Trials and Tribulations of a Writer with MS

09:02 am - Truly fascinating ….

Deadly plague hits Warcraft world

This is quite literally amazing. Read this story on the BBC news website. It talks about a virtual plague that is killing characters in the online game World of Warcraft… I find the whole concept somewhat spooky. Especially the bit where it describes virtual cities awash with corpses… Follow the link, read the story, it will make you think I can guarantee you that….

Current Mood: thoughtful

08:57 am - Hmmm... Me a Liberal? But I'm grounded in reality... I can't be a Liberal...

You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (26% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid

Current Mood: shocked

10:24 am

Every Silver lining has a dark cloud behind it.

Yesterday I was over the moon to see my book in Spanish. Today I received a rejection for a short story that I thought was in with a real chance.

Sometimes being a writer can be a real up and down ride, with the steep drops coming when you lease expect them. But then, so do the highs.

Current Mood: sad

10:09 pm

I have to say that I am ridiculously proud today.... Silly really. Its not really that big a thing, but my computer book I wrote last year has been translated into spanish and seeing my book translated into another language is just like.... Wow...

It arrived yesterday by post, a complete surprise, and it cheered me up no end :-)

I have not quite gone global, but seeing my book, words that I have written, in spanish... that was something speical. As I say, probably not a real biggy on the life scale, but for me, it was a fair sized tremor :-)

08:48 am - Closer - Film Review

Not that I want to turn this LJ (a blog by any other name) into a review channel, but I can't stop by without mentioning “Closer” an adapted screenplay written by Patrick Marber.

I've had a chance to look at the stage play script and I can tell you that he's not really changed that much when switching it from stage to screen. There is the odd change of location, to make us believe we are watching a film rather than a play, and that kind of works, but to be honest it’s unimportant. As you watch the script delivers a merciless look into the romance and hate, and the lost human condition of hopeless love, and thoughts of scene changes and dodgy locations are swept aside on the journey.

There are only four characters in this play, no one else is allowed a line, side extras rarely get to say anything and the only other person I can remember speaking during the entire film is a barman. Therefore, it's intense. But that's what the author wants, that's what he built this script for, to stretch you out in an unending session of torture, letting you peer deeply into these characters lives as they play chess with words. And boy the play does it beautifully. Every move, every word they say is affectively a "check" and every answer a counter-check with only the odd occasional and very rare check mate.

The four people are mega stars of acting; Jude Law playing a writer, a simpering anti-hero whose bed hopping between Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman (I know, I know, poor man eh) causes Clive Owen's character no end of mental grief. And that's the plot. Simple as it is. Man meets woman, fancies her and it all ends with tears before bedtime. But that’s just a frame work to hang the words, a simple prop or plot device which the author uses to weave a complex web of emotional entanglement.

The concept of time within this film is probably the hardest thing to grasp. The opening scene between Law and Portman takes place in a hospital where she is being treated for a road injury. They meet for the first time, click and then.... The next scene is at least a year later… Law has written a book and is living with Portman. There is no warning of this; you get no "six months later" or any such crudeness appearing on the screen, you simply work it out from what is being said by the characters.

Disconcerting at first, but once the audience is alerted to the game it becomes easier to see and, if you are willing to accept this method of time moving forwards – and sometimes backwards into flash-backs -- it allows the film to smoothly move through years rather than months, bringing a creditability to the script which might otherwise have been lacking. People who have affairs, fall in love, leave their partners, get divorces and so on do it over a long period of time. It doesn’t happen in five minuets, it simply happens at its own speed.

Which brings us to another important point. This is a very "Un-American" film. There is no violence and no sex. Something that no doubt perplexed the American audience who panned the film and snubbed it at the Oscars. I can imagine them sitting there scratching heads and saying... "How can you have a love story without sex? Where is the car chase? Even the disastrously unfunny "My Best Friends Wedding" had a car chase!!!"

The sex is implied and far racier for it. The language is also intense. These people speak and swear like normal people, or at least normal British people. I remember an American guy I met in Las Vegas nearly falling off his chair because I called someone a cunt! If that sort of language makes you want to faint, don’t go near this film, you won’t make it past the first ten minutes. But it really is how English people speak. We mean no harm, its just our way.

I'd like to give you some cool examples of the script, but there are so many I have a hard time deciding which one is cooler than which. Perhaps the best example I can give is Clive Owen's memorable diatribe to Julia Roberts on learning the truth about her affair with Law, to which he says: "Thank you for your honesty, now fuck of and die".

This line is said with such raw emotion – to a visibly shell shocked Roberts – that you can't help but feel sorry for both characters at the same time, and that, that right there is the power of true good writing. Marber (the writer) ignores all the rules of writing, all the so called "basic mistakes" and simply writes from the heart. He plays with time, he uses clichés, he lets his characters swear and behave like real live people without any moral intervention from the writer. In other words, he holds up a mirror to life, says “fuck the rules I write as I want” and then creates a work of genius.

