The Word Cloud

It is well documented that if you want to write you need to read, read and read!!!

As much as this is a big help along the path to writing, it is far from the definitive source for all new writers. Reading a book that I really enjoy makes me want to keep reading, it does nothing to stimulate me into further action in my own writing. When I pick up a book that disinterests me I can instantly see the negatives in my own work and I can adapt that and think how I don't want my manuscript to turn out.

The biggest tip I can offer is observation. Observe your surroundings, family, neighbours, events and the best for me is strangers. Family and friends become predictable over time. Strangers when studied for a brief moment can bring a smile to the face of your characters, can reveal things you had not thought about. Take notes on your fellow passengers on planes, trains and buses on your commute to work. Study your work colleges.

Remember, what you are reading has already been written. Observation is the key!

Reading does help in lots of ways in how to present characters, how to direct your own thoughts and can be an escape for writers block. Writing about an observation a day can help you grow your own characters storyline.

People have told me how much they enjoyed my book, but how do I manage to summon such emotion and characters in what I write. I'm not married and don't have children, so how did the events in my book come to me. I can say that I have read a lot and enjoyed 90% of what I have read, but I believe that spending a few moments each day, observing people helps develop characters and when you have your characters they write the book for you.

I have a friend who read my book and came back to me very confused. He said that he hadn't understood what at all was happening. I didn't explain anything to him but asked how long it had taken him to read the book, he told me a few hours. It is only 147 pages long so if you read fast you can probably achieve this in a few hours. But take some time during that process to observe what is happening. When you sit with a book and have time to read, it's not a race, but if you feel it is and you're the only participant then you can't lose.




  

We're told these days, you need to be on Twitter, Facebook and the like.
I am.
And you must have a blog.
I have. 
But it's a slow tedious business trawling through them as many tweets and Facebook comments bore the pants of me. How their writers find the time to dump so much rubbish is beyond me.
But anyway, here's my latest offering which I hope fits none of the above. 
I hope you find it interesting and, in the hope of gaining more followers, sign up the my newsletter.
www.edwintipple.wordpress.com

Eddy

So, I went to an amazing school and my English teacher is a published childrens author, who was recently nominated for an award for his latest book. He was like my montor and helped my creative writing grow. 

And like all cloudies, at some point, I would like to have my work published. I decided to get back in touch with him. He is very pleased to hear that I am writing my first novel. 

Although, he is up to his neck in his own writing and cannot offer me any editorial adivce, he has offered to give me some advice on how to get published and all things related to writing a novel.

I stare at the blank page saying 'new email' with his email address at the top, and think, what can I ask him? What advice can I gleen from him that I cannot find on pages about getting published. I want to ask questions that aren't so obvious, or where I can find the answer from a book.

In my activity stream, EmmaD has suggested that I ask about the writing process. How does my former English teacher start and finish a book. What things would he like to have known when he was in an unpublished author's shoes. How did he attract his agent - even though I don't know whether he has an agent.

So my question is, what would you ask? What burning questions do you have? Respond, and I'll ask him.

There’s something about Thailand that causes hordes of otherwise perfectly sensible people to decide, whatever their role in life has been up to the time they discover that odd little country, that they are really writers. That wouldn’t be such a worry, but then most of these folks actually go out commit their every thought about the place to paper for the rest of us to read.

The sad result is that most of the sort of stuff that gets published about Thailand is — let’s face it — a serious squandering of dead trees. But every now and then somebody comes along who delivers a collection of writings that are actually worth reading. One of those collections is MY THAI EYE.

In this modest volume, Mr. Tipple delivers a congenial ramble through the oddities and wonders of a delightful little country better known for massage parlors and sex tourism than much of anything else. And that’s a shame. Read MY THAI EYE and you’ll know, and understand, more about Thailand than a good slice of the foreigner who visit there. And you will have had a darn good time learning about it, too.

(You can find this on amazon.com, should you not believe me – an author telling lies. Come on! Amazon UK, due to another Amazon oddity, or maybe it's because I looked from Thailand, doesn't carry it. And here's the best place to buy it ...  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/120297 where sensibly they have it for all ereaders & I get the biggest royalty.)

It couldn’t have come at a happier time, for yesterday was Songkran: the Thai New Year, in the middle of one of Thailand’s hottest months.  

 

And Songkran – the water festival – highlights so many Thai juxtapositions, that make the country so interesting. Songkran has changed a lot from its origin. Respect to your elders shown by placing small drops of water, scented with flower petals, about their shoulders still goes on.

But today, this baptism by water is … well, it’s huge. It will last two or three days here: longer in some provences. It is impossible to walk along the street without being drenched by Thais chucking water over you – often near freezing – from the backs of passing pick-up trucks. They are happy: it’s just the way Thais are. And you are happy too, because you get to cool down, a little. For 10baht - 20p - you buy a bucket and join in.

