Devilish Definitions

Novel: A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the panorama. Unity, totality of effect, is impossible; for besides the few pages last read all that is carried in mind is the mere plot of what has gone before. To the romance the novel is what photography is to painting. Its distinguishing principle, probability, corresponds to the literal actuality of the photograph and puts it distinctly into the category of reporting; whereas the free wing of the romancer enables him to mount to such attitudes of imagination as he may be fitted to attain; and the first three essentials of the literary art are imagination, imagination and imagination. The art of writing novels, such as it was, is long dead everywhere except in Russia, where it is new. Peace to its ashes – some of which have a large sale.

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic. Formerly, painting and sculpture were combined in the same work: the ancients painted their statues. The only present alliance between the two arts is that the modern painter chisels his patrons.

Poetry: A form of expression peculiar to the Land beyond the Magazines.

Romance: Fiction that owes no allegiance to the God of Things as They Are. In the novel the writer’s thought is tethered to the hitching-post, but in romance it ranges at will over the entire region of the imagination – free, lawless, immune to bit and rein. Your novelist is a poor creature… a mere reporter. He may invent his characters and plot, but he must not imagine anything taking place that might not occur, albeit his entire narrative is entirely a lie. Why he imposes this hard condition on himself… he can explain in ten thick volumes without illuminating by so much as a candle’s ray the black profound of his own ignorance of the matter. There are great novels, for great writers have ‘laid waste their powers’ to write them, but it remains true that far and away the most fascinating fiction that we have is The Thousand and One Nights.

Taken from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, first published 1911.

Cartoons wanted by Unbound Press

Unbound Press is now looking for cartoons for its first issue in June. Anybody out there who'd like to see his/her work published (no fee at this stage, I'm sorry, but lots and lots of praise and admiration and a free copy of the journal!), please email us first with a sample in the body. No unsolicited attachments please, for obvious reasons.

charlie

Not Just a Load of Old Junk

When you send off for something by mail order, do you tick the box to forestall mailings from other companies? I don’t. Despite being dreadfully wasteful – how many trees are needed to deliver the tons of paper that are thrown straight in the bin? – I can’t resist junk mail. Not because I want to give all my money to a caring , sharing financial company. Not because I expect to win that ‘Free Prize Draw’. But it’s a tremendous source of inspiration for my writing.

My favourites are those catalogues of Things You Never Knew You Needed – like the musical toilet roll holder or the thingy to keep your socks in pairs in the wash. They inspired me to write a story about a woman who became addicted to buying useless gadgets for her kitchen and the tragic end it brought her to.

I’ve also learned useful background information on such things as herbal medicine and the unseen work of charities from junk mail, which have given a starting point for a variety of articles. There are plenty of other ideas for stories and articles falling on your doormat every day.

Furthermore, whatever you think of the motives behind the uninvited promotion of life insurance and the like, the advertising copy is often a lesson in concise, persuasive writing from which we can all learn. And anything that enlivens the daily diet of rejection slips can’t be all bad.

So start looking at junk mail in a positive light – you can soothe your environmental qualms by recycling it afterwards. And after all, someone’s got to win the Prize Draw. It could be you!

Unbound Press Submission Deadline

For the proposed June issue of Unbound Press, the deadline for submissions is 1st May.

BUT, all submissions, before and after this date, will also be considered for future issues so, in the words of The Bard; "Get on with it!"

charlie

Unbound Press - A Progress Report

The Editorial Staff (bwahahahahaha) have just held a meeting to discuss the progress or otherwise of the first edition of the Unbound Press Review, due out in June (2006, if we're lucky!).

And we thought we might thank all those people who have contributed thus far suggestions for the title of The Wordsmith Project, short stories, book reviews, photographs, poems, and assorted articles. The response has been extremely encouraging, in terms of both quantity and quality. But, we are always ready to look at more stuff - in fact, there is a definite shortage of 'stuff' - so all submissions of 'stuff' are welcome.

We intend this quarterly publication to be a means by which creative people can showcase their talents. We are convinced that the conventional publishing industry is becoming more and more limited for innovative artistic expression - the genre rules supreme! It's a damn shame, and so we aim to do our bit to give exposure to as much raw talent as possible.

That's the sermon for today, it being the Sabbath. was that ok? If so, more submissions please, you talented people!

charlie

Photoblogs are a Gas, Man

In a search to find compelling photography/artwork for the first issue of Unbound Press, I have been rummaging through a whole cyber closet full of photoblogs – and seriously – I’ve found some amazing sites.

It genuinely makes me happy to find talented, creative people who are doing what they love… and I’d like to share as many of the sites as I can pack in this post… here goes:


daily dose of imagery / 2faces / a visual notebook / BlueHour / Broken Heartbeats / chromasia / DailySnap / Deceptive Media / exposur3 / fauxtoblog / image.a.nation / John Washington / LB Imaging / Mark My Shots / Mute / Mystery Me / orbit1 / pic-a-day / Round Here / Ryan Rahn / shutter and pupil / Smallest Photo / shifting pixels

Attention Aspiring Novelists

REPEAT POSTING

Hey, all you aspiring novelists! Are you listening? Unbound Press wants to hear from you.

Well, to be more accurate, Unbound Press wants to read your first chapters and to publish one per issue if it's outstandingly brilliantly good! And even if it's only outstandingly good, we might publish it anyway. So send in your Chapter One, in the body of an email (no attachments please) to highland.dreams@ntlworld.com for consideration.

You never know, some mighty publisher could read Unbound Press, see your chapter, and sign you up in a multi-million £/$ deal. You will also receive a free copy of the publication! What more could you desire?

charlie

Book Reviews Required by Unbound Press

REPEAT POST

The new literary magazine/journal thingy that we are trying to put together will be called Unbound Press.

One of the many items we would like in there is a book review and we would like to ask for submissions of 'A Review of My Favourite Book' in not more than 500 words. Oh, and that's a review of your favourite book, not mine!

