I am

This is John Clare's I am.

John Clare

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

I found it to be quite a powerful poem when I first read it and it inspired some of my writing back when I was at school. I found myself to be quite interest in the minds of people and loved psychology. A bit of background here, John Clare was committed to a mental asylum in his later life and the poetry he wrote during that period reflected powerfully how he felt. You get an insight to his thinking. My original idea for a novel was based on a guy who was insane and killed somebody who was very close to him and in prison he kind of explores why he did what he did, at the same time wishing he could escape somewhere so that he couldn't burden anybody and so nobody would burden him. Reading about people's suffering I suppose in a way makes us kind of a sadistic, yet at the same time it is able to move us and think about something we might not thought about before and that's what a piece of writing can do. I bring up John Clare, because there are parallels between my original novel idea and what I finally ended up writing, although the two ideas are very different. I figured it was appropriate to revisit the poem.

Technology...and oh...Happy B-Day.

Monday was my 22nd birthday. It was the usual kind of birthday, gifts, spending the day out and watching a film in the evening. The film was 'Let the Right One In', a very good Swedish vampire film. I can hear drones when I say 'vampire film', but it's different to say, The Vampire Chronicles, True Blood or dare I say *gulp* The Twilight Saga. It follows Oskar, a young Swedish boy who is bullied at school and has no friends, he would like nothing better to do than to make his bullies pay and whilst he talks to himself about it, he lacks the guts and strength to actually do it. He meets a mysterious girl, Eli, who like him, has no friends to call her own and she insists that they can't be friends with each other either, but they do. She helps him gain the confidence to strengthen himself up and eventually stand up for himself. All in the meanwhile there's a string of murders happening around them. It is a powerful tale of friendship and bullying met with some kind of poetic justice. In a way, the vampire excuses the dark and vengeful side of human nature, to do what we wish would could do, just without the means or guts to do so. Or at least, I found myself enjoying the film, I totally recommend it.

Anyway, I got some decent gifts and look at what came in the post this morning! A little chest to put all kinds of treasure in! I've put a load of pens in there for now. Anyway, I should talk about something writer-ee here, well, I've made good progress with plot and technology. I've got every building generating their own electricity through central hearths, as many viking houses used to have fires in the center which would provide a means to warm the house and provide a spot to cook food. Houses in Northeim work by a more modernized version, they still warm the house and provide cooking space, but they also boil steam to turn turbines in order to generate electricity to power things like radios and lighting, or in the case of the radio station, the decks used for interpreted audio and transmitting radio waves to people's radios.

Now I see it pointless to reinvent the radio here, whilst creating new worlds a certain level of invention is needed in order to create new concepts to fulfill the needs of a society, but if they're going to discover how to transmit and receive radio waves then the technology will not doubt be very similar, even when it comes to how an audio desk (in the radio is sat out), because a lot of what works on an audio desk is very logical, for example, the use of separate channels for different microphones and deck. But I feel, some level of primitiveness is needed as it isn't quite polished technology just yet, radios don't use speakers, they transmit audio through a horn and audio data is received via a horn too, like talking into plastic cups on a piece of string.

The technology is in the device that translates audio in waves or vice versa, and there's the use of a long piece of script that contains data that looks confusing to most people but is actually machine code, kind of like programming a primitive computer. I feel actually, I'll need to put more research into this, but it is actually good to put ideas down properly in order to figure out exactly how the technology will interact with the rest of the world and how they were invented if backstory is needed, what is actually happening under the hood is perhaps a lot less important, after all, does the reader need to know how a radio works? I think what matter is that the technology is realistic within the world you've set it in.

The Word

The Bird is the word.

That's 7/7.

You win, Ceri.

That is all.


*Note: Grammar in posts will be fixed in due time. I didn't proofread anything for this little challenge.

Visualising a Character

I'm not a fantastic drawer, I'll admit that, which is why I'm a writer and not an artist. But you don't need to be a great artist to be able to draw your own characters. What would possess you to do that? Your characters are best painted with words after the reader will have their own image in their head with some variance. What I find myself doing is just using a visual key to ask myself 'is this what I want?' mainly when it comes to fashion sense, which is probably something I lack, I'll happily wear a cowboy hat, a band t-shirt and a kilt - perhaps I'm a hard rocking cowboy from the highlands. "Yeeeeehaww lets ride into that moshpit laddie!" But I have carefully considered what my characters are wearing because what a person wears can say a lot about a person, not only that as I am using an alternative reality where society has taken a different course of history I have to actually decide on how fashion has evolved. The two big trades are from the east, most importantly, China and you have imports from the Americas, because of the Scandinavian presence in the Americas fashions have combined to create the 'Vindlandish Tunic'. From China one of the major exports is silk. The North can have some very cold climates fur is still worn as it provides warmth, I think it's too early for the society to start thinking about animal rights and to be fair, humans in the society don't exactly have rights either. I've added small pieces of fashion accessories too, such as a silk neck scarf and sash.

 Somebody who makes that slight extra effort to get dressed suggests that they're somebody who cares about their appearance and wants to make a positive impression. It could be simply a case of somebody undoing their hair from a ponytail to show a full body of hair or simply throwing on a t-shirt and pair of jeans. Somebody can have stains on their clothes from where they've not been washed, why haven't they been washed? Why has this person worn the same get up for days - throw in other senses, why do they smell of sweat - is it coming from their clothes, have they been running or haven't they washed? The latter would perhaps be combined with other smells maybe, greasy hair would be a good sign.

But here is a description I have used for Asaros:

 

My eyes have sagged, heck my hair hasn’t even seen a brush for a long time, judging from its greasy shine it is probably in need of a wash.  There are sweat marks under my pits; although my dress is peach they are noticeable. I grab a tunic from the floor and throw it on, the one tassels around the shoulders and on the hem, I can tell it’s the old Vindlandish tunic somebody bought me, but I cannot for the life of me remember who.   

It's not going to be my final description, but through it she is realising how much of a mess she is, although the reader doesn't necessarily need to be 'told' that her hair needs a wash as they'd know from seeing its greasy shine, but these are judgments Asaros is making for herself, she is judging her own appearance, yet only making enough of an effort to cover it up rather than to seek any 'real' improvement. You can probably start to make a few assumptions about her, or at least I hope.