A lesson for us all.

If you haven't seen this film, do so at once. Find out if you are one of the 50% that likes it or the 50% that didn't. All I can say is I now have two favourite films in my top ten list.

1. Magnolia

2. Closer

I give Magnolia the edge simply because I have loved the film longer than Closer, but in time that may change. Now all I need is another 8 films to complete my list….

I'm happy now. Got that out of my system. I'm off now to track down more of the authors work and also to be inspired into writing a little more myself. I've got an SF short story on the go, finished a couple of poems (yes poems) and I'm gearing up to right an update of last years computer book. Busy times.

Current Mood: satisfied

11:35 am

[b]Review and observations of:

The Madness of Love by Katharine Davis[/b]



I recently finished reading The Madness of love by The Madness of Love by Katharine Davies and quiet by chance saw an essay by the author in the Writers Handbook (the bible for aspiring writers). In this diary type piece she details her road to publishing success. A somewhat depressingly easy path as she simply submitted to a couple of agents, the second one said yes and within 3 months she had a publisher and 9 months after that she was looking at her book on her own shelf.

As I said, depressingly easy. She does go through the angst, a little bit, and worries about whether she can be objective about her writing and what her agent will think of her when she is seen working as a steward in the Hay festival, but largely the process of getting the book on the shelf appears to be one she managed to sleep walk through.

Am I jealous? Naturally. But I can't begrudge her this success as the book is rather good.

It's a re-invoking of 12th Night and is, simply put, a story in which everyone at the table of life is in love with the person to the right of them. This domino effect of love of course means that everyone is in love with a person that isn't interested in them. Each chapter is written in third person, looking at the action from their own limited view and each chapter it entitled with the characters name, so that we can be tipped off in advance.

The characters themselves; a school teacher who has lost her brother to suicide; a rich bored lord of the manor type and a wandering soul or two, stir the broth of this story very nicely. You get a warm feeling from reading this tale, even though there are in fact far too many happy endings here than one would think plausible. But then if it's good enough for Shakespeare…?

The only major negative point I can make about this book is the authors rigid insistence that this story is happening in present day. With characters floating about called Melody, Valentina and Leo, you can almost see the steam swirling around a train used in the early chapter. It comes as a shock then when PC World is mentioned and another character, who I could only seem to imagine in a swirling dress of a thousand petty coats, uses a lap top. Kind of jerks the reader a little from this world where the Brontés would no doubt have been at home.

But this is a minor quibble and I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to read a good weepy love story. However, I would suggest that you give the essay a miss, especially if you are a writer who is rejected more than you are accepted.

Current Mood: okay

08:49 pm

I am currently re-watching season 3 of Babylon 5, which, for those who missed it, was a ground breaking SF show that lasted 5 seasons and dealt with some fairly complex good/bad/grey plot lines. Have a look at some fan sites if you want to know more, I’m not going to do your research for you. But last night I watched an episode and thought, boy is the writing good.

For example: the captain is about to enter into a hostage situation; mad bomber is holed up in his room and wants to see the captain otherwise he will let the big bad bomb go boom. Okay, so far so standard, but here is the bit I like: In B5 they have a communication device that looks like a bit of tin foil stuck to the back of their hands. If you remember, star trek NG had a little brooch pinned to the chest that Picard and crew would slap if they wanted to talk to anyone. I’ve never worked out why fan fiction has never made more of this obvious nipple fetish. Anyway, back at B5, the security chief advices the captain to take off his communication band and hide it. The captain goes to put it in his shirt but security chief says “no, he’ll look there…” and so with a look of pained disgust the captain puts it down the back of his pants, presumably lodging it between his buttocks.

Clearly we aint in star trek no more toto as never in my wildest dreams would I ever imagine Picard slipping his communication brooch down his Y-Fronts, although I often thought about where Troy might hide it.

The whole “hiding it down his pants” scene is played for comedy, good in the dramatic situation as it allows the audience to go up a mood notch before the “bad things” start to happen and they need to drop down a notch. However, the comedy is just a distraction, what we are being shown here is a Plot Device, cunningly hidden inside a bit of comedy distraction. Later, while the captain is talking to the bomber, he’s told to sit down and when he does, bum cheeks press in on the communication device which beeps it presence down from the captains Hershey highway.

Oh what a give away.

Fight ensues, captain wins, B5 is safe again…

In fact this little bit of Plot Device writing pretty much saved this bog standard “terrorism” episode as the terrorist had clearly decided that he wanted to be John Malkovich for the day, but he had also unfortunately eaten a bucket full of amphetamines before he walked on the sound stage.

It happens.

Current Mood: contemplative

01:33 pm - From a friend...

This is a copy of a letter somone was given in a writing class...

Rejected
by Ann Tompert

Is there a writer who has never, ever received a
rejection letter? I rather suspect that we have all
suffered the slings and arrows, even the rich and/or
famous. Before William Saroyan, for example, got his
first acceptance, he had a pile of rejection slips
thirty inches high.