So, if anybody fancies seeing their name in print and, as a consequence, if chosen by the editorial board (from which I have been excluded on the grounds that I know nothing at all about literature - how true!), receiving a free copy of the new, prestigious publication, please submit your review in the body of an email (no attachments please) to highland.dreams@ntlworld.com

The review can be of any book, old or new, which you feel is worthy of recommendation to other readers.

Get reviewing!

charlie

Prayer Before Birth

I've just stumbled across one of my favourite poems, which I haven't read for years. It's such a delight when that happens. This is just such a brilliant piece of writing.


Prayer Before Birth

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
     club-footed ghoul come near me.
 
I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
     with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
        on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.
 
I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
     to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
        in the back of my mind to guide me.
 
I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
     when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
        my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
           my life when they murder by means of my
              hands, my death when they live me.
 
I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
     old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
        frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
           waves call me to folly and the desert calls
              me to doom and the beggar refuses
                 my gift and my children curse me.
 
I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
     come near me.
 
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
     humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
        would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
           one face, a thing, and against all those
              who would dissipate my entirety, would
                 blow me like thistledown hither and
                    thither or hither and thither
                       like water held in the
                          hands would spill me.
 
Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me. 

Louis MacNeice


http://www.artofeurope.com/macneice/mac1.htm)

A novel idea

Seems that everyone’s a novelist now.

Computers, printers, internet, print on demand, self-publishing… all give us the opportunity to get that novel – the one we all have inside us – out into the cold light of day.

Once upon a time, the sheer hard slog and dedication involved in sitting down and writing in long hand, or at best typing on a manual typewriter, the magnum opus, meant that very few got beyond the first few chapters.

Today, things are different. Which is not to say that writing a good novel is not still a test of stamina – but the physical process is so much easier, with computers, spell checkers, grammar checkers – even plot devisers – to help us along the way.

There’s not even the problem of finding a publisher to take our book on – if we’re prepared to invest in our work, we can all self-publish, or instantly find someone to print our book on demand.

So what are you waiting for? Inspiration?

Blog Nomination Update

The hits keep coming... More blog favorite nominations....

Two new additions: fuffblog and mummified

Afraid of the Dark
american short-timer
daily dose of imagery
eye of the storm
fuffblog
f/k/a....
Post Secret
Tales from the "Liberry"
mummified
The 4th Avenue Blues
The Company Bitch
the girl who
waiter rant

Title wanted please

We need a title for the completed Wordsmith Project. Suggestions please?

And we think the whole thing will appear in the new Unbound Press Review in June so all who took part in it will get to be published writers thereby!

Well done to all contributors. You are literary stars! Well, with one exception, or so I've been told :o((((

charlie

I can name that tune in 2 notes...

So anyway, I was thinking…

Actually this post follows on the heels of a discussion with Nicki and Charlie. We were ‘airing’ our frustrations regarding the ‘you’ve got 20 seconds to catch my attention -chop-chop-quick-quick’ mentality of the publishing industry – both houses and agents alike – in regard to submission requirements. In particular the, sometimes, hopeless attempt to distill a novel into a one page synopsis or brief outline with the intent of capturing the essential character of a project while, at the same time, setting off dreamy-daydreams in their collective imaginations of Hollywood calling for the movie rights and Ron Howard and Rob Reiner coming to blows over who is going to make the next billion dollar grossing blockbuster. Now, if with this one page synopsis you can also suggest a leading man and ideas for a run of accompanying action figures and a line of accessories and clothing targeted at the teenage demographic… well then, smoke ‘em if you got ‘em… cause more than likely – you’re going to be a star.

This is not a new phenomenon, this frustration we’re talking about… in fact Miguel De Cervantes expressed similar frustration in the opening lines of Don Quixote’s Prologue. Granted Cervantes wasn’t trying to sell movie options but I believe the fundamental nature of his frustrations were similar. He says:

I would have wished to hand you the story neat and naked, without the adornment of a prologue or the endless string of customary sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies that it is the fashion to place at the beginning of books. For I must admit that, though the story gave me some trouble to compose, I found none greater than the writing of this preface your are reading. Many times I picked up my pen to write it, and many timed I put it down, not knowing what to say. Once when I was in a quandary, with the paper before me, my pen in my ear, my elbow on the desk, my hand on my cheek, meditating on what I should write, unexpectedly a lively and intelligent friend of mine burst into the room, and finding me daydreaming, insisted upon knowing the reason. I did not conceal it, but said that I was thinking about the prologue I had to write for the history of Don Quixote and that it worried me to such a degree that I was inclined not to write one, not even to publish the exploits of so noble a knight.

Creme de la Creme

I was saddened to read that Muriel Spark has died, at the age of 88. At the same time, I was reminded me of how much pleasure her books have given me over the years. First and foremost she was one of our great writers. Only secondary is the fact that she was Scottish - for me, she transcended her Scottishness in a way some other Scottish writers have not succeeded in doing. The following appreciation was written by crime writer Ian Rankin, and appeared in The Scotsman newspaper on 16th April 2006.



MURIEL Spark was the greatest Scottish novelist of modern times, the irony being that she departed Scotland as a teenager and returned thereafter only for brief visits. Yet this distance may well have helped her as a novelist of international acclaim. Like Stevenson before her, she clung to Scottishness, and her roots are evident in everything she wrote.

Famed as she eventually was for 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' - which remains the best novel ever penned about Edinburgh - there was (and is) so much more to Spark. Her first novel, The Comforters (1957) was about a woman who knew she was a character in a novel, making it clear that Spark was influenced as much by contemporary experiments in fiction as by the Border ballads she had read in her youth. Her final novel, The Finishing School (2004) is about the process of writing and the agony of being a (fading) writer.

Yet critics often ignored the edgy, experimental side of Spark's craft, opting instead to focus on her glittering prose and comedic lightness of touch. Her genius stems from the fact that she was an expert stylist who could engage the general reader while still posing tough moral questions. Her best novels are as tightly constructed as poems, packing more meaning into their short duration than would appear possible.

