And indeed, she was, or indeed she is, yet she is fictional, so is she either? 

Who knows? 

And it is the ‘who knows’ that is the pertinent question of our day. 

We are not discussing the metaphysical space time dimension thing; we’re not that cleaver.   

We are looking at the ‘who knows’ statement.

For the woes and triumphs of young Amy Grace who indeed knows about them?

And the tragic answer is few, a very precious few.

A number so low, that as tight fisted as I am (and I am) I’d be able to stand a round and buy them all a drink.  

And the fault, the blame, the reason, the cause and effect – all one simple answer, one singular root cause.

Me

Confidence is (from time to time) dented, but belief in this tale is unbowed. 

Despite the life affirming slogans on t-shirts and posters belief in itself isn’t enough; it isn’t.

Belief won’t get this tale printed, belief alone won’t get a paperback book in Waterstones.

Belief isn’t enough.

Hard work isn’t enough.

We (I) need to work hard to promote my belief in Amy, I need to take the polite and silent rejections and move on.

I need to strive, to fall short; to be that man in the arena. 

So, we remember this quote:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

We take this to heart, we plan for rejection, without accepting rejection we cannot ever archive telling out tall tale.

Without failure I cannot stand misty eyed in Waterstones. 

Failure is to be embraced, is to be chased and worn with pride.

We have a tale to tell, an adventure to share, a bar tab to create that will really make me cry!

Who knows…?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The past may be a foreign country, but Brexit notwithstanding you can still dip your toes in the warm seas that surround its distant shores. So occasional visits occur, non dom status mitigating the costs, we traipse paths we’ve already taken, roads and tracks already discovered yet somehow forgotten.  Memories of holidays taken, rides enjoyed, and ice-creams eaten all add to the joy that is a visit to ‘history’. 

The past holds so much, so many decisions decided, so much pontification taken, and the whole painfully slow process that was endured.  But now we are beyond that, and so looking back, we cast our eyes with proverbial 20/20 vision hindsight that allows what was once so very complicated to be seen with crystal clarity.  Behind us also sits the errors we made, the lessons we learnt but more importantly we can look over our shoulder and see the clarity of vision, the undiluted passion, the undaunted enthusiasm that brought us to the place in time and space we now occupy. 

And that is something we should revisit, and review more than we do. 

The great ‘why’ was answered so very long ago, that moment of clarity that led us through the cloud of self-doubt should be tasted again, memories refreshed. 

Why we started, why we continue we’ve already established needs no third-party validation.  As the poet eloquently states, the prose exists for its own purpose and no other.  To chase plaudits is an impossible purist, a charge (tilt) at windmills that is unprofitable and as misguided as Miguel de Cervantes described.  I cannot please or address the needs of the crowd, I cannot carve David to meet desires and ideas that are not mine – I’m not that good. 

What I can do is create what I enjoy, write where my own fingers tap and accept that some won’t like, but maybe some will (which is nice), but I will write not from a committee of approved ideas but from my own flawed imagination.  To thy own self be true etc.   

I cannot get defensive against critique, I cannot seek and chase approval, I must, I absolutely must remind myself of the first principle, the prime directive in that I write because I like it and hope others will. 

So if you’ve read it my sincere thanks, after that I have no obligation over you, reading is sufficient, your pleasure in my scribbles a bonus. 

Here we are with nowhere left to go… 

Yeah, it’s a lyric, one attributed to a certain Mr Burns, but hopefully stealing that little segment wont’ have me in court sued for millions and billions that I don’t have…   

Not that the above has any real relevance with where we are now, or indeed the direction of continued travel, but, it is a nice little snippet.

So, where are we? 

What are we doing?

Why are we still doing it?

All good questions individually or collectively, questions that need continual and constant validation.

We are still typing adventures for young Miss Grace. 

Other projects exist, but she has a way of getting under your skin, and I as much as any reader want to see a resolution, a peace or happiness be granted to this young lady.

It’s just not that easy to create it. 

Is this all going anywhere? 

