Temperama

The Start Of A Novel

No, I'm not writing the start of another novel - just dreaming of completing several - but next time I do I'll refer to the advice of Susan Hill.

"The first words are important. They lead the reader in. BUT there are many novels which I not only love and re-read but regard as very great novels, whose opening lines are nothing special. They do not go flash/bang, they do not show off, they are not clever. They lead the reader in quietly. They may be discursive.. which used to be more fashionable than now. The one thing we now find off-putting at the very beginning is a single very long paragraph and especially a complicated one which introduces several characters, or characters and places/buildings/rooms, which describes something, someone, some-place in great detail, which introduces abstract or philosophical discussion."

Not sure how Susan would characterise the following first paragraph from a novel I've just picked almost at random from my shelves. But it does the trick for me:

"I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy in Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me. She was small and blonde, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes the result was satisfactory. 'Are you Nick Charles?' she asked."

Yes, the narrator is a MCP (in those days what guy wasn't?) but he - well, his creator - knows how to seduce the (probably male) reader. The setting is evocative and the presence of a young woman there, intriguing. The "girl" herself is both beguiling and bold. She's with "three other people". Who are they, and what does the woman want? And there's the reference to "Nora", who we (correctly) assume to be our protagonist's wife. The mention of her adds a twist to the scene's sexual chemistry: we learn that Nick Charles is spoken for, know that the woman doesn't know that yet and know that Nick thinks her attractive. And we'd quite like to know if he is capable of infidelity. So there's three sentences that earned their keep.

Which novel is it? Warning: this link is to a spoiler.

Norm's Short Short Story Competition

Wow. I seem to be all alone in the house. I don't believe this has happened for, oh, about six weeks. During that period I submitted - via a laptop from a French campsite poolside cafe surrounded by Inger-lund fans - an entry to Norm's second Short Short Story competition. Turns out it was the very last one. Read it here.

Book Gloom

I had a chat with my agent yesterday. I asked her what sort of books publishers were investing their shrinking advances in these days. Chick lit, nasty crime and misery memoirs, she replied. We chewed this over for a while. We agreed that there is good chick lit and bad and that the same goes for nasty crime (I have no view on misery memoirs except that I don't want to read them). We made an analogy with Top 40 music: some of the worst pop ever has been devotedly commercial and formulaic, yet so has some of the very greatest. We were as one in knowingly observing that identical packaging can conceal novels of very different calibres. Having these views in common cheered us up a bit. Even so, by the end of our chat I'm not sure which of us was more depressed.

Holy Football: OK, I Give In

Look, I gave it everyhing. I sat up late at night. I rose early in the mornings. I cut out all other commitments and focussed on it totally. But on Tuesday night I had to admit defeat - I just couldn't complete and self-publish Holy Football in time for the Cup Final kick-off on Saturday. So what have I done since? Well, I felt crap for most of yesterday. Then I figured that I should plough on and complete it anyway, a.s.a.p. It's central themes are...well, here's my draft back cover blurb:

FOOTBALL IS RELIGION

RELIGION IS POLITICS

POLITICS IS FOOTBALL...SORT OF

AND SEX? THAT GETS EVERYWHERE

Impressive, huh? Anyway, these topics won't be going away, and while Blair is still outgoing PM the novel's political topicality will survive for another few weeks. I can't give it my undivided attention any longer, but I still hope to have the job done by mid-June.

In the meantime, here's a scene from the final third of the book (yes, I got that far). The giant-killing anti-heroes of multi-cultural underdogs Fullbladder Athletic have reached the semi-final of the FA Cup. Their opponents will be the plaything of a super-rich Russian oligarch who has moved the club, stadium and all, from its old home in my parallel England's capital Lundenburgh to the Channel Islands for tax-avoidance purposes. Their manager is a charismatic, wryly-humorous egomaniac. Here we meet him for the first time, giving a press conference. A friend of mine says he reminds her of someone else, but I can't see the similarity myself....

“And how are you feeling about the Semi Final draw, Mose?” asked Richie Garyson of the BBC. “I expect you’d have preferred to play your old foes Pooliver, wouldn’t you, eh? At least they aren’t an unknown quantity like Fullbladder, are they Mose, mmm? It would be a bit embarrassing to lose to a little team like Athletic wouldn’t it eh? Mmm? Mmm? Annoying, aren't I, mmm?"

