A Blogging Return

I haven’t forgotten about you, dear blog. I’ve just been very busy.

So, updates. The Story Engine in Newcastle went swimmingly – very interesting Q&A sessions with David Peace, Denise Mina, Tony Grisoni and the wonderfully self-deprecating Mike Hodges (who signed his novel for me and lamented the state of modern British publishing, agreeing with so much I have already said – can’t break in unless you’re Oxbridge, they won’t market you when you do, and they won’t pay for a proof reader). I met a few lovely people up there whom I spent the conference sitting with – students both, but who knows, they could be the next big things – and then had a far too long coach ride back home. I did read Little Dorrit though, which has jumped to the top of my Dickens’s best of list (with Nicholas Nickleby and Dombey and Son.)

The script writing then: The Story Engine left me with a few ideas for a crime series that I came back to Oxfordshire with buzzing around my head. I started writing one of them up but discovered something quite interesting in my writing: I can’t write formulaic material. Writing a straight forward police procedural I wanted to shake it up, find something new to do with it. I came up with something exciting: and then, day two into the writing of it, discovered an even better twist on an old idea. So I started writing that. Then the next morning I woke up with a rock solid idea for a radio play and that consumed me. Then my brother came to visit and I couldn’t work for two days, then Mum got sick, so more days. She’s still sick now, nothing serious though, and I should be writing: but look outside, it’s glorious. Not a day to be stuck inside. Which is exactly why I should be writing. I might, in a bit.

I’ve also wasted much time lately ploughing through three seasons of Being Human. I’m in love with this show. I admit it. I’d been avoiding it – the premise, though clever, sounded like a one trick pony to me, but what Toby Whitehouse has done with it is nothing sort of exceptional. He’s mined deep into the darkness of these three figures and found real depth and heart. I’ve found myself thrilled, scared and moved. Who knew werewolves, vampires and ghosts could be so. I’ve watched it all in pretty much one week (I gorged on three episodes alone last night). It is shows like this that remind you that when TV works, it works really well.

Preparing for Travel

Tomorrow is the day of long journeys. First a 50 minute train ride into London, then across the city to a bus station, where I begin an 8 hour coach ride to Newcastle, and then finally, if that wasn’t enough, another 50 minute bus ride out to my hotel. A hotel that is six miles outside the city centre – despite being advertised as only three miles. Named and shamed: the Travelodge at Silverlink. So almost ten hours sitting down: I’ll need a good book. Or five. Consequently I’ve uploaded Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit to read, along with a collection of Keats’ poetry and a modern novel, Abraham Verghese’s Cutting for Stone. As I have an equal length journey back from Newcastle, I’ve Balzac’s epic cycle of novels and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick to keep me going. I think the ten hours will go quicker than they otherwise would. And if I get bored of reading, I’ve a couple of audio plays from Big Finish on my MP3 player to keep me going.

I was supposed to read last night, but I got caught up in the writing until 10pm, and then, eyes heavy, I had a wasted couple of hours catching up with Being Human, Stargate Universe and The Chicago Code. I don’t usually watch that much TV in a day: some days I’ll happily go without at all (though living with my Mum, we’ve developed a routine of watching ITV’s quiz show The Chase, and next week we’ll be making appointments with BBC’s reverse Family Fortunes fun game show, Pointless). I’m on the first season of Being Human – it’s now on its third – and I’m finding it a lot fun, if at times a little obvious. Twists that are clearly meant to shock I could see happening three episodes off, and the relationship between the two central men reminded me, in the pilot, of Stuart and Vince from Russell T. Davies’s landmark Queer as Folk. It is a show with great potential, and from all I hear about later seasons, I think something worth sticking with. Stargate Universe, now sadly cancelled, is at times thrilling, at times maddening, and at times surprising. That the producers had worked out an overall arc for the show, allows them in their scripts to take risks previous incarnations of this show lacked. A shame that the US audiences didn’t take to it. And finally, The Chicago Code, which I began watching solely because the great Shawn Ryan was behind it, and I think The Shield is the best US show EVER. Better than The Wire, better than Mad Men (which is so artificial and emotionally empty I couldn’t get past the third episode), The Shield grew each year in operatic density, until the finale season ended with an episode so heart-breaking and thrilling I actually whooped at the tele. The Chicago Code, seeing Ryan back in copland, at first seems The Shield-lite – no cursing, less violence, more formal in its presentation – and its first ending with a similar stunt as ended the first episode of The Shield (though well done here as well), it is slowly growing into something that might just be very good. I like it best when it turns its eye from the case of the week, to exploring something of the American Dream (last week Delroy Lindo’s Alderman had some great speeches about why he went into politics, and we saw how Chicago evolved from rundown city, to great American city). More of that, and I think The Chicago Code could become one of America’s great series, as lauded here as it should be there.

I’m off to type up some work, and write some more, then an early night before the forthcoming weekend at Newcastle for The Story Engine. If you’re one of the writers going, look out for me, and do say hello.

