Author: Neil Bowers

Why?

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Why do we do it?

To what end do we scribble out tales, infuse words with emotion and passion?

What is our end game?

Is saying “ta-dah” I’ve written a book enough?

Is such an achievement (and it is an achievement) all that is required?

Is that the only laurel that we need? 

Or is writing that tale not the summit, but a false peak nestling at the bottom of yet more cloud covered mountains?

Do we roll our shoulders, adjust the weight of our pack and plod relentlessly onwards?

Again, what when we eventually reach the final snow-capped summit, what then?

The little cross-legged sage, what wisdom, what lessons for a fulfilling and well spent life will he cast upon us?

Will he commend us for our focus, our determination and drive, or will he lament that we missed so much of the ‘other’ that life has to offer us?

Will the singular goal of being traditionally published ever be worth it?

The pain of disappointment cuts deep, each cut is if it were the very first.

Maybe it is the wrong target.

It’s never too late to admit an error of focus/judgement, and maybe I’m only just realising what for so many others is blindingly obvious. 

Overthinker, pantster and I can be a slow learner… however even I get there in the end.

Hug those you love, hold them tight.

Stay safe and try to remain sane! 

Touching the Void

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Hard times create strong men, or so the phrase goes.

Sometimes demanding times just create that, hard times. 

No crushing pressure creates that diamond in the rough, it just creates pressure that cushes.

How do we rise after falling?

Mostly with broken bones and bruised egos.

Nothing worthy is ever easy…

At this point I’m loudly shouting, ‘feck off’ at the screen, just ‘feck off,’ ‘feck off, feck off, feck all the way off and then keep fecking all the way off.’

You can only take so much of that affirmation rubbish before you go ‘metaphorically’ postal with the world. 

With apologies to writer of the book after which we’ve titled our latest missive, what if any is the point? 

As annoying as those little sayings of affirmation and joy are (and they are) the underlying truth is one we must embrace.

First world problems are just that, the sufferings of privilege and we must learn to treat them as such.

If we accept Maslow and his hierarchy of needs – then all that ails us, all that we feel pain and suffering over are indeed the very tippity top of the pyramid.  We should feel blessed that we have such a firm foundation upon which we luxuriate and bemoan.

So, short posting, positive message – get a grip, grab some perspective, life may be uncomfortable, but its still there so we should enjoy what we’ve got, and not hold pity parties for those things we’d like.

Stay safe, stay sane and hug those that you love!   

What’s in a name? 

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It’s only a name, but then again it never really is, it’s always so much more.  Maybe that’s why writers struggle for untold numbers of hours picking just the right one for their beloved character. 

For me Amy Grace was only ever going to be called such, I felt an instant connection with the name.  John Newton’s words still resonating two hundred and something years later!

I’ve tipped my hat to hymns and pre-Raphaelite painters – John Fredrick Lewis case point. I’ve name dropped John Lilburne et others who were Levellers/Diggers from the English Civil War.  I’ve paid homage to Thomas Pain(e) a pamphleteer (blogger of the 1700’s) as one of the main characters in the Amy Grace sagas.  I’ve name dropped with such reckless abandon that to walk through ANY tale I tell, you’d do well to have a sideways glance at the naming of every character.

I reference so many aspects of my immersion in (pop) culture, that the more of my tales you read the more my musical and literary peculiarities become clearer.  My bent for history, mythology (fairy tales), art and music do indeed bleed into my stories – and why wouldn’t they?

So, when I found myself doing one of those self-dictated writing exercises where you just take an image and try to write about it, I found myself in a bit of a quandary… 

Walls of water rushed across the open fields; each wall chased by its replacement as an invisible army of artisans worked with manic speed to construct the next in line, and the next, and the next…  Lightning struck, but could highlight no gaps, thunder shook the air with a violence that stole the breath from awestruck bodies.  But nothing could compete with the walls of water for spectacle or violence. 

The storm was in ecstasy, the rain manifestation of its joy. The wind howled accompaniments to the booming thunder and flashing lightning, but nothing, nothing could hope to surpass the destruction that such a volume of falling water was bringing! 

The banshees wanted to ride the storm and scream their laments, but this was the domain of the rain, all others would have to wait their turn.  These hours belonged to the goddess of water and no challenge to her power would be permitted.  

Such power I thought must be feminine, must be the work of a female deity, and the simply must be one that I could name drop, there just must be such a suitable reference.  Rabbit hole entered, time spent and conversations with friends and colleagues steered towards the subject. 

[Top tip, don’t ask a writer what they’re thinking about unless you want to discuss something random/obscure and be pulled into the madness with them – don’t make eye contact, just grunt ‘was up’, get your coffee and walk away – it’s safer, it really is.]