The comments of rejecting editors make for
interesting, enlightening, and sometimes entertaining
reading.

Mary Higgens Clark's short story, Journey Back To
Love, earned the comment, "We found the heroine as
boring as her husband did."

About Colette's book, Claudine At School, an editor
said, "I wouldn't be able to sell 10 copies."

Irving Stone's Lust For Life was rejected with the
comment, "A long, dull novel about an artist."

Dr. Seuss's And To Think 1 Saw It On Mulberry Street
was "too different from other juveniles on the market
to warrant its selling."

Commenting on Harry Crew's Unpublished Story
Collection, an editor advised, "Burn it, son, burn it.
Fire is a great refiner."

The editor of a literary magazine saved A. Wilber
Stevens (later Dean of Arts and Letters at the
University of Nevada) the trouble and trauma. When the
SASE Stevens sent with his manuscript came back, he
opened it and out fell a little pile of ashes!

One could always stockpile one's rejections with the
view to breaking the world's record which, according
to the Guinness Book Of World Records, stands at 106
received for World Government Crusade by Gilbert
Young.

Lee Pennington, a well-published magazine writer,
papered a room (all four walls) with the rejection
slips he received in a six-month period. If a writer
finds that collecting enough to paper a room is too
overwhelming or depressing, he/she might consider
gathering enough to paper a lampshade, laminate a
coffee table, or a wastebasket. The latter project
might be especially appropriate,

Rejection letters have other uses. For some writers,
they have been the goads that pushed them to
self-publishing. The most famous children's
self-published author is, of course, Beatrix Potter,
whose The Tale Of Peter Rabbit was rejected at least
six times before she published it herself, using her
savings.

It was e.e. cummings's mother who published his poems
when a dozen publishers rejected them. He exacted
sweet revenge with this dedication: "No Thanks To:
Farter & Rinehart, Simon & Schuster, Coward-McCann,
Limited Editions, Harcourt, Brace, Random House,
Equinox Press, Smith & Haas, Viking Press, Knopf,
Dutton, Harper's, Scribners, Covici, Friede."

Over time, writers have been urged to "hang in there."
Success will come. In the words of Joseph Hansen: "It
seems important to me that.., writers ponder
this--that since 1964 1 have never had a book, story,
or poem rejected that was not later published. If you
know what you are doing, eventually you will run into
an editor who knows what he/she is doing. It may take
years, but never give up."

Current Mood: productive

04:38 pm - A moment of paused reflection...

Interesting isn’t it? Life I mean. Well kind of interesting in a disinterested way. Depends, I suppose, from which angle of inefficiency you want to look at it from. At the moment I am viewing life through the shattered disillusionment that comes from getting standard rejection letters on a weekly basis.

The thrill, the buzz, the overspill feeling of accomplishment that came with finishing my last book is evaporating on a quiet anticlimactic cloud of reality. In other words: I'm disappointed that no-one wants the fucker.

Quote from an Agent: "In my experience new writers rarely come from no-where..."

In other words; only celebs need apply.

Bah!

I am waiting for rejection letters from another 8 publishers/agents... Presumably they will drift in at some point in life...

I can hardly wait...

Meanwhile, I am kicking out of my fiction cycle and dropping into my Non-fiction persona so I can write my next computer book. Well at least its money, of which I seem to be lacking at the moment. A brief glimpse in my bank account is enough to assure me that I won’t be going anywhere outside town for some time... At least until Xmas. Meanwhile, the clouds have gathered, quite literally in fact, as the German summer closes down and we enter winter. Yes I know its only August and the rest of Europe is sunny, but here in Germany the depressive mood of the country (haven't the read the rumors of Germany coming out of the recession) seems to have affected the weather...

Still, this wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the mind number amount of locals who seek me out (night and day) to tell me that "Ze weether in Germany is not being of so bad as Ingland"... arghghghhghghghhgh... These people take one holiday in the UK when they were 12 and now they are metrological experts; specialist subject - the weather in Britton...

Please, Scotty, beam me up...

Current Mood: apathetic

09:05 pm

It has been sometime since I've written here and it's taken death to stir me back. I have no words for the events of today in London, no words to forgive the monsters that planned to and took away the lives or ordinary men and women on their way to work.

Power mongering by those who use religion as a shield and an axe has led to the death of innocent people. I can only hope the bombers rot in hell and that the family's of those who died can find peace in their lives in the next few difficult weeks.

I am going to London next week. I've had it planned for about a month and these bastards are not going to put me off. I have survived the IRA at Canary Warf and a right wing nut case who tried to nail bomb me in Soho. Neither of these stopped me from going to London when I wanted and these new fascists from Islam will not stop me either.

Anyone reading this: Light a candle for the dead of London. Gone, but not forgotten.

Current Mood: angry