The Story Engine: The Scene of the Crime

On Thursday I travel northward. I am going to spend the weekend in the beautiful city of Newcastle Upon Tyne where I will be attending The Story Engine: The Scene of the Crime. A two day conference dedicated to screenwriting – with an emphasis on crime, as you’ll note by this year’s subtitle. The opening event, on Friday night, is a screening of Mike Hodges seminal gangster flick Get Carter. One of my favourite films of all time; I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it. The bonus of this screening is Mike Hodges is in attendance and will be speaking about the film.

The second day of events promises even more excitement. We’ll be hearing from Denise Mina about writing crime fiction, Mike Hodges and David Peace exploring the importance of place in genre fiction. Then Tony Grisoni outlines writing the superb Red Riding quarter for Channel 4. Then the BBC’s John Yorke talks about crime on television. Then Script editor Eva Svenstedt Ward and writer Antonia Pyk discuss Scandinavian crime fiction, and their role in it as writers for Yellow Bird (behind Wallander and the Millennium films). Then novelist Ann Cleeves and screenwriter Paul Rutman discuss bringing Vera to ITV. Finally, Eva Svenstedt Ward discusses adapting Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy for the screen, followed by a screening of that film. All in all a jam-packed informative weekend ahead. Sadly, the event is now sold out, so if you got all excited reading that line-up and wanted to go: tough.

I’ve been working quietly on a crime drama pilot that I’m going to approach the BBC Writersroom with if the teenage science fiction series goes nowhere. I’ve completed a rough first draft – it rollicks along, lots of action, lots of tension, and a good chase across some rooftops: the opening of Vertigo influences me still, years after I first saw it. Hopefully The Story Engine will provide a chance to network and meet those who might be able to help my work along.

As a consequence of being in Newcastle, and not owning a laptop, I think my blog will go quiet from Thursday until the following Monday. As I’m travelling by coach there and back (8hrs of travelling!) the two day event becomes four days for me! I think I better take some good books. Perhaps one of Ann Cleeves, or David Peace’s… they’re always worth a re-read.

Inspiration (and The Wise Man's Fear Review)

First up: I’m back from my boozy weekend in Cardiff. I had a great time, in which I learned a great deal and stole an awful lot of stories that will one day worm their way into my fiction. I saw a woman I was crazy about for a long time, and about whom I’ve already placed in a novel, and seeing her bought that stagnant novel back to the forefront of my mind, and gave me the ending I so desperately lacked. So thanks for that.

On the train back, and during the rest of Sunday evening, I finished Patrick Rothfuss’s epic new novel, The Wise Man’s Fear, which I review spoiler-free below. I took a brief visit to Blackwell’s in Oxford where I picked up the Elizabeth Taylor novel my friend enthused about, and new book of essays from Orhan Pamuk. Nothing like a Nobel Laureate to get the brain stimulated.

Oh, and I finished the teenage science-fiction pilot I’ve been working on, and that was posted off to the BBC’s Writersroom this afternoon. Now I face an agonising few months waiting to see if they like not only the script but my writing style: I would like nothing more than to join the writing team on some big BBC show. So here’s fingers and toes crossed – I’d appreciate it if you could so the same.

Onto the review:

The Wise Man’s Fear (2011)

Patrick Rothfuss

Gollancz, 1008pp

Patrick Rothfuss burst onto the fantasy writing scene in 2007 with The Name of the Wind (which I previously reviewed on my blog) which was the first part of a trilogy that he had already completed. Since that novels publication, it has been a long wait for fans of the trilogy for this second volume, The Wise Man’s Fear.

Picking up where that first volume ended, we are reintroduced to the hero Kvothe. He is narrating his story to a figure known as The Chronicler, in the inn that he now run. The first volume saw his tale leading up to the end of his first year at university (aged just sixteen) – this volume takes us through to the age of seventeen, and another year at university, with a couple of side trips to mix with royalty, track down bandits and have sweet sensual sex with a fairy.

Rothfuss’s writing has always been quite spare – he gets to the story, quickly, without resorting to endless description or unnecessary world-building (a common problem with fantasy literature). In this the sparsely written prose makes the dramatic moments stand out in sharp contrast: the darkness is certainly creeping in at the edges of Kvothe’s tale, and by the end we know that darker things are to come. Never has a thousand page novel passed by so quickly.

There will be a lot of people that have yet to read The Wise Man’s Fear – or have come close to finishing it yet (it not been out a week yet) – so I will restrict myself from talking much more about it right now. Nevertheless, I will say that The Wise Man’s Fear plays up all the strengths of Rothfuss’s writing: a cliché here, but if you loved his first novel, you really are going to love this one. It is that rare thing, a better sequel. But I warn you: you will be left agonisingly waiting for the third volume which I guess we won’t see until 2015 if the gap between volume one and two is anything to go by. If Patrick Rothfuss needs the time to energise his novel, and make it the best he can, then the wait is worth it.

Women's Writing

So I missed a few days. Let me fill you in.