Alternate Reality

When it comes to fantasy or science fiction often or not new worlds are created and you can be creative with how you work with reality - science fiction can offer amazing technologies that would be impossible today or in the case of fantasy, magic, with each there's the danger of using 'magic' or 'technology' to fix any plot holes, but you put a clamp on your own realities, you could argue it's an enhanced reality so its still limited by physics of some kind. I've had people sit down and analyze a piece of fantasy and say 'well, why didn't he just use magic?' and I think, 'because their system or magic either: doesn't allow it or because he's not skilled enough', for example, "why don't they just use magic to revive Dumbledore?" and the palm immediately reaches the face. I am kind of reminded of the anime and manga of 'Fullmetal Alchemist' here, two young boys with the power of alchemy try to raise their dead mum but it goes horribly wrong as a human transmutation is not simple and there is a price to pay for attempting one. It's not all a click of the fingers, a wish and a bit of faerie dust (even then, faerie dust can't do everything) and everything is okay, if a piece of fantasy were to do that, or a piece of science fiction allows anything to be possible with the power of SCIENCE! then it wouldn't make for a very interesting or believable plot.

I think one of the difficulties I've been having is to have this alternative reality and to connect the reader, I want the reader to feel a part of this world, to feel some level of familiarity with it as they need to relate with the characters and their situation without using the real world to do it. How do you drive something close to home when you've place it so far away. But I suppose what people don't understand is that fantasy and science fiction deal very heavily with the human condition but in vast and imaginative ways you might say in cases it's a hyperbole. They deal with things that can be very close to us, at least, for my that can be a great hook. It's more than 'lets go defeat the shadow lord', because a 'shadow lord' is so much of a cliche that everybody's defeated one, in fact, there was a shadow lord tearing up my village the other day, oh those shadow lords get around! It's about a lot more than that. You might turn to the video game world and see a world of diversity between video games that do have a shadow lord as a bad guy, for example: Nier, Final Fantasy XI and Fable III. Nier is very much about the love between a concerned father and his sick child, Final Fantasy XI is about war and conquest and Fable III is about making hard decisions for the better of the people and learning that Real Estate is the answer to everything! I think if you are taking a cliche you can try to be original with them, but even then not every reads something because it's original, new or innovating, but because it's familiar - Mills and Boon's business thrives on this and as much as it pains me to read a Mills and Boon book (thank you for the lovely Mills and Boon books you got me for my birthday last year Ceri) it is very successful.

One of the things I am trying to do is represent how indoctrination is a bad thing for any society, I think by being in a fictional reality with a fictional religion within a fictional society it allows enough distance to remove prior judgment, I am hoping somebody isn't going to read it and feel it misrepresents their beliefs or the beliefs of others or even saying anything about the direction of our own governments either, but rather a certain mindset which can exist in any culture, society or belief system. In that way I feel the ability to create a world is beneficial, but in know-way is it going to magic anything, although in draft one of The Delusion Wing kind of does happen as parts of the plot happen because they're convenient.

Challenging Yourself

A challenge is always healthy, it keeps you in shape and I think for something to be a challenge you need to step out of your own comfort zone and it's not always that easy and some challenges can end in failure, but it's always good to push yourself. I think it's too easy to be comfortable in your own writing style and it was something I was pressed to do last year. Typically my writing tends to end on a depressing note and things tend to be on the low note quite frequently, my challenge was to write on a high note, have something happy. What happened? I wrote about a father trying to spark a relationship with his son after a history of abuse, I guess the 'high note' is that there's a relationship on the way to repair. Then further attempts were just too facetious and it ended on working on a piece of fluff, but the twist was that the lover was severely ill and I was trying to play on the power of love (sticking with someone, it ends on joy and happiness) it was actually pretty crap, but I guess I feel for a character to appreciate the 'good' they got then they've got to work for it as work makes it all the sweeter, but perhaps I should avoid using extremes.

But look at your own writing style, look for what's common and see what you can do to change that - if you mainly writing in the third person, write in the first person and if you primarily write in one genre, write in another, perhaps one you've never even read, you never know, you might find you like it.

An interesting challenge is called 'Write Or Die', set yourself a target for a number of words and time to write them in. 'Write of Die' will punish you for not writing, you can change different settings to suit you, but my favourite punishment is 'Kamikaze Mode', where if you stop writing after a period of time it will start deleting words so it keeps you on your feet and have you thinking creatively. Combine this with NaNoWriMo, you're going to get good progress on writing,

Plotting Plot

Plot is one of the few things that drives me insane! Why? Because I can never be happy with. Its got to make the story interesting, it has got to be dynamic, its got to move the reader and it has to be consistent! Looking at what I've written there's so much complexity in what I want to achieve it's hard to think of the plot on a single line, there is diversity in the sub plot. Mapping out plot diagrams can be a good way to think about what's going on and mine are layered. You've got the plot on its surface, what physically happens, 'X does Y and moves onto Z', then you've got the purpose of different characters, for example the 'skeletal man' in The Delusion Wing and plotting him out on a diagram has allowed me to get a much better picture on what he should be doing - if he wants to convince Asaros to change her behaviour, as frightening as he's suppose to be, I don't think his first stage would be fear. Now I can look on a piece of paper and see how he reacts to each plot change and how much he plays with reality. I can look specifically at Asaros' emotions and look precisely how she develops as a character and say line it up with the death god and see how they correlate and make changes based on that.

For example 
Plot: Asaros commits her crime
Asaros: Fueled by anger, but scared on the inside, she fear's what's ahead
Skeletal Man: Up to him to use her fear to convince her that she was wrong

A separate sheet I've got is called 'questions', this is to consider what questions I would like the reader to be asking, for example:
Why does Asaros think her crime will achieve anything? Why is this demon-like thing patronising her? Then I can see where these questions might be answered, I'm not even sure the 'Why is this demon-like thing patronising her?' question will be answered in book one now that I've split up the plot. After the major plot turn (which is now the end of book 1) there is a lot for Asaros to learn and she is on a journey of discovery, Asaros understanding her condition, it could perhaps be one of the major themes in book 2 as the major theme in book 1 is 'corruption', which has a nice spider gram...written using different coloured pens (not to make them pretty, it's just I prefer variance in colour for visual cues). I think book 1 would be able to stand on its own without the rest of the story, which is good in the sense that it doesn't feel incomplete, but I have been debating with myself whether the ending would stand as an ending on its own leaving the readers to use their imagination or to carry on. Perhaps it is too early to be thinking about those things.

