Narrative Class [2]

Our homework this week was to write twenty original story ideas and bring them to class. I didn’t spend hours developing my ideas, but I love the prospect of setting aside time to brainstorm. I don’t write on Sundays, so instead, I’m going to write down twenty ideas for potential shorts or longer works. Every Sunday. I’ll choose the best five and paste them on my wall for future reference. Ace beans.

Guest speaker was Peter F. Hamilton. He writes those thick sci-fi tomes that weigh down bookshelves but he was an interesting speaker, and almost pulled off the waistcoat look. His methods for writing such complex books are as thorough and assiduous and you might expect. Eight months planning and a strict eight-hour writing regime for over a year and a half for each book. Yikes.

One thing he said struck me as odd. Apparently, he only reads 2-3 books a year. I was surprised at this. I expect all professional writers to be professional readers, so this knocked me. He spoke about his love for reading as a child, so it was doubly odd that he’d limit himself to such a tiny reading list as a grownup. Does the urge to read ebb away? Shouldn’t he be reading to fuel his inspiration as a writer? Even if you have the most hectic home life, surely you can squeeze in a little more than that?

Anyway. Of the ideas I wrote down, I think two or three have merit. It's very tricky to bottle a story into one tagline (or logline) sentence without making it sound crap. Such is the challenge this week.

On another topic, my cowboy trousers came out wrinkled in the wash. I would iron them, but I’m too busy modelling waistcoats.

Error 503

I am planning to use this whenever I get into unpleasant dialogues. Like last week at Lou Reed’s art installation in Queens. “Lou,” I said, “those pastels smack of the revisionist school of neoclassical poseur.” Lou fixes me a dead-eyed look. “What?” I should have said: “Error 503.” What I said instead was: “Sorry Lou, you are the craggy king.”

Stupid!

I remember the first time I heard the first Velvet Underground album. I almost thumped a man. I’d never heard such avant-garde noise before, let alone such skin-crawling screech and squeal. John Cale’s viola had me in spasms. The dual jangle that concludes “Venus in Furs” is the closest one’s ears will get to having an epileptic freak-out.

It occurs to me how difficult it is to describe Edinburgh in prose. Gosh. It is stuffed to the peepers with Georgian tenements whose interiors haven’t been refurbished since the 1970s. Universities, flats and chicken restaurants all operate out the same drab-slab weariness. I said this to Sandy McCall Smith the other day. I said: “Golly Sand, Edinburgh does not lend itself to colourful descriptiveness in prose.” He fixed me a sad-eyed look. “What?” I should have said: “Error 503.” What I said was: “Sorry Sand, you are the jowly king.”

Nico’s contributions to that album cannot be overlooked. “All Tomorrow’s Parties” would not be the same sans her expressive Teutonic drone. “I’ll Be Your Mirror” opens a small valve in one’s heart, pouring in liquid love. If you aren’t moved by Nico’s goblin gobblings, there is no soul in you. Error 503, forever.

(P.S. My story EVERYTHING/nothing is in the flagship edition of 5923 Quarterly).

(P.P.S. Christmas ‘Neath the Bridge of Sighs [co-authored with Christopher Allen] won the Strange Circle story contest. Prize was $$$ and top billing in the flagship edition of Strange Circle zine).

Narrative Class [1]

This week’s narrative masterclass featured a guest lecture from James Robertson. His novel Joseph Knight is the first historical tome I’ve attempted (unless Empire of the Sun counts) and his lecture about the research process was illuminating.

Research is an area of extreme weakness for me. I don’t research because I don’t include facts among the fiction. Sometimes I google place names or historical figures. Real detail invigorates the wildest story, adds authenticity to the weakest. I often don’t research because creating replicas of our own world doesn’t interest me. The artifice of fiction is a pressing concern of mine, so stories can be anywhere, with anyone, names are interchangeable.

I could never research with the immense detail required for a historical. You have to have a genuine passion that will withstand about a year’s worth of work, then keep this up during the novel’s composition. I can’t think of one thing I’d want to spend three years researching or writing. Not one thing. Not even stripy tops or Radiohead.

That could change in time, of course. It helps to have history degree or PhD to do historicals, which James has. That would explain why he writes historical novels. There is a logic to these things. My brain dislikes ‘interesting facts’ or trivia. It couldn’t care less, and so facts do not accumulate in my head. Thank God we have Wiki.

I’m also considering options for a term two module. I was going to do genre fiction, but I’ve been swayed into doing creative non-fiction. Then again, that involves research, so I’m still on the fence. Did you know the first fence was invented in 234AD during the battle of Johannesburg? Neither did I.

The Poet Sleeps With Me

Writing under a different identity has always appealed to me. If I sit down to write as myself, I am too conscious of my own personal history. I write from the perspective of a pasty white Scot too young to know anything useful. If I create a fresh identity and author work with the history, experience and wisdom of this person, the game changes.

Say I am Laird Bothie Jamie McCullum. I am descended from James Boswell and work for Historic Scotland as curator, and write the most amazingly dull modern jazz songs on piano. Assuming this lineage, position and so on, will give me a better starting point for historical fiction than writing as a pasty white dude into Radiohead and striped tops.

The most famous example of writing under different names or identities is Fernando Pessoa. The Portuguese poet and academic is known to have created over seventy various ‘heteronyms’ to write his work. Each character comes with its own biography, philosophy and writing style. Bernardo Soares, an accountant in Lisbon, is one of his most famous identities – noted for his dapper dress sense and penchant for idle philosophising.

On a note of digression, Drugstore wrote a gorgeous song in tribute to the poet. On another note of digression, Drugstore have also re-formed and are touring again. This is magnificent news for fans of Isabel Monteiro’s unique spine-tingling compositions. Anyhoo.

