The Stan Too'er

Hmm, now that this place is running again, I guess I should tend to the beds a little.

I've long wanted to write something set in the Borders of England and Scotland at the time of the Reivers. Or, rather, a fictionalised version of that setting. Reading Gifts by Ursula le Guin recently, I was struck by how much her setting there mirrored my feelings about the Reivers. And how much of the story revolved around very human things. I loved it. It sparked my memories and made me want to write again.

Whilst trying to do a write-in, it's been since 2016 so I struggled, with a dear friend and proper writer (seriously, her novel carries so much power and journey just her telling me about it makes my head want to burst with the power of it) I ended up having an idea sleet and this was what popped forth - based loosely on an old exhibition in Carlisle's Tullie House on the Reivers, now long gone and forgotten. And, as ever, I barely stayed on the course I set for myself.

Once again, I use the amazing 750words.com to get some attempts at insight, they may help you decide whether or not to read on, I don't know.

Rating: PG (violence[?])

Feeling mostly anxious, and concerned mostly about family - this is nice, sort of what I was shooting for

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Certain - Feeling

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: Them

24 minutes at 44 words per minute

Seeing the End

Oh, well, here I am again. It's been a while. Today I was assaulted by my Prehistoric setting. You may recall, you may not, it was many years ago now, that I was unconvinced by the naming of the women characters in my story. Moon Dancer and Shadow of the Stag made sense to me, their names and the reasons for their names came easily. The coming of age for Moon Dancer natural and flowing as though it arrived in a dream and, very probably, it did. But the rest? The tribe were not real to me despite my best efforts, I brought them forth with effort as though passing something uncomfortable. I wanted to do right, I could manage the NSFW section - that came fully-formed one evening - but the important parts? No.

One of the aspects of this, it's always been there, is dissatisfaction with using English for the setting - it doesn't feel right. I am doing my best to restrict vocabulary, to carry that Prehistoric feeling and not diminish meaning, rather to force the reader to see the connections between things that the society I write about does in their language. I also very deliberately looked into Urdu for some of the words: mother, sister. Proto-Indo-European for blood. Variations for aunties (something missing in my first run through of attempting this side of things here).

Over the last few days I found myself dwelling on the coming of age for girls, the point at which everything shifts in perspective and the biology of that. And I thought about how our society forces fear and shame into proceedings, how that is reinforced in so many areas of the Patriarchy and also on the research that shows that the first calendars were created by and for women. The primacy of that power, for power it is, and the fear it evokes in the men. What if men were not in charge as they are not in my Prehistoric setting and, instead, a community of women devised ways of coming to terms with things?

My desire to turn this into more than a setting, to conjure forth a plot, remains however and so the scene is bent to the will of the direction. One thing is clear though, I have a better naming system, one that feels much more natural and realistic. One in which the fear of the Patriarchy may have sprung from, for men can destroy but only women can dabble in the forces of creation and death as easily as preparing food or hunting prey or gathering shelter.

Analysis once again provided by 750words.com that, if you haven't already, you should sign up for.

Rating: PG-13 (violence and sexual-content[?])

Feeling mostly upset, and concerned mostly about death - well, I'd quibble that, but I can see how it comes from the text, see what you think.

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Certain - Thinking

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Touch; Us and Them: You - interesting!

46 minutes at 40 words per minute

Pet Shop Boys

I have been reviewing my writing and my ability to actually write. The more I look the more I realise that maybe I'm not really cut out for proper writing, you know, the sort of thing that will actually ever be published or even be read by other people. There's a couple of reasons for this:

1. I never seem to finish anything, first draft or otherwise, and so I have built up an expectation among anyone that ever reads my work that it will never be completed, so no one reads it.

2. I'm not a terribly good writer. My characters are wooden, my descriptions are too damnably long and my writing generally soulless. This leads to no one really reading what I write, augmenting point 1.

However, and this is the thing, I do still want to write. Because, it appears, I am a masochist. To that end, listening to albums from my youth like Please and Actually by the Pet Shop Boys reminds me that I once constructed flimsy narratives based on the order of the songs. In the former, there's a story about crime and love and betrayal in 1980s London and in the latter there's a sequel about revolution, terrorism and failure. In short, all albums, by anyone, suggest stories to me because that's the way my mind works. A basic laziness and inability is all that stands in my way of turning these into functioning narratives that could be actual stories.

