MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND

How do all?

We all having as positive a time as we can at the moment?

I’ve been having a few pretty odd sparks of inspiration over the last week, hence the non-post last week, but suddenly, I’ve managed to create something which could be an interesting addition to my pot of stock for conventions going forward so watch this space for more information as and when.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming.

I think it’s fair to say that the world is feeling the financial pinch at the moment.

Choices by ‘nutters’ have resulted in problems everywhere. Vladimir Putin’s deranged flexing against Ukraine continues to cause suffering everywhere with no actual positive outcome and we’re all grabbing our belts and tightening away. In the UK, Brexit is the festering cancer that is having more and more negative impacts on us, allied to a government that appears to be running like a supermarket deli counter, with MP’s waiting for their number to be called before they have a go as PM.

Is it any wonder we’re all nervous?

Everyone is seeing the amount of money they have wither as inflation increases and strange choices are made by the powers that be and it means that there are important choices ahead for all of us concerning how we make use of the money we have.

We’re all seeing money questions now but all in all, this isn’t a new topic to be concerned by.

We all need food and water. We need shelter. Heat. Clothing. All of these things are what we need as humans, but the question is where do we get them? Do we build our residence wherever we want? Do we just take the things we need from anyone we can, their needs be damned? Should the strongest survive at the expense of the weak?

Our societies have developed over the years where there are exchanges for things because we all recognise that we need to work with everyone else to make life that much easier. Bartering one object for another or providing a skill for an object developed into the use of money to buy things and the work that you do you’d be paid for so you could buy more things.

We’ve collectively agreed on a way to keep us all moving the wheel of life round as we go.

Now writing stories, be they in almost any genre, requires at least some thought on the nature of money. How is it this society is going to fit together to function? Do we have the same idea of currency as we have but it’s just called something different? Are there competing currencies out there that are not fully trusted by anyone? Do societies have barter rules in place? Where do people fit into the idea of transactions? Do slaves exist?

All these questions are important bricks in the foundations of being able to construct a world to have a story take place within and they allow you to ask the bigger questions of your characters. Why are they doing what they’re doing if they only receive a tiny payment? Why is the ruler trying to take from the populous more than they can afford just to have it themselves? Should you be able to sell a human? Could you sell a part of yourself? If you have enough to live comfortably, why go in search of so much more?

Searching for the motivation of characters in stories is one of those things that can give so much meaning and depth to a narrative. If we can see and understand the reasons a character goes about things, we may not agree with them, but we can at least comprehend. Understanding is what it all boils down to and any system of remuneration we use can give us context.

We all get up every day and head off to work because we know that we’re going to be paid for that work, and that in turn will give us the chance to buy things we need. Trying to comprehend the way that others could view financial interactions is an interesting way to explore wider motivations.

As with almost all topics, stories can act as a perfect vessel to allow us a way of making sense of the world around us.

And I can tell you some interesting ones for a very reasonable fee.

Stay safe all.

ONE SMALL STEP

The world is a pretty strange place at the moment.

Year on year, things have just gone mad, haven’t they? 2020 was the first year of COVID and almost everyone had to stay indoors. 2021 was more of the same and 2022 sees Vladimir Putin doing his best to take the 21st century title of megalomaniac in chief.

I drove to work today listening to the radio and a point that was thrown out there as everyone tried to divine what could possibly be the driving force for that nutter to send his forces into Ukraine was the possibility that we’re all looking too big.

How many stories have you encountered, in books, or on screen, where the narrative is rollicking along with a multitude of threads that you have to keep hold of as everyone in the story works to resolve the action, but it’s something almost insignificantly small that allows things to fall into place?

Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Kay Scarpetta, all sift through huge amounts of information as they try to uncover the truth behind what’s ahead of them. It’s one detail that’s out of place that starts them considering what’s really going on but also, it’s another small detail which allows them to unlock the truth of everything so they can have the big explanation in the library where they unmask the killer.

A single new pack of razor blades in the bathroom cabinet proves that one character was lying because he has a beard. New earth in a flower bed by a window points to deliveries on the wrong days.