Spark began her life as a poet - one of her early attempts winning her a prize at James Gillespie's School. After a short, failed marriage, and wartime work in London, she edited a poetry magazine and started to go quietly mad, existing as she did in genteel poverty with a young son to feed, making do with coffee and pills. Graham Greene helped her financially (on the understanding that she would never attempt to thank him), and this gave Spark the strength to fictionalise her own moment of crisis in her first published novel.

Like many other people, for a long time I knew little of Spark apart from the magnificent film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. But after finishing my undergraduate degree, a lecturer advised me that I might want to apply to do a PhD - he also mentioned Spark as a suitable subject.

The outcome was that I spent three years reading her books intently, writing chapters towards my thesis. Her best work combines a sense of the comic macabre with piercing satire. In an essay, she said that the modern novel should prick the conscience while being harsh and mocking - the only possible reaction to the absurdity of the contemporary scene.

Spark was a Catholic convert, and much of her best work reads like an extended dialogue with herself about the nature of God. In novels such as The Only Problem and The Mandelbaum Gate specific theological debates are touched on, the 'problem' being human suffering - why would God allow it to happen? What is the nature of evil and how are we to understand it in a religious context?

If these matters sound weighty, they are balanced by elegant phrasing and the novelist's empathy with her characters - the reader never feels preached to or barracked.

The problem, perhaps, for Spark herself is that she never seemed to fit with the late-20th century notion of what Scottish fiction was. As Lanark, Kelman and Irvine Welsh arrived, it seemed that a particular tone of voice and way of looking at the world could be discerned in the Scottish novel. Spark's characters were usually upper-middle class and living in exotic locations, leading her to be marginalised. There was also perhaps a misconception that great literature had to come in large packages - and Spark's lengthier novels remain her least successful.

Critics and bookshops like to be able to stick a label on a writer's work, and Spark defied easy categorisation. That was what was so thrilling - you never knew quite what you were going to get. She wrote about desert island castaways (Robinson), glamorous film stars (The Public Image), convents (The Abbess of Crewe) and Lord Lucan (Aiding and Abetting). Many of these books were produced on school jotters sent to her from an Edinburgh stationer's - whether she was living in New York or Italy.

It is perhaps too soon to say what effect Spark had on Scottish literature, but her eclecticism seems to fit perfectly with the current scene, where authors feel they can write about Botswana as well as Leith, and produce science fiction as well as thrillers.

Having studied her books for years, I met Dame Muriel just the once - at the Edinburgh Book Festival two years ago. She had spoken with insight and humour about her work, and had thrilled the audience with a rare reading from Miss Jean Brodie.

By the time I approached her, I could see she was tiring, so decided to choose just one of the many books I'd taken with me to ask her to sign. It was my first edition of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She inscribed it "with admiration and warm wishes". My own admiration for her contribution to world literature knows no bounds. She was peerless, sparkling, inventive and intelligent - the crème de la crème.

The Wordsmith Project (16) - The Denouement

It was all for the best, she thought, all for the best. Relationships were just liabilities and she believed that wholeheartedly, except for the fact that she didn't really believe it at all. He'd loved her and she knew that, but she'd hurt him anyway – it seemed the only thing to do when it came right down to it. So now, the plane was taking off, not just metaphorically, not just theoretically – she was sitting next to a window and she could smell the jet fuel and she could feel the body of the plane beginning to vibrate and she could hear the engines building momentum – and in that moment it began to move – the plane, the world. And in that second she knew she'd done the wrong thing in leaving but, after all, it was what she did best. (Amy)

‘Don’t you just hate this moment?’

She looked round. Her neighbour, who she’d hardly glanced at when she squeezed past him in the narrow aisle to take her window seat, had his eyes screwed tight shut and his fists clenched. ‘Sorry?’

‘This take-off into nothingness. Knowing that when we touch down at the other end we’ll walk into an airport lounge that looks, to all intents and purposes, exactly like the one we left.’

She murmured politely.

‘And we’ll leave the airport to find ourselves in another capital city that feels, to all intents and purposes, exactly like the one we left. What’s the point?’

Her heart sank. Trust her luck to be sitting next to a depressive nihilist with aerophobia. (Nicki)

She'd have welcomed conversation, about politics, art, history, literature, anything to separate her mind from her recent action. When the rumbling of the engines smoothed, she wanted her mind to be smoothed as well. It was going to take longer than that. And it wasn't going to happen in a conversation with this guy. She gave a non-committal nod his direction and reached in her bag for her iPod, her sunglasses, and a stick of gum. She was armed for avoidance, the daily art of leaving.

What did her seat companion say?

Take off into nothingness?

Pushing her earphones in place, she thought, you may be taking off into nothingness, I'm taking off to…. (Edy)

Then it struck her. The depressing nihilist was right. She was going to nothing. Just as she’d done all her life. Or at least since she was 17 and had slipped through her bedroom window with $500.00 and a few changes of clothes. Off to seek her fortune, and beginning to learn her finest trick: departure. All these years, all these planes, all these automobiles, and u-haul rental vans, all these skies and dusty roads…going to nothing.

Oh, she’d tell herself she was going to something, but in reality she was jumping off a cliff. Starting from scratch. Reinventing a life. A clean slate. A new leaf. Tabula Rasa and all that. All very modern. All very neat and efficient. All very empty.

But this time she’d brought more baggage than she’d anticipated. This time she was bringing along regret. Regret and the knowledge that someone had loved her, had really loved her. Not just some image of her. Had loved her. And she’d walked away. For the first time it struck her that perhaps 20 years from now, she might just give anything to take this moment back.

It was, of course, at that moment that the plane left the runway and touched the sky.
(Diane)

She set her bags on the floor next to a bar stool and sat down. "Gin martini, two olives, please". The airport bartender nodded and turned to make her drink.

Depressive Nihilist had been right about something else. This airport bar looked like every airport bar she'd ever been in. The overpriced martini would, like all overpriced airport martinis, be vaguely disappointing. But this was part of her pattern. The thrill of departure followed by the flatness of the landing. When in flight, by whatever mode, she was occupied with the notion of freedom. After hitting the tarmac or turning onto a freeway exit she had to face facts, a process best undertaken with a drink in hand.

