. The former was a more general book and useful for gaining a general knowledge of that faith. The latter is more detailed and takes a slightly different perspective than the former, but is also adequate for understanding Wicca. I found both very helpful in understanding spells, sacred space and Wiccan theology (Look for this info to appear later in my second novel!) Those about cover the major horror books in my library now. I do, however, keep others on hand as well.

 

            I have eclectic interests, and have found those interests to be of value in my writing career. For one thing, I have several books on architecture which have proven invaluable in creating scenes and structures. I sway towards gothic architecture (no surprise there!) yet often utilize Romanesque as well. I keep on hand two books on art; one is a general text book covering art through the centuries, and the other is a book dealing with Northern Renaissance art. I have a flare for knowledge and sophistication in my works and these books have been helpful. Because of the nature of some of my works, I have found the study of anatomy to be beneficial, and have an encyclopedia of the human body. Classical music terminology often appears in my writings, so I have a book on the subject. I like it, and it is a good read.

 

            I won’t bore you with the rest of my library; I don’t have the energy to catalogue 1500 books, and you don’t have the stamina for such an endeavor. I’m trying to develop my blog here, not destroy it! Like any good work, however, a properly written story is going to be accurate and will reveal a certain knowledge about the given material. Know your story; know your sources. Don’t put Sherman Tanks in the middle of Pickett’s Charge, and don’t give Constantine an atomic bomb! Know the history and know the fields you are writing about. I utilize witchcraft in some of my works, so I took the time to study the field and portray an accurate scene. Bleodisian dealt exclusively with blood and the cardiovascular system, so I learned about veins and arteries; a lot about veins and arteries! (I’m glad that’s done). The stories have authenticity and realism, and that is what we are striving for with our works. Aim for realism.

 

            As always, good luck writing.

            As many of you may remember, I have been studying the Wiccan faith to gain a greater understanding of its beliefs and practice for my novels and short works of fiction. I have utilized witches and witchcraft recently in some of my works, and I have found a new avenue for character development with it. It’s been very interesting reading about the practice of folk magic, and it certainly has educated me on the subject (I take broom flying lessons on Thursdays). In the vein of exploration, I thought I would take a break from the instructional lessons and give you a glimpse into Wicca. Here we go…

           

            First, I learned Wicca isn’t what I thought it was. I approached the subject with no skepticism, but an open mind and I found so much more than I expected. I thought I would uncover the conventional ideas expressed by our culture: dark-cloaked people, black cats, old grey-haired ladies with malice upon their faces, sacrifices and death spells, etc. Cartoons and movie have instilled in us such an impression that it is difficult to see around the pointed hats and bubbling cauldrons, as well as the kid with the scar on his head. Witchcraft is very common, very real, practiced by very normal people who have learned to harness the energy of the Earth. Their Rede, or set of rules, forbids them from doing harm to anyone and allows for free practice so long as it harms none. What I nearly expected and what I found were two different things.

 

            Second, nature is imbued with power. This may be a little foreign to some, but after being infused with so much Christian doctrine, I do not find it strange at all. For Wiccans, everything has energy dwelling in it. That is how they can cast spells; they simply arouse the energy of the Earth, then direct it towards a goal. Rocks, especially certain varieties, have unique powers that enable the Wiccan to perform rituals and spells. I was certainly struck by the idea of nature seemingly being “God.” The Christian texts have sayings that strike at the notion of God being “above all, through all and in all.” To me, it certainly makes more sense to see the divine as a real and functioning part of this creation, and not some abstract entity realms away. The trees, the rocks, rivers, mountains, buildings, people, animals, all are part of the divine and a living expression of it. The divine in nature can also be experienced and touched; that amazes me. It is not distant, but very much a thriving part of all that is.