Now this was only ever going to be a ‘for fun’ writing exercise.  I had no need for this scene; it was just me writing words for fun.

Background programmes ran most of the morning, little synaptic links came up with ideas, but no solutions.  Masculine gods queued for the job, the candidates numerous and plentiful.  The women frustratingly conspicuous by their absence….

I didn’t NEED to do this, this wasn’t (as already stated) a passage for a tale in progress – this was just for fun!

Anyway, after innumerable false starts and rejected names, I came up with Danu. 

Innumerable academic arguments seemed to exist as to whether indeed she did or indeed did not – she was therefore the perfect candidate.

Every trophy the wind picked up; the rain beat down.  This was her time and for Danu there would be no usurpers.

That was it.  Task complete a suitable name chosen.  

The passage was now complete; the storm was the work of a Celtic goddess called Danu – all was now good in the cosmos. 

All that energy invested for something that in all likelihood would only ever see the light of day in a blog post – her inclusion into a tall tale precarious at best.

This may explain why writing those 173 words took so long, and indeed why writers stand prouder at that little collection of words than a parent beaming at their tiny child and that first potato print painting…  

Peculiar bunch writers.

Hug those you love, remind them that indeed you do, stay safe, and continue to do your best to remain sane! 

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Neil Bowers has asserted his rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of this blog.

The writing on this blog is a work of fiction and except in the case of historical fact any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

All rights are reserved.  No part of this publication may be reproduced stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying recording or otherwise without the explicit prior permission of the Author. 

No part of this blog has been created by AI. No part of this blog is permitted for use in training AI.

The Man Comes Around.

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I am, and I remain at my core, a dyed in the wool battle hardened ‘pantster.’  It is what it is, and it is what I am.

However…

I had this idea for a story, a murder mystery, a true ‘whodunit,’ and while I was fleshing out in my mind the very embryonic basics of the story, I noticed the elephant quietly standing in the corner of the room.

IF I’m to pull off a good teasing mystery, I’m going to at the absolute very least write a framework upon which to hang my tale.

I need to plan the trail of breadcrumbs, the shocking reveals, the misdirects and the whittling down of suspects until OMG the shock reveal is confirmed. 

I may indeed hide behind semantics and self-deluding word play, but if I’m to pull off “Hanover ‘46” (working title) then a plan I must indeed make.

Never done it before – should be an interesting exercise in itself.

I’ll try to keep you updated.

Stay safe, defend your sanity, and hug those you love!  

Take No Heroes Only Inspiration

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If I were to state my literary inspirations, and limit those weavers of tales, those who’ve toyed with my imagination and left a lasting impression to just three, if I were to do that, then I’d amongst the many I’ve enjoyed over the years I’d have to highlight:

James Herbert – he wrote horror, and as a teenager I absolutely loved it.  Lapped it up. Spent all my pennies obtaining his works.  He wrote 20 something tales, The Fog, Fluke, Magic, and as I reread them years after their initial release, they still thrill me.  Tales of the extraordinary told in the world of the ordinary.  If I were to attempt the same tales, they would be twice as long (minimum) as that those presented by Mr Herbert.  I’d have overindulged my descriptive passions, where he balanced brevity with such panache.    

James Herbert takes a bow! 

Clive Barker is our second name to drop.  Longer tales than James Herbert, more descriptive fantasy and world building, but nothing is lost with it.  I picked up a copy of Imajica and I was instantly hooked.  More of his output was obtained, Weaveworld my favourite, and the bookshelf creaks to reflect my love of his craft.  Now it MUST be stated that as a rule, and we all break them, I don’t do ‘gore’, as (IMHO) splashes of blood are often used to mask a poorly told tale – not so Mr Barker.  Love his work.

Third from three, but not in matter of influence.  I have to, just absolutely must mention Terry Pratchett and his fantastical social commentary comedy and sheer entertaining brilliance.  I was given Good Omens to read (you like horror – read this) and from that moment on I was hooked.  The premise, the style of writing, the wickedly sharp humour, everything just clicked – and I just love his foot notes that go on for near pages.  I also think he’s written the only book of fiction that has managed to make me cry tears of genuine sadness. Forty odd books – love them all. 

An honorary mention must go to Jerry Ahern and his twenty-nine-book series The Survivalist – pulp fiction at its absolute best.  Whatever ‘literary’ means (and I do debate the snobbery attached to it) entertainment is key – and these books slip the brain into neutral and entertain.

