books

Turning the Supertanker

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

“So, you’re a writer, published anything?”

Shoulders curl in to touch each other, your gaze falls to the floor and a barely audible whisper wrapped in shame says “no.”

That’s it, its all over.  From this position there is NO recovery, you’ve been found out, you are indeed a liar, charlatan, and all-round despicable person.

Stolen Valour vibes permeate the air…

That’s kinda how it feels, maybe not how it goes, but definitely how it feels when folk ask “what’cha doing book boy, you writing a book or sumfin?”

Okay, I couldn’t resist it, yes, a little artistic licence is at play here – after all I am a writer.

The sentiment however, the feeling of despondency and disappointment they remain undiluted and true.

If I was a painter I’d show you my canvas, the result of my effort and you’d be satisfied with my claim at being an artist, so too if I picked up my guitar and played a riff so sublime the very birds from the trees flew down to join in.  At no point would a critique follow about my inability to fill the Royal Albert Hall or have my work displayed in the National Art Gallery in London – nope for those artistic outlets participation would be enough.  For those talented folk, a rendition of Malaguena or just some canvas covered in oils is the only evidence of accomplishment ever needed. 

And yet it’s different for writers.

You can’t stand there with a ream of papers and pronounce ‘ta da’ and expect accolades to fall from the heavens. 

It’s not enough to have written, to have crafted, to have taken the reader on such a journey that for weeks, maybe months later they will reminisce that one scene in the kitchen and long after the book was finished still shed a tear.  

It’s not good enough when you write to have crafted such a tale, for those words ONLY have validation, only achieve worth when they are read.

And therein dear reader of my blog is the $1,000,000 question, the true conundrum of my life. 

My art, no matter the passion of its creation, my art is without worth until it is read.

To be read is the prima facie function of a tall tale, and it is one that I am struggling with. 

I am, I know, stuck in a loop of my own making, and the success or failure of my work is completely within my control.

I can publish via Amazon (et others) and be dammed, let the tiles fall where they will, or I can strive struggle and suffer trying to hook that elusive white wale of a traditional publishing contract.

These I can do. 

Bemoaning my fate, I should indeed abandon.

It’s such a self-indulgent cop out – and reality needs to be acknowledged.

Sympathy evaporates and so too should my self-flagellation.

If I am to evoke Invictus or indeed emulate ‘the man in the arena’ then act indeed I must.

Prevarication is a comfort blanket that protects me from criticism, but it is also one that smothers out any embers of praise…

It’s slow to turn, but the supertanker is changing direction.

Thanks for listening.

Stay safe, hug those you love, and live the life that you’ve been gifted with all the passion that you possess! 

He punches and he misses…

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

We dance around the ring with aplomb, we shuffle our feet, feint a left jab, and throw a well-balanced right hook.  It’s a haymaker, if it connects then it’s all over, they will go down, the count will pass ten and victory will be ours.  But the hook it misses, their shoulder is dropped, bobs are weaved, and the bell is pinged and another fresh round declared.

Each submission I offer fails, everyone I agent, each one I select dodges and deflects, no points are landed. 

The three round fight now looks certain that it will go past ten, I just have to summon the stamina.

I’m knacked.

It was never going to be a sprint, a middle distance run possibly, but back-to-back ultra marathons never…

I’m knacked.

A towel is flapped in my face, water swilled round my mouth, garbled words of encouragement given – but I can’t hear them. 

I’m knacked.

All these rounds danced, so many shots fired and all have been misses.

I’m knacked.

The towel stops waving in front of my eyes, the bucket and stool are removed, the bell it dings to announce the start of yet another round and again I must enter the ring with the same elan as I did in round one, as I’ve done in every round.

I’m knacked.

The will to fight is still there, but it is a tyring and exhausting experience.

Dance left, dance right, dominate the centre of the ring, jab jab jab…

Maybe this round.

Maybe.

Stay safe, and whenever possible shout encouragement from the cheap seats, as this is going to be a long fight!

Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1.

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

“To sleep perchance to dream.” 

It is a wonderful quote, contextually a tenuous link, but it does pull you in the right direction.

For those that don’t know, I have incredibly poor sleep.

Rhyme and reason are all understood, and we make lifestyle accommodations to keep things in check.

Relevance to this blog and my writing?

I could say that Amy Grace suffers from terrible sleep terrors – but that would be far too artistic a lurch to try to compare our scenarios.

Her terrors are written in Aptos font 11 for those with a will to read.

Mine, mine are my own, mine to share, and mine to keep to myself.

