Idle Hands

SJ Watson at Birmingham Library

2012-02-29T23:19:00.000Z

Heide and I were lucky enough to meet the author SJ Watson this evening. He came to Birmingham (he's a local lad originally) to talk about and promote his phenomenally successful novel, Before I Go To Sleep. There is something very impressive (and envy-inspiring) about the success he has had with this, his debut novel. The Hollywood movie adaptation is already in the pipeline.

The event we had originally hoped to attend at the Birmingham Library Theatre was sold out but Nikki Bi, the Reading Development Officer at the library, put on a smaller additional event in the Central Library itself. At the event, Steve spoke about his novel, the writing process and his experiences with the publishing industry.

Afterwards, whilst he signed some books, Heide and I popped up to have a chat with him. We told him that we had both read the Kindle version of his novel so had nothing for him to sign. He said he had signed a Kindle once. I'm not sure whether he meant literally or through some electronic jiggery pokery.

Just now, after seeing the above photograph, Heide said that we should "practise that 'patient/tolerant of annoying fans look' for when we are massively famous."

She has very high ambitions.

Sewing the pieces together

2012-02-28T06:59:00.001Z

Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, 1931

Charles Dickens died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished. His readers, who had followed the story of Drood, his Uncle Jasper and the Landless siblings, were left with an unfinished story abounding with unanswered questions. Who killed Edwin Drood? Who was the Dick Datchery character who had been hanging around Cloisterham in recent weeks?

In the following 140 years, many writers have tried to complete the story, maintaining the appropriate tone and finding an ending that makes sense of all the juggling balls of plot that Dickens had thrown into the air. In most Jasper is the killer but not all of them have Drood dying from his uncle’s murderous attack. And as to the real identity of Dick Datchery, authors have alternately plumped for Neville Landless, an investigating detective or even Edwin Drood himself. Each author who has approached the matter has had to make sense of what has gone before without the aid of any notes or direction from the original author.

When George Lucas set out to make his Star Wars prequel trilogy, he had to create a storyline that worked as a story by itself but also concluded in such a way that it slotted directly onto the beginning of the original Star Wars films. Whether he succeeded in doing this is extraordinarily doubtful (e.g. how could Princess Leia claim to remember her own mother if she was hours old when she died?) but writing with future events fixed would have put a large number of constraints on the plotting of the films.

Any writing activity which attempts to add to or stitch together pre-existing stories comes with some specific challenges. Heide and I are at a point in our novel where we do have to address such issues. We don’t have a monumental task like finishing Drood or writing a prequel to one of the most popular film series of all time but we have a tricky task ahead of us nonetheless.

We have been writing alternate chapters of our Clovenhoof novel (still called ‘that Clovenhoof novel’ for reasons I will explain in a future blog) over the past six months and we are now at the point where we actually need to wrap up the story and present it as a complete novel. We have the advantage over Drood’s multiple authors in that Heide and I have been working on this thing together all along but just like George Lucas we have saddled ourselves with little details and facts here and there that need reconciling. Of course, we don’t have exactly the same problem as Lucas because none of our story has been unleashed on the world and we have the luxury of being able to rewrite what we wish.

But this issue isn’t doing the rewriting, it’s identifying what needs to be rewritten to make sense of the whole story. And it isn’t just a matter of continuity. The fact that Clovenhoof meets a vicar in chapter four and doesn’t know her name but, in the subsequently written chapter two, he meets her and gets to know her is easily handled with a few lines of altered dialogue. The issue we have to deal with is overall tone and believability of characters and events.

Dickens books are known, even loved, for their surprise turns of events. Previously unknown relatives, hidden wills and secret desires spring up all over the place in Dicken’s works. This is partly a narrative device but also a result of the fact that Dickens wrote for serialisation and couldn’t go back and write these things in more subtly. If he needed a secret inheritance to appear to save his heroes from debtor’s gaol then a secret inheritance would appear without warning. We can’t have that in our novel. Such unsuspected surprises could seem ludicrous in modern novels and smack of deus ex machina.

We need to create subtlety and plausibility (yes, even in a novel about the devil’s comic exploits in suburban Birmingham). Surprise events need a bit of foreshadowing. Changes of personality need to be made believable by earlier hints and transforming situations.

To this end, Heide and I have a Dropbox document that we share in which we note ideas that need threading throughout the story. It includes oddities like “Ben needs to buy more air fresheners” and “Nerys needs to start a correspondence relationship with a convicted armed robber” which, we hope, when put into the finished edit will make the whole story hang together more convincingly.

If we don’t, our finished novel will be some sort of Frankenstein’s Novel in which each of the individual elements look fine by themselves but the overall effect will be something hideous to behold.

How did we avoid these collaborative writing pitfalls?

2012-02-17T13:00:00.000Z

Empirical Study on Collaborative Writing: What do co-authors do, use, and like? Sylvie Noël & Jean-Marc Robert

I came across this interesting paper about the co-authoring of documents. Most of the research is about collaborative writing in the workplace or in academia, but it's full of interesting things.

I’m not going to reproduce what it says, you can go and look yourself if you want to.

What did catch my eye though, was the list of negative aspects or problems that their research subjects had when writing collaboratively. How have Iain and I managed to avoid these? I thought I would take a look.

Reconciling different writing styles:

After setting some basic rules for the narrative (close third person, a double-line break to indicate a change of perspective) we have found this relatively painless. We discussed the type of writing that we thought would work, and as we edit each other’s work we make small changes to re-phrase something if we feel we might have said it differently. As a consequence, we’ve tested our prose against electronic assessors (see Iain’s previous blog) and also our friends from Birmingham Writers’ Group and both have agreed that our writing styles match.

Difficulty with following the schedule:

We’ve tried not to be too draconian with our schedule, but we’re both excited by the project and highly motivated to work on it. As we’ve said before, there is also an element of competitiveness. Dropbox makes it very easy to see what the other person’s doing, and if I see Iain motoring through his latest chapter I can’t help feeling that I need to go faster. If one of us does finish before the other, there is always some other Clovenhoof-related task to be done, so we’ll keep busy with some of these, like blogging, tweeting, thinking about publicity for the finished novel and so on.

Unequal division of work:

This is a non-issue because of the approach that we’ve taken. Every chapter is plotted by writer 1, written by writer 2 and then edited by writer 1. As we work our way through the novel this way we can be certain that every part of it belongs equally to both of us, and we’ve both contributed the same amount of work.

Multiple editions and difficult co-ordination:

Working on this project without Dropbox might have been rather different. Controlling document versions might have presented difficulties, but maybe not as many as all that. For most of the chapter writing (as opposed to “ideas” documents) we have had only one person “controlling” the document at one time. I would not edit Iain’s chapter until he’d declared that he’d finished and handed it over to me, for example.

As it is, there are only very rare occasions where we might both edit an ideas document at the same time. If this happens, Dropbox will save a version as a “conflicted copy” and we need to look at both versions to work out what we did.

Communication and conflicts between members:

Day to day communication has been a constant stream of emails. There’s a pattern to these. As we are writing a chapter (two weeks, sometimes three) we send fewer emails to each other. There will be a lot more discussion while we’re plotting, but hardly any about editing. This is the aspect that has surprised me the most. We were wary of the possibility that we might be defensive about editing changes, and one of the things that I most regularly hear from other writers is that they would hate that part. I think that because we particularly wanted to merge styles by editing the prose just to make it feel more like something we might have written, we’ve taken out the ego-busting potential. We’ve always kept the unedited original, with the understanding that any particularly hated alterations would be up for negotiation, but it’s never yet been an issue. Maybe we really are just too polite!

Communication for broader planning or brainstorming has been face to face meetings and phone calls. If we can spend an hour of time face to face with pieces of paper we can get a lot done, and we had to do this to kick off the basics when we started the project.

As we’ve got further through, we’ve found that we’ve got better at getting productive results from a phone call, and now we’re less worried about relying on a phone call to iron out some crucial planning.

Difference in abilities between members:

Maybe this one stems from those who didn’t get to choose their collaborators!

Our relative abilities would be impossible for either one of us to judge objectively. The fact is though, that we chose to work with each other and I think we both bring different strengths to the project. It’s happened time and again that what starts off as a single cool idea for the novel gets stretched by the discussion between us and the plotting / writing / editing process. Some of these small ideas have developed into really pleasing scenes, so I’m confident that the finished result is better because of our combined abilities.

I read because I write

2012-02-14T17:46:00.000Z

All readers read for different reasons. All writers write for different reasons. The reasons I read Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four for my GCSE English Literature were different to the reasons I re-read it three or four years later. The reasons I wrote my first full-length novel, Blue Angel, were different to the reasons for which I am writing the Clovenhoof novel with Heide Goody.

And it occurs to me that my approaches to reading and writing are linked and have evolved over the course of my life and indeed can be divided into five distinct stages.

The passive/submissive reader

I have loved books for as long as I can remember. As a child, I read Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree stories, the Choose Your Own Adventure books and Tolkien’s The Hobbit out of the sheer love of story. I read and absorbed and loved them and, when I failed to understand a passage or the story didn’t seem to hang together quite right, I blamed myself. I clearly hadn’t understood it properly and was sure that if I went back to it later, I would understand it fully and it would make sense. In short, if the book was no good it was my fault.

The demanding reader

At some point, my view of the reader-author relationship changed. I decided, possibly in my mid-teens, that if I didn’t understand the book or the story didn’t function the way it ought to, then it was the author’s fault. The reader was king and it was the author’s responsibility to meet the reader’s expectations. Some authors (Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Brian Aldiss) passed the test. Others (Piers Anthony, Raymond E. Feist, Shaun Hutson) did not. It’s a view I still subscribe to, although perhaps without the judgemental zeal of my teenage self.

The plagiarist writer

At the age of eighteen, whilst at university, I decided to become a writer and, with modest ambitions, began to write a full-length novel. At the time, I was a huge fan of William Gibson’s cyberpunk novels and the SF and non-SF novels of Iain (M) Banks and my novel was a wilful culling of all their best ideas. My protagonist’s world borrowed its grimness from both authors and I stole characters entirely unaltered from the pages of Neuromancer and The Crow Road. I read in order to fuel my writing, treating other people’s work as a rich (and free!) source of material. I don’t know which is more appalling: my plagiaristic nature or the fact that it was that first novel which secure me a contract with a literary agent.

The fearful writer

And then I grew up a bit and realised that if I was to be a writer, I needed to be my own writer. Sure, I would write in the genres and styles I loved as a reader but my effort was to produce something that was mine and mine alone. My relationship with other books became a less pleasant one then. If I was attempting to write a sprawling science fiction adventure story, picking up Ender’s Game or The Use of Weapons could spell certain death for my writing project for how could I possibly hope to write something that could compete with such masterpieces? Who would be interested in my magic realist thriller when Jonathan Carroll and Michael Marshall Smith were on top of their game?

And so, when in writing mode, I hid from good books, fearful that they would put me to shame, halt my pathetic writing project or, worse still, lead me to copy them. My solution? To only read books that had no link to my current writing or (even better!) read books that I knew were far worse than anything I could write. Shaun Hutson and Pier Anthony books reappeared on my shelves but for the most cynical of reasons.