Feeling Emotion

One of the things that gets me about writing is that I've got to sit inside of my character's head and try to understand how they feel to in some ways to try to feel the way they do. Any character you write will have a piece of you in there and when you start looking into it a character's current emotional state might mirror some part of your psyche. Asaros in some ways reflects a part of me, the part of me who is tired of watching bigoted people screw people over, see people at the top preaching ugliness hiding behind this wall of 'respectability' because it's not their word, it's the word of a higher being and many religious people I know will agree with me when I say this, "that's bullshit". The difference, however, is that she's living it and it'd be wrong of me to say I understand how she feels as I lead a much, much more comfortable lifestyle, which of course makes Asaros a difficult character to write. I have been writing some of Asaros' emotional moments as of late and given all the shit that has been thrown at her and all she's witnessed she's going to have moments where she just breaks down, after all, she's only human, even though she considers herself to be the strong martyr type.

In my original draft Asaros was this young, naive yet strong leader type taking on a revolution without much weakness, but she also wasn't that human. The considerations I had were: given her situation, will she be all that strong? She'd want to be and she'd try to be. She wants to get back at those who have her people living in fear but also those who have taken everything from her. I think actually, she'd have quite a level of vulnerability underneath her shell right from chapter 1. The other consideration is that will she really be able to lead a revolution? I think she'd like to, but she lacks the ability and the qualities and certainly after chapter 1 she doubts herself. Of course mistakes are made in order to learn, who knows? Asaros is a lot stronger when she's around the people she cares for, so there's always potential for her to change.

The Lucky Number 7

Today I have to write seven blog posts, why? Because I need to stop being facetious, I told this blogger and dear friend that 1 blog post isn't enough and of course it goes the other way and now I, like her, am cursed to write 7 blog posts today. And it's 16:45 and I've got to start cooking dinner in 45 minutes. The clock is ticking. What will I write about? I'm not quite sure, but this blog post counts as one. Remember, challenging yourself as a writer is always a good thing, it keeps you on your toes.

Blog Post Number 2: Feeling Emotion 
Blog Post Number 3: Plotting Plot
Blog Post Number 4: Challenging Yourself
Blog Post Number 5: Alternate Reality
Blog Post Number 6: Visualising A Character
Blog Post Number 7: The Word

Er...Hello

Where was that update I promised? Somewhere in the aether. I've left my little blog out of the loop and I'm back to give it some more love, not the kind of love that ends in restraining orders either.

Final notes on the Cambridge Wordfest and a few notes to do with points of inspiration. The entire 3 day weekend was an enjoyment, on the Saturday I went to the crime fiction workshop, and whilst I am not a crime writer, I found some very interesting takes on plot structure. It also inspired me to brainstorm the main theme of The Delusion Wing and I think the notes I've made are good enough for me to keep focus when editing rather than letting subplots go astray. Too many themes going at once would make the piece seem jumbled up and perhaps confuse readers. And yes, Ian McEwan was fully booked, however, I went along to the talk on Wiki Leaks from two The Guardian journalists who worked very closely with the story, who were also there to promote their book and they head interesting stories to tell, which offer an insight to difficulties and ethics of journalism, as well as the risks and how Internet publishing like WikiLeaks makes publishing data that would have most journalists facing legal trouble easy as it's a lot harder to hold somebody who's identity is anonymous to account. It is perhaps worth picking up their book.

With Cambridge Wordfest there's the seminar where they bring new authors into to talk about their newly published books. The books in question are: City of Bohane by Kevin Barry,  The Book of Lies by Mary Horlock and The Echo Chamber by Luke Williams. Each author read extracts and each piece sounded well written complete with interesting characters and strong plots to follow. City of Bohane is a piece of dystopia set in Ireland in the future in the streets of the City of Bohane following a gang. The Book of Lies is a murder story lead by a character who seems rather proud of the fact she killed someone and the author clearly has a good sense of humour, whilst it is tackling deep character issues she certainly uses her wit. The Echo Chamber focuses on the dying of the British Empire in Nigeria, but through the eyes, or should I say 'ears' of a character who's capable of hearing things other people can't. I bought copies of The City of Bohane as dystopia is right up my alley and The Book of Lies, both are signed copies.

With City of Bohane, it is encouraging to see that publishers will take on pieces of dystopia and that there might be a market for what I am writing. After the talk I started talking to people in the bar to find myself amongst MA Creative Writing students and an agent and it was interesting to meet a local agent who accepts new authors and I got to ask a few questions. At the book signing there was one table with PD James and the other with the debut writers, their events actually clashed too, I would love to have watched PD Jame's talk, but I had to make a choice. PD James looked a little lonely when I went to talk to the new writers, I would have bought one of her books and asked her to sign it and try to start a conversation, ask her a few questions about her experience as a successful writer and complement her on The Children of Men, it's an excellent piece of dystopia in my opinion, but felt kind of awkward having picked the debut writers' event over hers. "Hello PD James, I love the Children of Men and as a person who is writing dystopia it's actually quite inspiring", "So did you enjoy the talk?", "Er...I was in the other room". Plus I hate to sound over complimentary, as though I'm trying to suck up to someone, but some people you just have to call awesome, see the last part of this blog post.