I have to say, its been one of our happiest days here. We felt 10 years old again. It’s so good humoured, and for that reason alone, is unlikely to be replicated in the western world where tempers quickly flare.

And the juxtapositions? There are too many for this short blog, but here’s two …

• last year over 2,000 died on the roads. Already there are rumours that a third of that figure has been reached! It is not a time to travel.
• In Hua Hin, the water supply is almost dried up. What better way to use what’s left.

I wonder how Stephenterry's day went?

I’ve just been for a walk with Jess the dog, jet black, a creature of the night. The heavens over Andover this sleepy Sunday evening look remarkably busy. Hanging low over the Shell garage, Lady Luna is positively blushing with earthshine, and displaying a coy little crescent of her full glory. Of course, she has good reason to blush: Jupiter, the old rogue, is sitting right next to her in the sky. He must be able to see a lot more than a crescent from that vantage point.

Having dallied with Jupiter for over a month – they almost kissed – Venus is now keeping her distance. But she hasn’t lost her shine, and sits there at a discrete distance, above Monxton Road, observing her rival’s blushes. But she would do well to look over her shoulder. Orion the hunter is stalking over the pub opposite my house, and whether or not he stopped for refreshment, I don’t think it’s game that he’s stalking this evening. His sights are set on the heavenly vision to the west. 

If I turn towards the centre of town, I find no shortage of heavenly company there either. Mars is glowing balefully red over the roadworks on the railway bridge – perhaps picking up the frustrations of the citizens below with a road cut in half for six months. But walking the other way with the dog, I found him still beside me, now sitting over the junior school. War in the playground tomorrow, perhaps?

Oh yes, the gods are busy over Andover tonight.

Did you ever see the film 'The Trueman Show'? Pretty good I thought. Unusual plot about a man who grew up in a soap t.v. studio and all of America watches as he develops. Each day the same things happen, at the same time, with the same people.

Here's the Thai version and maybe I'll add it to my e-book My Thai Eye one day. The setting is the view from our patio.

5am, Lars (Danish) walks into the centre of town and back. I see him return from his 8klm dash about 6:30. Maybe we chat, maybe we don't. He may not have time, for at
7 am, Lars walks with his wife Suzy, who leads the way, leaving Lars behind. Well she's only been up 30 minutes!
7:30 I water the plants. Suzy returns. Sometimes she waves to me, but others when she's really engrossed, she ignores me. If it looks like it will be hot, I crank up the sun shade, which wakes my wife Liz.
7:40 Lars struggles back.
7:45 a bald poodle is let out of a house opposite. The Thai lady instructs it to poop. Poodle does as it wants. Lady continues to demonstrate the Thai art of dog training. The poodle does as it wants.
8:00 a woman turns up on a motorcycle. The dog yaps. Its owner shows off her trained dog. The dog does as it wants. They go into the house; the dog is shut up, and doesn't yap, thank goodness, for the rest of the day.
8:15 Lowland (Roland - Irish - but his girl can't say the r's, so I assume Lars becomes Lals?) goes by on his scooter to buy fags and a newspaper.
8:30 We settle down to a breakfast on the patio,
8:35 Our German friend, walks his dog, who sniffs the road surface (yamatoy) where the poodle has been, but chooses a spot directly opposite us on which to crap. We eat our toast and look the other way while the dog moves its bowel. The shit-dog (we say it the other way round) is removed. Its owner seems proud of the morning's production,
8:45 Terry (from Oz) walks past on his way for a swim. He stops at the gate to perform his 'harangue-a-farrang' (foreigner) act. He jumps up and down on the loose grid by our gate, which creates a racket. Liz hurls abuse.
9:00 Lowland goes past having bought fags and some rag or other.
9:15 I clear away breakfast,
9:30 Terry returns from his swim. He jumps up and down on the loose grid again, creating a racket. Liz hurls more abuse,
9:30 We finish coffee. Now it's too hot to sit out. Time to go in. Nothing happens outside. I work on my novel.

We look forward to the evening when, after another party we can clink our glasses to what sounds like, Choc Dee (cheers) and later maybe, one for the yamatoy.

It's the opposite of Skegness here, where railway advertising proclaimed it to be So Bracing. But ut isn't a bit boring , always entertaing and its a fine place to relax and write.

That damned photograph…

Force equals mass times acceleration, or F = M x A for short.

It takes less than seven pounds of pressure to break a human bone, and less than a single pound of pressure to cut the skin.  The car that hit Alison, weighed a tonne and a half, and travelling at 60mph exerted a pressure close to eight thousand, eight hundred pounds, lifting her body clean off the ground, throwing her through the air and causing her to land face first against the kerb; her body making a ‘thwumping’ sound as her limbs, tangled like a rag doll, slammed into the pavement. 