Do we have a targeted end state?

We are still trying to strike a balance between the creation being the justified end in itself (Art for Art’s sake) and the peculiar need for some sort of external validation.

We’re not being needy (we hope), but the base urge to have others appreciate your work grows with each page that is finished.

I didn’t think I’d need, or indeed seek such – but I am, and I do.

Somehow this lurking spectre has grown in strength, this ghost who haunts each written page is taunting away in the shadows seeking all the sustenance of a crying Audrey Jr…!   

In the interim Book #3 Gotham is looking to being twice as long as the other two. 

It is developing into a story that is going to take much longer to tell. 

So, patience from the readership is required. 

This one is a much slower burn, a more emotive than physical journey – maybe it will be liked, maybe it won’t.

So, Audrey Jr is acknowledged and accepted, the food that she craves isn’t the blood of those sacrificed on the high alter of literature, instead she craves positive feedback, confirmation that was has been created is liked, is appreciated, is enjoyed… 

And herein lies one of the problems.

Do you write for the ego, the crying plant in the cellar, or do you write to satisfy your own curiosity and creativity? 

If you write to satisfy what the audience wants you may indeed gather plaudits garlands little massages for your ego, but each word you type will be a little cut across your back, and then eventually, inevitably, what you write will be empty meaningless ‘soap opera dead babies at Christmas’, and then once you’ve allowed such rubbish to be your output, why are you bothering?

Ah, to be appreciated for your own ‘art’…

So, five hundred or so words saying not an awful lot, other than expressing my barley supressed need for external validation and my real fear that in seeking and achieving such I could end up writing banal rubbish for which I have no emotive connection, no passion, no love…

This is a blog, not a collection of essays exploring and debating the human condition, so a coherent ending isn’t mandated, a point doesn’t have to be reached or unambiguously explained, and maybe that is the whole point, this is me and the big empty auditorium. 

My ramblings, my mutterings.

Nothing more and nothing less.

So, this blog exists, as do my writings for their own right to exist, they are my words and nothing more.

I just hope that somebody out there likes them… 

Sitting here typing away, creating a new character, and then the question hits you “What do you call protagonist THX 1138?”

I’m sure that there are proven methodologies used by the great the good and the very clever – complex algorithms that take innumerable social economic and cultural factors into consideration – and I’m sure people do that. 

I don’t.

New character. 

Government lackey, secret service kind of bloke. 

Needs a name.

Look over my right shoulder, sees a book, opens it, finds the first name, likes the name, uses it.   

Johnathon Lilburne a character following in the path already well established by Thomas Payne. 

Mister Lilburne was a Leveller of some repute, an interesting man, a name that deserved resurrection, a man not as instantly recognisable as our pamphleteer Pain(e), but one who deserved to be.   

But then I suppose we do have the locksmith come contract killer mister Wilbur Smyth, a nod to the literary giant that is indeed Wilbur Smith who must be my most recognisable name..? 

Nod given.

And when you start looking, and when you notice it, I tip my hat to innumerable characters, works of fiction, songs and poems. 

If you like the band New Model Army, the poems of Shelly and Byron, references abound.

I am that transparent. 

Flip even the hotelier, the charming suntanned Freddie is a tip to my favourite artist John Fredrick Lewis and his superb painting Lilium Auratum  displayed  (free to view) at Birmingham Art Gallery in their Pre Raphaelite section – worth an hour or so of your time.   

Anyway, our Leveller, our incarnation of John Lilburne is a agent for a department that does and indeed doesn’t exist, and he has an offer that Amy just cannot refuse – I think you’ll like it!

Oh, the book over my right shoulder “The Leveller Revolution by John Rees”. 

And yes THX1138 is a nod to a film of the same name.

We have, we think, cracked the enigma that is the one page (spoiler included) synopsis! 

Kudos to us!

In doing so we have learnt a valuable lesson, which like all truly important life lessons is blatantly self-evident after the fact.   

Yes, less is indeed more. 