In true Columbo style, one more thing, I must mention (it would be remis if I didn’t) the poetry of WH Davies, Rudyard Kipling and Percy Bysshe Shelly – a medium I’ve only ever dabbled in, but one that I very much admire. 

So, there are my names dropped.  Some names you know, some possibly you don’t, some of the more successful authors conspicuous by their absence Stephen King, Stieg Larson & Margaret Atwood et others.  I wanted to write my ‘top three’ and so I’ve stuck to that maxim.

None of which my scribbles emulate in style, and nor do I attempt to claim any sort of parity.  But I mention these writers whose prose has taken me on many an imaginative journey.  Inspiration from the above has come, and continues to motivate me to tell my tales, to purge my imagination of the stories that it creates.

My struggle continues to reach/create an audience for my work via the ‘traditional route’, and we are continuously teased with the enticing lure of ‘self-publishing’.

Option A is my preference, but B may just become the practical reality of necessity.

So, this missive must come to an end, and the lesson, the point of it all?  Read. That’s it, that’s the aspiration of this scribble.  Read.  One day you may read my scribbles, but until that day read someone else’s and enjoy the ride. 

Whatever you are doing, stay safe, remain sane, and take no heroes – only inspiration!

Oh, the book that bought a tear to my eye – Snuff (harvesting diamonds).   

TBR & WiP

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Time is indeed the stuff of life, and how we spend it is the greatest freedom and responsibility we’ll ever have.

Priorities compete, and sometimes what we should have done, what we should be doing, come second and third to what we are actually doing.

Today’s example is the great battle between that alluring pile of newly purchased books – colloquially known as the to be read pile or TBR and that other passion of the works in progress aka WiP. 

These competing piles are part of our passion for life. 

We read because life enthrals us, and we write because we have tales to tell.

My TBR is never empty, and my WiP never complete.

Yesterday, to my TBR, we added another three eclectic titles.  A book on Irish Fairy Forts, a book about Fake Heros, and finally a reread of a classic novel from my youth – James Herbert’s ‘Fog’.

Now these three recent additions won’t sit on the shelf in isolation, they join an illustrious group of other titles competing for my time.

If a book of say 80,000 words takes about eight hours to read, reading in the evenings after work and all chores of domestic life are complete, one book a week should be achievable.

I have fifteen books in my TBR. 

Assuming the one a week rhythm, that’s enough unread books to last a smidge over three months before my TBR shelf is empty – and that again assumes no new books are added (which they will be).

So, it’s safe to say that we have a lot of reading banked up. 

Then we have the near unquantifiable output that is my WiP. 

As a rule, my tall tales have the two-inch spines, they’re long reads, and even longer writes.

Sometimes the prose flows, sometimes it is an all-consuming passion that precludes all others (domesticity being exempt) and it consumes hours as a starving man eating at a free banquet voraciously eats roast chicken.

And then sometimes it feels like untold hours watching a cursor blink… 

For now, the balance is more creaking spines than tapping keys, but this will change, and the pendulum will swing the other way. 

Point of this missive?

If it makes you happy – do it.

Don’t stop doing what makes you happy.

Don’t feel you need to defend your happiness.

And most important of all, don’t assume you have to read sixty books a year AND write a million words.

Pace yourself, enjoy the ride, pause often, and keep your pursuits as varied as you can.

Hug those you love, stay safe, and try to remain sane! 

Fight Club – Rule #1

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We all know it, so let’s just not talk about it!

So, it seems, depending upon which tranche of learned wisdom you read, the No#1 rule for writing is (bizarrely enough) tell NOBODY until the project is finished, complete, polished beyond mere shining, and sat on a shelf somewhere waiting to be purchased – only then may you obtain a drum with which to bang!   

This truth I read on an agent’s website. 

Now, as with all things scribble related, an equal and opposite volume of advice exists stating that born again evangelical zeal is the bare minimum – you MUST have a website, you MUST have a Social Media presence (multi-platform is preferable) and you must parade through the streets while wearing a sandwich board and carrying a megaphone… 

Somewhere between the two isn’t truth, it’s just more bad advice.

For my twopence worth – to be taken with a liberal pinch of salt –

I’m a slow learner, but I’ll share this lesson:  Love your work, be unashamed and let the world know just what they are missing!

To thy own self be true. 

Don’t stay in your lane, NEVER only write about what you know, and NEVER, absolutely NEVER build a shrine (literal or metaphysical) to that author you really like.  Never hang on their every word, taking their mutterings and musings as the absolute and only truth – don’t, just don’t.

Take inspiration from as many sources as you can, read widely, discuss, and share wherever possible.

This book, this novel that you’ve poured your heart and soul into deserves the most authentic version of you to parade it – so speak truthfully, speak joyfully.