Anyway as I was mostly hanging around the Cambridge Union building for the Sunday I actually felt kind of out of place. You have me, Derby University graduate, long untidy hair, cargo shorts, band t-shirt and hands in my pockets amongst folks who are better dressed, Cambridge University lecturers, MA students and what I suppose what you could call the 'literary crowd' if coining the term had much meaning, but I'm a social bloke, I am passionate and I refuse to not be myself, so I made an effort even if I didn't necessarily make a good impression and I think I probably came off as quite nervous to some folk. One guy sat with me and had a drink who just passed his MA and seemed familiar with most of the folk around. He was nice bloke, but somewhat controversial, at least one of the first things he said to me, "there's plenty of people in the world who deserve to be killed" and he then talked about the exploitation of larger businesses and the ethics of our society, whilst I see his sentiments, that if some people didn't exist then they wouldn't be able to cause others to suffer, but murder is a little extreme. We also talked about writing and philosophy, so it wasn't entirely awkward and we found common ground. Afterwards I went to a presentation on language from Robert  McCrum and Henry Hitchings, writers of The Language Wars and Globish, they talked about language change and what is coined 'Globish', which is English as the world's language and how its use world-wide has affected our language today. I've read books on language before, such as Melvyn Bragg's 'The Adventure of English' and Stephen Oppenheimer's 'The Origins of The British', as well as having David Crystal's Encyclopedia on language, which I refer to regularly. In the same presentation, there was the lecturer from Cambridge University's Anglo Saxon, Norse and Celtic department to introduce them, their MA course has been something I've been tempted by, particularly my obsession with the Norse, hence I spoke to her after the event. For me to do a course like that, I'm looking years down the line and if I'm in a sensible position to do it. But it's interesting to learn more about what options are out there nonetheless.


Anyway, that was one weekend of inspiration. Where was my other inspiration. I went to a gig in London to see a band called Kamelot who were supported by Evergrey and Amaranthe. That's the same Evergrey who wrote the album, The Inner Circle, the main piece of music that has inspired The Delusion Wing as discussed in this post. They even played the song I linked. Kamelot's usual singer, Kahn, was ill and was replaced with Fabio, the lead singer of Rhapsody of Fire and he did an amazing job, it was different, but he was special in his own way. I loved it. At the end I met Tom Englund, Evergrey's lead singer and shook the man's hand and had to tell him that he was amazing and a legend. I wanted a picture of him and I did ask, but decided meeting the guy was enough and didn't need to be a desperate fan in need of some token. It's great to be able to meet such interesting people as well as meet people who offer you that bit extra inspiration.

 Thank you,
Little Norse Prince

Cambridge Word Fest Day 1

Free WiFi on a bus, bonus! It makes the 1 hour journey go a lot faster, yes I can't live without the internet. I did end up reading a really interesting article by Hugh Grant where he bugs the bugger in interviewing an ex-News of the World journalist: Hugh Grant strikes back
It's definitely worth a read.

I got into Cambridge around 12 and went straight to buy my tickets to learn the hard way to book in advance, the History writing workshop had sold out as did Dawn French's talk. Bugger! However, the poetry workshop was still available, but that was on at 4pm meaning I had 4 hours to kill in Cambridge, if it was not being stopped by a lovely pair of Mormons it was stopping by Lush, yes I am an addict, but I bought the soap that donates money to Japan, so it wasn't all self serving and materialistic, I don't even like coconut.

Anyway, I should be talking about the day: the poetry workshop with Don Paterson, it was definitely interesting. It was cool to chat with other writers of different skill and success levels (as opposed to the student environment) as well as listening to Don answer some of their intriguing and insightful comments; I felt I learned a lot about the process of writing poetry and what it means to be a poet. Interestingly his perspective was not that poetry can be used for therapy for the writer (he says when that happens it's not poetry) but is actually therapeutic for the reader, it allows the reader to connect with their own feelings and emotions rather than have the writer dictate. At least that was one thing I took away from the workshop, amongst other things. He talked a lot about neurology and poetry, how we process information in 3 second gaps, how rhythm, rhyme and meter affect the brain, how poetry uses language and how the sounds of language make you feel, not just the words. As a person very much interested by the brain and a person who studied psychology, it offered an interesting way of looking at poetry, as well as his talk about syntax and etymology - two areas of language that chime with me.

In the end I felt as though I could write poetry, most of my stuff is crap, but actually if, say, I work on the technical side of poetry I can learn to work it as second nature, so as soon as that inspiration strikes then I've got the tools for expressing it, without corrupting it thinking, "does the rhythm work? Have I got the form right?" and thinking things I shouldn't be worried about, not at least until I start editing it.

And now on to day 2, I hope that the Ian McEwan and Sam Harris session isn't fully booked because a discussion on science a morality sounds fantastic, maybe the Wiki Leaks event too as I suspect the topic of 'free speech' will come up as well as some interesting discussion on journalism. I'll remember to take pictures, even if it's just of a building in Cambridge, pictures make a blog look pretty after all.

Finding Work

The job market in the UK is pretty poor at the moment and in a financial crisis it's the way it's going to be. There's a lot of people unemployed with so few jobs to go around and with cuts being made it means more and more people have to become unemployed. With employers really only asking for people who are experienced it becomes a lot more difficult if you're a graduate or new on the job scene, hence so many under 25s are unemployed. It can actually be a disheartened process, trying to find work, not just because of the lack of replies and those few rejections, but it's coming across jobs where you think, "fantastic! That sounds perfect!" and then there's that catch, "must have had 3 or more years experience in the industry", it's a catch-22, you need experience to get the job, but you need the job to get the experience. Heck, I come across jobs that are advertised as "London" and end up think, "central London? 45mins by train", then it turns out to not really be in London at all, but all the way on the other side, 2+ hours away. Other catches may simply be just, "must speak French". I almost got an interview for a London PR job, they were enthusiastic about my CV but the employer was worried about the commute, I sent them information about it and when they got back to me (a week later), they basically said, "sorry, we found somebody else". Then there's the mindset of, "I'll take what I can get", a job is better than no job and you can still continue to find work and build up your skill set, even do a course if need be. The trouble with that one is: are you necessarily cut out for the jobs you've applied for? Will you enjoy working there? A temporary set up isn't bad if you're not enjoying your work, as it's not forever. But in getting a job, you need to be able to sustain it and feel comfortable enough to successfully do your job.