Brian O’Nolan wrote his columns as Myles na gCopaleen and his novels as Flann O’Brien. His works are filled with characters running riot across the pages, multiple voices fighting for control, authors back from the dead and sulking in Dublin pubs. Brilliant.

So I say: try out this approach. Dress up. Become another person, live their life, speak like them, the whole works. Then sit down and write something in the style of this dude or dudette. You might find it a new and interesting approach. Or you might find you hate them. Whatever works.

First Daze

First days always rile me. Then again, inside-out socks rile me. Dust riles me. Riling riles me.

But. This. Was. The. First. Day. Back. There were new students to meet, and I met about three of them. They were weird. I think some of them might have been (cover your ears) cool.

This year should be lower key, co-student-wise. Last year, we went through a full working shift with the gang whereas this year, we spend a mere three hours in their presence. Not much wiggle room for getting to know people, so I don’t have to fret too much about becoming one big happy family.

On an unrelated note, this song from The Beards is absolutely awesome.

And on another, my story Dragon, Interrupted is online at Indigo Rising Magazine.

And my other story Fred in Duplicate is in the latest issue of Anything Anymore Anywhere. (Print mag. Costs £9).

Ciao.

Return of the Mark

Tomorrow I start Year Two of my MA Course at Edinburgh Napier. I have compiled a list of things I want to achieve:

1. Get into a violent, bloody brawl with a co-student over a minor difference of opinion on Bakhtin.

2. Sit on each of the chairs in both classrooms, 218 & 219. I suspect some are spongier than others.

3. Read one graphic novel. Like, the whole way through.

4. Use the word ‘encephalitic’ in casual conversation without anyone noticing.

5. Punch someone in the toilets and steal their lunch money.

6. Bring a tramp into class and hide him under the table.

7. Tell someone my favourite living novelist is Mark Morrison (criminal rap artiste), and see if they flinch.

8. Invent books. Last year I told someone "Winter Wooksie" was one of my favourite novels, when it is in fact no such thing. (B-side by Belle & Sebastian, in fact).

9. Leave a cabbage lying around somewhere.

10. Lick a wall.

I am looking forward to my return. The course I’ll be doing will involve a stricter writing discipline, and I have to confess the phrase ‘strict discipline’ turns me on a little, so this could be (sadomasochistically, at least) a terrific year.

My Month in Novels (Aug)

This month I read sixteen books aloud to Alec DeBerg. He has no face and provides my broadband services and also likes to dance with me to the aural sensations of Ottawan in the harsh Canadian winters.

1. Nikolai Gogol: Dead Souls – I meant to read this during my Summer of the Russians in 2007. The first book did not disappoint, though the second book is laced with tragedy, as Gogol was a perfectionist and probably insane at the time of composition. Followers of the BBC drama department might recall a Radio 4 adaptation starring Mark Heap.

2. Dave Eggers: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – This wasn’t as much of a pomothon as I had expected. Eggers is simply a writer that floors you. In fact, I was literally underground by page 313. Even Alec was floored and he has no knowledge of such matters.

3. Flann O’Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds + The Dalkey Archive – Catching up with some classic Irish dreaminess. Both books were a delight but the latter captured my imagination more than the former. In which other novel is James Joyce resurrected and then conscripted into the Jesuit Order?

4. Gilbert Sorrentino: Little Casino, The Moon in Its Flight, Lunar Follies – A trio of brilliance from Gilb. The first was the greatest: Gilb officially breaks the fourth wall and brings himself into the narrative. For self-reference geeks like me, this is unbearably exciting. His short story collection was also like rubbing asses milk into my eyes, though which ass I’m unsure. Not Alec. He’s no ass.

5. McSweeney’s Issue 23 – Back on the McSweeney’s trail. There are about ten or so issues in the writers’ room and I’m finding it impossible to keep my hands off them. Same goes for Alec, the beast.

6. Percival Everett: Erasure – I loved this strange and angry look at the flipside of being a black academic novelist. The protag writes an awful parody of a ‘ghetto-lit’ novel and becomes a runaway success (while caring for his dying mother). A scathing but tender sensation.

7. Chris Bachelder: Bear v. Shark + U.S.! – Bachelder is a rollicking satirist and these two novels were a delight. Since I am running out of stamina writing this, I will hand it over to Alec. He says: “Laurence? Are you there? Could someone call Laurence please?”

8. Tom McCarthy: C – I thought this was retrograde pants. I have no time for modern novelists who write long books in an early 20thC vein. Especially people who are ‘steering the novel in new directions.’ What direction is that, precisely, backwards? Alec agrees, and adds: “Crumpets.”

9. B.S. Johnson: Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry – Book of the month. Read this one please. Masterpiece.

10. Ali Smith: Other Stories & Other Stories – Didn’t take kindly to this, but then again I’m the only person alive that thinks Kafka a tedious paranoiac muffin. As Alec says: “He be dump.”

11. Donald Barthleme: Sixty Stories – I loved these mad, witty, clever but not clever-clever, surreal and speculative stories. Barthelme has a style and range utterly unique to him and uses a fragmented, avant-garde approach to tell his cryptic and weirdly moving stories.

12. Marcel Bénabou: Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books – This witty essay was a treat. This “nonbook” is an erudite, solipsistic essay on the torturous process of trying to complete a sentence. Bénabou is the “definitively” provisional secretary of the Oulipo, so it’s no wonder he finds himself so intimidated when it comes to his own work.

Alec says: “Good heavens that was dull. Please draw some more punk penises. That’s what they want.”

Noted.