Mine may bleed subconsciously into my writing in the same manner my unquestionable rejection of unfairness percolate into my tall tales.

Sometimes writing helps sooth the savage beast that screams into my nighttime, sometimes the tap tappity tap of the keys is just the pressure relief that my mind needs – and in that there is so much truth.

And sometimes the mental fatigue of sleep deprivation fogs my thought and holds my imagination hostage to the elusive Will-o’-the-wisp of sleep.  It is kept in view but always tauntingly just that little out of reach – and in that there is so much frustration.

So, big empty void of the internet I am currently in one of those biorhythmic troughs where sleep, sweet restful sweet sleep is absent.  Time of rest, where perchance I may just dream, this time alludes me, and my output suffers for it…

This time will pass as all things in life do, but this known burden, these rough waves I must endure.

Hug those you love, hold them tight and remember that out of darkness cometh light!

Follow that!

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

We’ve all been there, cursed by that singular slice of genius prose that we then must follow.    

What do you do, just how do you take your reader from something that is achingly beautiful – do you just stop and leave this tale as one of those unfinished masterpieces? 

No, of course you don’t. 

You stare for untold hours upon uncounted hours simultaneously celebrating and cursing that near fluke collection of words. 

Dam those typing fingers, and NEVER forget that judging your genius, sitting, standing in the wings loudly rolling their eyes is the spectre of Imposter Syndrome, a monkey that clings to your back with a tighter grip than a third animal trying to sneak into the ark…

It’s purely subjective, a beauty that rests in the eye of the beholder.

But surly at one time all writers must lift their fingers from the keys, whistle quietly to themselves and then look forlornly for a third hand to pat them on the back? 

A few times the planets have aligned, and words have just fallen into place as if they were in the writers waiting room already written patiently waiting for me, the poor teller of tall tales to find them and set them free.

I wrote such prose when I was trying to describe the hanging of a young woman for the crime of killing her newborn child.  I’d set the scene, scattered crumbs of doubt that she was guilty, laid the premise that that hanging would be a terrible crime against real justice, but that inevitably that the law that protects men would blindly proceed.

The gallows were new stripped pine, they cried, the trees that surrounded the sad scene pulled at the at the air and created a storm, rain was pulled back into the cold sky to fall as vengeful stones of ice. The little tragic body was rushed away to a shallow hole in the ground, while men with upturned collars retreated from the storm, away from the crime. Hopefully the reader sheds a tear at the cruel injustice of it all.  I did.  I do every time I reread it.  It runs over a few pages, and I am so enormously proud of my association with it.

But, back to the point in hand, what then, how do you follow whatever you consider to be the epoch of your creativity?

In this instance, being a ‘pantster’ came and bit me with a hard unforgiving tearing of soft buttock flesh.  I had no plan, no script as to what was to happen next, I’d written myself in to an emotionally exhausting corner with no apparent way out…

What to do, what to do?

True to form I drank tea, drank tea as if some sort of perverse prohibition were imminent. 

It didn’t help.

And it did.

Time to breathe is invaluable.

I had to follow this scene, so I did.

Compulsion is indeed necessity, and so I wrote what happened next, and then what happened after page 43 and took the reader all the way to page 337, and a suitable ending was created.

Of all the problems that a creative soul can ever suffer, this one is the most joyous cross to bear. 

So, this missive will end on a positive.

ENJOY the ride, you paid the money, you sought out this white knuckled adrenaline experience, best you enjoy it!

In ending, I remind all to hug those you love, tell them as often as you can just how important they are in this life that you have, and above all stay safe and do your very best to remain sane. 

Why?

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Back in the black and white days of yore, when dragons still roamed the land and the internet was dial up, all that time ago, I wrote my first book.

I scribbled words together as a rebuff to that contentious ‘best opening line’ debate.  Many enjoyable books have poor openings, and many a great opening line is the highpoint of an extremely poor tale.

It was and remains ever thus.

However, I thought to myself what if I could write an opening line, and then what if I could take a tale all the way from ‘once upon a time’ all the way to ‘the end’?

My foray, my toe dipping moment was agonised over, written, rewritten, and then rewritten again.

I quickly appreciated just how hard it is to write that killer hook.

My offer was – It wasn’t just an isolated cliché, it was more than that, it was a burst of three hot angry and buzzing 7.62mm clichés that struck him hard fast and square in the chest.  They hurt, they stung, they burnt, and just because they could, they hurt him again.