The reading writer (or the writing reader)

These days I’m not so fearful. Is it a growing confidence in my own writing or the indifference that comes with approaching middle age? Either way, my reading and writing go hand in hand. I read what I want to read but, more often than not, my reading is guided by the genre or style I am writing in at the time. My non-fiction reading is entirely led by the research needs of my writing. Why else would I purchase books on the French Resistance, astronomy or cognitive science? I read fiction that is closely linked to what I am writing, partially so I know what ground has already been trod in that genre (Heide and I often remind one another that, in Clovenhoof, we are not writing Good Omens 2) and also so I can avoid the occasional errors made by other writers in their work.

In terms of the Clovenhoof novel Heide and I are currently writing, everything I have chosen to read in the past six or seven months has had some sort of link to the novel. Even my film-watching and radio-listening habits have been coloured by Mr Jeremy Clovenhoof.

The other day (which is the actual prompt for this blog) I made a list of everything I have read, watched or listened to in recent months which has a link to our Satan-in-suburbia comic novel.

Books

Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven by Mark Twain (currently free on Kindle)

The Devil: A Biography by Peter Stanford (favourite Christmas present 2011)

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

Paradise Lost by John Milton

The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis

Various bits of the Bible

Graphic Novels

Lucifer by Mike Carey et al

Sandman: Seasons of Mist by Neil Gaiman et al

Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon (it shares Clovenhoof’s comic irreverence for religion even if the characters and setting are utterly different. It also has a brilliant premise that it couldn’t live up to in the end, a salutary lesson for Heide and I)

Films

Legion (with a depiction of Archangel Michael a million miles away from ours)

Rosemary’s Baby

The Omen

Radio

Old Harry’s Game (with series 2 currently enjoying a repeat run on BBC iPlayer (UK only))

I wonder what else I will read (or ought to read) before Heide and I have put Mr Clovenhoof to bed. Suggestions welcome.

Dating Advice from Satan

2012-02-11T21:41:00.002Z

Heide and I have now spent nearly six months and approximately 50,000 words in the company of Jeremy Clovenhoof, Satan’s earthbound alter ego and we feel we’ve got to know him quite well. He’s not the character we perhaps initially envisaged. He’s more human, earthier than either of us expected. He’s like the child we never wanted.

Clovenhoof - The child we never wanted

Not only have we put a lot of ourselves into him; we’ve also learned a lot from him.

And so, with Valentine’s Day coming up, I’ve been wondering what our suburban devil has to tell us about love and romance.

Nearly everything that follows is either a direct quotation from or observation about our lad, Clovenhoof, taken from our part-finished novel.

On women in general...

It’s wrong to seek out a woman just to get regular sex. Think of the housework too.
Remember. Snare a woman and say goodbye to laundry duties forever.

On finding a woman...

In personal ads ‘GSOH’ is code for ‘fat’
‘Bubbly’ is code for ‘very fat’
It’s fine if she has a great personality as long as she has all that superficial glitz too.
Supermarkets are an excellent place to pick up women and other household goods.
Singles nights are a good way to meet women. Or for just pointing and laughing.
Sex dolls can be awfully life-like these days and often cheaper than a real woman.

How to dress for your first date...

A smoking jacket will make you look debonair and sophisticated.
Pop a toilet freshener in your pocket and you’ll smell like an alpine meadow all evening.
Adult nappies should not be worn in a dating situation, convenient though they are.
Shoes are overrated.

Making a first impression...

Flowers placed at accident black spots wilt quickly. Be sure to get them while they’re still fresh.
Get your wedding tackle out when you first meet her. It breaks the ice and avoids any future disappointment.

On your date...

Impress her in restaurants by needlessly insulting the waiting staff.
Show her you are a man of the world by drinking something classy. Like Lambrini. Or Irn Bru.
Send food back even if it is perfectly fine. It will make you appear decisive and important.
Don’t waste time sneaking a look at her cleavage whilst pretending to look her in the eye. Make your choice and stick with it.
When a woman asks what you like about her, be sure to mention her arse.
Offer to pay for the meal. Keep the receipt. You can use it as emotional blackmail later on.

After your date...

At the end of a date, walk her home. Steal her spare house keys if you can.
Before you offer her cash for sex, be aware that some women will do it for free.
At the appropriate moment, compliment both her breasts. Don’t make one feel left out.
If all doesn’t go as planned, show her the receipt for the meal and ask her to pay her half.

Follow Clovenhoof’s advice at your peril.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Beginning Paragraphs

2012-02-07T20:27:00.001Z

Douglas Adams knew a thing or two about great openings

I thought for a while that Iain would need to come round and maybe administer drugs, in the way that the A-Team used to ambush Mr T to get him on a plane. Why? To make me stop tinkering with the opening paragraph of the first chapter.

I can’t help it. It’s so important that I’m never happy. It’s a compulsion that extends to other people’s work as well, I often find myself mentally butchering first paragraphs.

In the world before the internet, I think readers had more patience; you could assume they’d stick around for a page or two, while you gently drew them in.

In the world of endless pointing, clicking and moving-on it seems as though attention spans are much shorter.

We need to make sure that these things happen with the first paragraph:

· We draw the reader into the story, preferably with some enticing tidbit of intrigue that will make them hungry for more.

· We set the tone / voice of the novel.

· We might introduce some of our characters, and dip a toe into their world.

· We don’t do anything silly to scare them off!

I am serious with the last point about scaring them off. There are certain things that send enthusiasm plummeting.

· Complicated detail. If you find yourself explaining acronyms, stop right there.

· Too many unfamiliar names, places, ideas. If your world is very different to my world, I want to find that out as I follow your wonderful characters through your compelling story. I don’t want so much backstory or explanation that I will forget it by the end of page one.

A couple of examples of great openings:

Douglas Adams had the following to open "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy":

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."

But as today marks the 200^th anniversary of Dicken’s birth we should really finish with the classic opening from "A Tale of Two Cities":

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair”

Collaboration: Can two people write with one voice?

2012-01-30T18:31:00.000Z

A writing collaboration can take many forms. One partner might be the ideas person and the other the writer. Or one might be the writer and the other the editor. Or each author might write separate story strands which are then woven together once complete. These are perfectly fine methods of collaboration but, in them, each author’s role or focus is different.

In our collaborative writing, Heide and I have been intent on being involved equally and in the same way with the project. We are both the ideas people. We are both plotters. We are both writers. We both handle all the characters and all settings. We both edit.

For example, we both placed ideas for chapter three (in which Clovenhoof forms a heavy metal band) in a form document on Dropbox. From that Heide plotted the story of Clovenhoof’s rise and fall in the music industry. I then wrote the 7,000 word chapter. Heide edited for clarity, narrative and humour. I then, based on another ideas document, plotted chapter four (in which Clovenhoof discovers he needs friends) for Heide to write. And so on we’ve gone, leapfrogging over one another.

But does it work? Or, as we asked the members of Birmingham Writers’ Group, can you tell who wrote which bits? Do we have a single authorial voice?

Is this two people or just one?

Feedback from our fellow writers was positive and allayed the very worst of our fears. But I wondered what computer analysis would tell us. I took a chapter written by Heide and a chapter written by myself and fed them into what text analysis websites I could find. Of course, any semi-decent experiment requires a control subject so I borrowed the text from a story by my friend, Mat Joiner, whose – SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT – work can be sampled in the collection Never Again.

I pasted the text into Textalyser (http://textalyser.net) which gave us this initial feedback.

	Heide	Iain	Mat Joiner
Total word count :	3832	4274	1250
Number of different words :	1700	1889	842
% Words that are unique	44%	44%	67%
Readability (Gunning-Fog Index) : (6-easy 20-hard)	4.8	4.7	5
Average Syllables per Word:	1.54	1.5	1.47
Sentence count :	674	791	207
Average sentence length (words) :	9.67	9.25	11.23
Max sentence length (words) :	39	88	36
Min sentence length (words) :	1	1	1
Readability (Alternative) beta : (100-easy 20-hard, optimal 60-70)	67	70.6	71.5

So, Heide and I write sentences of comparatively similar lengths. In terms of word variety, Heide and I are identically wide-ranging in vocabulary. We are a hair’s breadth apart on the Gunning-Fog index. On the other readability scale (based on what I do not know), my words are apparently slightly more readable (more juvenile?) than Heide’s. Heide uses fractionally longer words than me.

I’m not sure if this tells us much about whether we write in a single voice. But what about word choice?

Most Common Words	Heide	Iain	Mat Joiner
1^st	You	said	Him
2^nd	clovenhoof	you	You
3^rd	said	ben	Them
4^th	ben	clovenhoof	Then
5^th	nerys	nerys	Like
6^th	Michael	him	Nettler
7^th	Dave	man	What
8^th	Like	looked	Face
9^th	Him	think	thought
10^th	Blenda	hand	Did

Ignoring the most common words, it turns out (shock and amazement!) we both use the words ‘said’ ‘you’ and our protagonists’ names frequently. Not much gained here.

I Write Like (www.Iwl.me) proved a little more interesting. Using algorithms and comparison methods that I am not privy to, I Write Like told me that both Heide and I write like Cory Doctorow (author of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom) but that Mat writes like William Shakespeare. And, although I’ve no idea why any of this should be so, it is comforting to think that a piece of software thinks that Heide and I are alike in some way.

Cory Doctorow, Heide and I: Writing triplets

The final bit of analysis I did was to see what gender each of us writes as (or should that be in). I entered our pieces of text in Gender Guesser (http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.php) which is a variation of the Gender Genie( http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php). These work by looking for words that are judged to be ‘male’ or ‘female’. For example ‘with’ ‘if’ and ‘not’ are regarded as feminine whereas ‘around’ ‘what’ and ‘more’ are regarded as masculine.

And here are the results.

Heide	Iain	Mat
Female = 7857	Female = 6585	Female = 2063
Male = 8155	Male = 9311	Male = 2269
Difference = 298; 50.93%	Difference = 2726; 58.57%	Difference = 206; 52.37%
Verdict: Weak MALE	Verdict: Weak MALE	Verdict: Weak MALE

So, out of the three of us, I am apparently the most masculine writer, although we are all three weak male writers. The site says that ‘weak emphasis could indicate European’. I’m guessing that this means that we are judged to be European writers (which, ignoring politics, we are) although why European writers are more asexual is perhaps a question for me to ask some non-Europeans.

In conclusion, what have I learned? Probably not a lot but it’s been fun investigating.

So do we write with a single voice? I guess we won’t find out until people start reading the completed novel and tell us.

Vote for your favourite book title

2012-01-28T18:55:00.000Z

As of this week, our collaborative ‘Clovenhoof’ novel is half completed and we still don’t have a proper name for it.

But not for much longer!

We’d like YOU to pick the title of our novel.

We’ve been given a plethora of possible titles by people who’ve read sample chapters of the novel and we’d like you to pick the best one. But, before you do, we’d like you to read the draft version of our opening chapter.