I managed to find work in a second hand store, I've worked in retail before and I found it quite easy and enjoyed it somewhat, some customers can be awesome and that was one of the perks. But the second hand store was actually a completely different experience, you're not a 'shop assistant' you're a 'salesman' and that's a completely different mindset. It's not, "what can I do for you?" but, "what can I do to make money from this person?" Helping a customer is only good if it helps you. My job was to work as a seller on the shop floor and a buyer around the back.  All of my training was on the job and I don't think I did too badly when it came to buying. Essentially you've got to value an items based on whether you can sell it or not (if you can't, don't buy it), what condition it's in and whether it's safe (so, do electrical tests on electrical items), see what it is brand new and decide what a customer is likely to pay for that item in store. Some items will be considerable a LOT lower than retail, somebody's not going to pay £60 for a Sky Box, even though that would be seemingly a reasonable second hand price compared to brand new.

Some items require a punt because you're taking a risk, for example, if a watch has a brand name, but no sign of model it is and you research what the watch is worth and find out they range from £50 to £300 depending on model, you have to offer the lower end. It was an interesting part of the job, but I can't say I enjoyed all of it, my mindset is very much, "I should be helping customers, not exploiting them", so obviously, being a salesman isn't something I can feel passionate about, even though I was capable of doing it - one of the mistakes I made when I started was, my supervisor was about to sell a PS2 to a customer who was going to buy it just for the controller, instead I turned around and said, "I think we actually have a controller over here", turning a £29.99 sale into a £4.99 sale. My supervisor face-palmed it. I learned from that: a girl was looking to replace her iPod Nano, instead of buying the Nano, I managed to make the iPod Touch more appealing and she walked away happy with the more expensive item. Because a lot of people who go into a second hand store are desperate for money, it doesn't feel right to hand them less money than they'd get selling it elsewhere and at times I felt really uncomfortable.

Unfortunately people desperate for money need somewhere quick to acquire it and second hand stores need to stay in business. I did end up losing the job, well, I was on trial, which was extended from 1 month to 3 months because they liked me and were happy with the effort I put it. In the end they felt there were parts of the job that weren't for me and therefore I wouldn't be suitable to keep the job - they pointed out my positive traits, suggested lines of work where they'd be beneficial. E.g. my ability to analyze things in detail, they didn't need detail, they needed something quick and simple. Interestingly, they employed me knowing my skills were set for a completely different kind of job, but employed me based on my attitude, so it's at least great to know your own strengths and know that you have a positive enough attitude to impress an employer. But it does mean, as of one month ago, I've been back to looking for work and I swear there's even fewer jobs about than before. Personally I would have preferred to stick at it and work towards my own career goals with a temporary job to just support me.

So...what do I do to try and find the right job now? Well, I've got the opportunity to build myself as a writer. The Cambridge Word Fest is this weekend and it'll be nice to show my face and try to get to know some folk and pick up some advice on using my skills to benefit me in employment or finding some kind of success. I know I'll definitely be working on some short stories and articles then submitting them to publications and even try and revive myself as a storyteller, which I haven't paid attention to for almost a year. It's kind of difficult to get out there when you lack the freedom, I live in a village with no buses and one that's in the walking distance of nowhere and I don't drive, nor have the funds to learn or to fund a car. Now that summer is on the way, it'd probably be a good idea to invest in a bike.

Music and Writing

A good piece of music can fit in with a piece of writing and I find one of the things that helps me write is a great piece of music. Now, a playlist needs to be as carefully considered, you see, anything that's too catchy might have you singing along, something with a good beat might have you nodding your head and of course you music can serve as another distraction if you're not careful. I know some who can't listen to music when writing and that's fine, but for me, it's pretty much a requirement. It comes handy when the music suits the the mood for piece of writing you're creating. I mean, you can't write a depressing scene where, say, a mother holds her dying child in her hands and you're listening to something as happy as Bowling for Soup - particularly 'I'm Gay', which is a song all about being happy, maybe somebody ought there can, but I'd be torn between two emotion, "la la la! I'm so happy!" and "Oh my God, what have I done? I just killed a child with my pen, I'm so horrible!" Likewise, you don't want to be listening to the most depressing song in your library and you're writing a bit of fun, maybe two kids having the time of their life and you're on the verge of slitting your own wrists because you can't stand listening to My Chemical Romance (nor can I, to be fair), it doesn't mix.

I've found my writing playlist sometimes consists of Tarot, Therion, Evergrey and even Judas Priest. Therion has this mythological edge, particularly with albums like 'The Secret of the Runes', which is an album dedicated to the locations in Norse mythology, but also have this song called, "After the Inquisition: The Children of The Stone", it's the closing track of one of the most...interesting albums I've listened to -some of the vocals are sung by a choir of children - I can imagine myself writing about one of the darker parts of my novel, because of the title, I think it's kind of chilling, just because of the Spanish Inquisition. Tarot, I think it's more or less songs like, "The End of Everything" and "Gone", which suit some of Asaros' moods in The Delusion Wing. But I think Evergrey probably has the perfect album, particularly in writing The Delusion Wing, which is 'The Inner Circle', which is a very powerful and emotional album with fantastic vocals, and of course they're fantastic, they're Swedish and they're not Abba. The album takes on the perspective of being a part of (what I assume is) a Christian cult and takes on the themes of cult worship and uses audio clips that create the image of there being some evangelical preacher. And it ends with the track, 'When the Walls Go Down', which is very emotionally driven and we see a man at the mercy of God in some kind of emotional breakdown.As my characters basically have their mental health dragged through the dirt and in many ways are at the mercy of God and suffer in a society lead by a cultist leader, it is fantastic to write to and keeps you in the right frame of mind. Here's the video (opening track) from the album:

And get this, I've got tickets to see the band Kamelot at the end of April, who are being supported by Evergrey, so it will no doubt be an awesome experience.

So, that's Tarot, Therion and Evergrey explained, but why Judas Priest? Frankly, I don't know. I guess it's just because they're awesome to listen to, your playlist doesn't necessarily have to fit your writing, I suppose you could say my characters are...'Breaking the Law', but if Breaking the Law were the anthem for Chapter 1, I think it would just ruin the whole thing, because I'd have this image of Rob Halford kicking the door down shouting at the guards, "Breaking the law, breaking the law". It could be worse, it could be Dee Snider exploding in front of The Evangelist screaming, "I Wanna Rock!" If Twisted Sister had a cameo, horrible things would just happen, so I need to get that thought out of my head.