Mose Jeronimo gave a small shrug and looked out from beneath the brim of his rakishly tilted sun hat. He took a sip from the iced cocktail at his elbow and replied, “Makes no difference to me. As you see, my life is good. I am living here, on island of Jersey, in English Channel, enjoying sunshine, in swimming trunks, talking to you. You are here, for press conference, looking at me, in swimming trunks, thinking ‘Phwoaar, special guy.’ Next question?”

Another reporter piped up. “Jenny Leggings, SkyChannelExtraPlusMore. Mose, it’s nearly a year now since your boss, Roman Nosevitch, relocated the club here for tax-avoidance purposes and changed its name to Jersey Blues. It’s all very well building a beautiful new stadium on a tiny lamp of rock in the middle of the sea. But the fact is you get more gulls watching your home games now than people. Are you happy about that?”

Jeronimo shrugged once more. “So what? Seagull make more noise than fans at old ground ever did. You hear sound of them now over sea, over beach, everywhere. They are loving Jersey Blues – or is it Blue Jerseys, I get confused. Seagulls never stop making sound.” And, true enough, the sound of seagulls was in the air, mingling with the sound of the sea. “More question, anyone?” asked Jeronimo, casually.

“Yes, Mose,” said Mick Bottom from The Moon. When will you cave in to the clamour from Moon readers for you to bare your arse for our Page Three?”

Jeronimo yawned. “I tell you this a thousand times. I let you photograph my arse when we get knocked out of FA Cup. That means you never going to photograph my arse. Only I photograph my arse and they are photographs I don’t want to share except with my wife and maybe my dog, Cruyff.”

A red-faced figure in car coat was waving a match programme, frantically. “Oh Mose! Mose!”

“Yes. You have to speak up. Lapping waves, drowning you out.”

“Motty Johnson, Match Programme World. Is it true, Mose, is it true, that you are the one true God?”

“Of course is true,” replied Jeronimo. “In football, this happens. Next?”

Now, what outfit shall I wear for the Booker?

Holy Football: Veils & Mischief

Am I going to get this Mad Novel published by 19th May? Let me see. I'm still writing it and still making up plot lines as I go along. I've done little hard editing of the partial manuscript as it stands and I'm aware of all sorts of errors, inconsistencies and bits of unfinished business lurking within it. I'm trying not to think about all that, though. After all, I've still to design a cover and figure out where to start with all the technical stuff - all that formatting, uploading, sizing and whatever - that I don't understand. The one thing I'm quite sure of is that I'm still behaving as though it can be done. I'm less sure that I'm not deluding myself. That should have become clear by this time next week.

Anyway, here's another little sample from what I've done so far. It's set in the so-called Brownside of the dismal northern town of Fullbladder in a parallel England. Fullbladder Athletic, the local team, is becoming a national phenomenon. One of its architects, a football coach from the Brownside called Ramzi Alfredi, is feeling the pressures of success, including from members of his own religious community where militant, anti-sport "Slamistas" are becoming influential. Here we meet Ramzi, his wife Shasta and their fashion-conscious teenage daughters Farah and Fatima on their way to Friday prayers.

"It was a dry day, yet chilly and overcast. The Alfredis were running late. As he hurried down the street, Ramzi looked over his shoulder testily.

'Keep up, you two!' he begged. 'How many more times do I have to say it?'

Ten paces behind him – exactly ten paces – trailed his daughters Farah and Fatima.

'Chill out, Dad, will yeh?' came Farah’s voice.

'What?' said Ramzi. 'What did you say?' His eldest child’s words were muffled by the olive green niqab she was wearing for the first time that day. Next to her, Fatima giggled just as inaudibly, she being attired in exactly the same way except for the colour of her get-up, which was of a deep blueberry shade.

'Nothing, Dad,' came Farah’s voice, more loudly and now mock-innocently.

Ramzi looked to Shasta for support. She frowned at him soothingly, and placed a reassuring hand on his arm. 'Don’t let those two monsters wind you up,' she said. Then, turning to the daughters, chiding them sweetly: 'I won’t let you wear those veils if you’re going to be silly behind them. You don’t want to embarrass us do you?'

'No, Mum,' they chorused, insincerely.

'Of course, you don’t,' said Shasta. 'Now get a grip on those giggles, please.'

Shasta walked on, her arm now linked round Ramzi’s to settle him. She puckered her lips for a kiss but he could manage only a weak smile in return. Usually her face tilted towards his wiped his worries away. Had he ever felt so down? So confused? So tormented by uncertainty?