Perhaps one day I shall return to writing but it has been over a year now since I did anything approaching fiction writing and this place has grown fallow once more. I shall do what I can to tend the beds here, maybe check on a few seedlings or just plant a few more. If anything flowers that would be nice but, more likely, I shall potter about, turn some soil and then get distracted by bigger and shinier things.

Book List - Part 3

Ah, the final part. I said 'top three' in my last post and, well, I lied. I implied that I had a 'top' of anything. Again, these are just ten of the books that stayed with me "for some reason" and some of them are for different reasons. So far, most of them have been fiction (and I suspect that will remain so) but I ought to explain this apparent bias.

Factual books I love, I do, but I view them as a means to an end - a way to acquire more knowledge or to think in a new way. As a consequence I am strictly utilitarian, mostly, when reading them. Some, like one in this installment, make me think so much in a new way that they stay with me. Most, I dip in and out of chasing references or sources. I am an historian and I read like that all the time. I said before that I do not prize a clever narrative over facts, and I don't, so 'great literature' to me can rarely be factual - mostly I chase information through labyrinthine corridors left by dry academics, and I like that. See a clever bit of prose and I get suspicious - what angle are they going for and why would they want me to focus on the prose rather than the facts?

However, I do respect the fact that some factual books are simply mind-blowing. Here I must plead the arrogance of youth and of my profession. I have worked so long and so hard to appear unfazed that I usually convince myself that mind-blowing information isn't. Now, I have already cited The Politics of Breastfeeding as one of my books and tonight I shall cite two more factual tomes that did blow my mind. But, hopefully, this explains why fiction has such a lasting hold on me.

Book List - Part 2

The click-bait continues! I was asked about ten books that stayed with me "for some reason" and I have only managed to talk about four of them. Because I often don't take the time to breathe (thank you, +Karen Schumacher, you are correct) I took a break and will likely take another yet. Still, I waffle enough and I still haven't done any original writing, so on with the list!

Book List - Part 1

This place has lain fallow for a long time. What with moving jobs and moving house and then settling into a brand new place and then attempting (and failing) nano last year, it's been hard for me to write anything of note and so I haven't been posting here. I don't know if I can make a change just yet (work, though lovely, is still very full at the moment) but someone did ask me what my top ten books were recently.

I know, it's a click-bait list article thing, and I can't really rank the books that I like easily. However, I think I can give you ten books that have stayed with me for "some reason" and briefly explain why. I can't promise any order to the list, any rhyme or reason to the inclusion of books or any great themes that I shall be exploring. Equally, there will be books that are missing simply by dint of me having read them too recently for them to have stayed with me yet, like How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran and Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, which are both brilliant books in their own rights and will no doubt make me think for a long while yet but, having only been read in the last few weeks, can't really qualify for the list.

Then there's the influential books that shaped who I am today: Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, Tom Clancy's books, Colin Dann's Animals of Farthing Wood series or pretty much anything by John Wyndham (his short story Consider Her Ways was very much part of making me who I am, as was The Trouble with Lichen and, of course, Chocky). Obviously not all of those can make a list of ten books that have stayed with me, so the list will be culled and will be pretty random. Without any further ado then, the list continues after the line break.

Agh

So, it's the next installment and I'm getting bored of my own voice here. I think it's because I'm writing chronologically rather than plot-lines. Equally, I'm being stupid and staying up late as well as working and so I'm tired. Knowing that I want to get through the back-story quickly and cover a few introductions at the same time means that I think I'm trying to do too much. Mind you, this is what first drafts are for, right? Right.

Right.

So not my best work. :)


Analysis is provided courtesy of 750words.com as always. They are good, but I am beginning to wonder about their filter for violence because I am certain that there is none in this section!


Rating: PG-13 (Violence)

Feeling mostly Affectionate, and concerned mostly about Eating and Drinking, followed by Leisure

Mindset: Extrovert - Negative - Certain - Feeling

Time: The Past; Primary Sense: Sight (wee-oo, wee-oo); Us and Them: Them

33 minutes at 29 words per minute.