Now, the merit or otherwise of an opening line, I appreciate, is such a subjective matter that has as much to do with prevailing fashions, audience whims as it does actual artistic merit.

A good opening line, or indeed not, it taught me so many lessons beyond stringing the words together.

From this opening line I created a 45,000-word tale.

The resulting book we named after the punishment given to Sisyphus that had him rolling the stone to the top of the hill only for it to roll back down again time after time after time…  an apt metaphor I thought for the (futile) actions of NATO (et others) in the far away plains and mountains of Afghanistan. 

Sisyphus’s Burden set the precedent for all future tales insofar as it was a true ‘pantster’ creation.  It was a journey of discovery as much for the writer as it is for the reader.  This approach has remained with every other tall tale that I’ve created.  I may start with the vaguest of destinations in mind, but the route to be taken is never known. 

My next offer to the world was the result of a pleasant debate around the visual differences (if any) between SteamPunk and Goth – with a slight detour taken to discuss one of my favourite books (take a bow Mr Stoker) Dracula. 

Is this taking us anywhere?

It is, hold on, this is longer than a tweet, but definitely shorter than a book written for a long Russian Winter, so, yes, back to the plot…

If we’d cracked the opening line conundrum AND completed that oft quoted novel that we all have inside everyone of us, then book two was free of any and all constraints – and so it turned out to be.

Many say, ‘stay in your lane,’ or ‘only write what you know’ or more bluntly NEVER attempt to write from the point of view of a character you are not – i.e. a woman, a minority that kind of thing.  How these folk think fiction works – I don’t know, but these are genuinely touted mantras (shocking isn’t it!).

Never one to really understand or indeed accept the rules my next offering was written about a five foot and two inches tall woman.

I chose to write about a woman, because my setting (the late 1880’s) was most definitely a ‘mans world’ AND I chose my female character NOT to be the busty amazonian in short shorts and tight shirts, or that simpering woman always waiting to get rescued by a man, nope with Amy I wanted to avoid those tropes and cliches. 

She’s my attempt at an ‘every woman’ character, a woman that many could relate to.  She fails, she is cut, she is violently beaten and abused, but she survives.  And this theme of violence against women was one I wanted to get right, not to abuse, not to trivialise or titillate.  Cuts hurt, scars remain, and nightmares come back.

Risks are taken, and real-world consequences paid.

We added into our mix a dash of SteamPunk with an eccentric professor and a gifted flying machine, and we sprinkled this tale with a liberal dose of magic, fairy tales and Irish mythology.

The rules say that such a tale should sit around 80,000 words – volume one sits at 130,000.  You are also told NOT to write a series before you’ve managed to sell book one…  Amy and her adventures are four complete tales with a fifth in the works.

All of this may explain why I’m currently failing to succeed in the traditionally published market – an industry seemingly dominated by cold and timid souls whose idea of risk taking is commissioning yet another ‘Twilight Saga’ teenage romance by numbers missive…

Could be that, or indeed my tall tales are indeed without merit – could be option B.    

So, while we contemplate the many mysteries of the publishing world, while we stare at that knot that ties the oxcart to a wall, while all these things happen, while the sands of life trickle through the timer, while all of this (and long sentences) continues, I wish you all the best that life has to offer – stay safe and hug the ones you love!!!

An Ode to Joy!

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Love is a complex thing; some say you can easily fall out of and then right back into the maelstrom of emotions.

Perchance you can, possibly you cannot.

I think the answer for those who strive to tell tall tales, is that indeed you can.

Writing can be, even at its absolute best, a love hate relationship, each instantly interchangeable with the other.

At times paternal pride illuminates the very page you’ve written, and then as the spinning coin comes to a halt, the uppermost side is one of despondent shame.

Peculiar lot writers – maybe that’s why they’ve such a penchant for frilly shirts, opiates and dramatic “oh, I die a thousand times tonight” hand gestures… Percy Bysshe Shelly take a bow!

So, on this pendulum of extremes, where are we today?

I think I’m all doe eyed and happy.

The scribbling is a joy, the words (even the wrong ones) are all welcome.

Readers still elude me, agents still reject me, but my lover she is true and her embrace as warm and comforting as it ever was.

So, my fellow travellers – keep the faith, enjoy the ride, and stay safe!

Ending with a whimper…?

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

And so, 2024 ends, and we are tempted to score it out of ten (but we won’t).

We survived, we are still here, and that must be the overriding positive.

Life didn’t give us the garlands we sought, but neither did it kill us off in page 252 like some supporting character that had outlived their purpose. 