She sat at the bar, pulling her bags closer by with a nervous foot. These were the facts: she had arrived with two bags, regret and phone number scribbled on a note card. Beyond that she had a vague sense of possibility, illustrated by random postcard images of this new city. She was emphatic only about what she would not be looking for this time around.

She straightened up on her stool as the bartender set down her drink. A yellow plastic spear was thrust through two very small airport bar olives. For 9.50 you'd think they could spring for Sicilian, she thought. She took a sip. They sure as hell aren't spending it on the gin. (Lorraine)

She looked at the number on the note card. She looked at her cellphone, resting next to the notecard atop the bar. She looked at the olives in her martini glass, and the olives, like tiny eyeballs, looked up at her. "Stop staring at me," she commanded, and then pretended to be angry when the olives ignored her.

"Fine. I'll call him. I've come this far. Dialling a simple number should be the easy part..." She reached for the phone, two of her fingers momentarily resting on it's shiny surface, and then she quickly moved her hand away and grabbed the martini. "I'll call him... after this drink."

It wasn't like her to be this nervous. Maybe because she had given up so much for this, even hurt someone else in the process. Maybe because she had no idea what she was getting herself into, or why exactly she was doing it. Or maybe, just maybe, because she had never even heard his voice before.

She was about to. She picked up the phone and dialled the number. It was picked up after only two rings, but no one was speaking. There were some barely audible noises in the background, waves crashing, birds of some sort... seagulls, maybe geese?

Then finally, his voice. "Hello?" (John)

“Hello? Hello?”

She cleared her throat as if she was about to speak, but remained silent. No, she thought, not yet.

“Hello? I know you’re there.” He swore angrily, waited a moment and slammed the phone down.

She turned back to the bar and indicated her glass.

“I’ll have another of those, but this time put some bloody gin in it, okay!”

The surly barman carelessly slid her drink across to her. It slopped all down the front of her linen suit. Not such a good look, she thought, looking down and then glaring back at him. Just seems I’ll have to keep my $50 tip after all. She tossed back the gin, smiled at him smugly and very carefully slid off the bar stool. The alcohol hit her like a wave and she had to walk very straight and tall not to look drunk. She spotted the oily barman watching her progress. What’s his problem?

Stepping off the gutter, near the taxi rank she tripped and sprawled in a heap on top of her bags. “Stupid high heels!” she said loudly . She scrabbled herself and bags together and noticed that the bag she’d been meant to deliver had come open a bit.

“Oh my God! Money! It’s filled with money.” She closed the bag quickly, looked around, sober in an instant. She hauled herself into the taxi, flushed and unsteady, this time not from the gin. (Therese)

Watching the woman lurch out of his bar, Jack chose a cell-phone from the shoebox under the counter. For Jack, one of the perks of working an airport bar was the seemingly endless supply of lost phones at his disposal – if one kept an open ear and didn't ask too many questions, those lost devices could be plenty profitable. Just stay alert , make the occasional call and pocket the cash. Simple.

It wasn't wise to think about where the money came from.

Jack was greedy and incurious so this suited him fine. Another call, another $500. So what if the Two-Olive bitch didn't tip? He'd get his just as sure as she was going to get hers. What hers was didn't concern him. Better not to care, he thought, dialling a number from memory.

" Hey. Yeah, I'm sure –two olives, just like you said- hold on," the bartender read a name from a credit card slip, paused and grinned, " have I ever been wrong? … oh… I'm calling him now, OK?"

His grin gone, Jack made a second call. (Allan)

After rattling off the name of her hotel to the cabbie, she immediately changed her mind and directed him to take her to another, one not so well known. Then she slumped back heavily against the worn vinyl seat, money bag clutched tightly against her soaked linen suit, the others by her feet. Her thoughts careered this way and that, making her even dizzier than the alcohol had done. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to do this. Maybe… Wait, was the driver sneaking looks at her via the rear-view mirror? (Olivia)

Why had she agreed to do this? Suddenly, it seemed as though everyone could read her thoughts. Every double take, every sideways glance in her direction, filled her with panic. Was the cabbie sneaking looks at her? Had he seen the contents in her bag as she hurried to snap it closed? Didn't he seem to hang up his phone awfully quickly when she got in? Who was he
talking to?

A tsunami of paranoia swept over her. She needed to find another cab - now. She looked around. They had just entered the financial district. Safe enough, she thought. Plenty of cabs, lots of business people scurrying about, I'll blend right in. Yeah, right. How many business people are dragging a bunch of luggage around with them? She noticed a Hilton a few blocks ahead.

"Driver, I'll get out at the Hilton, please," she squeaked, her throat tight with fear.

He looked at her again, that knowing look that said, you think you're so sly, but I've got your number lady. It scared the hell out of her.

"Sure thing, lady," he responded, almost growling as he said it His furrowed brow told her she'd pissed him off. She was getting really good at that - pissing off men. She relaxed a bit, and breathed a sigh of relief, as the cab swung into the hotel's driveway. Her mind raced as she planned her next move. That call had to be made - and soon. But right now, she just had to focus on getting herself and her bags out of this cab and into a room safely. The cab lurched to a halt. The driver glared at her again.

"That'll be $23.50," he snapped.

She tossed $30 at him and stepped from the cab with the help of the doorman, who had opened her door and extended his hand to help her. She clutched the money bag tightly and stood watch as the bellman retrieved her bags from the trunk of the cab, piled them onto a cart, and headed into the lobby. The automatic doors opened with a whoosh and she stepped into the sanctuary of the very busy lobby. The glowering cabbie sped off, tires squealing. Thank God! I couldn't get out of his cab fast enough. If I never lay eyes on him again, it will be too soon, she thought. (Gina)

Airports, bars, cabdrivers, hotels. It seemed everything in the whole world was familiar in a threatening sort of way. It was as if all the elements in the universe had lined up for reprogramming in somebody's sinister plan. And here she was only noticing now, only after surrendering herself utterly and completely.