You can summarise without feeling that you’ve missed everything of importance, a synopsis is indeed what it says on the tin – a summary, nothing more and indeed nothing less. 

Yet this has plagued me for longer than I care to admit.

I have struggled with what to include in my summary, what detail is needed, and indeed I have agonised about what detail to omit – omissions that if not included won’t/don’t  detract from the pithy one page ‘hook’ that you are attempting to create.

So, allusive one page document for Volume #1 and the tale of what happened when young Amy met Thomas Payne in hand what do we do now?

Now…

Now we put some genuine focused effort into a fishing trip that has thus far been unsuccessful, we project some of the confidence we have in our project into applications to (hopefully) receptive agents. 

Who will read and enjoy Amy Grace?

Our tale that is a fast paced “chase movie” set during 1884 in a world of HG Wells, Jules Verne and the Imperial British Empire.  Whatever it is, this tale isn’t a light-hearted tiptoe through the daffodils; it is an uncompromising tale about a rape committed upon a young woman; it is the tale of her struggles towards recovery, and the consuming and hollow nature of vengeance.    

So pitching our book I think that those who enjoyed books such as Child 44, the Millennium trilogy (Dragon Tattoo) or indeed those who enjoy the Song of Ice and Fire series of books will enjoy this story (and subsequent volumes).

So, hook suitably baited, off we go fishing.

 

 

28 minds, wordsmiths all, sat in a room detailing their journeys, their struggles, and amidst all these creative minds little old me. 

A cornucopia of imagination, and in their midst the interloping eater of fish finger sandwiches. 

I sat listening, absorbing, cogitating and generally pondering my place, my right to sit at the same table. 

I’m not a playwright, thespian, or published writer of any description, my only claim to comparative fame is that I occasionally read the Guardian newspaper… 

But, let us not imagine it was an unwelcome gathering, it wasn’t. 

The energy of imagination is contagious, the (near) peer exchanges invaluable. 

Folk writing books about walking tours around London, a very helpful contributor writing about the physical and spiritual aspect of pilgrimage. 

Eclectic, definitely!

What did I learn?

What was my main take-away?

Belief. 

Belief is all. 

Seek and accept feedback, relish it, bathe in the review of your work, but no matter how critical or supportive, remember that it is YOUR work and yours alone.

So, if necessary adjust, but never retreat, never stop.

Type away, tell your own tall tale, because if you don’t no one else will.

Thank you, London you were inspiring. 

 

 

It had to happen, and indeed it has. 

We’ve achieved our first bloodbath. 

The body count has just rang to the tune of six.

The pressure that was building, it’s now been released, and in doing so Amy has removed some very bad people from circulation.

So far we’ve had some near misses, some nasty  violent incidents, but today we’ve encountered out first release of Badb and the flapping of the carrion crows. 

Now six bodies lie where once they breathed walked and talked, but let us not weep for these who we have now killed. 

Rest assured they were indeed very bad people, who in the context of the story suffered their just deserts – do not mourn for their passing, it’s not needed.

Amy is in Gotham (New York) seeking to rescue Trua, trying to find a tiny pregnant fairy in a seething city of people, and buildings that reach up to the sky. 

Let us not assume that our pregnant woman is merely a passive victim unable or incapable at directing their own future – because she isn’t a mere sideshow curiosity.

Trua is also a strong (tiny) woman in command of her own destiny, as too is Charlotte

Of Charlotte more is to follow…

So, we’ve exorcised a particular demon, became as Lady Macbeth in a blood splattered hallway – the wallpaper forever ruined – and now we move on.

More will follow, more deaths, as sure as day follows night, we will shoot, stab, chop and use whatever means we have at our disposal to terminate with extreme prejudice some more very bad people and their enablers.

The Amy Grace Adventures Volume 3 Gotham are progressing nicely, thank you very much for asking.

 

Rip it up and start again…

Lyrics from a song? 

You know, I think indeed they are!

These words also reflect what’s been going on with Amy and book #3. 