That small sliver of information is all that’s required to solve and understand everything but it needs that specific eye to be able to pick it out.

If we’re willing to look at every possible detail when trying to understand events and people we could be able to cut through to the real truth of what we’re confronted with.

Could you imagine what we could uncover if we looked that little bit deeper?

Stay safe everyone and may Putin finally recognise that what he’s doing is absolute lunacy and leave Ukraine the fuck alone.

BEST SERVED COLD

I’m working on a new book at the moment which isn’t a part of The Circle series and exploring ideas within a new story can throw up different reasons that cause the characters to do what they do, and one reason which popped up in my musings was the idea of revenge.

Revenge is an act of retribution for a wrong that had been committed and crops up all over the show as a way to motivate people.

The Wrath of Khan is a story which boils down to the pursuit of revenge of one person over another. Revenge of the Sith is the push back of a group and Revenge of the Nerds is up there with Citizen Kane and all hold the idea that there should be an action of retribution if you’re treated badly.

So should you?

The idea of pushing back against a tyrant who has been brutalizing people, claiming revenge for deaths or other atrocities, could be seen as noble. Those who are willing to chase after the monster and bring them to a form of justice are brave, are righteous.

But then what if the revenge you seek is for a perceived injustice?

Inego Montoya seeks out the one who killed his father, OK, understandable, but I also saw an episode of CSI something (there’s loads of ’em, I can’t recall which) where a deaf man was beaten to death because a group of people thought that he was ‘disrespecting’ them when he didn’t respond to shouts which were coming from behind him. Not quite so accessible as a motivation.

Revenge is a great tool for an author but when you come to put it into play, you have to make sure that the driving cause is one that makes sense. If the reader doesn’t believe that the character should be seeking revenge, you’re kippered.

But what about revenge in the real world?

Have you ever been driven to seek revenge on someone?

Has something been done to you which made you want to turn that same poison back on the one who sent it your way?

Revenge is a powerful force which can help drive change but knowing that our motivation is still walking the right side of the line is all too often the piece of the puzzle that gets lost, and that’s when really nasty choices can be made. And all too often, the worst outcomes of all come about when people don’t even care about which side of that line they fall.

In short, as a writer, I have to remember never to push people, character or reader, so far that they don’t care about just how cold the revenge is going to ultimately become.

REACH OUT

Here we all are boys and girls, 2019. A new year filled with any and all possibilities that we care to populate it with. From the depths of winter, we’re all climbing out and on towards the longer days of summer and each and every day gives us the chance to do anything we could imagine.

So the next question we ask of ourselves, are we taking all of the chances we could?

I watched a video clip today of an Arnold Schwarzenegger motivational speech and he was every inch the one man pep tsunami you’d expect him to be but he did talk about making the most of all of the time we have at our disposal rather than just letting life pass us by.

And that’s the wider point which moves this post away from it being simply about resolutions for the new year, most of which fall by the way by the end of January, and instead understand our longer term mentality to who we are.

Are you making the most of your life?

Are any of us?

How do you decide if the life you’re living is up to the standard?

And who decides that standard?

It’s a well known point that people are all different so with that in mind, how can you decide if one person is grasping the nettle of life and another is letting the chances pass them by, content rather just to stare out of the window and enjoy the whooshing sound they make as they rocket along?

Would that mean that we have no way to look at someone and decide for ourselves or that each person should really be looked a on a case by case basis?

Imagine a race between two people.

They’re both running the same distance, say the 100 metres, they’re both wearing the appropriate attire and have spent years training to be the best that they can possibly be to get to this point. They ready themselves, the starting pistol fires and off they blast, their arms and legs driving like pistons as they cover the ground, only for one person to finish at about the same time that the other has reached only 75 metres. By the time the second person crosses the line, the winner is almost in the showers!

Clearly the winner is the one who was better but that’ll never be the whole story. The winner finished well outside their own personal best and in the grand scheme of things, didn’t really set the world on fire whereas the loser, the one who finished WELL behind, delivered not only a seasons best time, but a personal best and indeed, a national record for their country over that distance.