She hated the nihilist for his accuracy.

She hated herself for her part in the madness. Here she was about to register under a false name so she could make a drop tonight. And none of it was necessary. Not one second of it. She was out. Free. She could have been cooking tilapia right now, as she had promised him. She could have been laughing with him, talking about the insane waiter they had last night. That would have been a fun conversation, and now it would never happen.

She vowed to stop beating herself up over it, when the thought crossed her mind. They usually tell her where she's picking up the day after. Why didn't they tell her? It doesn't make any sense. The guys tonight won't know. They couldn't. They're always runners who are kept in the dark.

The reality of her situation was like a slap in the face. She made a
mistake. She chose wrong. And now, she was a mark. (John)

Upon entering the hotel, she was overwhelmed with anxiety. Who was waiting? Who was watching? Who knew?

She followed the bellman to the reception area, her fingers turning white from the pressure of her grip on the money bag. her linen suit was not only damp from the spilled gin, but also from a light sheen of perspiration.

Her mind reeling with options, almost panic, she asked the bellman to hold her bags, ‘for just half an hour’ under the last name of Greenstreet.

Then she headed to the hotel lounge. Surely their olives would be more satisfying. (Barb)

She felt her anxiety back off a degree as she entered the lounge. Not crowded, yet with enough patrons so as to not make her feel conspicuous. She walked over to the bar and sat down.

"I'll have a martini, please, with two olives," she said to the bartender.

"Coming right up," he said pleasantly and turned to pour her drink.

She set her purse on the floor, careful to keep the strap wrapped around her leg, and set the bag on her lap. The bartender placed a napkin on the bar in front of her and set the martini on the napkin with no sloshing. He gave her a friendly nod and returned to the corner of the bar, turning his attention to the football game on the television.

She picked up the drink, took a long swallow and carefully set the glass down. Her hand was shaking and she longed for a cigarette, but had given them up years ago. Dipping her fingers in the drink, she found an olive and placed it in her mouth.

She was in over her head, but she had to try to work this thing out. Disappearing into a strange city with someone else's money could be a very bad idea. Someone would miss this money very much. One way or another, she'd have to see this thing through to the end. Then she'd be free of it all. (Kim)

She dialed the number again but this time when he answered she said, “It’s me.”

“Me?” There was a thin laugh at the other end of the line.

“I’m here.”

“So I hear.”

“So you hear? What do you mean, so you hear?”

“You’ve been made.”

She sat quietly for just a moment. She could definitely tell that he was outside, near water and she asked, “Where are you?”

“Irrelevant where I am. Let me walk you though this, ok? If they’re not there already, they will be. Two very well dressed, very well paid, very well appointed men with the added benefit of being complete sociopaths. Are you listening, Laura?”

“Yes.”

“Good girl. Sit up straight now, smooth out your face and let’s take a look in that mirror behind the bar. Tell me who you see.”

She looked over the tops of half poured bottles at the reflections in the mirror, “There’s an older couple drinking coffee, three men drinking beer and one guy sitting at the very end of the bar watching the football game with the bartender.”

“Alright then, sounds like you might have a minute or two.”

“How did you know where I was?”

“Irrelevant how I knew. Here’s what you do, my friend. Finish your drink. Done? Ok. Pick up your purse, walk to the end of the bar past the television and head towards the little girls’ room, you follow?”

“Yes.”

“When you get to the hallway take a left and walk until you see a door that says Employees Only. You’ll be in the kitchen now. Take another left and keep going, don’t make eye contact, keep going. You’ll pass the prep station, then the rack storage, dry storage, there yet? Keep going. You’ll see a freezer on your left and a door on your right. Take the door. You’ll be in an alley, only one direction from here sweetheart and that’s another Louie. With me? Good. Go to 24th and Main, Column Apartments, Number 14. A bartender friend of mine named Jack Carver’s waiting for you, he’ll take care of you...I promise.” (Amy)

She hesitated, one hand on the open door, the other holding the phone to her ear. She looked up and down the alley, wondering what was familiar about it. Not the alley itself, it wasn’t that, but something tugged at her mind…

“Laura? You still there?”

Without replying, she lowered the phone. She listened carefully for a few seconds, then turned sharply back into the hotel. Retracing her steps through the kitchen at a run she yelled into the phone. “You bastard! Yeah, I just bet you and your ‘friend’ are going to take care of me – soon as I emerge from that alley!”

“Don’t do anything foolish, Laura…” His next words were drowned out by a sudden rise in pitch of the background noise – seagulls, geese, whatever the hell they were. She’d never known much about birds. What she did know was that it was the very same racket she’d heard when she stepped into the alleyway.

“You’ve had me on a wild goose chase, you bastard! Well sorry, chum, the rules are about to change.”

Now back in the foyer, she rushed up to the desk. The bellman smiled at her in friendly fashion.

“Quick, give me my bags!”

“Sorry Ma’am, I don’t have them.”

“But…”

“Mr Greenstreet just collected them.” He gestured towards the French doors. “ He’s waiting for you.”

She walked, her head reeling, out onto the verandah, which overlooked a wild seascape. A man sat facing her at a table, a cellphone to his ear. “Ah, here you are,” he said. The words came at her in stereo, through her own cellphone and straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

“You??!!” she exclaimed..

“Laura, my dear, do have a seat.” He handed her a glass. “I took the liberty… Martini, two olives. Shaken not stirred. It seemed appropriate.” (Nicki)

“You!!” she said again.

“Yes, me,” he said.

“But…?”

“But, how did I..?”

“Yes, how did you…?”

“It wasn’t easy.” he said. “Sit down, my dear and…”

“Not before I…”

“Before you?”

“Not before I finish a sentence.”

“Ah,” he said.

She sat down. She saw the bags by his feet.

“The bags!” she said.

“Yes, they’re mine. It was me who sent them to you in New York. Me who arranged for you to bring the money out here. Me who planned everything. Me! Me!! Me!!!”

“But why? And why disguise yourself as a depressive nihilist with aerophobia? Why oh why? Tell me. Please!”