Pen And Paper

The traditional tools of the trade, pen and paper. You sit down and just write, but why use pen and paper when you can use a computer? Especially as you'll need to type it up anyway? Well it's to get away from the glare of your screen, maybe to avoid some of those annoying distractions or simply because it feels more natural. I find just using pen and paper can be one of the greatest ways to explore ideas and rapidly get down that first part of your writing - or even adding new material when you're editing. Also, the biggy, you're less inclined to go back and edit what you've written on a piece of paper because you don't have that luxury, unlike on a computer you can go, "well that sentence was awkward, lets change that", at least not without rewriting the whole thing, it's something I'm certainly guilty of and it's a real pain because it can impede on progress.

Pen, Paper and Most Importantly, a Cup of Tea

There's this trouble, however, I seem to have a thing for using nice pens. I refuse to write with a cheap biro or anything like that - somebody actually bought me a box of biros as a present because they thought, "Writer? Hmm, they'll like pens," and whilst it's true enough and I appreciate the thought, if I have to use a pen it HAS to be nice and believe it or not, paper too - I remember writing on cheap Woolworths value paper, then bought more expensive Oxford paper and now I use one of the Oxford 'Black n' Red' books and they're bloody nice to write in. It seems like something silly to spend money on - I mean that £7.99 Parker pen (see I had restraint enough to buy the cheapest) could have been spend on something more useful. But what can I say? I'm a bloody idiot. Saying that, I bought the parket because the £11 pen I bought broke, it was nice, but actually, this Parker is a lot nicer. I know, a pen is a pen, but sometimes you have to appreciate the finer things in life, like that cup of tea in the picture, it's not Yorkshire Tea or Tetley tea, oh no, it doesn't even come in a tea bag, no it's a special cup of Rooibos imported all the way from Nottingham! This is perhaps a sign that not only am I clearly a sad bastard, but an English one (even if I was born in Wales).

Spring is a Time for Writing

Spring is warm, the sun is out at long last and you're not freezing to death, it's a season of new life and therefore it should be the season of inspiration! The birds are blooming and the flowers are singing...erm, well yes, indeed! Writers, get your arses into gear, get out of your bloody houses and embrace the world out there and write something! Saying that I am stuck in my bedroom with some classic Opeth blasting out of my speakers, but hey, I'll probably take my laptop into the garden once my battery has charged. I've got some character writing to do, as Asaros needs a proper introduction and for the reader to see into her head more and to make her more vivid in the minds of the reader, at the same time, trying to not make her sound too angsty, after all, she hates the world, but not in the PMS struck teenager kind of way, but with actual reason. And at the same time I'm trying to think like a girl, so in preparation, I've been spending twice as long in the shower, spending evenings doing my hair and I've got a fabulous handbag! Oh I kid, I've always been like that and my handbag by the way, it's Gucci. Ridiculous stereotypes like that wouldn't make sense, she doesn't even brush her hair, let alone finding herself spending the weekend trying to make it pretty, as for showers, well she's in a state of mind of, "I can't be arsed with this shit anymore", so that's her health and hygiene included. She's not there to impress anybody, and why should she?



Anyway, I have decided this Spring that I'm going to behave - it'll be a time for me to say, "screw this hermit attitude" from the Winter months and get out there. Coming up from 15th to 17th April is the Cambridge Wordfest and in all my years of living only a bus journey away I've never actually been to one. Why the hell not? I used to go to all kinds of events when studying in Derby, so why don't I actually do something here? I might learn something, even find advice on using my skills as a writer to find employment - as I've been unemployed since 10th March. I could probably even see what I can do about my spoken word side of things, as the last time I've done anything like that was last July when I was doing Storytelling in front of an audience at The Voice Box in Derby, and what better way to prepare for 5th May for my return to Derby to perform in front of Creative Writing students. Then of course there's the Cambridge Storytellers, who I still need to meet up with - I saw them once in Derby and really, really ought to go to one of their meetings. The Cambridge Wordfest this year will star Dawn French talking about her book 'More than A Tiny Bit Marvellous', Simon Armitage to talk about his new collection of work, Seeing Stars, PD James, Sam Harris, Ian McEwan and many more. Hopefully it'll be an event made of win.
The URL is here: http://www.cambridgewordfest.co.uk/

This photo of Cambridge is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Now that I've come to the end of my post, I've missed that chance of sunshine, it's started bloody raining! Sod it!

The End of Productivity

I've noticed one thing between writers, it's so easy to find something that distracts you, some vice or another. It's actually quite easy to become the victim of procrastination, you sit down at your computer, open up Microsoft Word or sit with pen in hand at your desk, whichever, and then there's something, a book, a bottle cap, an untidy bedroom, a television, a computer, maybe an alien invasion or perhaps, there's zombies trying to tear down your door. First thing to note if you want to keep on writing is that zombies aren't real, they're a myth and if aliens were really invading, they could probably vaporize your house so escape is futile, it's all in your head, it might make an interesting plot - the procrastinated writer who had to fight off a zombie alien invasion with the power of voodoo (who do? You do? Do what? Remind me of the babe!). See how easy it is? In this very simple blog post I have gone completely off topic.

My Scholar

As a game geek, my distraction is obvious, video games. On Friday three things happened: I bought Pokemon: White and Fable III and Final Fantasy XI's servers went back online. There's no guessing what I've not been doing, writing. My Level 70 Scholar needed to face Professor Gunther Schultz II so he could level past 70, alas, my old professor wiped the floor with me, which could have been evaded if I bothered to pay 100,000gil for a Dispel spell, which would have erased his Shell III (resists magic attack) and my magic would have hit him twice as hard! Then of course, I've got to lead the resistance in Fable III and defeat my first gym leader in Pokemon. Hey, if I wasn't living in reality that would be a somewhat celebratory weekend - sure I lost a fight, but hey! I saved a village from starvation, so eat on that Bono!