We were so far in front, progress was good, all was confident and cock-a-hoop and as it should be, and then somehow an idea created itself, and this niggling thought said why don’t you change a few things? 

What was the possible harm in listening to whispered suggestion echoing around my subconscious asking why don’t you change a few things 180?

Yeah why not rip it up and start again? 

So, being the fool that we are, we listened, and we did as we were bid.

We changed victim to victor, beaten to beater, dominator to submissive, and the whole hue of the book changed. 

All the effort was poured into just two characters; just two incidents were changed. 

Two characters and two unrelated incidents were changed, and I think Gotham is now all the better for it.

We sit here reviewing the results of our labours, inevitably we ask ourselves why so obvious a thing took so long and took so much effort? 

The answer on time and effort I cannot fully answer, but for the result I can confidently state that it was most definitely worth it! 

 

De La Soul would have you believe that 3 is the magic number, but they and Aleister Crowley are wrong.

10,000 is THE magic number!

It is the milestone that counts, the progress marker from which all others hang.

It is the point, when reached, that allows you to relax a little as the story now has a beginning, has structure and the genesis of the plot etched onto the computer screen.

The blinking cursor now transformed into an impatient friend, no longer a tormenting Audrey loudly screaming “Feed Me Seymour Feed Me!”

10,000 words safely extracted from your chaos of your head, from which the impatient imagination that is thousands more words further down the line can now try to structure a joined flowing narrative.

A collection of phrases, fights, demons and blood splattered saloons all now have purpose, all now have space to tell their tales – and that is liberating. 

The first 10,000 take forever, the next 10,000 are impatient words released from the pressurised confine that now flow faster and faster from cortex to keyboard. 

Plots will flow, will expand, be titivated, be nudged to an acceptable and readable form, and some will be abandoned before after or during this process, but, it is the first 10,000 words that count.

A foundation is now complete.

Amy Grace of County Leitrim, by way of Cairo, Khartoum, Peshawar the North West Frontier and so many other places after these, is safely in New York – and nobody has died. 

Although so is Ebenezer Cochran – so, hey let’s not discount a reasonable body count just yet!

2.5 stars out of 5.

And we plod on, inexorably forward, progress maintained by accepting any motion as positive. 

It is indeed beyond a truism that glaciers move quicker across continents than I progress towards becoming a published author. 

But drip, drip, drip, we perceiver. 

We carry the nervousness of the second album as the dead dog across our shoulders – maybe it’s just a slow burn, maybe it’s one of those read twice to appreciate kind of books? 

Or, indeed possibly, just maybe, it’s not just ahead of the readership curve, possibly, maybe, it’s just not any good? 

Can you throw so many ideas into a mix and expect them all to work? 

Does one idea detract and distract from the other? 

I’m not too sure.

Doubt sits on my shoulder.

Maybe it’s a misunderstood classic? 

Maybe indeed I should just let it go, move on, have confidence in what I’ve written, and stop looking for applause that’s just not going to come?

Do I need the echo chamber validation?

But standing in the arena, with dust on my shoes, I do look up into the sea of watching faces and focus on the direction of the pointing thumbs.

Standing at the top of the ten-meter board, looking across the sharp concrete edge, the water has never looked further away. 

Tempting, but terrifying.

Unperturbed we move Amy through additional adventures in the young city of New York.  We seek allies, and we vanquish enemies while trying desperately to save our friends.

Echoes from the chasing pack are growing louder, the Latimer siblings are moving to remove the embarrassing annoyance of the woman with red hair, and that woman is…  well you’ll have to read the book to find out just what she is doing.

But, it is a less complex intertwined story than Magic, a tale that sticks to the relative simplicity of the debut.

Album three continues like its predecessors as a no holds barred, unforgiving, harsh, and at times unbelievably cruel, venture into the dark underbelly of life. 

We have Pinkerton Agents, opiate smugglers and the whiff of requited love in the air for our heroine.   

As for the curtains, yeah they’re blue as an echo of the plight of the impoverished victims of global tyranny – shhsh it’s kinda obvious…