“I needed a courier who wouldn’t prove to be a stool pigeon. Someone they wouldn’t suspect. Someone sitting next to me, but not actually me. Someone more like you than me. If they’d seen me carrying the money, I’d have been a dead duck. And disguising myself as a depressive nihilist with aerophobia seemed the obvious thing to do. You were never in any danger, my dear.”

“But all those birds! Geese, seagulls, pigeons, ducks? I feel so gullible”

“Yes, strange, isn’t it. And gets even stranger. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Goose. Godfrey Goose!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes… and enough already! I’m a collector. Let me show you.”

He opened the bag that had contained the money. Lying on the purple velvet base were about twenty large yellow olives.

“This is what I came to Istanbul for,” he said, opening the parcel. “Beautiful, aren’t they!”

“Olives?” she said. “I’m sick to the back teeth of olives. Olives and birds!”

“No, you misunderstand. They are eggs. Tiny eggs embellished with intricate carvings and tiny precious stones. Made for a 15th century caliph. I was just weighing them. Pure gold! And you helped me buy them.”

“ I see it all now,” she said. “You’re the Goose that weighs the golden eggs!” (Charlie)

Blogs of Note

Keep the nominations coming !
Here's what we've received thus far in the way of Favorite Blogs

Afraid of the Dark
american short-timer
eye of the storm
Post Secret
The 4th Avenue Blues
The Company Bitch

The Strange Girl

There was a girl in one of my writing workshops who was very strange, more strange than me – if you can believe that.

The writing workshop was four hours long, a stretch for even a mild mannered writer, let alone a group of ranting hysterics, so when this girl didn’t show back up for class after our second break, well… we didn’t think much of it.

Wasn’t long though before the heavy steel door slammed open and in she walked with a bag from the Piggly Wiggly.  Now, for those of you who don’t know, the Piggly Wiggly is a grocery store.

We promptly ignored her and continued with our discussion about a story in which a man got his tongue stuck to a frozen pole… please, never ask me for more details – suffice it to say that said story did in fact get worse.  (I will tell you, however, that upon an official count – the name Billy was used 84 times in the span of 6 doubled spaced pages.)

As we each took turns critiquing the Billy story… the strange girl began unpacking her Piggly Wiggly bag.  She took out a bottle of wine.  And yes, alcohol is strictly prohibited on campus.  She took out a candle and matches.  And yes, she lit the candle, which if I remember correctly (and I do) smelled like cherries.  She took out a pound of raw ground sirloin.  And then she placed the Piggly Wiggly bag aside.

Without looking at any of us… she proceeded to unscrew the cap from the bottle of wine (yes, I said unscrew) and she proceeded to remove the plastic wrap from the raw meat and she proceeded to take what I imagine to be about 2 ounces of the raw meat and put it into her mouth.

Critique of the story had stopped by this time and we were all sitting – slack-jawed and doe-eyed – staring at the strange girl in utter shock, amazement, awe, sadness?  I think for me it was sadness, I can’t speak for the rest.

The professor stopped class and dismissed us all except the strange girl.

We all stood around outside for a moment wondering what to do.  We finally decided that the only logical thing to do was to go have a drink.  Which we did frequently after writing workshop.

In not too long the professor joined us.

He wouldn’t talk about the strange girl and she never came back to workshop although that cherry candle stayed on the table for the rest of the semester.

Sometimes we lit it.

Nominations please!

Some of you will know that the three of us are intent on publishing a literary magazine/journal type thing - 1st editon planned for June. Some of you won't. But whether you do or don't, we are asking you all to come up with nominations for a Best Blog Review in the mag.

Simply suggest which blog, if any, you think is the bees knees, we will go and look at it and, if sufficiently impressed, we'll review it in the mag. So, now is the time to seek to ingratiate yourself with a blogger of your choice.

Nominations please!

The Shame of The Stain

Alice swithered between madness and sanity for much of her day, and night. She noticed things. She noticed things that others didn’t, even though they were there for anyone with half an eye to see.

Half an eye! That amused her and she snickered gently. The professor heard and stopped mid-sentence.

“And so,” he had been saying, “I’d ask you… nay, beg you… to take that lovely voice you have… take it out of the interior and let it amble about in the countryside. Give it fresh air. Let it breathe and…”

Alice shifted her gaze from the stain on the front of the professor’s trousers. She looked down at her notebook wherein she had created a blot by pressing down on her fountain pen nib until a glob of ink had gathered and spread itself out among the fibres and the nib was bent and splayed like a fork’s tines. She ruined everything, or so her mother had told her often enough.

She had imagined the stain on the front of the professor’s trousers to be a Rorschach test, and was trying to copy it. It was to be the central theme of her next short story, she had decided: The Shame of The Stain. It was partly written in her head even as the class was being urged to traipse its collective voice around the countryside in pursuit of inspiration al fresco.

“Alice..?” said the professor.

“Sorry,” she said. “Frog!” she said, adding a theatrically delicate cough.

By addressing him, by lifting her eyes to his and then lowering them in submissive mode, thereby acknowledging the properly understood pupil-teacher relationship, her eyes were drawn once more, inevitably, to the stain. They lingered there for a moment longer than they should have. The professor triangulated her gaze and correctly fixed its point at mid-zip. A frisson of excitement and embarrassment mingled in his stomach and rippled downwards. It wasn’t often a pretty young student stared at his crotch. And this wasn’t any pretty young student, this was Alice.

The stain was such a little thing, like so much else she noticed as she negotiated with her madness hour by hour. Such a little thing and yet it signified so much. Like the Rorschach Inkstain. Like everything else. What could she make of it without overstepping the bounds of decency?

“Please control yourself, Alice,” he said.

One or two in the class stirred in their seats without quite understanding why that comment made them feel uncomfortable.

Alice knew.

She stared again at the stain and the professor moved to sit behind his desk. He crossed his legs. But she had the stain fixed now in her mind’s eye. And in her notebook.

“So, where were we…?”

“Cavorting around the countryside?” said Elizabeth, from over Alice’s shoulder.