Once you’ve done that, click here to go to the voting form.

And, if you don’t like any of our possible titles or think you can come up with an even better one then tell us in a comment below.

Read, enjoy and vote.

Heaven: A Visitor’s Guide

2012-01-22T21:22:00.000Z

Back in November, I blogged about Hell because the central character of our collaborative novel has spent a lot of time there and I wanted to get a feel for the place. Well, now, as we start to think about some of the celestial beings we will ultimately be pitting him against, my thoughts are turning to Heaven.

What is Heaven like? Is it a physical place? If so, where it is? And how big is it? If I went there (not planning on it, personally) what would I see? What would I do? Who would I meet?

Just as with Hell, there is not one single definitive answer. Scripture and myth and literature give us lots of ideas. Some of them contradict one another. Many of them slot together very nicely. And unlike Hell, historical and religious sources give us some numbers, distances and dimensions to work with.

Still no map, mind you. Well, apart from this one.

Where is Heaven?

This is a rather unfair question for English speakers as the English word ‘heaven’ comes from an etymological root that literally means ‘the sky’. Even in modern English we can refer to the space above our heads as ‘the heavens’ without sounding like a religious nut. So, it’s not at all surprising that our mediaeval ancestors thought that Heaven was in the clouds above us and that God and the angels were literally looking down on them.

One could also strongly argue that Heaven was here on Earth. Eden, the garden of paradise that Adam and Eve were kicked out of for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is given geographical co-ordinates in scripture. The story of Genesis places it at the meeting points of the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers (plus the Pison and Gihon but no one knows for sure which rivers these are) which puts Eden somewhere on the Persian Gulf between modern day Iraq and Iran.

Is it still there? Well, people have looked at no one has yet found a gate guarded by cherubim with flaming swords, nor the Tree of Life which, if we ate of it, would made us like gods[i]. Some thinkers stated that Eden was where heaven once touched Earth but it has since been removed, like some celestial cruise liner lifting the gangplank.

Alternatively, Heaven might be a physical place elsewhere in our universe. This grows less and less convincing to modern minds as the possibility of being able to reach such a place by spacecraft or detect it from observatories becomes ever more likely. And yet, in the Middle Ages, with the space beyond Earth seen as revolving spheres, the idea that Heaven should be beyond that final sphere made a lot of sense, with Heaven’s glorious light shining through holes in the firmament (that’s what stars are, folks).

Much more credible to a lot of modern thinkers is the notion that Heaven exists outside our universe, indeed outside all notions of space and time. That doesn’t mean it is any less real but that the physical realities of our reality do not apply. That’s convenient if some smart Alec demands to know why high-flying jet planes and space probes haven’t crashed into the harp-playing angels although it comes with its own problems. If Heaven exists outside of our time-space continuum-thing then that would mean that everyone destined to go to Heaven would, in a certain sense, already be there and have always been there. It would also mean that God cannot, from our perspective, do one thing and then change his mind based on what happens. And he does that an awful lot in the Old Testament (i.e. the Jewish Torah).

And then, of course, with the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses et al to the notion that Heaven, at least in part, will become a reality here on Earth after time has been brought to an end.

What is Heaven like?

Most of us, if asked to picture Heaven would start with a mental image of clouds and angels with harps and maybe some beautiful golden light and not a fat lot going on. I personally blame Loony Tunes and Tom and Jerry cartoons for this, because whenever Tom is killed or Daffy Duck blows himself up, this is what we see. For anyone under the age of twenty, I imagine that the Simpsons fills a similar role in mis-educating them about Heaven.

Heaven is not just a bunch of clouds. No serious thinker or writer has portrayed it in this way. Heaven has specific geographical features but what these are depends upon who you listen to.

John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress in the late seventeenth century and although it is clearly intended to be read as allegory, not as revealed truth, it does present us with some sights to see on the road to Heaven. There are plenty of bogs and mires that would ensnare Bunyan’s hero, Christian (symbolising Christians, you see. Bunyan didn’t make his allegories too hard to understand) but our hero’s first victory is to reach the Wicket Gate that begins the narrow path towards the Celestial City. On the way, he passes through the House of the Interpreter (a sort of museum of Christian history) and House Beautiful which gives him some respite on his arduous journey. Before passing into the Celestial City that is Heaven, Christian must also cross the River of Death which conjures up images not dissimilar to those of the River Styx which surrounds Hell in Greek mythology.

A famous feature of heaven is its pearly gates, described first in the book of Revelations. Contrary to the image again given to us by popular cartoons and films, the pearly gates are actually twelve gates, each fashioned from a single pearl. Whether St Peter stands here, clipboard in hand like a nightclub doorman, is uncertain. What is known is that Jesus gave him the metaphysical ‘keys to the kingdom of Heaven’ and so this role does seem somewhat apt.

The Twelve Gates of Heaven

Dante wrote about Heaven at great length in his Paradiso. Just as Hell has its nine circles, so does Heaven have its nine spheres, each equating to some celestial landmark and each relating to some particular degree of worthiness. For example, in the fourth sphere, the sun, Dante meets with St Thomas Aquinas, King Solomon and the Venerable Bede, those whose intellect casts a light over the world. In the fifth sphere, Mars, he meets Charlemagne, a warrior of the faith.

We get some kind of structure later on. The eighth sphere is the fixed firmament of the stars. The ninth sphere is the Primum Mobile, the first moved sphere, linking to the theological notion that the universe requires a Prime Mover, a first cause or else there would no motion, no nothing in our universe. The ninth sphere is where God, the Prime Mover, kick-started the show. Dante tells us that the Primum Mobile is the home of angels.

However, beyond the ninth sphere is God’s home, the Empyrean. God is everywhere but this is the place where he can be found. There is no sun in Heaven because it is God who illuminates all. Also, in the Empyrean are those humans who have been saved. Yes, Dante did meet all those other people in the other spheres but they are also here. Dante gives us the beautiful image of the Empyrean being shaped like a rose with the faithful as the petals and the angels as bees buzzing around it.

Dante is not the only person to give us some idea of Heaven’s structure. Various religious faiths tell us of the levels of the afterlife. Most of them tell us that Heaven is divided into three levels. Three, of course, is not only a magic number, it’s a holy one (Dante, with nine spheres, gives us three times three, a sort of holy-squared).

This table is a gross simplification but it gives you the gist.

	Mormonism	Clement of Rome (Roman Catholic)	Eastern Orthodoxy	Jehovah’s Witness
Highest level	1 - Celestial Kingdom	1 - The City	1 – Heaven	Heaven, the New Jerusalem
Middle level		2 - Paradise	2 –
Lower level		3 - Heaven	3 – Paradise, which touches...
Earth	2 - Terrestrial Kingdom		... Earth	Heaven on Earth
Purgatorial type place	3 - Telestial Kingdom

Some of these notions are incompatible but others slot in nicely together. What I found surprising in researching this is that most branches of Christianity take a view that there are different levels of worthiness in the afterlife, that not everyone gets to sit at the top table. The highest level (the Empyrean, the Celestial Kingdom, the City, the New Jerusalem) is not necessarily for everyone.

The Celestial City

So what is this top level of heaven like? It might have various names but I shall, like Bunyan, call it the Celestial City as it seems to encompass most of the other concepts.

Well, there’s the Biblical details. Revelations tells us that the New Jerusalem will be a cube, fifteen hundred miles to a side. That’s two and a quarter million square miles on the bottom level. That’s jolly big for a city but, for example, a lot smaller than the surface area of planet Earth. Whether we take the New Jerusalem stuff to indicate any kind of architectural style or quality of city planning is up to you.

Jesus said, ‘My father’s house has many mansions’. We can take that to mean that Heaven is accepting of lots of different types of people or we can take it at face value and regard Heaven as a city capable of accommodating many people. But actually, the population of Heaven is a matter for concern. If we accept, as Jehovah’s Witnesses do, that Heaven will be home to only 144,000 of the faithful (some great religious numerology going on here too) then that’s fifteen square miles of that cube for each of them. That’s plenty of room by our standards. However, if you accept that all worthy people go to heaven then we have a big problem.

The Population Reference Bureau argues that since prehistory, approximately a hundred billion people have lived and then died on our planet. It seems a reasonable number. Now, what percentage of people will go to heaven? I’m going to be real stingy and say only 10% of the world’s population have ever been worthy of salvation. If so, and my maths is very rough, that means each of the ten billion inhabitants of heaven gets something around about fifty square metres of heavenly floorspace. That’s a small apartment, with no additional space for mountains, forests, lakes, cafes with free wi-fi or cinema multiplexes showing Cecil B DeMille epics on continuous loop for all eternity.

The reality of Heaven

Actually, according to some there won’t be any lakes, forests or cafes in Heaven. Rich Deem makes the interesting argument at www.godandscience.org that a cube fifteen hundred miles to a side would collapse into a spheroid under its own gravity and therefore gravity, and the accompanying laws of physics cannot apply in Heaven. Gravity is either gone completely or much reduced.

We already know that there is no sun in heaven because God’s glory provides all the illumination we need. Revelations goes one step further and does state that there is no heat in heaven. Thermodynamics goes out the window too then. Well, that’s probably a good thing because we couldn’t have entropy in an eternal Heaven anyway. We don’t want Heaven breaking down, do we?

Furthermore, Revelations does intimate that there will be neither food nor drink in Heaven. We certainly wouldn’t be hungry or thirsty anyway. The existence of cafes looks unlikely. Revelations makes no promises on wi-fi either.

Swedenborg

Emmanuel Swedenborg, eighteenth century mystic, wrote at length about his visions of Heaven. He actually goes out of his way to answer some very practical questions. Contrary to what St Paul says in the Bible, Swedenborg confirms that there will be marriage in Heaven. Those who were happily married on Earth will stay so in Heaven. Those who were unhappily married or never married will find their perfect partner there.

Swedenborg does not say those these heavenly marriages will be consummated and doesn’t mention any children being born in Heaven. However, he does say that children who died on Earth will go directly to Heaven and be raised by angel mothers. He, like other writers, believes that Heaven exists outside space and time so how long these children take to grow up is a rather thorny problem.

Swedenborg also points out that, in Heaven, everyone automatically speaks the same language which is pretty darn convenient.

The Angels

Of course, the faithful are not the only inhabitants of Heaven. There are also angels who are distinct and separate entities to humans (unless you accept certain Mormon teachings). Angels are the servants and messengers of God and we can infer from certain sources that they are also there to assist Heaven’s human citizens and manage its day to day business.

Angels, like the Heavens themselves are organised into spheres, ranks of importance. There are three spheres but outside that ranking are the seven Archangels, the chief angels, and of them we know Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel. Who the other three are is uncertain.

In terms of the other angels, in the first sphere are the Seraphim, clustered around God’s throne and singing his praises. Also there are the Cherubim who are not fat babies with wings (those are putti, dear reader) but fearsome four-headed angels who, amongst other things, guard the gates to Eden. Then there are the Thrones who are truly weird-looking beings (wheels within wheels with hundreds of eyes).