 

            Third, Wiccans believe in reincarnation. Now, on this point many people divide; Christians especially do not want to believe in reincarnation. The Christian view is that life is lived once and once only. It is easy to follow that until you look at ancient documents and see how many faiths have ideas concerning the notion. The Hebrews believed the prophet Elijah would return again. The Christian texts speak of Jesus as being Elijah, and John the Baptist as him also. The Dali Lama is a reincarnation of past spiritual leaders. The list goes on. For now it is easy to say that for Wiccans, and many Eastern faiths, reincarnation is a very natural process. Buddhists believe in reincarnation, though they see the process in a negative light and believe enlightenment allows them to escape the cycle of reincarnation. Wiccans believe in a more positive approach to the idea; we simply return and return. Life is not something to be escaped, but something to embrace. I like the idea of reincarnation, although I have many questions and have seemingly found some loopholes. Let’s hope I don’t fall through one when making my return trip!

            Lastly, natural energy can be harnessed. As I stated above, the energy of the world can be collected and used to achieve a goal. In most of the major world faiths today, you have to use prayer or some form of petition to bring about change. It is very taxing and will not always bring about the desired results. With prayer, the power is not in the person’s hands, but in the hands of the divinity to which they are praying. With Wicca, the power rests solely with the practitioner; they have the ability to harness the energy and send it forth to bring change. Of course, I see some loopholes here as well, but I think there is also a great chance of success. It is freeing to think one has the ability to create change. Personal power, it seems, is invested in the practitioner and not a distant entity. I might be more inclined to believe in the practice if I saw a witch make it rain, but for now I am open to it. After all, the energy is there; why not use it?

 

            It has been an interesting time reading about the subject. What I listed here was only a sampling of what I have read. As I read more, I will try to pass it along to you all. Remember to never judge a book by its cover and never take someone else’s opinion; research it yourself and come to your own conclusions. Until then, remember, when flying on your broomstick, slower traffic keeps to the right.

 

            As always, good luck writing.

            Perhaps the most important lesson to be learned in writing is to back up your work. It seems like such an obvious idea, but few will actually take the time to secure their writings before leaving the computer. I speak from personal experience when I say it is essential to constantly save your work when writing and editing. Here is a bit of a sad story to illustrate the point.

            Only a few moments ago, I was in the process of editing a short work of fiction. I reached page seven and found to my amazement that no further pages existed to correspond with my hardcopy. The electronic version only had seven pages, whereas I typed a full thirteen! Where did they go? My memory gently reminded me of some computer error I had a few weeks ago, so I am now supposing the ms became entangled in that situation and half the story went the way of the Dodo. I have not edited in a few days, so the issue was not immediately recognized. When I checked my backup jump drive, it, too, had only the seven page document on board. Lesson One: check the full ms before closing down for the day. You may have an error and could possible restore the document before saving the corrupted file to your disc. I even tried my “doomsday disc” and found I had only two pages saved there. I was out of luck.

            It is not a total loss, since I have a hardcopy of the work, and here lies lesson two: always print off a hard copy when you are finished with the story. It is not only needed for editing purposes, but also for the safety of the work. I have a hard copy now, so I can at least retype the document and have it electronically again. It’s a lot of unnecessary labor on the part of the writer, but at least the whole endeavor will not be permanently lost.

            Above, I mentioned my “doomsday disc,” a jump drive which I used as the proverbial doomsday vault of my literature, the last bastion should everything else fail. Normally, I am obsessed with backing up documents and I always pride myself on having multiple copies of a single document. In this case, my obsession failed me, and my doomsday vault was found to be empty. Lesson three: always save to such a disc as the doomsday disc when a work is completed (before editing); when you complete a read-through, save it there once again. Believe me; you will thank yourself for it.

Your writing is too precious to lose, and the time put forth into the craft is far too valuable. Keep multiple saving discs and always secure your work, or you will end up like this disgruntled writer who now has to waste time retrieving a story which was already written!

Well, that is all for now. As always, good luck writing!