The class laughed. But not Alice. Or the professor.

‘Controlling herself’ was one of the many things Alice wasn’t good at. He had told her that on many occasions. Submerging oneself in character and plot and detail was a necessary thing, he had said, but not all the time, and not to the exclusion of the bigger picture, the grander motif. It was a fine line, he had said, between creative thought processes and hysteria.

She knew that already. She had examined that issue with her therapist on at least three occasions.

“Alice,” he had said, at their second one-on-one tutorial, “I fear you will prove infuriating, my dear.”

She agreed. Why wouldn’t she? She knew better than anybody that what he was saying was true. She infuriated herself so why not others?

“You’re so obviously the most talented writer in the class…”

She knew that to be true also.

“… but you must pay attention to what I tell you and you must, simply must, my dear, produce finished work. The title Creative Writing Course more than implies a requirement to actually write something now and then.”

She could hardly concentrate for musing about his clothes. So dapper, so stylish, such a dandy. Not a crease, not an unstylish item. And the rest of him was ‘just so’ too. Close-shaven, liberally cologned, hair perfectly groomed, slim and of fine bearing. Such a smart man. Such a clever man. And he talked in italics so much! Even in front of the class. It was a speciality of his.

She turned back to the inkblot in her notebook and wrote alongside it a list of words with the bent tines of her pen - cues, headings, significances for her story, The Shame of the Stain. The ruined nib created ugly distortions of the words she conjured up. She wrote: gravy; ink; oil; piss; custard; ice cream, saliva, snot; semen; coffee, milk… and so on.

He had asked her at all her tutorials thus far the same question: “Why oh why, Alice, do you never finish a piece of work.”

“I really don’t know,” she said, emerging from her madness for a few seconds. “It all seems so… so banal once I’ve written it down.” She retreated again to contemplation of the professor’s waste basket which contained shredded paper. She started writing another story in her head as he talked, this time about a paedophiliac teacher who printed out taboo images on a school computer and then had to destroy the evidence.

“But it’s not banal,” he said. “it’s outstanding work. The reader can feel the emotion in your stories, can taste the bitterness, can share the pain as you live it. You do live it, Alice, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Every second of it. Every ounce of it.”

“But, you must produce,” he said. “You must, if you are to get through this course.”

Her mind was elsewhere, writing a story about a blackmail victim. She felt threatened and shivered.

The class ended with the professor’s customary exhortation to them all to ‘produce, produce!’, although he looked at Alice when he said it.

Alice didn’t move. She sat in the empty classroom and wrote a 1500 word story with her ruined, reality-distorting fountain pen. Her notebook was a mess of harsh, angular scribblings, the words barely discernible. She went home, typed it up, returned to school and left the story in her professor’s pigeon hole. She also left a copy in the head teacher’s pigeon hole.

The story was about a professor who had a stain on the front of his trousers as result of a frantic and careless masturbation in his study immediately before a creative writing class. It ended with the professor being sacked as result of a female student writing a short story about it. She claimed she had witnessed him, her words, ‘going at it hammer and tongs’ when she had opened the door to his study. The head teacher had returned the story to the student with the comment that it was ‘exquisitely written but not really of appropriate subject matter for publication’. He gave it a mark of 85%.

The yellow gone...

I really must admit it, plainly and simply, I am constantly on the prowl.

I can’t help it. It’s the way my brain works.

What’s that, constantly on the prowl, you say? Sounds slightly unsavory, you say? Allow me to explain.

I keep a notebook into which I scribble incessantly throughout the course of a day – ideas for this… ideas for that… overheard conversations… telling glances... stories! Stories people… ideas for stories are everywhere!!

Note to self:
This would make a great short story…Woman behind the counter at the store today tells me… she hates to fly because she has sinus trouble. Last time she was on a plane she cried the whole time and gum didn’t help either – everybody kept telling her to try gum – and she was trying it – but problem was – it didn’t help. That’s why she drove to Arizona. She drove because she cries when she flies, she said. She said they drove through Texas for days and Arizona is hot, but not like the ‘hot’ here – ‘hot’ here is humid-hot… ‘hot’ there is dry-hot. She was going to Arizona to pick up her sister’s kids because her sister is moving to Japan for a while. The woman working next to her says – “I want you to just take a look at THIS…” I don’t think she was talking to me but I accept the invitation to have a look-see and sure enough – I turn to see that the other woman has a large portion of her very large right breast exposed – upon which is a tattoo that looks very much like a pile of something unspeakable with little flies spiraling up above… The exposed woman says to the woman who cries when she flies, “Here, you see THIS… the yellow in the bee hive done faded… three days, that’s all – three days – and the yellow gone.”

How to cook up a good story

Much like baking a cake, when writing a short story, if you don’t combine the right ingredients in the right proportions in a short story, you are likely to find it falls flat. Here’s a tried and tested recipe:

1.Take an original idea.
Avoid: the hackneyed; the uninteresting or ordinary; contrived situations. Twist in the tale stories, of course, are the ultimate in contrivance – but the skill here is to make the plot seem uncontrived.

2.Add some believable characters.
A successful short story generally revolves around just one central character with a problem. The reader must be made to feel from the word go that he/she knows and cares about this person. This will almost certainly be the viewpoint character, whether you decide to write the story using 1st or 3rd person. We should see the events filtered through their consciousness. Short stories usually benefit from a single viewpoint throughout – although some stories do ignore this, it has be carefully handled, and beginners are best sticking to a single viewpoint.

3.Add a problem.
There is always a problem: it may be a crime to solve, a relationship to change, a discovery to make, the fact that the main protagonist is sad, has no money, no hopes, loves an unattainable object or person, etc.

4.Mix it all well together, and create conflict.
Without conflict, there is no story. The conflict can arise from an obstructive person, thwarted ambition, a bad decision, the forces of nature, an external manmade force such as war, etc.