They turned down the next street and the holy house soon came into view, its golden dome struggling to glimmer in the fixed gloom of a Fullbladder February. Ahead of them and on the opposite pavement, fellow worshippers trudged towards the same destination. Cars pulled up and still more spilled out, most of them young and male and many of them unfamiliar to Ramzi. It was then that he felt a heightened excitement in the air; sensed something unusual happening ahead.

Soon he heard a voice amplified by a megaphone and saw that a small crowd had gathered on the street outside the smosque. Some walked straight past the crowd and entered the smosque in the usual way. Others, though, had stopped to watch the speaker, a man attired in white from head to toe addressing the crowd from a makeshift stage, flanked by minders in sunglasses on all sides. The speaker’s tone was strident. Ramzi drew his family closer to him and lowered his head as he approached, acutely conscious of his newfound celebrity, minor though he knew it was. Were heads turning his way, or was that just a paranoid imagining, a new symptom of his gnawing anxiety? Maybe it was, because when a remark was made it was to Farah.

'Checkin’ ya, sistah,' said a young man. He stared at Farah. She stared back. Some of the young man’s friends stared at Farah too. They were all fellow males.

'Checkin’ me why?' asked Farah from behind her veil.

'We checkin’ all the sistahs,' another young man said.

Farah tugged down her veil. 'I’ve got me knickers on, if that’s what you’re wondering,' she said."

Onwards to insanity!

Book Cover Marketing "Wisdom"

From Charlie Brooker in The Guardian:

"Book covers - like TV programme titles, magazine covers and newspaper headlines - are increasingly designed to draw in passersby via any means necessary. Subtlety doesn't get a look-in. Nor does common sense. I had first-hand experience of this several years ago when a book I'd written, a spoof version of the Innovations catalogue, was published. It was full of outrageous mock inventions, most of them electronic gadgets of some kind, apart from one: a "guilt-free" Christmas turkey which lived its last days in the lap of luxury before being slaughtered (look, it seemed funny at the time). Anyway, the marketing department insisted said turkey should appear as the main image on the book's front cover. Why? Because the book was coming out in the run-up to Christmas, and they figured that might help it sell. Never mind that it was the single most atypical item in the book, never mind that it made the front cover a confusing mess, and never mind that it instantly rendered the book redundant the moment Boxing Day arrived - some arrogant dunce had decreed the turkey might help sales, and that was that...Way to go, faceless marketing guy! You rock!"

And you know what? That "arrogant dunce" is still around. In fact, these days he's just about everywhere in publishing

Holy Football: The Plotters

Of the roughly forty scenes my short order novel will comprise I've now got fourteen in solid shape with a few more not far behind. There's still masses to do if Holy Football is to be available for purchase before the Cup Final kicks off at 3.00 pm on 19th May. Fear of failure is really starting to gnaw at me now. This is helpful in that it's encouraging me to keep my sentences short and lean, and to concentrate on keeping the plot moving - the faster it moves, the sooner I'll get to the end.

Here, though, is a fairly descriptive scene from near the start of the second chapter. It takes place a few days after unregarded Fullbladder Athletic's amazing FA Cup win over filthy rich Mancunia Global thanks largely to the contributions of two young local players from what is known as the Brownside of Fullbladder, a town that has become increasingly segregated along ethnic and religious lines. Bear in mind that the novel is mostly set in a parallel England - an England of my disturbed imagination - so some terms relating to national identity have been adjusted for the sheer fictional fun of it.

"Within the portly frame of Colin Dunking-Biscuit – Councillor Colin Dunking-Biscuit if you don’t mind – pride’s bubble was so inflated that it threatened to lift him clear off his feet and up, up, up, until the top of his head bumped on the ceiling; his ceiling, in the rear reception room of his very own Fullbladder home! Colin thought of it as his strategy room, a place to contemplate his wall-mounted heraldic shields and reproduction broad swords and think of England all alone while elsewhere in the property Mrs Dunking-Biscuit busied herself dusting under doilies and, just now and then, treating herself to an extra shovel of Prozac.

Often, Colin would take his place at the head of the oak table at the centre of the room and from there mouth words of inspiration and command to a rapt audience of invisible followers, each clad in uniforms of Colin’s own mental design. He had yet to settle on the precise details of these and took pleasure in mulling over the possibilities. How flared would be the tunic drape beneath the waist-pinching belts? How high up the thigh the gleaming leather boots? Such dilemmas, though, did not cloud the cause in whose name these imaginary loyalists were gathered. Colin would feel a stirring at the thought of the Great Cleansing that would begin on his own doorstep in Fullbladder’s white collar outskirts and spread from there across the entire land, restoring the lost England of yore!