Thursday I spent the whole day going line by line through my BBC spec script, excising spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, and generally making sure each line sounded true. Thursday night was quiz night in a local pub, so I wandered over, had four pints, came second – done in my photographs of soap stars and a lack of knowledge of the English Premiership (I follow neither) – and woke Friday morning with an awful hangover. Four pints! Lightweight I hear you call. Yeah, probably am now. I drink once a week if I am, and sometimes not at all. I can go months. So when I do, it hits me. Hard. Like a pile of bricks to the forehead. So all day Friday I spent trying to sleep on the sofa, episodes of Being Human playing on the television. I also watched The Green Hornet film: really wish I hadn’t.

That brings us to this morning. Up later than planned, I am today planning for another night of drinking a hundred miles away from Oxfordshire, in Cardiff, with friends I went to university with. Our reunion. People I haven’t seen in years. Should be a good one, if a little full of competition to see who has achieved the most since leaving. That I’m unemployed, living in a static caravan with my Mum, attempting to break into an industry that probably doesn’t need any new writers won’t win me any awards… hmm, perhaps time to break out the lie that I work for MI5 and have just gotten back from secret operations. Might work, if it wasn’t for the fact that my name is atop this blog!

In other news, over on the Seren Books Facebook page (a publisher of Welsh fiction in English), they asked their fans to nominate their favourite female authors. I chimed in with the obvious Austen, Brontes etc and then said a few recent debut authors I’ve admired: Eleanor Thom, Gwendoline Riley, Nicola Keegan, Laura Barton. Then a very learned and beautiful friend sent me a message berating me for not giving Elizabeth Taylor a shout out – no, not the actress silly! – the author of Angel, amongst others, one of the classics of 1950s British literature (recommended by a French lady and once directed by a Frenchman, Francois Ozon, saying something I think about the stature of this author in France, and her lack of fame in her own country). I shall read it as soon as I track down my copy. It did make me think, still in the grip of that night’s hangover, who were the best women authors. I’d still stick with my original collection, but I must mention here:

Zora Neale Hurston

Toni Morrison

Margaret Atwood

Iris Murdoch

Margaret Drabble

Annie Proulx

Virginia Woolf

Ursula K. Le Guin

Women who have, in their own way, helped shape the fictional landscape. Atwood, I want to mention, inspired me massively with her novel Cat’s Eye,

when I read it still at school. It made me shift from fantasy fiction into serious literature. Readers, if you had to say, who are your favourite female authors?

Well, tomorrow I shall undoubtedly be hungover again and travelling by train, so I might not blog. If I don’t, do not take it as a insult, or as a sign of lack of interest. It just means I’m older than I was, and it takes longer for me to recover. But in the words of the immortal Arnold Schwarzenegger: I’ll be back.

Also, today is World Book Night! Help celebrate it. Read a book. Recommend a book. Love books.

Daily Writing

Today has been a productive day – and it’s still not even five pm. I’ve pretty much finished drafting the pilot of my science-fiction children’s show that is heading to the BBC Writer’s Room at the end of the week. It’s sharp, bright, funny, dangerous and sometimes a little bit mad. The dialogue zings along, and the twists and turns of its narrative will enthral kids and make their parents a little nostalgic. It’s the pilot: and I have the first season mapped out. If the BBC pass I might just turn it into a kids book. But I’d rather the BBC didn’t pass, and it opens the doors I hope it does. I hope it even makes it to series, and is shown later next year as it is set in 2012! More on this series, though, I cannot give right now.

I’ve also been typing up the new 1,000 odd words I wrote by hand for my literary novel. Writing by hand? What is this, the 1800s? Well, it’s the way I like to write my fiction, long hand, in ring bound books. That’s my first draft. As I type it up, I redraft it. Then I print it all out, redraft it again, and then, hopefully, have a finished novel. But there might just be another redraft first. I tend to work on the novel in the evening, when I have peace and quiet. I try and do 2,000 or more words every day, but if you read last night’s post, you’ll know I was rather engrossed in the new Patrick Rothfuss. Haven’t finished it yet, because I had to finish Dickens’s Hard Times first. And even without the Dickens, I doubt I’d have finished it: The Wise Man’s Fear is over 1,000 pages long!

Mini-review of Hard Times: I liked it. It struck me that Dickens had one novel in mind at the opening, but quickly changed his mind for a better story – and a chance to attack the Utilitarian movement. The conflict between Bounderby, Gradgrind and the fortunes (or lack thereof) of Coketown highlighted a number of problems facing Britain’s poor in the nineteenth century. The final mine rescue and the attempt to flee Britain by the bank robber dramatically enhanced what is essentially a minor novel in Dickens oeuvre that he wrote to help sell copies of the magazine Household Works. Over the last year and a half I’ve been reading the complete works of Dickens, and thoroughly enjoying a novelist I’d previously found – can I really say this? – dull. He’s not dull. He might just be the greatest novelist of all time. I simply did not get him for the longest time. Thankfully I now do.

Well, must return to the typing up of last night’s work, then a little supper, and then lights dimmed, feet up, read some more, then write some more, then bed. And repeat tomorrow. The recipe for a perfect day.