            Part of my fascination with movies is not there script, their acting, but rather, how the movie was made. I recall sitting for hours watching the “making of: specials when a blockbuster movie would premier. What struck me was the magic behind the screen and the way the idea took shape. I especially liked the discussions on how the whole project started. Sometimes it was a mutual collaboration between producers and directors on a patio in LA, or over a cocktail in New York. No matter where, the story behind the story is always amusing. In this work, I wish to share with you all some of the little known stories behind my works. Like the movies, each has a unique beginning and may help the reader to understand the work a little better. Here they are:

 

Lost in the Fog

            Lost in the Fog has its origins a little over a year ago, at Christmas, when we were visiting my wife’s family in Virginia. It was the night before we were to travel home, and it was exceptionally foggy out. In the dense mist, my mind began to wander, and perhaps wonder at the setting in which I found myself. Save for the actual fog on their road, all else came from the vaults of my mind.

 

Death Immortal

            I was the only one of my family to hike up a steep, nay, very steep hillside to see an old family cemetery located in the Cataloochie area of the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. It was small and picturesque, sitting like a sentry upon the apex. Here lies the inspiration for Death Immortal.

 

Perpetually Seven

            In the final year of graduate study, a small group of us took a religiously oriented trip to China. While there, I became sick with some illness and was immobilized one even at the hostel. I recall lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. My roommate, Josh, was unpacking some items from his bag. I asked him what time it was. He responded, “Seven.” Content, I drifted off. When I opened my eyes, I again asked him what time it was. He replied, “Seven,” again. I had thought myself asleep for some time, but found I was wrong. The story then took shape from there. I wrote it when I got home.

 

The Man in the Window

            There is no particularly interesting story behind this one save for its intimate connection with the swine flu which attacked the world a year ago, in September of 2010. I wanted to write a piece which would be set in a cultural incident, and the flu presented me with the perfect situation.

 

The Expense of Ill Judgment

            Not yet released, this story has its origins in a stroll around the cemetery and historic chapel at historic Jamestown, in Virginia. I even lifted the chapel and dropped it in the story, allowing it to make a cameo appearance. It was my ‘thank you’ to the building.

 

The Nursing Attendant

            My only full-length novel (not yet released), this story has perhaps the best story, second only to Perpetually Seven. The story began life not as a novel in the works, but as a short work of fiction. I wanted to create a short tale where a nursing attendant took residence in a home with an invalid and a madman, who then tries to blame the girl for all the terror he enacts. The story changed drastically as the characters began to speak loudly. The madman became the honest Robert Latoure, and the innocent nursing attendant became, well, Caroline Asher. I won’t give away the story here, but suffice to say it became an amazing work with psychological monsters, witchcraft and the waking dead! 232 pages in all, I began writing it in room 310 in Graves Hall, and ended down the hall in the Resident Director’s apartment.

 

            I hope you enjoyed these little stories, the tale behind the story. Every work as an amazing set of circumstances behind the pages; the next time you read an awesome work, stop and think for a moment about what went into the novel or short work, and what brought the idea to the forefront. Knowing the story behind the story can be wonderful.

 

As always, good luck writing.

Odds bodkins! We're looking at Short Stories for the next couple of weeks.  And the pace has shot up.  Not only have we got to read and comment on a couple of short stories (I chose a Ray Bradbury one), but we've had to write two as well.  They only had to be around 1,000 words, but still!  We were able to chose the subject as defined by the groups 'secrets' and a selection of pictures. After that, it's more reading.  Sheesh ...

Fortunately, I didn't realise that the second of the stories was to be a Formative Assessment.  That seems to mean that the tutor grades it according to the University's Marking Guidelines.  We don't get to hear the grade, but get some detailed feedback. By the time I'd checked this all out after one of the others mentioned it, I'd already posted my story.  No wonder people are much slower in posting their stories this week!  Only three so far for the Formative Assessment, mine being one of them.

And yes, I'm am quite brazen, as both my short stories are historical :) Frankly, I'm getting past worrying about if my stuff is good enough.  It's getting like NaNoWriMo in my head - must-get-wordage!

More poems - this time free verse.  First we had to write a poem about the memory of food.  This one came easily for me, as I remembered a lovely meal I had with great company. And the second exercise was about place, and was relatively lengthy.  We had to go outside, collect 10 words (from say, labels, signs, etc) then list 20 words giving our impression of the place. Back home, draft a poem, then leave it for a while.  After further editing, post it. Proved tough actually, trying to unify the words into some sort of meaningful narrative.