Obviously I was first on scene, and rolling her over, her face looked like a domino’s pizza with the topping removed.  I’m not sure how long I held her there, or who it was that called the ambulance, but they dutifully came and removed the body from me.  To my utter amazement, the paramedic announced life signs – I had been sure she was dead – and hurriedly packed her onto a trolley and off to the hospital.

The police found the car abandoned days later on waste ground, It had been stolen and was found burned out and no traces of the driver’s DNA could be found.  “Same old story” the policeman had told me, along with “I’m sorry”.

Eight months on and here we are, at ‘The Sunnyview Rehabilitation Centre’ and she sits there mostly all day, staring at that damn photograph.  I understand that she’ll never look like that again, but she cannot let it go, it’s like she’s fixated.  I just want to go in there, snatch the photograph from her, tear it to shreds and scream at her that that is not who she is anymore. 

Who am I kidding though? I’d sooner look at the photograph myself, than the shrunken, gnarled thing she has become, more scars than skin, a limping, haggard, sagging shell of her former self.  I’m not nasty, I’m not a shallow person, in sickness and in health and all that, but what are you supposed to do when the second your wife see you she becomes hysterical, screaming and pulling at her hair. 

It’ not just the sex I miss, though she was a dancer, and that comes with certain ‘perks’ in the flexibility department.   Mostly I just miss her laughing and the way we could talk about nothing for hours, on our Sunday afternoon walks.  I even miss our biblical arguments, and making up, and yes, I miss the sex, but that’s not wrong of me.  We were lovers and now she’s all but a child, communicating in anything from smiles to screaming. 

She says odd words, ‘bird’ and various other animals, ‘moos’ means cow’s, when she doesn’t mean music, ‘eat’ can either mean she’s hungry, or sometimes that she’s full.  The doctors say that her mind is confused because of the damage to her brain. 

‘Confused’ to me has now become an odd word, because it used to mean that my mum had bought baked beans instead of green beans and “yeah, she thought it was a bit funny for Sunday lunch” and we could laugh, but now it means if I enter the room, Alison will literally pull the hair from her head and claw chunks of flesh from her face.  So here I am, trapped in a loveless, sexless marriage, I mean, how do you face her parents and tell them you’re filing for divorce?

I just don’t understand it, there’s no way she could know I was driving.

You've no doubt had someone say to you, 'you should write a book.' Several people said that to me over the last ten years. Flattered, well yes! The only problem was what to write about? I hated English classes at school - hated school generally to be honest. I'd probably forgotten more than I ever knew about grammar, tense and punctuation. I could do verbs, nouns and adjectives I thought, but a participle? That only provided an degree of mirth; my dad's name being Percy Tipple. I rarely read anything other than car maintenance manuals, or electronics magazines or articles connected with work.

So what happened? Why do I want to write now? For starters, I've read lots of books over the last twenty years and enjoyed them. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. I knew which authors left me cold and those who worked for me, eager to read their latest. When I retired three years ago, we spent a lot of time in Thailand, especially over the winters. I began to write short articles about living here mainly for the benefit of those back home: perhaps to reassure them that we were alright living in Asia. Those early scrawlings were loaded with errors; all the things I'd forgotten about. But I enjoyed doing them.

This month I self-published them as a short e-book on Smashwords and Amazon, under the title of My Thai Eye, a wry look at things Thai. And they're selling, not in vast numbers - I didn't expect they would - but selling. I  did this for a number of reasons;

• It would raise some money for Thai flood relief: I have chosen a book library for children's charity. Seemed fitting as many were destroyed,
• It would help to get my name 'out there',
• I would gain experience at placing my own work in e-book stores and to learn how it all worked.

But My Thai Eye is done with now, apart from the marketing - which I think I'll enjoy - and checking from time to time to see how sales are going, which I might not. As part of my marketing, I designed my own website - and the cover for My Thai Eye - so gradually I'm learning quite a lot about more than writing.

I haven't acheived this alone and want to thank all of the Clouders at The Writers' Workshop - the best on-line community for new writers - and their editors who nicely but firmly pointed me in the right direction. Plus David Gaughran - you should visit his site Let's Get Digital if you want to e-pub, he's a real enthusiast.

So, what now? What to write about next? Two years ago I had no idea. Then one balmy evening, I had that eureka moment. I knew what my first novel would be about.

Edwin Tipple edwintipple.com

January 2555 (2012)

http://www.edwintipple.com/blog5.html

Friday night in Falmouth, in January, is a different seaside experience to the summertime norm. I was staying overnight having accompanied Jenny back to university. Being dark and raining steadily my entertainment, it transpired, lay indoors. After a short while listening to the wind and the waves I repaired to a hotel restaurant, intent upon nourishment and warmth. Not where I was staying, which was a B&B with a very nice little room run by a couple with, incongruously in Cornwall, the broadest of Birmingham accents you'll find in Aston or Edgebaston. Cracking breakfast too, but I digress.