The angels of the second sphere are much more managerial material. The Dominions are the regulators of the lower angels and are fairly human-looking. The Virtues order the movements of the cosmos, presumably making sure that eighth sphere of Heaven doesn’t misbehave itself. The Powers are warriors angels, entirely loyal to God (although some say Satan was a Power).

Then, further down, we do have the Principalities and all the messenger and soldier angels. These are the dogsbody angels who are probably waiting tables in the Celestial City. Oh, sorry, no cafes so not waiting tables. They’re the building superintendents who have to repeatedly explain to dead people why they can’t have a bigger apartment.

Interestingly, we do know how many angels there are. Sort of. Revelation tells us that the number of angels ‘circling the throne’ is one hundred million. That sounds a lot and, if we accept that there are only 144,000 people in Heaven then that’s just under seven hundred angels per person. That’s some quality customer service the blessed are going to receive. However, if we go with my unscientific notion that 10% of all humans ever born gets into Heaven then that’s suddenly one hundred people per angel. The chances of you getting your own personal guardian angel suddenly look very slim!

Conclusion

The facts regarding Heaven are varying and contradictory and I certainly can’t draw you a map but what do we know?

Location:

· Heaven was once directly accessible from Earth but the gate is now guarded by Cherubim and it’s likely that most of Heaven is outside the realms of space and time.

· The way to Heaven is long and difficult. Do watch out for bogs, mires and the River of Death.

Size and Population:

· Surprisingly not infinite in size. The Celestial City is 2,250,000 miles square. However there is room for people outside.

· Population of Heaven is somewhere between 144,000 and 10,000,000,000. Could even be higher if their entrance requirements are lax.

Features:

· Pearly gates, attended by St Peter

· There is a Celestial City. Resemblance to ancient Jerusalem is debatable.

· Heaven lacks a sun, heat, water and food

· The laws of physics do not apply here.

What to do in Heaven:

· Sing God’s praises

· Get married, if you’re not already

· Listen to harp music

· Complain about overcrowding

· Chat to anyone you like without fear of language barriers

· Visit the dead children crèche

· Try to get some attention from the over-worked angels.

What NOT to do in Heaven:

· Eat

· Drink

· Sunbathe

· Conduct scientific experiments

Famous residents:

· St Thomas Aquinas

· Charlemagne

· King Solomon

· The Venerable Bede

· 100,000,000 angels including the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael (and three others)

· God

[i] Interesting aside. In this part of the Bible, God says man shouldn’t eat from the Tree of Life saying that man will become like ‘us’, indicating that either early Bible beliefs accepted other ‘real’ gods, that God treated the angels as equals not underlings or that he had some multiple personality thing going on.

Feedback from Birmingham Writers' Group

2012-01-21T17:27:00.000Z

We had feedback this week on two of the chapters we’ve written for the Clovenhoof novel.

To make life interesting, these were chapters three and six, as we decided it made more sense to start in the middle. We’re still happy with that decision, as Iain has just written the beginning, and felt it came very easily because we’re now so familiar with the characters and their situation.

So how did the feedback go?

Very well I think. There were suggestions and ideas for us, and we’ll be discussing those in order to capitalize on them. Our biggest fear was that the humour might fall short, but we got a definite thumbs-up on that score. There were some who smirked, and some who laughed out loud, but the consensus was that we’ve managed to make it funny.

We also worried that the writing styles might be noticeably different. We’ve worked hard to blend them, which is why we make sure that one of us plots, the other writes, and then we swap back to edit each chapter. We were assured that they were very similar in style.

We got a whole page full of other observations. I will share a few.

It’s clear to all readers that we both adore the character of Nerys, and that in her own way she is naughtier than Clovenhoof (Satan) himself. It is true that if we find a new and inventive way to have Nerys take all her clothes off, it fills us with glee.
The style is very British. We actually wanted this, so we were pleased to have it pointed out.
There were multiple suggestions and queries about whether Clovenhoof should have supernatural powers. We decided, right at the start that he wouldn’t, because we wanted him to have a hard time.
“Smut” is subjective. Nobody slapped us, or said we’d caused offence. Perhaps we need more…

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to read our chapters and give us such useful feedback.

Judging a book by its cover: The title

2012-01-15T11:55:00.000Z

Names are important. They shouldn’t be but they are.

In their brilliant book, Freakonomics, US authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner compile top ten lists of children’s names that are most likely to indicate low income backgrounds and low academic achievement. For example, the top five boy’s names that indicate low income and achievement (at the time the book was written are):

1. Cody

2. Travis

3. Brandon

4. Justin

5. Tyler

What's in a name? - Freakonomics

I am, by day, a secondary teacher and it’s a well-recognised if informally recognised phenomena in schools. There are such things as “naughty names”. In a class of thirty UK children I am likely to spend more time managing the behaviour of Liams, Ryans and Callums than any other name. I am deeply unlikely to have issues with a Richard, David or Michael. And, of course, the “naughty names” I experience now will be different to the naughty names of the past and future. When I was growing up, Wayne, Shane and Kevin were probably the naughtiest names. Probably.

It is obvious that the names don’t cause the child’s bad behaviour. That’s very poor logic. That’s as mad as saying that having lots of books in a house makes a child clever. What is happening is that both the child and the name have a common origin, that is, their parents. Just as highly-educated and supportive parents tend to have lots of books in their houses (and call their sons David, Michael and Richard) so do poorly-educated and apathetic parents tend to give their sons names like Liam, Ryan or Callum. By the way, this has absolutely nothing to do with the ethnic origins of these names. It has far more to do with the kinds of families who pick certain names for their children. And the reason why they pick these names? Fashion. Cultural influences. The names of family members or personal role models.

With books, it’s not much different. The book title does not dictate the book’s contents but the choice of title tells us something, if only a little, about the author and, without a doubt, influences our decision on whether to read the book or not.

I’m deeply unlikely to pick up novels called Mayfair Glitz, My Sister’s Diary, Yummy Mummies Rule OK, or Forbidden Passions. They speak of genres and writing styles that have no appeal to me. Whereas I’ve pick up and read What To Do When Someone Dies, The Dark Side Of The Sun and Magic Kingdom For Sale purely on the strength of the title and have been, by turns, intrigued, thrilled and charmed.

So, when it comes to our own novel, Heide and I ought to pick a name with care. It won’t influence anyone’s reading enjoyment but it will influence whether they give it a go or not.

So what do we go for?

We could go for something simple and unpretentious, e.g.

· Clovenhoof

· Mr Clovenhoof

· Jeremy Clovenhoof

But although these titles are simple and unpretentious, they’re hardly enticing. I’m not sure if this kind of title would make me reach for the book with curiosity. The next option is to use the time-honoured method of stealing a famous saying, quote, film or song title and claiming it as our own.

· Sympathy for the Devil

· Better the Devil you know

· Who prays for Satan?*

· The Devil’s Party**

We could even twist a pre-existing title or saying to our own ends by omitting or substituting certain words.

· The Devil Came Down To Sutton (instead of The Devil Came Down To Georgia)

· The Devil Moves In (instead of The Devil Rides Out)

Heide and I blasphemously experimented with taking hymn titles and replacing the word God or Jesus with Satan e.g.

· Satan: My Happy Home

· What a friend we have in Satan (I quite like this one)

· Satan wants me for a Sunbeam

Or we could just try to encapsulate the story within a title:

· The Devil Next Door

· Hell on Earth

But then that just leads us to the ridiculous:

· The Funny Things That Happened When The Devil Came To Earth And Moved Into A Flat In Sutton Coldfield

Perhaps we’re missing a trick or the possibility of a really cool or clever title. This Wednesday, we’ll be playing index card games with our friends at Birmingham Writers’ Group and maybe their suggests will be much cleverer than ours.

But dear reader, perhaps you have ideas of your own?

* This comes from a quote by Mark Twain which I think almost sums up our novel’s view of Satan and therefore does appeal to me: “But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?”
** This comes from Blake’s quote about Milton being of the ‘Devil’s party’ without knowing it.

Research: It’s a damn odd job but someone’s got to do it.

2012-01-12T07:04:00.000Z

Writing requires research. The adage ‘write what you know’ holds very true but I agree with those who say that, in this day and age when information is so easy to find, the adage ‘know what you write’ is truer.

It is perfectly possible to write short stories, articles and novels without any research. The human condition is universal and we don’t need to Google to know the contents of our own hearts and souls. However, if our protagonists visit Paris, go ice-climbing, drink sirop de cassis or fly to Titan, we either need to have done those things ourselves or research them.

One of the interesting things about writing collaboratively is that we don’t always know what we need to research until our writing partner presents us with the synopsis for the next chapter. For this novel, we’ve done some shared research, mostly on the geography and establishments in Sutton Coldfield. Heide has been required to research foodie menus, Apple Geniuses and sex dolls. Myself, I’ve researched heavy metal lyrics, old hymns and now... the rules for being a perfect chivalrous gentleman. One of our characters, Nerys, is looking for the perfect gentleman and (for reasons I haven’t yet properly explained to myself) holds the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot as the paragon of all things gentlemanly.

David Suchet as Poirot

But what do I know about being a gentleman? I hold doors open for women (and men). I try to avoid punching people in the face. I don’t belch loudly in public. What else is there?

Thank goodness for the internet. Fifteen minutes of trawling gives me these starters.

1. Help a lady put on her coat (apparently women can’t do this themselves)

2. Help a lady draw in her chair at the dining table (nor this)

3. Stand up when a lady enters or exits the room.

4. Offer up your seat to a lady if there isn’t one available

5. Take your hat off indoors (not sure if this means I must wear a hat outdoors)

6. Never let others see you looking at your watch.

7. Practice good grooming and hygiene.

8. Don’t swear.

9. Buy more than one pair of shoes.

10. Carry a handkerchief (ooh, I do that one)

11. Don’t tuck your napkin into your collar.

12. Share your umbrella.

13. Don’t drink to excess. At least in public.

14. At the dinner table, talk to those either side of you, not across from you.

15. Never remove your tie when in company

16. Let your social superiors address you first (!)

But my favourite, purely because of the way it is worded, is from www.askmen.com which says:

17. Always carry a woman’s packages.

I can imagine how Clovenhoof might misinterpret that!

But what other rules of gentlemanly behaviour have I missed?

If Heaven was a corporation

2012-01-08T09:48:00.001Z

In our novel, Satan loses his job and is given ‘indefinite leave’ which he is forced to spend on Earth. Such a premise requires that the realm of the afterlife, perhaps both heaven and hell, is run rather like a private company or a large public corporation. The afterlife story arc that runs through our novel needs to play with that trope, the idea that heaven and hell are corporations. But what would that be like?

In his article, “If Heaven was a Corporation”, Tom T. Moore begins:

Imagine for a minute if heaven was an international corporation. Then we would be able to explain a lot of misconceptions people have. First we would have a brilliant CEO (Creative Executive Officer) [God] such as Steve Jobs, whose creations and innovations are different from all the other corporations. He would be loved by all his millions of employees, who couldn’t wait to work for him and applied immediately for whatever jobs he needed to be done.