But even this blood surge was as nothing compared with that which flushed through Colin now. True, he had conceded his seat at the table’s head. But could there have been a more gratifying relegation? Colin lifted his chin and recomposed his expression of sanctimonious subservience as Griff Puffin said, 'Friends, fellow Englas. I’ve invited you all here because each of us finds himself in an extraordinary situation; a crossroads, indeed, in our proud country’s history whose importance and dangers are nowhere more clearly illustrated than here in this fine Engla town of Fullbladder – where, of course, the Engla Nation Party has enjoyed so much recent success...'

From his place at Puffin’s elbow, Colin marinaded in trickled-down acclaim. The Leader! In his own home!"

More soon. Pray for me.

Holy Football: A Political Issue

I had a highly productive Monday and a slightly indifferent Tuesday. Today, I started at 5.00 in the morning and hope to keep going until 4.00 in the afternoon when other duties will call. Woof! Woof! Woof! What do you mean, I'm acting strange? Anyway, here's how the second chapter of Holy Football begins. Fullbladder Athletic's amazing giant-killing of Mancunia Global in the 3rd Round of the Cup has come to the attention of the most powerful politician in the land. How will he respond? Can he do it properly without the help of an old friend?

"In the Robing Room at No 10 Downer Street, primate minister Blair Anthony hoisted his underpants a little higher on his hips and showed a rugged profile to Esher. It was a reflex genuflection Blair made ever more frequently as he strove to firm up his legacy. For ten long years he'd served his country as its leader – years of failures dressed up as triumphs and of successes downplayed for fear of giving succour to his foes – and now he found himself preparing to step down in the curious circumstance of being simultaneously the People’s Choice at the ballot box and the People’s Pillock in the opinion polls. It was vexing, irritating, frankly ubzurd. He hitched his thumbs under his waistband once again.

'Will yer stop doin' tha' la'?,' came a female voice from nearby. 'It's gerrin' on me nerves!'

It was the cry of his darling wife Sherry, known in her professional life as Judge Tollbooth. She stepped closer to eyeball him, jabbing a finger aggressively.

'Whey were yer when our dockers needed yer, Blair Anthony? Whey were yer wack? Loo-kin' the other way with yer middle class pals, that's wha’…!'

Blair said, soothingly, 'Sherry, in respect of this matter, I simply refer you to the investment we have made…'

'Oh yer!' interrupted Sherry, mockingly. 'Could you possibly fook off while I'm gerrin' some foo-kin' focus group together, right? So's I can decide whar answer is acceptable to some middle-class suburban floatun voter shite, right?'

'Sherry, I…'

'Don' give me nurra dat! I'm off for a bevy!'

Blair sighed. He adored his wife, yet he despaired of her at times. She was so fecund and so rich and yet so susceptible to fads. She wasn’t 'off for a bevy' at all. She was, in fact, off to the bedroom to try on some of the exclusive outfits selected for her at Harvey Nick-Nacks by Milly Fondu, her Wellbeing Coach.

'Scouse git,' said Blair, under his breath. He didn't mean it nastily, but this Prole Therapy thing was very wearing. The idea was to take Sherry back to her Liverpool roots, there to reclaim her spiritual essence...or something. Blair knew he had no choice but to wait until Milly excited her with some other internal growth philosophy.

He sighed. Where had those good times gone? What had become of the belief that things could only get better? Blair pressed his middle fingers to his temples, closed and his eyes and whispered. 'I wish....I wish....I wish...'

And his wish came true.

The ritual had never changed. First, a change in the air: chilling yet electrifying. Then, from the ether, the worshipful voices of an invisible choir chorusing an epic entrance theme.

'THE I-RON GAZE!

THE GREAT PROW!

AL-PHAAAAAAA!'

And the Supreme Messenger was manifest. What was this forbidding creature's name? In truth, he was called many things among them Camp Bellali, though nobody quite knew why. But most people called him Alpha Mail.

'Alpha!' cried Blair. 'Welcome!' How Blair adored his fairy warrior! How his spirit was restored when, as of yore, Alpha Mail was near!

'Fuck off,' Alpha replied. He stood before Blair, wings erect, dressed as ever in chain mail and black leather. From top to bottom Blair adored his look: his peaked Robin Hoodie hat; his sculpted torso plate; the sturdy suspenders stretched taught across his thighs; his pointy pixie boots. His huge gonads and mighty tool lolling with menacing insouciance in their thong. The corners of his lips curled malignantly. Blair recognised this as a smile."

This may be the death of me. More soon.