But what's the answer? you plan to do something, but your body decides to go against it? Simple, kill your distraction, take a sword, a gun your bare bands, stab it, shoot it, strangle it, whatever...that doesn't mean if your kids or wife are a distraction you murder them, I am speaking more figuratively here. Move away from them, move them away from your working space, keep your working space clean, untidiness IS a distraction, if worst comes to worst, sit down in the library, it's a surprisingly productive place. Saying that, with access to the Internet, I am still capable of accessing blogger.com and writing this blog post instead of getting on with any actual writing. But hey, it's better than defeating yet ANOTHER Shadowlord (seriously why do so many RPGs have them?)

The Indoctrination Process

Having somebody to read and comment on your writing always comes in handy. You can always get so worked up in what you're doing and find that actually, a fresh pair of eyes can do a world of good to improve what you're writing. You can be reading what you've written with a very clear vision of what you've got and it may even flow well for you, but then you're the one who has written it, your pacing can be way off, there can be very little description and you can be doing too much in only a few words. A friend who's going to be straight and honest about your writing is a good friend to have, as much as it is an ego booster to have somebody turn around and say, "hey this is great!" but it bears little use when it comes to improving what you've got, though it's somewhat useful being told what you're doing right (so you don't idiotically change it).

 The important piece of feedback I've received is that, my ideas are too big for a book and as a result, with my focus on keeping it as a single novel, it paces itself too quickly, it has too many characters to deal with and as a result, it becomes difficult to follow. What does this mean? It means I agree wholeheartedly, it means The Delusion Wing will not be able to resolve itself in a single novel, this means I've decided that what is currently chapter 10, which was originally the end of 'part 1' will be the end of the novel, calling itself, "The Indoctrination Process" for the time being. Chapter 10 is an important chapter and it would be suitable to end the novel there and if done right, it'll mean the reader will want more and hold out for the sequel. Now that means I can expand on what I've already got drafted, develop the characters more, offer the much needed description and fix the pacing and work to improve further.

So, an honest friend is a good friend for a writer indeed, after all, it can lead you to be a lot more sure on your writing, even if it means there's a lot more work for you to do. But hey, redrafting is a learning process, you learn what works and what doesn't until it stands at a position where you're almost happy with the results(internal editors are like disappointed mothers, no matter how hard you try, there's no pleasing them).

Random Thought...

I enjoy a good bit of music, in fact, I LOVE music, especially live music and in my Judas Priest mood, I've decided to listen to one of their live albums and it just plagues me, why is it bands always stand on stage and ask, "Are you ready?" Really Rob Halford? I know you're a legend, I know you can sing like a beast and you have an amazing pair of lungs, but come on, are you and others like you really that dense? I dunno, your fans have probably paid what? £30 for their ticket, probably caught a train to the venue, sat in McDonalds chewing on a burger talking excitedly to their friends, then proceeded to stand for two hours waiting for the doors open, when they'll probably wait another thirty minutes to wait for your roadies set up, or even suffer your support bands for a couple of hours before you're even ready to enter the building, they've probably even taken the day off work to come see you. Yet, you ask them, "Are you ready?" Of course they're bloody ready! They've probably waited all their life for this momentous occasion, they've probably been ready since they first put on one of your records. You know what, next time I see a band and they have the audacity to ask, "Are you ready?" I shall approach the stage, whisper into their ear, "would you give me 20 minutes? I've got to call my mother."

Alternatively, attempt to sing back the Spongebob Squarepants theme:

"Are you ready Kids?"

"Aye, aye captain!"

"I can't heeeeeeear you!"

"AYE AYE CAPTAIN!"

"OOoooohh Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?"

I think Peter Griffin would say, "Well, that grinds my gears", well not really, but this is what they call 'procrastination'. Yes folks, it's normal to be distracted when you should be writing, editing or doing something you should be doing.

That Looks Crap, Change it, Change it, You Fail as a Writer

The redrafting process is like puberty: you go through stages of angst, love, hate, uncontrollable sobbing, cutting one's wrists, smiling with glee, feeling self conscious, embarrassment, self-hatred, narcissism, tantrums, giggling, procrastination, ambition, 'screw the world and everybody in it', 'I want to be loved!' and well, you get the picture. I think now I can say it's true, writers hate what they write, it's a strange one. I've got up to chapter 8 and all of his older friends are in a position where I can say, "well, okay, I should leave it there and work on the rest" and just the other day I sat there reading it, connecting with my characters, getting into my plot thinking, "hey, maybe it's not so crap after all." Then it came to reading it again and I thought: "what a bunch of emotional drivel, oh boo-hoo, said character has a sob story, why should the reader care? Why should they connect with this pile of rubbish?"

It's probably not a pile of rubbish, I could be one of those hard to please types, well, I say I could be hard to please, though I know cake usually works and then I'm smitten, perhaps if it were a novel about cake, then I'd be pleased quite easily - perhaps it'll only need 1 draft, however, it'd just be 350 pages of "cake cake cake yay cake I like cake yum yum cake chocolate cake lemon cake raspberry cake bake me a cake cake cake", no punctuation? I could equate my work to that of James Joyce...you never know, it could be a best seller. But the point still stands, it needs to be good, not to be some second rate Tesco value cake, no no no! It has to be a grand masterpiece, custom tailored gourmet cake with ingredients from the 5 most delicious countries in the world. Did you know that one of them is Belarus? Who'd have thought? Less about cake...

Really (I've found), the redraft is about discovery, learning what works and what doesn't and it can be a gift or a curse. Consider this: draft 1 - female protagonist, I felt some of her feminine characteristics might affect her relationship with other people and how people treat her. Redraft: Male protagonist, because I thought it'd suit me better as a writer...then...I decided to switch back to a female protagonist in what I call 'Asaros Redraft', just because actually, it works a lot better in my opinion. I hope to not offend women out there through my portrayal of a female character in first person, alas, I'm not a sexist, I have a male character who spends a lot more time in the kitchen than she does (I think all she does is make a cup of tea on one occasion) and she's quite the Bjarndyrknot player, so no backward sexist stereotypes here.

She's had to become strong in order to look after herself and that explains her behaviour in the first few chapters (explosive, reckless, angry), but once people enter her life again, her sensitive side is allowed to show and because of her strong relationship with her older brother, she is able to display characteristics of being a little sister who looks up to her brother, despite how strong she really is. Though, it does open up a difficult road ahead, I've got to start thinking like a girl and yes, that means I'll have to return to previous chapters again and in 'Asaros Redraft' I've tried giving it a shot, though I suspect I'll be returning nonetheless.