Sorry Tom, I’m going to have to stop you there. Not because your version of heaven is sickly sweet or because you’re painting corporate life in an overly optimistic light. No, I’m going to stop you there because your Heaven Incorporated ^TM just doesn’t make for entertaining reading.

Evil corporations are much more fun. In these times of globalisation and economic uncertainty, big business is the pantomime devil we all love to boo and hiss. We seem to positively thrive on stories of wilful corporate wrongdoing. Over the years, Coca-Cola, Nestle, McDonalds, Pfizer, Lehman Brothers and Wal-Mart have all been held up as candidates for the World’s Most Evil Corporation^TM. From selling bottled carcinogenic tap-water to aggressively marketing unnecessary formula milk to poor countries, from cooking the books to killing Nigerian children in unapproved drug trials, real-life companies come up with foul and despicable acts that would make a vengeful God or a diabolical Satan proud.

But corporate crapness doesn’t have to be deliberate. I have a fondness for Hanlon’s Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Stupidity and incompetence are as much fun as evil and we’ve probably all had more contact and experience with stupid corporations than evil ones. Sending letters to long-dead customers. Slipping the decimal point in the wrong place on charges or refunds. Creating forest-loads of paperwork that serves no purpose. Trapping us in endless automated phone loops. This is not evil. This is stupid. And stupid is funnier than evil.

Interestingly, the idea of heaven and hell as bloated, inefficient bureaucracies is not a new one. We see heaven’s bureaucracy in Powell and Pressburger’s, A Matter of Life and Death and in Danny Boyle’s A Life Less Ordinary. The workaday world of hell is also showcased in CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters (which I am re-reading at the moment and enjoying enormously). In the film Beetlejuice, there is the nice touch of suicides as the bureaucrats of the afterlife. Robert Heinlein’s sprawling afterlife in Job: A Comedy of Justice confounds all expectations with petty canonised functionaries, God and Satan as minor players in the cosmic scheme and the kind of bureaucracy that the old Soviet Union would have been proud of.

Whether or not Heide and I choose to go for a plotline that posits the decision-makers in heaven/hell as evil, corrupt or incompetent, I do feel some sort of corporate-crapness plotline will underpin the entire novel. There was a particular notion which one of us came up with (I think it was Heide but I cannot be sure which of us is which these days) that I really liked.

However – because there’s nothing new under the sun – we discovered that Dilbert had got there nearly two years before we did. Click here and enjoy.

Foodie Fun

2012-01-07T06:51:00.000Z

Fish and Chips, foodie style

I am starting work on a new chapter. Clovenhoof (our earth-bound Satan) is having a dinner party.

His own favourite food is Findus Crispy Pancakes, but he’s been persuaded, in part by his desire to impress a woman and also by his own inclination to show off, to take on the role of pretentious foodie.

Iain has written the synopsis, and mentioned that he found it rather challenging to take a ludicrous foodie menu idea that hasn’t actually been attempted by someone.

We’d welcome your ideas on this. Here are some areas to think about:

He’ll come across some frightening cookbooks when he goes looking in a second-hand bookshop.
He’ll want to source obscure ingredients.
He’ll create a menu so full of hyperbole and foreign words that nobody will know what they’re eating.
He’ll need power tools and other unlikely weaponry to perform his culinary works.

Please post your ideas in the comments, the more stupid the better!

A Writer's Year

2011-12-31T10:17:00.000Z

Okay, it’s post-Christmas and I’m considering my accomplishments as a writer in 2011. In fact, as it’s the season for lists, I listed them.

Now, this is not a bragging list. I’m actually going to make a point here. Here’s the list.

Iain’s List Of Writery Things He Did In 2011

1. I began writing a collaborative novel with Heide.

2. I began this blog with Heide, a blog which is being read by more and more people each month (or more repeatedly by the same few people, who knows?)

3. I finished editing my ‘Birmingham’ novel.

4. I approached approximately thirty agents and publishers with that novel in my most rigorous self-selling campaign to date.

5. I wrote twelve short stories.

6. I shared eight of them with my fellow writers at Birmingham Writers’ Group.

7. I sold one story to an American anthology.

8. Another horror story (written some years ago) came out in a paperback anthology.

9. Two further short stories were written for other anthologies.

10. Another short story was written after a request from an anthology editor.

11. Two short stories written for a competition (in which I came second, thank you).

12. I contributed writing to three performance pieces for the Birmingham ArtsFest 2012 and edited one of them.

13. I performed ten minutes of stand up in a Birmingham Waterstones bookshop.

That’s what I did. Actually, I’d forgotten much of it until I looked back at my files. Thing is, it’s only half the story, because here’s the stuff I didn’t put on the list.

1. No one but Heide and I has read a single word of our collaborative comic novel and comedy is a notoriously subjective thing...

2. Twenty-five of the agents and publishers wrote me nice rejection letters.

3. The other five never wrote back.

4. I’ve lost the will to send speculative letters to the other fourteen agents who might be interested.

5. Of the two stories written for specific anthologies, one was rejected and the editor of the other has not replied to my e-mails.

6. The anthology editor who requested a story has also failed to get back in touch with me.

7. The Birmingham Waterstones was empty.

8. My current earnings this year through writing total £50

9. Basically, I’ve failed to bestride the world as a writing colossus for the eighteenth year of trying.

So, is 2012 to be my year?

Well, I can already see from the list I’ve written that there are lessons to be learned from this year, namely...

1. Don’t be content to let people not get in touch. Chase every unanswered e-mail and letter.

2. Don’t be put out by twenty-five successive rejection letters. Either persevere or seek some other way or achieving publication.

3. Speaking of which, 2012 is definitely going to be the year of my foray into e-publishing (along with Heide)

4. Repeat the successes of 2011 which means selling more short stories and more ArtsFest (probably not stand up)

Bizarrely enough, that seems like a sensible list of resolutions for 2012 and a list I can probably stick to.

Now, what are you writing resolutions for 2012?

End of Year Round-up

2011-12-29T17:57:00.000Z

Statistics

Blog entries made	42
Total words written for manuscript	28973
Pubs used for planning	3
Tellings-off from old ladies	1
Church services disrupted	1
Copies of Birmingham A-Z defaced	1
Bored children made to endure planning sessions	2
Index cards used for fun planning games	numerous

Thoughts on the process so far

Heide says:

I feel as though I’ve learned a lot in the last few weeks. Learning how to work with someone else is an ongoing process, but most of what we’ve tried has worked out well.

I’ve learned how to plan more carefully.

I’m not a planner by nature, I’m more of a do-er, but the collaborative planning has been so much fun that it was no chore, and now the writing seems to come very easily.

I’m pleased with what we’ve written so far, and the next step is for us to get some feedback on that.

We’ll make adjustments if it seems like a good idea and crack on with the rest.

I’m looking forward to 2012.

Iain says:

I think we must be very lucky or very tolerant people (substitute ‘indifferent’ if you wish) because we’ve seemed to have gelled together very well as a writing pair so far. We’ve yet to rub each other up the wrong way or thoroughly disagree on what should be happening in our story. I worry that we’re too polite.

I, in complete contrast to Heide, have learned to plan less. We’ve written close to a third of an entire novel and I still don’t know how it begins or ends. And I’m not worried. Bizarre.

As Heide says, we’ve yet to get some objective criticism of our work so far. I hope that criticism is generally positive but points out the flaws in our process. We are not collaborative geniuses and hope that others can help us see how to improve.

Onward and upward in 2012.

Old Harry's Game - Christmas Special

2011-12-25T00:21:00.000Z

It’s festive and satanic and funny. And available until 30^th December. Merry Christmas from Idle Hands.

(only available in the UK. Sorry)

The Devil and the W.I.

2011-12-20T10:11:00.000Z

What links the devil with the Women’s Institute? Or, more precisely, who?

Go on. I’ll give you ten seconds to work it out.

I got thinking about this person whilst doing a spot of research for a chapter of our Clovenhoof novel which features a children’s choir (and animal slaughter, fake blood and credit card fraud). I got to thinking about what hymns make vague references to Satan and, indeed, which hymns old Clovenhoof/Satan would either loathe or have a grudging admiration for. I did play around with He Who Would Valiant Be (AKA To Be A Pilgrim) because it has those cute and ridiculous references to giants, hobgoblins and fiends but my mind, in hymn-mode, kept coming back to one hymn and one man.

Right, that’s your ten seconds. Worked it out yet?

The answer is William Blake.

William Blake wrote the words that, put to music by Hubert Parry (and then fiddled about a bit by Elgar, to be honest), became the hymn we now know as Jerusalem. Originally brought together as a patriotic rabble-rouser (something Hubert Parry wasn’t particularly happy about), the song was then adopted by the suffragette movement and then, after women got the vote, co-opted by the Women’s Institute as an unofficial anthem. Today, it is played and sung at many English sporting events and, despite my own personal atheism and all-round lack of patriotism, I agree with those who feel it is a far better national anthem than the one we have. Me and King George V are as one on that point.

Oh, and the fact that it is based on a piece of apocryphal nonsense about Jesus visiting Somerset, England as a child also adds to its charm.

If you’ve not heard it before Go here and listen.

But Blake didn’t just write poems for rugby fans, suffragettes and jam-making ladies to sing along to. He also wrote poetry of a more theological dimension. Arguably his greatest work is The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. It’s satire. It’s criticism. It’s a bit of poetry and a bit of nonsense.

And, like John Milton, although Blake was Christian (sort of), he couldn’t help painting Satan as the hero of his piece. In fact, in The Marriage, Blake says of Milton “The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it.”

What I really like about The Marriage of Heaven and Hell are the ‘Proverbs of Hell’ Blake gives us. Chances are you already know some. Here’s a sample:

· The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

· The cut worm forgives the plow.

· The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

· Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius

Thing is, I can imagine the character of Clovenhoof in our novel uttering words very much like these. He, like Blake’s hell, is energy not evil, opposed to heaven which is not goodness but passivity. Clovenhoof is the guy who says what the rest of us are thinking. He’s the fellow who will push boundaries and demand to know why he can’t. The Proverbs of Hell were practically written for him.

Maybe I’ll see if I can sneak some of these into our text.

And as for “The Devil and the W.I.”...

..that is definitely a chapter title for the second Clovenhoof book.

Creativity in the Christmas Carnage.

2011-12-18T17:37:00.000Z

Elf sorts his baubles

At this time of year, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with a million things other than writing. If you get a break from over-eating, over-drinking and over-preparing for Christmas then how do you make the best of that time for creativity?

I have some thoughts on this.

It’s my belief that creativity works best if you approach it from different angles.

There’s the part where you need fresh ideas. Key to this is input. Whether you take some of the ideas we’ve blogged about before, and get your friends to join in the fun, or whether you just go to different places and look at different things, you will definitely need input. Tricks for making this happen can include travelling a familiar journey by a different route and so on. Collaborating with another person turns out to be one of the best ways. The trouble is, that so much of what we find ourselves doing around Christmas is based on ritual and habit, that it might not be an ideal time for coming up with brand new ideas.