Moonie Football

I'll be doing only minimal blogging for the next couple of weeks as I strain every braincell to break the back of Holy Football. Speaking of which, this rather murky picture and, in particular, this 2001 story I've never been able to forget have given me a plot idea.

"It seems that Queens Park Rangers may have had their prayers answered - quite literally. The Division Two side have had a tough time over the past few months, tumbling down a league and going into administration with debts of £11m. But the path to enlightenment may have been revealed in the form of the Unification Church, otherwise known as the Moonies. QPR spokesman Mike Hartwell has admitted that the religious movement has shown an interest in buying the club. Involvement with the Unification Church, famous for their mass wedding ceremonies, may be worrying to some at Loftus Road. But it would mean belonging to a huge financial empire. The Moonies are estimated to have over $10bn in business assets, including an American daily newspaper, the University of Bridgeport and a major publishing company. The church also owns a number of other clubs across the world, including teams in Brazil and Korea."

It never happened. Oh, but we can dream...

Holy Football: Early Stages

This short-order, self-published, POD Mad Novel of mine will comprise six chapters each of 8,000-10,000 words - except for the first one which has turned out to be around 13,000 words. I'm hoping to pare that down when I ruthlessly edit it later, although some over-length may be unavoidable due to the need to set the story up, introduce the rather large cast of characters and so on. I've made a decent start on the second chapter too: close on 3,000 words of fair quality. However, I think it makes more sense to measure my progress at this stage by the number of scenes I have completed to decent first-draft standard rather by the numbers of words I've produced. It is vital that I don't end up just covering paper, as it were. Tying-up a scene within a self-defined timeframe is more likely to exert the sort of discipline required if I'm to meet my ludicrous deadline. So let's quantify the task a different way. I'm anticipating each chapter comprising around six scenes. Six times six is thirty-six but let's round that up to forty just in case. I have six of those forty scenes in good enough order to set them aside for now. I have another three underway. And I have three weeks left to finish the whole thing. Gulp.

Meanwhile, here's a tiny taste of what I've done so far. It features two of the main characters: Genevieve Low-Bunga, Cultural And Moral Philosophy post-graduate prodigy from the University of Virginia Waters and her teenage sidekick and protege. They are watching a football match between two under-11 teams on the protege's home town recreation ground. There's just been a controversial sending off.

"As the game got back underway Genevieve turned to her companion, a young man she outranked by nearly a foot.

'So Wilfred,' she said, 'How do you interpret the conflictual bricollage which we are both observers of and, albeit tangentially, participants in too?'

Wilfred Tapscott – 'Wilfy', since the demotic code shall always apply here - glanced up at Genevieve from deep within the fur-lined hood of his camouflage print parka. Before answering, he took a good look round. The match was being held on the permanently half-ruined recreation ground of a small town called Fullbladder, the truly, madly, deeply unrewarding place where Wilfy had been born seventeen years earlier and had lived his entire life since. The landscape of the rec was imprinted on his soul, as were those that stretched beyond it: climbing away on one side, the wind-hammered, sheep-mottled Fullbladder Moor. On the other, narrow streets ridged like dinosaurs’ spines with tiny terraced houses and at their addled heart the Poundstretcher panorama of Fullbladder town centre.

Wilfy's customary tone when speaking of his hometown was one of sledgehammer deadpan. This was a true reflection of his attitude to it, but also a means of concealing both his immersion in its stagnation and his addiction to its lore. Fullbladder's biggest claim to fame was the lynching in 1317 of a resident simpleton, the so-called 'Fullbladder Len', for aggravated hog-worrying. According to Fullbladder: Myth and Mystery, a local history pamphlet compiled by Fullbladder’s now ex-librarian, the culprit was forced to endure 'obliteration by blancmange' - though this may have been a misprint - a demise greatly enjoyed by a crowd of 'several score'. Wilfy made much of relishing this heritage when inhabiting the ironising persona he habitually chose to present to the world. Yet he was secretly excited that Len's pre-eminence in Fullbladder history was certain to be eclipsed late on the coming afternoon when a different kind of slaughter would occur - that of the local football team Fullbladder Athletic by the visiting potentates of Mancunia Global in the Third Round of the FA Cup.

Wilfy had his ticket in his pocket and Genevieve had hers too. For now, though, both were absorbed by the contest before them and by its many dissonant resonances.

'Well, Wilfred?' pressed Genevieve, towering gorgeously above him. 'I await your insights.'

'It's all bollocks, intit?' Wilfy replied."

So, do you like it? If you do, tell me so. If you don't, sod off. More soon.