One seemingly simple difference and it just creates more and more work, hence 'curse', however, now my working mode is set to: Motivated. I want to see my character unfold and I want to read past chapter 8 again, I want to redraft chapters 9 and 10 again and finally move onto explaining why the world is the way it is, to properly introduce my main antagonist. I want progression, because progression is exciting! Guns, rollercoasters, explosions, action movies, Alan Rickman, they're nowhere near as exciting as the road ahead!

Anyway, that's my rambling for now. I'll probably have more updates soon, who knows?

P.S. Sorry Alan, I take it all back.

The Original Idea

The ideas I've adopted for The Delusion Wing have evolved from earlier writing. There was a piece I wrote about the indoctrination of a man in a cell facing hallucinations to force him to believe in God, first the hallucination is of a death god frightening him into belief, then I replaced that with the image of a preacher forcing holy judgement upon him, which I found to be more appropriate. My first draft of The Delusion Wing developed on the death-god to act as the main character's alternative conscience, an alter-ego that manifests in his delusions. The 'preacher' on the other hand developed into a separate piece of writing, where 'The Evangelist' was born, but instead of being a vision, he was a real person, with the ability to control man through speech alone and the world around him kind of formed. So the story, conveniently called 'The Evangelist', took the perspective of a man who worked for The Evangelist reflecting on the horrors of his society and saw fit to kill him for his crimes. It is also where the initial ideas of the fictional religion began.

You're welcome to read 'The Evangelist' here. It's very short.

It's interesting to see how the story has basically grown from those two characters and that one setting. But, when you start writing a character, then they take on a world of their own, as people are affected by their surrounds and also have their own powers and responsibility. A corrupt man with great power can affect society as a whole, hence so much was able to grow from The Evangelist. All the ideas really source from one short story and one that's probably not any good anyway.

The Delusion Wing

'The Delusion Wing' is the title of the novel I've been writing on and off since 2008 and looking back it doesn't look like that I've done a lot for 2 years work. I've got a first draft of 50,000 words and it is just plain awful. I can't even bare to think of showing another person. Some might argue, "you may think it's bad because you wrote it, but everybody else might actually like it", but really, believe me when I tell you it's a pile of rubbish. But that's a good thing, right? There's good ideas in there and plenty of scenes for me to salvage and repair and it gives me the materials to work with. I've done that for 10 chapters (chapter 10 is draft 2, chapter 1 is draft 7). Not all of it can be salvaged, of course, I mean, scenes after chapter 8 are pretty awful and I don't even know what I was thinking with some of them.

The story is about a young man (who in the original draft was female…originally I felt that a female character would work better, but it changed once I rethought what I was doing) who is living in a totalitarian society, now a theocratic one. Because of the oppressive powers at work, such things as culture, emotions and tradition are all repressed and repression is never a good thing for your mental health, so a part of the story is about his mental health as well as his idealism in trying to 'tear down the establishment', he's young, so he's naïve…but then so am I, which is why in the first draft it became so easy for him to do so! I mean, all it took was for him to produce flyers and have everyone join his ranks and fight for their rights (to paaaaartaay), but no, that's not how the world works. Of course, me being me, did a Hamlet and killed all of the characters in the end…it doesn't matter if I spoil draft 1, you'll never read it. But if you think about it, a great massive oppressor with the amazing ability to influence people to conform to some kind of pre-defined normality is able to be undermined by pirate press? If I wanted to, I could probably have made it believable, but I wasn't really feeling convinced as I was reading it.

For the redrafting I have had to completely rethink everything. I've still got the totalitarianism, but it's more in line with a short story I wrote, in fact, I've taken the antagonist straight from that and developed him further, he's called, "The Evangelist" and he's not a pleasant fellow. All the main character knows is that he's the religious figure at the head of the theocracy he lives in and is responsible for a lot of pain and suffering. The message behind the short story was pretty much, "if we let fundamentalist religion have its way, then we're looking at the worst in humanity's nature", I've researched into the darker side of religion for it and have looked at what practises are kept today and what many bigots in the world today quote to support their views (not just those committed by some Muslims, but Christians too, for example, churches in Nigeria who burn so-called witches because they believe it's what God asks in the bible), but also I have taken note of the accumulative nature of religions that have invaded other cultures, so whilst I've gone for an Abrahamic religion, you'll notice some pagan imagery, like the hammer beneath the words, "The Great All-father" written in Norse.

I don't want to misrepresent any religious beliefs, as there are many moral interpretations of the world religions and I don't think it'd be fair on believers of said interpretations, so in coming up with my new twist, I've refrained from naming a specific religion for the theocracy, whilst it is a spin-off of the 3 Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, mainly because they're relatable and there are dark teachings in all of their religious texts, making the 'new' religion more believable. The fictional religion assumes that Christianity and Islam didn't grow to the size they are today (2bill Christians, 1.5bill Muslims) because of the prevalent pagan cultures refusing to change their ways, so the world its set in is shaped very differently. So, in its place, a new religion attempts to rise in power in a Romanic fashion with the rise of Marces the Evangelist (the first of many) who claims to have a special relationship with God.

The story is set in the equivalent of the 1930s with the current Evangelist (Arxus III) having taken over the last corner of Europe, the corner being Iceland, which is where the story starts. The naïve protagonist, Saefinn Frimannsson thinks he can free the minds of his fellow Icelanders (who a generation before were ready to fight The Evangelist to their graves) by interrupting a radio broadcast with news that everybody has been lied to and it lands him in prison to be 'rehabilitated', which is the beginning of his journey to take back all that he and his people have lost and his path into mental instability, with strange visions, nightmares and ghosts, all originating from what The Evangelist's men did when he was a child to turn him into a believer and for him to conform with society's standards.

However, there's still a lot to be done and this is only an introduction of what I'm writing, as the novel develops, so will this blog. A preview will be available when chapter one is in a fit state to be read…fingers crossed, that'll be soon, there's already 7 drafts of it for goodness sakes.

Thank you,

The Little Norse Prince