That brings us to the second part, where we take ideas and percolate or develop them into something coherent. I think there’s lots to do with this one, even when we’re busy. If you can get into the right, problem-solving frame of mind for this, then your clever subconscious does a lot of the work for you, while you’re not even looking. Ritual and familiarity can even help. Something that fills your physical senses but lulls your mind into a free-ranging “zone” is what you’re after. You can get there with physical exercise, churning up and down a swimming pool, doing length after length, you’re occupying your whole body, but what else is your mind going to do? Solve all of your problems, that’s what. You can get there in a carol concert or a rock concert too. Conversations or other distractions are not an option, and when you’re surrounded by loud, familiar sound then your brain can go off and do its magic.

The way to tap into this, I find, is to be quite clear what you want to do. Spend a bit of effort framing it into a question or a problem. Even say it out loud, “I want to find a way to kill a vicar in my scene that is not going to result in a thunderbolt from above. And might even be funny. Please.”

Then your mind knows what it’s got to work on. Trust it.

Tell me what you think. Be honest. I can take it.

2011-12-12T23:01:00.000Z

Consider...

Scenario A: My wife comes into the house, fresh from the hairdressers and says, “What do you think?”

Scenario B: My wife shows me a hairstyle in a magazine that she is thinking of getting herself and says, “What do you think?”

Or perhaps consider...

Scenario A: My six-year-old daughter brings me a page covered in pencil lines and dodgy felt-tip and says, “Do you like it?”

Scenario B: I am in an art gallery, looking at a canvas covered in pencil lines and dodgy felt-tip and the gallery owner sidles up to me and says, “Do you like it?”

Or even...

Scenario A: I am in a writers’ group meeting and I have just heard someone read out their own work and the chair of the group invites me to share my thoughts and criticism.

Scenario B: I am in a writers’ group meeting and am looking at a nameless manuscript that I’ve read the night before and the chair of the group invites me to share my thoughts and criticism.

In all three cases, my responses given to the ‘A’ scenarios would certainly be politer but the answers to the ‘B’ scenarios would be more honest and accurate. Does that make me dishonest and evasive? Or just British?

Although Heide has blogged about the curious business of writing in public, I think constructive criticism is something that is most useful when delivered anonymously or indirectly (e.g. through written feedback). We don’t tend to give good criticism when face to face with the author. If someone looks me in the eye and says, “Tell me what you think. Be honest. I can take it,” the last thing I am going to be is honest.

Heide and I have each written a full chapter of the Clovenhoof novel. We intend to submit them for anonymous criticism at Birmingham Writers’ Group in January 2012. This will involve us providing anonymous printed copies of our work for writers to take away at one meeting and to feed back on at the next.

The criticism we will get from that might be harsh, might not be what we want to hear, but it’s probably going to be the most useful criticism we’re going to get.

When real people turn fictional

2011-12-09T06:56:00.000Z

Inspiration comes from all manner of sources. This is an almost verbatim transcript of an e-mail conversation Heide and I have been having over the past week or so.

Heide:

I realised last night that for a couple of weeks or maybe more I have unconsciously been picturing Simon from BWG [Birmingham Writers' Group] when I think of the Archangel Michael. [a character in our novel]

He's got a face that is just right, somehow...angelic, but could go lofty & arrogant or gloating and malicious. Am I a very bad person? More importantly, do you agree?

Iain:

Hah! I utterly agree. He'd make a brilliant Michael. Youthful, dynamic, blonde! Oh and very well spoken.

Heide:

I think if we asked him, he might be quite pleased to be the face of Michael, what do you think?

Iain:

I'd also like to think Michael/Simon could be able to beat someone to pulp if he really wanted to.

Heide:

Yes! indeed. I will ask him.

And she did and he said yes.

Heide:

I reckon that Simon will tolerate a fairly accurate description of why we chose him for Michael, so I think we should use all of the words that we exchanged with each other, and I think we’ve probably got the illustrations for most of them... I even think he’ll be quite chuffed & want to share it with his friends. He’s got a LOT of friends on facebook (I just checked...921)

Iain:

No one has 921 friends. Not really. I mean, he's a loveable chap but no one has the time to maintain 921 friendships. Or maybe he does. I bet the Archangel Michael would click 'confirm' to every friend request he gets.

Have you seen the pictures on Dropbox? Not sure if the Archangel Michael has such expressively evil eyebrows. Or such a dashing taste in knitwear.

Heide:

The knitwear is the star...Michael relaxing at Christmas!

I saw the pictures, what a hoot! You're right about the "Wolverine" eyebrows though...they are hilarious but not quite Michael. Not unless Clovenhoof has done something really, really bad anyway.

Competition YOU can be a star in our novel!

2011-12-08T19:21:00.001Z

We can tell from the stats that we have lots of traffic on our blog. Lurkers, who aren’t speaking up. That’s fine, we’re happy with lurkers. But we’d love to know who you are.

That’s why we’re offering a unique incentive.

Everyone who leaves comments on the blog will be put into a draw when we have finished the novel and two lucky prizewinners will get the chance to have their name used in the novel itself.

We will leave the character names for one male and one female character until then. It could be YOUR NAME that we insert into the finished piece.

The female character is a sex doll. No sex scenes will be necessary, so your reputation will be intact.

The male character is a corpse, who spends much of the narrative being locked in a chest.

All you need to do is start commenting on the blog.

Each comment gets a new chance in the draw, so the more chatter, the better your chance.

To start the ball rolling, I’ll ask a question: what blog posts would you like to see? Is there an aspect of collaborative writing that we haven’t covered yet, or anything else that you think our readers would find interesting?

The Story of Job

2011-12-04T20:22:00.000Z

I am currently plotting chapter 4 of our novel for Heide to write. This chapter has the working title of “Clovenhoof Needs People” and deals with Clovenhoof’s (aka Satan’s) being subjected to the most misery-inducing illness known to science: man-flu.

It occurred to me whilst beginning to plot this, that I could make some analogies in the story between Clovenhoof’s plight and the suffering undergone by Job in the Old Testament. Job, a pious and upstanding man from the land of Uz, suffers because Satan tells God that Job only loves him because Job leads a charmed life. What follows is essentially a wager between God and Satan in which Job’s life is made bloody miserable and the courtiers in heaven watch to see what happens.

Many years ago, I had the absolute joy of studying the Book of Job for a whole term at Sheffield University under Professor David Clines. Job is a beautiful book and is all the better for its moral complexity. However it is also a long book and could be regarded as a bit boring.

But fear not. If you are even only vaguely interested in the story of Job, you can now get the major points in a two and a half minute cartoon which is both funny (well, I laughed) and manages in three simple words to convey one of the most elegant and beautiful solutions to the Problem of Evil.

No CGI here. Just theology and laughs.

Check it out.

At least Job never had to suffer a bout of man-flu.

Doing it in Public

2011-12-02T21:25:00.001Z

How much privacy do we need or want?

When we started using Dropbox our productivity soared.

Instead of emailing ideas back and forth, we could easily create and share them in documents.

Once we started writing in earnest, it raised a question.

Writers are nosey people, it’s a given. To be a creator of stories, you tend to be drawn to any kind of human drama, interesting spectacle, or, to quote Number Five from Short Circuit, ‘inpuuuuuut’.

So if Dropbox helpfully informs me that a file has been changed, when I’m sitting at my computer, I naturally wonder what Iain’s up to.

We had a chat about this. A “do you mind me looking?” kind of a chat.

It turned out that neither of us did especially mind.

We agreed that if someone was standing behind you, watching you write, it would be horribly off-putting. Somehow, knowing that every time you hit ‘save’ and commit to Dropbox it’s available for viewing by your writing partner is not at all the same.

We both understand what a first draft is all about. We agreed that there’d be no critiquing until we’ve finished a piece, so there’s no sense of pressure or embarrassment.

In fact, I’ve noticed that it can be quite motivating in some perverse way. There’s a sense of keeping pace with each other. “Ooh, Iain’s done 3000 words, I’d better crack on”.

So: doing it in (semi) public. It can be quite rewarding.

From Ideas to Planning to Prose

2011-11-29T21:14:00.000Z

We’ve been blogging at Idle Hands for exactly one month, one week and one day, charting our attempts to write a collaborative comic fantasy novel about Satan’s days in retirements on earth. We’re now in the process of writing some actual prose. This comes as a bit of a surprise to me because I usually spend up to six months planning a novel before writing a single scene. However, our planning process for the Clovenhoof novel may have been quick but has nonetheless gone through a number of stages...

After playing index card games in the pub and sifting through our BWG friends’ ideas, we came up with some themed groups of ideas that would become chapters. One such chapter was the one in which Satan (aka Jeremy Clovenhoof) forms a rock band. These are some of our friends’ ideas for that chapter:

· He writes his life story as a rock opera

· He flicks through albums of Heavy Metal artwork going “wrong… wrong… wrong…”

· He wears sunglasses indoors and acts like a knob.

· He does a pub/student gig and is a surprising success and gets his first bit of attention from women. He is baffled by this.

· His career appears to be a success but all the venues, groupies and even the audience have simply been bought in using his redundancy package.

· Sings Karaoke – maybe this is how it starts...?

· Learns the guitar - from zero to genius in 30 minutes. Either that or his fingers are too short to form proper chords and he takes up the ukulele instead.

· He books symphony hall.

· It appears to be a success, but then it is discovered at the last minute that his songs are all just like Black Sabbath records played backwards, so all is cancelled, money lost.

Heide and I then plotted these chapters onto an exciting wallpaper graph and picked out a chapter apiece to plot in more detail. I chose to plot a chapter on ‘dating’ and Heide chose the ‘rock and rock’ chapter. Her plot synopsis (about 2,000 words total) began like this:

Scene 1 – Clovenhoof is working on a writing project. His life story, so far. He reads out the version where he tries it as rhyming couplets, like a Rupert story. He scraps that. He reads out the version where he tries biblical language. He scraps that. Maybe he tries it in the style of Bridget Jones’ Diary? Eventually he flounces around a bit and scribbles down some key phrases like “It was just a blast!” and “Nobody parties like a Sinner” and sulks for a while. Nerys turns up at the door with Ben reluctantly in tow. She wants them both to share their New Year resolutions. Of course they didn’t make any. She makes them sit down and write them there & then. She supervises, and pretty well writes them herself. Ben is to get out and about more and buy some t-shirts that aren’t black etc etc, Clovenhoof is to find something constructive to do with his time and think about his self-image, maybe get some new clothes etc etc. Nerys wants to learn a new skill…

The synopsis was brilliant but I couldn’t write straight from that; I had to make myself much more comfortable with its ideas and themes. And so, I sat down in the pub and converted Heide’s synopsis into a mind map of the whole episode.

It might look chaotic but that web of information, showing how different plot elements link together, helped me get a better grip on the whole thing. Now with that mind map, I could see what each scene or exchange contributed to the entire plot.