Next week, short stories.  I am assembling my historical ranks for this one ...

Oh heck, what I know about poetry can be written on the back of a bus ticket!   First, off, we're to choose a poem we like.  Oh great, for me my experience is 'If' by Rudyard Kipling (I like it, but it's a bit of a cliche) and 'The thought fox' by Ted Hughes (CSE English, and I can't remember much about it, though I liked it).  Right, better look at the course books.  Trawl through the Poems on the Underground book, some candidates there, plus a few that I half remembered from years back.  Good.  Then I flick through Staying Alive (ed Astley) and find IT.  It is Where we are (after Bede) by S Dobyns.  Fits me to a tee as it's sort of historical (re. Bede) and most of all, I understand the ruddy thing.

But there's more to do yet!  Got to find an object that means alot to me.  That'll be my teddy bear, which is old having been with me since I was one.  We have to take a photo of our object, so Ted makes his (semi) public debut.  And I have to write a poem about him - think I'll call it Ode to a Teddy Bear. 

After that, we have to write about an object from memory.  Got to think a bit more about that one yet.

This is all online, so we have to upload our exercises onto the VLE.  Some people are obviously used to it, and others are getting to grips with it all.  There's a Virtual Cafe where we can all hang out - some of us are more online gregarious than others.

I'm enjoying it so far, as I'm getting to look at stuff which I haven't done before.  There's more to come, as plays are on the horizon as well.  A couple of people have expressed some trepidation about this, but we're all there to give it a go.

Stephen Terry just wrote an interesting blog (which, if you haven't already seen it, you can read here.) The thrust of his argument was that if you set a comp on the subject of departure then you shouldn't award the prize primarily on the quality of the writing, because you should instead award it on the basis of emotional truth. An interesting suggestion, and one that certainly calls for a response.

I think there are three main elements to that response, two of which are routine and the third of which is interesting:

• It's a comp! On a writers' site! Of course we're going to be looking for quality writing.
• We have plenty of comps that call for merriment and invention above all (the last one being a case in point). This one is a little more serious - though as it happens, the theme of departure could just as well be about jumping on a train at Paddington as about anything heavier, so there's no need to get too serious unless you want to. In a way, you can see this as a simple exercise in elegant prose writing with the theme as serious or light as you choose.

These seem like fair rejoinders to me, and the argument could end there. Except that it doesn't and shouldn't, because the real argument has to do with why we write and the purpose that good writing serves.

Because - and here's the thing - good writing is ABOVE ALL about accuracy and emotional truth. It's about finding the essence of a moment and distilling it into words. Good writing and emotional truth become about the same thing.

True, good writing is often about hard work and discipline. 'Creative writing' can often be about uprush of feelings and outpouring through the pen. The latter may generate a pleasanter sensation for the writer than the former ... but if the reader is in search of emotional truth -  that moment of insight that explains themself to themself - then they'll always find that in the carefully crafted prose. Always.

And that's what we're searching for in this comp. The wonderfully chosen word which makes a scene fall into place, which allows the reader to go away with an (ever so slightly) enlarged understanding of the world and themselves. So, yes, we're writing-elitists and proud to be so!

We had an introduction, and then a few short writing exercises - intro to who we are, how we write, what we like to read and an early memory.  Got a bit of homework for next week, as we have to read the first chapter of the 'Creative Writing Coursebook' by Bell & Magrs.  Surprisingly, at least one person is having difficulty getting hold of this book. Having checked Amazon, it looks like they're being cautious and want a new copy.

There are 15 people on the course, and I can already see that some are quite adept at writing.  Suspect I shall be in the middle to bottom ranks as usual - whatever I do, I tend to be around about there ;)

A bit of rule setting going on - keep to the amount of words defined.  That was 200 for all but the memory section, which was allowed to be 500.  No problem with that, as I tend to write short.  Too many years of writing (boring) reports, I suspect.  Must get out of that habit!