Most evening eateries in Falmouth are closed at this time of year, but for the same wintery reasons hotels open their dining rooms to non-residents. I must have entered a time vortex I think because I was transported back to Agatha Christie world. It was a large, nay massive room. The first thing was that a (rather attractive) young lady in green and black restaurant livery, having anxiously enquired if I had a reservation (I did not) studied her list and escorted me to one of the unoccupied tables. There were only about fifty. She apologised that there was no live entertainment. Apparently they sometimes have a little band and then there is dancing. In the background I was being treated to Billy Joel who appeared rather content with me just the way I am.

A short distance away sat Colonel Mustard. A somewhat florid gentleman in a mustard tweed jacket (naturally), matching tie, white hair and florid face underlined with a splendid Walrus moustache. His wife was a timid looking lady with a curly blue rinse do, twinset and pearls who looked and ate like a small bird. The colonel gave all impressions of being a good trencherman and would have been quite at home with a shovel.

On my other hand a rather elegant couple, he in suit and black bow tie, she in a sheer evening gown. They were eating at each other silently with hate daggers flying across the table. In the middle distance the staff were having a discrete but definitely vicious hissing argument.

Normally it is my practice to order a single course when away by myself, eat quickly and leave. But this place definitely offered people watching promise, something I truly enjoy, and so I set myself for the three course menu at my leisure. This was not a mistake.

A rather ascetic fellow in black turtle neck and grey beard, dining alone, joined. He issued a general greeting to the room, sat and took out an ancient volume. Without being indiscreet I couldn't see what it was. Next came a fellow about my own age. Somewhat academic in appearance he set up a small netbook and tapped furiously for few minutes until a young chap with what I am sure Mrs Christie would have described as a shock of red hair and a full beard arrived. He set up a full size laptop and came with two pints of grobbler, which I think was an act of anarchy.

By now I was well started and had enjoyed the discovery that one could only order drinks from the sommelier (hence my anarchy suggestion). This turned out to be a young man who's pronunciation of Cabernet Sauvignon was so entertaining that it left me determined to have more than a single glass if only to maneuver him into saying it again.

Diligently listening I learned that all of my companions so far were long term residents. The young laptop owner and the academic fellow began an earnest discussion on political history over their beer as I was delivered of a shockingly large rib eye steak. Dean Martin was explaining how he liked his eggs in the morning when a booming Mancunian voice, well, boomed, "Not this blasted music again!" The young welcoming girl appeared flustered, but escorted the blazer brass buttons and wife in flower print dress to their "usual" table next to another couple who were so unremarkable that I haven't remarked on them. The political discussion was drowned out for a while with a booming outline of plans for a trip to Italy in the spring. I haven't mentioned one other addition to the ensemble. Three young children so alike in look and age, about six or seven, that I am convinced they were triplets, with their father. They were so well behaved that I suspect the absence of mother bespoke some tragedy; but that I didn't discover.

The scene was set. A whole cast of suitable characters, including myself in the role of passing uninvolved observer, albeit underdressed, awaiting the murder. But, although I strung it out as long as I could, there was no pistol crack and character neatly slumping to the floor, no guest rising from the table choking, to grasp their throat as the poison took hold only to fall on the next table scattering knives, forks, plates and diners in all directions. No scream came from the kitchen either.

As I dawdled over my cheese and indulgently large tawny port the "daggers" pair rose to leave looking elegant in full length shimmering gown and grey worsted. Proving just how astute my judgment of character is, for the length of the walk to the door his hand rested lightly on her bottom, with which situation the lady seemed quite content.

The rather ascetic turtle necked gentleman was next to leave. I risked it and asked what the book was. He was happy to tell me that it was a collection of Georges Simenon Maigret short stories. In fact he confessed he was quite a fan and had the complete Maigret canon, which I think is rather splendid. He allowed me a quick glance at the book which I noted was in the original French.

Eventually I could last no longer and had to leave. No murder had transpired despite a perfect cast of characters. As I walked out I had to pass the Boomers. I caught the floral printed Mrs Boomer, a quiet spoken lady, in mid-sentence:- "we used to, but Henry kept falling over". Henry did not look pleased at this revelation but as I left my B&B the next morning full of bacon, eggs and tea I passed the hotel on my stroll along the front to the station at Falmouth Docks. I saw that he must have taken it in reasonably good part. At least the absence of police cars, ambulances and blue tape gave that impression.

A perfect cast, but no denouement. Oh well, I wouldn't have been any use anyway. I never figure out whodunit.