The plot was in place but, with a 6,000 – 7,000 word chapter to write, I wanted a paragraph by paragraph guide as to what I should be writing at any point in time. This essentially involved the unpicking of the mindmap and laying it out flat or, to put it another way, taking a walk around the maze of my mindmap, noting each point I passed through on the way. The beginning of my final step-by-step plan looked like this (the number is the wordcount I should be at when I write that bit):

Bringing something upstairs 328

Harp 408

Nerys: new skill 487

Resolutions 566

C: Do something constructive 646

B: Get out more 725

Pub 963

Miserable new year 1,042

Failed return to hell 1,122

C’s creative project 1,201

Pro-satan agenda 1,281

Thoughts of Michael 1,360

C’s need for purpose 1,439

And then, finally, one golden afternoon, I sat down and started writing:

Clovenhoof tried to ignore the sounds coming from the stairway outside his flat, the dull flat thumps and the sharp juddering snaps. He also successfully ignored the hissed reprimands and the wheedling replies but it was the loud crash followed by a long and inventive curse that piqued his interest.

He opened the door and looked out.

Nerys stood, fists on hips, staring furiously at Ben and the large upright parcel perched on the stairs, a parcel that was threatening to crush Ben and bear his remains down to the ground floor.

Clovenhoof cleared his throat.

“What the hell is this?”

Nerys gave him a bright smile.

“This is my New Year’s resolution.”

“To kill Mr Kitchen?”

“No, it’s –“

“It’s admirable,” said Clovenhoof. “Worthy, even. Best of luck."

He began to close the door.

“I think Ben could do with a hand,” said Nerys.

“I’d love to,” said Clovenhoof, “but I’m not really a problem solver. Definitely not a completer-finisher.”

“Help me,” whimpered Ben.

“I’m more of an ideas man, Ben. I mean, I had this guy at the Old Place. Sisyphus. Now, he’d have been ideal.”

“Just do it,” said Nerys.

By the time the parcel was in Nerys’ living room, Clovenhoof had chipped a hoof and Ben had a livid graze on the back of one hand. Twinkle was sniffing around the package’s base.

“What is it?” said Clovenhoof.

“It’s a harp.”

“As in instrument of the angelic hosts?”

“Yes.”

“I was clearly pushing in the wrong direction.”

“I thought you were,” said Ben.

Nerys stroked the brown cardboard wrappings tenderly.

“I’ve always wanted to play a musical instrument.”

“A recorder would have been easier,” said Clovenhoof.

“And lighter,” said Ben.

She scoffed.

“No sense of ambition, you two.”

“Oh, I have ambitions!” said Clovenhoof.

“Wearing a permanent butt-grove in your sofa is not an ambition.”

Clovenhoof looked at Ben.

“I don’t think it is,” conceded Ben.

Nerys shook her head at them, it was a weary, loving shake of the head, much as one might give before putting a dog down.

“You men are happy to let life pass you by.”

“Me?” said Ben.

“Sitting in your dingy flat playing with your toy soldiers is not healthy.”

“They’re miniature scale models,” protested Ben but Nerys wasn’t listening.

“You need to do something constructive with your time,” she said, jabbing a finger towards Clovenhoof before swinging it on to Ben. “And you... you need to get out more.”

“I see,” said Clovenhoof coldly.

“Now, who is going to help me unwrap this and set it up?”

“I – “ began Ben but Clovenhoof spoke across.

“Kitchen can’t.”

“Oh?” said Nerys.

“He’s got to go out more. New Year’s resolution.”

“Oh, well, you...”

“I’m taking him out,” said Clovenhoof, already pushing Ben towards the door. “Doing something constructive with my time.”

They were out on the landing before Nerys could reply.

“Where are we going?” said Ben.

“Alcohol.”

“Alcohol’s not a place.”

“It’s a destination.”

I accept that my approach to writing can seem cold and clinical but it works for me. It doesn’t mean there isn’t room for spontaneity. The plan can change even as I’m writing it.

Sometimes it even surprises me.

Yesterday, out of nowhere, Clovenhoof acquired a pet mould called Herbert . I didn’t plan for Herbert to appear but appear he did. And I can already see how his role will prove vital in the overall Clovenhoof plot. Honest.

Your Satan Song Titles Needed!

2011-11-26T12:20:00.000Z

So, here’s Satan, alone in his crumby flat (literally; Satan likes biscuits and does not do hoovers). He’s at his desk, the floor around him littered with dozens of screwed up pieces of paper like a flock of crap origami sheep. His pen is poised above a fresh sheet of paper.

Yes, Satan is writing his life story as a rock opera but can’t seem to find the words. He has a wealth of bitter tortured experiences to draw from - that nasty business in the Garden of Eden, that unwise wager regarding Job’s piety, the unwinnable war in heaven (Lucifer was outnumbered two to one), etc, etc – but how best to express that?

Of course, the internet is full of terribly beautifully terrible song titles to inspire bad song titles but most of these seem to come from the Country and Western genre. What does Heavy Metal (Satan’s chosen genre) have to offer?

If we were sat in a pub, we’d break out the index cards and sharpies and scribble down some ideas but, no, this time I would like to share the collaborative experience electronically.

Could you provide a title or a lyric for one of Satan’s songs? Pomposity, crassness and self-indulgence are very much welcome. If it makes Heide and I laugh out loud and wet ourselves, even better.

Post your suggestions as comments here. Each brilliant song title used in the finished chapter will be rewarded with a pint*

On a final note, I must share a quote from the indispensible Wikipedia article on the writing style of the band Slayer:

“Hanneman, King and Araya tend to have different lyrical influences. Hanneman's lyrics deal with Nazis, religion, warfare and similar topics. King's lyrics are generally just very anti-religious. Araya's lyrics usually deal with less controversial topics than Hanneman's and King's, such as serial killers and warfare.”

Serial Killers and warfare. Not at all controversial.

*pint prize exchangeable for wine, spirits or a soft drink of your choice. Prize only available in Birmingham pubs. Prize cannot be sent through the post (it will spill and make the rest of your mail smell like a brewery) or sent electronically (it will spill and short out the internet).

It's not a Writing Group, it's Therapy

2011-11-24T19:25:00.000Z

I have a number of books on my shelf about the art of writing. Some of them are great reads, usually because they’re funny and enable me to laugh at negative writing traits I see in myself. ‘How not to write a novel’ was particularly entertaining in that regard. Some of the best aren’t intended as writing guides at all. I often turn to Joseph Campbell’s Hero With A Thousand Faces when I have forgotten how to plot a story. And, years ago, my most helpful writing tool was any early-nineties horror novel by Shaun Hutson, in that whenever I got down about writing and thought my work was no good, I could pick up a Shaun Hutson novel (doesn’t matter which one, although Slugs is an awe-inspiring work) and within minutes I would find myself convinced that I was a bloody literary genius (comparatively speaking).

However, most books about writing are useless. I’m not going to say anything about writing being an indefinable and unteachable artistic process. I don’t think that’s true. I think the problem is there are as many approaches to writing as there are writers and the chances of you picking up a book that caters to your writing style is incredibly slim. One such useless book is The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes and its uselessness is compounded by the fact it hands out the single worst piece of advice I have ever read, to whit:

30 – Don’t Take It to the [Writing] Club Meeting...

...when you can avoid the sting of unnecessary, incorrect and irrelevant advice.

I’m guessing that the author, Jack M. Bickham had a bad experience at a writing group.

Maybe there are bad, wicked and evil writing groups out there, groups where people snipe at one another, steal ideas and bitch about people who aren’t there. Well, I suppose there’s bound to be one or two. But from my experiences and the experiences of people I know, writing groups are helpful, supportive, guiding and, well, fun.

I belong to the Birmingham Writers’ Group and have been a member for something like six years. We meet twice a month in the city centre. We used to meet in Birmingham Central Library until we got kicked out so they could begin demolishing the place and are now in a delightful volunteer-run vegetarian restaurant.

We meet for a couple of hours at a time (before heading off to the pub) and in those two hours we share and discuss our writing. Sometimes we read out loud. Sometimes we read each other’s work in advance. Sometimes we do ‘instant writing’ exercises in the meeting or organise workshops on aspects of writing.

Actually, it doesn’t really matter to me what we do at any one meeting. What Birmingham Writers’ Group does for me is brings me into contact with other writers. And that’s important, because writing is essentially a solitary business. If I don’t go to the writers’ group then my hobby is just me sat in a room (or a cafe or a pub...) typing away at my netbook. And writing isn’t one of those hobbies which is easily shared or discussed with non-writers. If someone asks you what your hobbies are and you reply, “I’m a writer,” then they’ll probably say something like, “Oh, that’s interesting,” but be secretly thinking, “Pretentious tosser.”

And, astonishing as it may seem, other writers are bloody interesting people (making no claims about myself here, you understand). Because we all have different approaches to writing and between us straddle a range of genres and writing forms then I can’t help but be surprised and interested by the perspectives of these people.

Without their support my last two (still unpublished!) novels would be very different and not half as good. Without their support, I wouldn’t have had the chance to read and hear my words read at this year’s ArtsFest. Without their support – SHAMLESS PLUG ALERT!! – I wouldn’t have been included in Tindal Street Press’ Roads Ahead Anthology and got a mention in the Guardian newspaper.

A mention in the arts pages of a national broadsheet, all thanks to BWG.

In my time there, Birmingham Writers’ Group has either spawned or supported at least one published novelist, a brace of professional storytellers, a Bradt Prize-winning travel writer, a short-listed Grist prize writer, playwrights, film-makers, poets and short story writers whose published subject matter stretches from anti-fascist weird fiction through to gardening-based erotica (I kid you not!). Oh, and a whole host of other writers, some of whom have no intention of seeking publication but just love writing.

So is the Birmingham Writers’ Group the best writing group in the world? In Birmingham? Possibly not – there’s a whole host of brilliant writers’ groups in the West Midlands area (for more info, click here) – but I love it.

And of course, without Birmingham Writers’ Group, Heide and I would never have met, or attended a workshop on collaborative writing, or decided to write a comedy novel about Satan or had dozens of people on hand to offer hilarious suggestions for what should happen in that novel, a novel now featuring hell’s angels, real angels, sex dolls, dwarves, hidden corpses, the pope, Bono and an evil terrier called Twinkle...

Er.

Actually, maybe Jack M Bickham has a point.

Research: It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it.

2011-11-24T08:22:00.001Z

I’m writing the “dating” chapter. All of our characters are embroiled in the world of finding a partner.

Iain wrote the synopsis for this, and as soon as I saw what he had in mind I couldn’t wait to start.

The opening scene made me hoot with laughter when I realised what I had to do. I will blog on that separately, because it’s interesting to see how the ideas developed between the two of us. That scene didn’t need too much research; anyone who’s ever read Cosmopolitan magazine would probably be equipped with the right knowledge. Yes, I am talking about rude stuff here!

It got more specialised. Later on, we have a few scenes featuring a sex doll. For our purposes it needs to be a rather sophisticated and expensive model. I looked on the internet and a man with thousands of pounds to spend can buy a plaything equipped with exchangeable heads…and other things. You can have warm-to-the-touch silicone, and flexible, poseable limbs. You can even have one that has voice recognition software and can be programmed to respond to you verbally. It’s a world away from the ancient model that I once found hidden in the loft of an empty house. That was a primitive horror of a thing, made much worse by the perishing, shedding rubber.