The person who won did so while working well within their powers but the person who lost squeezed everything they could out of themselves when it mattered. The winner could realistically be told they could have delivered more but the loser gave everything they had, and exceeded the best levels of performance ever seen in their entire country.

We all need to push ourselves. We have to set ourselves goals to ensure we’re making the most of the time we have but that doesn’t mean that looking at your neighbour to see how you’re getting on is the way to go. One person’s staircase is another’s Everest. What we all have to be able to do at the end of each day, is look into the mirror and be happy that we gave our very best, and keep pushing forwards to whatever goals we decide to set for ourselves.

In for a penny …………………..

MAKE A MOVE

I think it’s fair to say that my third novel has proved to be tougher than the second.

Granted, this year has thrown a great many obstacles at me to try and de-rail my progress but it’s been hard work getting the words down.

Which is why I made the decision to take this week off work with the express purpose of getting some wring done.

We all say about practically anything in our lives, that when we have problems completing a given task or role, “If I only had more time”. When I worked in the fitness industry all those years ago, it was a common gripe that I heard when people described the issues that were stopping them being able to exercise and it’s the easiest thing to fall back on in every situation.

Time is a precious thing and we all have to make sure that we spend the currency wisely but that is a very different thing to spending it as we should.

I know, for example, that during the busiest periods in work, my working day can stretch to ten or twelve hours quite easily and there’ll be a great deal of mental gymnastics required to keep all of the tasks and requests heading in the right direction. I also know that after that, I SHOULD be heading to do some form of physical activity as I once did. More often than not, I WISELY (for me) choose to spend time with my wife relaxing at home.

I recognise that the chance to unwind my mind after the working day in the way I do with my wife is more valuable to me that heading off to the gym. If there were more hours in the day then it’s likely that I’d head out and train later on but for me, the available hours of an evening can be best spent doing something else. I become better doing what I do because I value my time with my wife.

We don’t fit that stuff in that there never seems to be time for because we value doing something else more.

I noticed that I needed to do something stronger than normal to get the writing moving again and taking a week to become a full writing week was the perfect idea. I’m showing myself as much as anybody, that I value my writing. I place a real value on what I do at the keyboard and being able to set aside a complete block of time for the sole purpose of working on the next book is reinforcing that very fact.

And after day one, I can certainly say that I’m getting the old machine moving again.

HOW MANY?

It has often been said that us men are incapable of multitasking. Everyone knows that us lads just focus on one thing at a time and the fairer sex are the ones who can juggle all of the various different balls that can get thrown at them during the every day life we all experience.

Now aside from any scientific question marks which are raised from the idea, when I write, I find myself actually enjoying the challenge of doing many things at once.

Now it’s not a question of me having a different computer under each hand and a pen grasped in my toes, rather it’s me having lots of projects going at once.

I’m working on the third book in the Circle series but also on a second collection of short stories so I’ve found myself working on four different short stories and the novel all at the same time.

On any given day I could be writing about almost anything and I bounce around between the topics and just go where the various stories take me. Now it could be easy to say that I should be focusing on a single project at a time and not spreading my creative juices about but for me, being able to move where my imagination takes me, where I have the ‘oomph’ on any given day gives me a great deal more flexibility to be able to aim my creativity at the topic that I feel most drawn to means that I can keep the wheels of writing turning regularly even if I don’t ‘feel’ a particular story on any given day.

Oddly, I find it helps that I put a particular set of characters and situations away to allow me to work on another, by giving me the chance to relax about them. If I’d only ever worked on a single topic at a time, and I have in the past, when you have a dip in creativity, you’re stuck with nowhere to go and aside from the lack of words, the feelings of frustration just make things worse. You can try to force the point but that just pushes you further away from where you want to be. With just the one topic, a bad day can turn into a bad week and a bad month and all of a sudden there’s been an age where you’ve done nothing at all.