5.Put the mixture into a convincing background.
This must be a realistic setting for your characters to move in – even in a fantasy or science fiction story, the background must be believable within the parameters of the world you have created, and in this sense it is realistic. The short space you have to develop this background means it needs to be briefly described, so striking images are useful, to bring the scene vividly to life in the reader’s mind without the need for overly detailed descriptions. In order to maximise the effect, these images should touch all the senses – sights, sounds, smells, even taste and touch.

6.Get your readers hooked immediately.
The best way to do this is to introduce your main character into the mix without delay. To avoid long descriptions and explanations, let us get to know them through their feelings, their actions and their words – direct speech, carefully used, is the most efficient and effective way of bringing a character to life.

7. Aim to reach a ‘moment of change’ by the end of the story.
By the bottom of page two you should aim to have introduced your main character, stated his/her problem, and established an intriguing situation. The ‘moment of change’ which occurs during the story should resolve the problem in some way. Resolutions can be positive, negative or neutral – if your main character is sad and lonely, for example, the moment of change could occur when a) he meets the woman of his dreams and lives happily ever after; b) he meets the woman of his dreams, but she turns out to be a bitch and leaves him even sadder and more lonely; c) he meets the woman of his dreams, but he finds he just isn’t cut out for a happy, sociable life, and he realises sad and lonely is what suits him best.

8.Add suspense to taste – a sprinkling or a great big dollop, depending on the type of story.
Things should never run completely smoothly, or you lose all conflict. So introduce dilemmas for your characters to face, decisions for them to make, put them in scary, uncomfortable, dramatic, situations. Their reactions to these things should induce tension or anxiety in the readers. Get them wondering what’s going to happen next, hoping that all turns out well – or badly – for the character. If we don’t care bout the characters, we won’t care about what happens to them and won’t keep turning the pages.

9.Mould the mixture into a pleasing form which has a distinct beginning, middle and end.
The beginning introduces the characters, sets the scene, poses the problem.
The middle develops the action and involves the reader in a situation of increasing interest, suspense, intrigue/ fascination.
The end resolves the problem for better or worse.

10.Don’t add any extraneous ingredients.
Everything you introduce must be relevant to the plot. Be ruthless in pruning away all superfluous incidents, descriptions and characters. Don’t introduce a character for one purpose only. Be thrifty with them and make them work hard for you.

11.Finish everything off with a great ending.
It should be a satisfying ending, not necessarily a happy one, but your readers should go away feeling they have eaten well, pleasingly full but not over-stuffed or feeling sickly from an over-rich or sugary-sweet mixture. Don’t extend your conclusion into anti-climax with needless explanations. The best endings are unexpected but inevitable: the response of your readers should be ‘Yes, that’s life,’ or ‘Of course – but I didn’t see it coming.’ They should not feel let down by the ending, thinking ‘Oh no, that’s ridiculous!’ (the contrived or unbelievable) or ‘So what?’ (the banal.)

Roads...

So, ok... I missed obscure Friday night reference night... here's one for you though...

I am sitting at my desk.  It is Saturday night.  I am eating Chinese food (sort of) and I am reading Tolkien.  I fell in love with these books when I was a kid and have read them all many times over...  The first time I read The Hobbit I went to my mother and told her I wanted the lines below read at my funeral... I know... I WAS that kind of kid... surprise, surprise.

Roads go ever ever on,
   Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
   By streams that never find the sea:

Over snow by winter sown,
   And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
   And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
   Under clouds and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
   Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
   And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
   And trees and hills they long have known.

J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit

Just this...

I believe this:

The true mystery of the world is visible, not the invisible.

Oscar Wilde

Speaking of Wordsmith...

I was very happy to kick off the Wordsmith project with our first paragraph but when I sat down to the task at hand I found myself at somewhat of a loss. Where to start? Where to start? Where to start!!!

Instead of sitting here in front of the computer screen getting more and more frustrated for lack of a brilliant start – I just began typing. Relax. No pressure. And I didn’t think in terms of a long project – I thought only in terms of an interesting string of sentences.

What happened within about 10 minutes was not just one paragraph – but four totally unrelated little snippets that leapt onto the keyboard with absolutely no premeditation, no sweat, no worries – just the pleasure of writing.

I sent all four paragraphs to Nicki and Charlie and said, “Pick one.”

Interestingly enough – I’ve taken all three of the other paragraphs and turned them into short stories. If you’d like to take a look-see at the first one – here’s the link:

Bells and Dust Bunnies


Happy writing,
Amy

So Grendel waged his lonely war...

Well, it’s Friday night, isn’t it? Oh goodness, I do lose track of the days. At any rate, I “think” it’s Friday night and I just wouldn’t feel right letting the opportunity pass to share an Amy’s Friday Night Obscure Literary Reference moment.

I promised myself that I would do my taxes tonight and being one to almost always practically sometimes never break a promise – I paraded out my best intentions and began digging through the wall of boxes in my closet trying to find my last year’s tax return and the accompanying information, etc… etc… To my great delight (surprise, surprise) I was almost immediately distracted by one box of books in particular – a box containing very special books – all very dear to me for many reasons.

Folks… I’m talking - The Middle Ages. Anglo-Saxon England… Beowulf! Caedmon’s Hymn! The Nibelungenlied! And that’s not all… The Saga of the Volsungs – The Norse Epic of Sigurd the Dragon Slayer! And even more – Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas!

What I would most like to say about this “find” is that it brings to mind an absolutely dear professor who teaches all manner of classy-classes – but one that I enjoyed most particularly was the Beowulf in Context class from which the books mentioned above (and about five or six more, to be honest) were proudly listed on the MUST read list. The passion with which this professor approaches literature is enough to inspire even the most insipid, half-hearted, “I-just-need-one-English-credit-to-complete-my-degree-in-accounting” student. He is a brilliant man who is working on his own translation of Beowulf (better than Heaney’s in my opinion) and I can vividly remember him standing before the class reading deeply and soulfully in Old English.

Passion for literature folks… that’s why we all gather here in this little corner of cyberspace – whether it be King Hrolf and His Champions or something slightly more contemporary.

Write like mad – but don’t forget to READ like mad as well…

Amy