Either end of the spectrum would have a lot of comedy value, but the techno-babe gives us some more features to get our characters into trouble.

Speaking of trouble, I now have a fairly dubious browsing history. And lots of explaining to do when I am pointing at the screen and laughing so much that it hurts.

Goregrinder by Terminal Panda

2011-11-20T14:18:00.000Z

We’re absolutely on the brink of writing some prose. In fact, I had the chance to view part of Heide’s first draft for the “Dating” chapter which made me laugh out loud in a public place (always a good sign).

I, unlike Heide, am afraid to just start with a cool idea and hit the keyboard. I’m still at the horribly intricate, line by line planning process I put myself through (I’ll blog on this later in order to share my pain). I’m working on the “Rock ‘n’ Roll” chapter that Heide has provided the synopsis for (which, again, made me laugh out loud although this time it was in my kitchen so that’s less embarrassing).

Part of this storyline involves Clovenhoof starting up his own heavy metal band and doing some live gigs.

Now, I do like a bit of heavy metal. And by that I mean I spent about eighteen months in my youth wearing unwashed black clothes and listening to Metallica. I am actually one of those pseudo-metal fans who preferred Metallica’s black album because you could, for once, hum along to the tunes. If, one day, someone did a folk-prog cover of Enter Sandman, perhaps with a jazz flute solo, I would die of ecstasy.

Despite my extensive heavy metal experience, I needed some ideas for Clovenhoof’s band, including the band name, song titles and their crazy antics. And thank God (or should that be Satan?) for the wonders of the internet.

There is a fantastic Random Metal Band Name Generator at http://b10m.swal.org/cgi-bin/bandname.cgi. A simple click gives me unforgettable bands such as Divine Marauder, Weeping Angel and Bestial Assault. Ticking the lovely ‘include non-evil words’ box gives us gentler wonders such as Deeds of Goats, Terminal Panda and (is it unimaginative or mysterious?) ...And Skulls.

But what songs did they write, these unheard of heroes of rock? Just click on Return to the Pit’s Metal Song Title Generator (http://returntothepit.com/bullshit.php) and you will find yourself recalling such gems as Lust on the Altar of the Apocalypse, Withered Bastard, Goregrinder and the haunting melodic masterpiece that was Festering with that Luminescent Fornication.

Certainly, Clovenhoof may be claiming some of these song titles as his own, but what will his path to stardom be like. Wiki-how has a sensible step by step guide to music stardom (http://www.wikihow.com/Become-a-Rockstar) but Clovenhoof won’t be doing anything as sensible as practise or spend his money wisely. He’s going to be living a life of drugs, groupies, hangers-on and stage-diving before he’s even learned three chords. Now where’s the website for that?

The Clovenhoof Bible

2011-11-19T23:38:00.000Z

At this point in time, Heide and I are knee-deep in planning individual chapters of the Clovenhoof novel (have I mentioned we still need a cool title?). We’re perhaps even only days away from writing some actual prose.

However, the more detailed our planning and plotting has become, the more we need to co-ordinate our thoughts. The twenty-first century has yet to throw up mind-reading technology and Heide and I cannot directly view each other’s mental images of characters, scenes and places within our story. What we need is a reference point for those people, events and places that we are going to be commonly using.

With that in mind, we have begun a shared document (Dropbox continues to rock!) called the Clovenhoof Bible in which we can jot down facts that must be shared if we are to avoid continuity issues.

For example, we need to agree (and we haven’t yet) on the ages of our human characters. Do any of them wear glasses? Does Ben wear jeans or formal trousers? Does Nerys drink red or white or not care which as long as it’s plonk? Does such personal detail matter? I think it does.

I remember, as a teenager, watching the sitcom Red Dwarf and being a bit put out to see Lister having his appendix removed for the second time. Written fiction also abounds with continuity errors. The Harry Potter books feature lines of dialogue spoken by people who aren’t actually present in the scene. Even in the Iliad, Homer has a character die at one point in the story only to reappear perfectly alive later. My favourite by far comes from Robinson Crusoe in which our eponymous hero swims out to a ship naked where he then proceeds to stuff his pockets with biscuits.

Crusoe: naked pocket biscuit man

Continuity matters. And continuity is based on an agreed reality.

For example, we want our characters to have a local pub that they frequent, a place to drink, chat and annoy old ladies (see Planning in more detail). Now one pub is very definitely not like another. There’s a world of difference between a clean and characterless chain pub, a grungy real ale pub and a posh gastro pub. It doesn’t necessarily matter which kind of pub we choose but whatever pub it is, it has to stay the same. Our Bible document has to contain that kind of detail.

Of course, the easiest way to maintain continuity and share mental images is to use real places. Heide and I have already decided that the Clovenhoof is going to be set in Sutton Coldfield. You may ask why and there are two reasons, one practical and one fictional.

In practical terms, it is a town halfway between our respective homes, we are both familiar with it and, in the nicest possible sense, it is like a hundred other towns across the UK. If you’ve not been to Sutton Coldfield, you’ve been to a Sutton Coldfield.

Sutton Coldfield: Everytown

There is also a reason within the story why Satan has been exiled to Sutton Coldfield. But I’m not going to tell you (unless we excise it from the finished text) because it forms part of a plot twist and I think it’s quite quite clever.

So, if we’re going to set the story in a real town we might as well use real pubs, clubs, houses, cafes, shops, churches, parks and offices as our locations. We can visit them (in person or virtually via the internet) and answer questions that, whilst not vital to the plot, give our story a sense of reality. Questions such as “How long does it take Nerys to stagger drunkenly home from the pub on foot?” or “If Clovenhoof runs butt-naked down the high street, pursued by angry green grocers, what are the chances of Ben seeing him from his shop?”

The obvious place to start seems to be the Bishop Vesey pub on Boldmere Road. It’s in the Sutton Coldfield suburbs and it was where Heide and I had our first pub-based planning session. Also the link to established religion tickles me (Vesey was a local lad, appointed bishop by Henry VIII). I can see Clovenhoof, Nerys and Ben supping a few drinks in the Bishop Vesey (neat vodka, a fruity chardonnay and a half of cider and black respectively). It’s not a great pub - the floor, the furniture and the beer are all the same colour - but it’s unthreatening and, with the exception of the occasional grumbling biddy, very welcoming.

If that’s to be their local then we need to look further down Boldmere Road for some suitable flats. There are some across the road from St Michael’s Church (St Michael, eh? I wonder if there is a statue of the victorious archangel standing astride the Great Dragon inside?). There’s the Cafe Vitos at the other end of Boldmere Rd where Ben might buy his lunchtime sandwiches or Clovenhoof skulk with the Racing Post until the bookies opens.

We might use these locations. We might use others. We may very well change the names to avoid angry publicans who reckon we’ve slandered the floor, furniture and ale of their establishments. Whatever happens, if we keep to the Bible then we at least stand a better chance of convincing the reader that our story is the product of a single creative entity.

Sutton Coldfield picture - copyright Erebus555 – taken from www.wikipedia.com

Being Flexible

2011-11-16T22:42:00.001Z

We’ve learned an interesting lesson in the last week. We came away from our last planning session with a firm idea of what we would do next. We'd plotted how things would go for Clovenhoof during each month of our timeline. We'd decided on a theme for each of these chapters, so we each took half of them. We would write a one-line summary of the plot for that piece, and then expand that into a three act structure, summarising each scene.

What actually happened was that we came up with the one-liners; we knew what was required from each chapter. Instead of going straight to plotting the detail though, we found that we were jotting down ideas. After a couple of days of doing this, we looked at each others’ ideas and decided that we would continue to do this, and put ideas into each others’ documents as well. Dropbox makes this very easy.

Then Iain put all of the ideas into a spreadsheet, so that we could each allocate scores for the ideas, looking at what we thought would be funny, fitting, and of course writeable.

This gave us the ideas we definitely wanted to use (GOLD) those we would drop (DROSS) and those we needed to talk about, if our scores differed greatly.

How we scored our ideas for the "Rock and Roll" chapter

You can see the results for chapter four, which is all about Clovenhoof’s brief rock and roll career.

Having voted, and discussed them briefly on the phone, we had the ideas that we wanted.

What comes next? We’ve each chosen a chapter to plot, scene by scene, and then we’ll swap and write the chapter. We know we’ll have some work to do after that, matching styles and details.

Maybe.

We changed tack once, we can do it again. It's all about learning and adapting.

Why are the film adaptations of Harry Potter good but the novelisations of the Star Wars films not?

2011-11-14T18:04:00.000Z

I have this theory which has almost no justification or evidence to support it but which I hold to be almost inviolably true. Adaptations of stories from one media to another can be an improvement or a degradation of the story and whether the story is elevated or degenerated by adaptation is almost wholly dependent upon which media it is adapted from and to.

Here’s the diagram...

My argument is simply that if an adaptation follows the arrows (i.e. moves downwards) then it stands a reasonable chance of being a decent piece of story. Any adaptation made against the flow of the arrows (i.e. upwards) is almost certainly doomed to fail or at the very most treated as an entertaining but needless work. Oh, and musicals are bad. It doesn’t matter what you do with them or where they’re adapted from. They’re just wrong.

This might be a universal truth or a flawed personal theory generated by being forced to watch stage adaptations of Brassed Off and Mary Poppins (book to film to stage), reading the science fiction novelisations by Alan Dean Foster and seeing the tragedy that was Planet of the Apes on TV (book to film to TV).

"Pssst. Iain. What has this got to do with Mr Clovenhoof?"

Er, not sure. I guess I’m just thinking that if any forward-thinking Head of BBC Comedy or Hollywood exec wishes to commission a movie or TV adaptation then we’re open to negotiation. But if, in years to come, you see a poster advertising Mr Clovenhoof: The Stage Musical, you have my permission to slap me very very hard.

Yes, that’s it.

Idle Hands

SJ Watson at Birmingham Library

Sewing the pieces together

How did we avoid these collaborative writing pitfalls?

I read because I write

Dating Advice from Satan

Beginning Paragraphs

Collaboration: Can two people write with one voice?

Vote for your favourite book title

Heaven: A Visitor’s Guide

Feedback from Birmingham Writers' Group

Judging a book by its cover: The title

Research: It’s a damn odd job but someone’s got to do it.

If Heaven was a corporation

Foodie Fun

A Writer's Year

End of Year Round-up

Old Harry's Game - Christmas Special

The Devil and the W.I.

Creativity in the Christmas Carnage.

Tell me what you think. Be honest. I can take it.

When real people turn fictional

**Competition** YOU can be a star in our novel!

The Story of Job

Doing it in Public

From Ideas to Planning to Prose

Your Satan Song Titles Needed!

It's not a Writing Group, it's Therapy

Research: It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it.

Goregrinder by Terminal Panda

The Clovenhoof Bible

Being Flexible

Why are the film adaptations of Harry Potter good but the novelisations of the Star Wars films not?

Competition YOU can be a star in our novel!