By keeping lots of irons in the fire I’m able to change the focus as and when I need to so not only will there be something that I can work on on whatever day, but by removing the risk of getting stuck in the barren wasteland of no inspiration, I’m able to stay away from frustration. I can maintain a pace in my writing even when a particular idea needs to be left fallow for a while.

We all need to have focus on the important things in life but it’s important to make sure that don’t become too cycloptic and risk getting stuck in the creative mud.

I WISH

You know what? I’ll admit it. There may be a little bit of wish fulfillment in the stories I write.

I’ve pointed out before that there will be elements of me that will no doubt creep into the characters and the story as a whole but that I’m always trying my best to be able to skirt the line of just making myself the main character and becoming the all conquering super hero.

It’s tempting though.

Who wouldn’t want to have any and all abilities to do, say or have anything and everything the heart could ever desire?

Look at your life?

What is it you want the most?

Unlimited money? Flight? Super intelligence? All of them and more?

A writer has unlimited power to create the world and the systems he or she wants. They can be everything. They can be anything. Do anything. They can have anything and there will be no-one to stop them having the kind of world unfold that their deepest desires may want.

For the writer who is so inclined, they can become an almost God like creator of their very own perfect existence where all of the perceived injustices they find in the real world can be corrected. The little guy will finally win out. Evil will no longer rule the roost and justice will finally, finally be served.

And so I return to my admission that there is a little wish fulfillment in my first book, The Circle of Fire. I don’t mean the Dragon stuff, the magic or the wealth. The action is cool but not anything I’d like to see first hand, it’d more than likely hurt.

The one detail in there which is purely down to my own wishing?

Amongst all of the Dragon fighting and intrigue, I just want to see Wales win at rugby.

HOW

How do you do anything?

How can you get the best out of your time, making sure that you can fit everything into what needs to be done to get the results you’re looking for?

When I write, I do find that I have very particular needs to give me what I require and they all seem to start in or around a pub. I wrote roughly seventy percent of my first book and a fair chunk of the gaggle of short stories I’ve packed into my stable in The Whittington Arms pub near us. In there I find that I can get to a point that my mind just bustles along in the way I need it to. The feeling in the narrative I come up with seems to be that extra step on from than that I can manage when I’m working at home.

I‘ve said on Facebook before that I really struggle to be able to concentrate when I’m working in an environment of quiet and calm. Give me a decent amount of random background noise and I’m much more able to keep my attention where it has to be. Just imagine me sat in a quiet room but looking in every direction you can come up with just because my mind keeps wandering. White noise it is.

Strangely though, it isn’t just a bland humming noise that I need. This would probably put me to sleep pretty well but not much else.

I’d like to think that this mind set has been driven by the fact that I’ve spent my working life either in gyms (where there’s always a monotonous beat bouncing along as motivation for those training) or on a warehouse floor (my current base of operations has me flying a computer near to loads of machinery and the occasional fork lift). The trouble is I think that that only has a part to play. I do function well in an environment with some noise and life to it and a great fit is my local..

I know, I know, ‘it’s just an excuse to go and get a few brews down your neck all in the guise of creation’. Well maybe a little but I do get the best results in the pub. I nurse the drinks along rather than just get hammered. You can all relax, I don’t have a problem. Whether it’s the mental effect of the background noise and ‘fuel’ or just the fact I’m putting myself in a different location to work. At home, well that’s where I relax and lay on the sofa. That’s where we do all the normal things that are away from ‘work’ and there’s always something to do. I have tried having a pint at  home to see if there was any difference but the results were the same. By leaving and going somewhere else, I can get the best of both worlds.

It does come with its pitfalls though.

I once wrote an entire chapter of the first book and called one character by anothers name, all thanks to the effect of my creative ‘fuel’ of choice. There may be some disagreement over if Earnest Hemingway actually said “Write drunk, edit sober” but that doesn’t stop it being true.

So here we are. I’ve given a little view on what I do to start the wheels of the creative process. I have a great time writing because of the freedom of the story. I love knotting up the tales and creating puzzles that have to be worked out. But I enjoy my individual process and the odd drink.

Long may it continue to give me the ideas I need.