Buy a drum & bang it!!!

Stay safe – remain sane.

Pavlov’s dog goes to Vegas.

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That little icon, it’s so inviting, just one last hit for old times’ sake, just one trip round the world, you can control it, you know what you’re doing…

DELETE.

It’s almost an involuntary action, open your phone, click on icon of choice, dribble down chin, become angry/frustrated at the world, loose two and a half hours and have nothing to show for it afterwards.  You don’t feel better, you’re not better informed on world events, you’re not better by any objective measure.

So, you haven’t’ picked up your phone, it’s not ringing so why are you looking at it?

The realisation that your phone isn’t a vital appendage is groundbreaking and liberating.  If someone wants to talk to me it will ping or ring, if it’s silent then leave it alone – do something else!

We’ve been reading – oh the joy, the remembered pleasure of the written world taking you on an adventure.  Currently I’m in Belfast witnessing the battle between a recurring evil and a young woman trying to stop this serial killer – and it’s good.

I’m also when not reading, typing away – purging my own imagination.

The latest missive started as an opening line.  A man sitting on a pavement café in Sardinia, who is just watching the end of a day:

So little liquid, so much potential compressed into it.  It had gone cold, but he still sipped absentmindedly at his expresso.  People came; people went.  Life’s rich tapestry was a slowly changing tableau to his front. He watched but seemed to follow little.  He should have been paying rapt attention, but he wasn’t.   He was a middle-aged man in a nondescript jacket and open neck shirt sitting in a Sardinian pavement café drinking coffee.  He was sat alone, which for this café was unusual, he also had no open laptop, newspaper, or mobile phone competing for his attention, and that if noticed would have struck any viewer as strange. 

But nobody appeared to paying attention to anything.  Everything was slow, mañana personified.  The sun was lazily sinking into the sea, the fishing boats half-heartedly bobbing with the lackadaisical tide, even the evening breeze moved with all the speed of a sulking teenager… 

And good bad or indifferent this little section of prose helped pull me from the abyss that took two and a half hours of my life every day. 

I’m a pantster by trade and I’ve literally no idea where this tale is going, except it is going to Vegas because that town has always fascinated me.

Lots of tall tales have migrated towards Vegas, and HIM is no different.  We don’t know who he is, or indeed why THEY are after him, and importantly neither does he. 

HIM is my post social media project.  A dalliance into writing a short (10,000) word story.  So far, it’s working.

Oh, the tale we are weaving and the fun we are having – Intrigue, murder and a kind-hearted prostitute who doesn’t want or need rescuing.  

So, point of this missive.

Time is the stuff of life, you only have so many breaths/heartbeats etc.  You can spend two and a half hours every day doing something you don’t really enjoy, or you can delete the app and do something else. 

As a child (age spoiler) I remember a TV show imaginatively called – Wdyjsoytsagadslbi?: Why don’t you just switch off your television set and go and do something less boring instead?

Maybe the folk in the late 1970’s weren’t too far off the mark?

Stay safe, remain sane AND Wdyjsoytsagadslbi?

#176.

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Walk away, just walk away, don’t look back, never look back.

Social media, it’s a blessing, it’s a key to the great beyond, it’s potentially wonderful, but it is terribly destructive too.

The algorithm picks things for you to see, things it thinks you’ll like, and slowly but surely an echo chamber is created. 

Not just an echo chamber of things you like, but things it thinks you’ll react to.     

Save your sanity and walk away.

Negative comments and stories of sorrow woe and cruelty dominate, and you become the world you read.

You know you’re in control; no collection of ones and zeros is going to dictate your mood – but it does. 

It is pervasive and it is unrelenting – it is all of that, until you just turn it off and walk away.

Two and a half hours a day the average person spends on social media – two and half hours EVERY day!!!

Imagine if you looked at your calendar and saw two and a half hours EVERY day blocked out to read things you didn’t want to read – EVERY day, two and a half hours every day, what have we done to ourselves???

Social media truly is the SOMA of our generation, the true opiate of the masses, and I really need to go cold turkey. 

The plus, my sanity aside, is that time spent scrolling is now spent writing, is now spent reading, and I feel so much better for it – I genuinely do.

It’s not an airport, so your departure needn’t be announced, yet here we are …

Maybe I’ll go back, maybe at some point over the horizon I’ll revisit, but not just yet, it’s too much of a cesspit of sadness – it is the piss-stained wet blanket that smothers/suffocates the entire world.

For now, this is it, this is the only voice into the wilderness that I have.

So, drop by and say hello, or just have a read and mosey on past.

Stay safe, stay sane!