Aspirations are just that, they are things that would be nice, but they are not what defines us.

We are many things, and not yet succeeding in the ambitious pursuit of a dream cannot be the metric that dictates our worth. The journey thus far has taught us many lessons, some only realised long after the event finished, but slow learner or not, the points have been accepted and where in my gift to do so changes made.

Maybe my dream is only ever meant to be that – a flight of fancy, a fantasy willo the wisp always just that little bit out of reach – possibly that could indeed be true…

Or, we can get knocked down, and rise each time, our pride dented, but our face even if marked by blood and sweat will be so marked in a noble cause.

We aim never be one of those cold and timid souls that never fail because they’ve never tried. Our time in the ‘Arena’ may be a struggle under the gaze of an indifferent audience, but it will always be a noble pursuit to share our art.

And is my painting frightening, does my brushwork reflect the skill and subtlety of a three-year-olds potato print proudly displayed on the side of a fridge?

Possibly.

Although I’d like to think of my writing as a portrait painted with words, then it would be a suitably crafted pre-Raphaelite whimsy romantic where Ophelia doesn’t have flowers in her hand, but a blood-stained dagger. I have a flouncy shirt – so possibly an evening spent by a Swiss lake consuming opiates telling tall tales will follow…?

So, my dear lost readers, fear not, we will square our jaw to the wind, take the knocks and soldier on.

Hug those you love and stay safe – oh, and Happy Christmas!

Stuck in a rut.

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Can’t go forward, can’t really go backwards either – too much ground has been travelled, too much blood sweat and tears shed to get us to this point. 

The revelation that I’m an appalling salesman isn’t the shock it could be. 

Self-deprecation take a bow; the stage is yours!

We have submissions waiting to ‘time out,’ and once the calendar has ticked the necessary days and the expected silence prevails, we will have to have a serious and long hard look at what we are trying (and failing) to achieve.

Does it mean the project is dead?

No.

But it does mean we’re going to have a long hard and brutally honest review of just how we got to this point.

What is good will be kept and polished, and what is not will alas be cast asunder.

Best I get that bit right!

So, anyway, thanks for listening, and as ever I urge you to hug the ones you love, to stay safe and remain sane.

(3) The Magic Number

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

It’s three, we all know three is indeed the magic number, De La Soul told us so.  Indeed, some of us with a Pythonesque bent also know that the number of ‘the counting shall be three,’ not two, nor indeed four – three is indeed the number of choice!

So it goes too with my applications. 

I try to keep three plates spinning, irons in the fire, horses saddled or whatever your image of choice is – I try to keep it at three.

Some, I hear, follow the love bomb maxim, and opening the Writers & Artists Yearbook, they start at ‘A’ and ping away to all until they get to the end of ‘Z.’

As I have yet to find success with my method – I’m in no position to criticise anyone who follows an alternative – if it works, good for you.    

My approach is slow. 

Methodical, scrupulously catalogued and recorded, but slow.

My first application back in 2016 was a nervous affair.

I sent my pitch to one agent, just one agent and I waited, and I waited… eighty-two days later they replied with a very polite (and generic) NO.

I then went into a naval gazing tailspin of introspection and critical analysis as to why my agent of choice would say NO, I mean how could they, the project is pure brilliance…?

All scribblers must go through similar contractions, all must fight off the clinging monkey of self-doubt, all must then try and correct the imagined wrongs.

This I’ve been doing ever since.

Must be the pitch – change it.

Nope, it’s the one-page synopsis – rewrite it.

Is it the pithy biography?  Not too sure – change it.

Ah, it must be the opening pages, they don’t pull you in, the burn is too slow – major rewrite completed.

Admittedly the applications I ping off now are immeasurably better than version #1 – and so they should be, but still despite the shots fired I’ve still to hit home.

Social media is littered with writers who tell of years upon years trying to succeed with their project only to be rejected/ignored time after time – yet they don’t give up, they eventually find success.

One yes is all it will take.

So, keeping the magic number at three and second guessing where each application fails, I will amend and adjust as I go.

Just one, it’s all I want, just one YES.

Stay safe – remain sane and always remind the ones that you love that you do indeed love them to the moon and back.

Brevity my dear boy, brevity.

/ Neil Bowers / Leave a comment

Okay, this missive is different.

This offering a musing on life the universe and just how long should a book be – oh, and what other books is yours (Amy Grace: Payne) like?

That’s a lot to chew.

I remember at school learning the formula for minimising the metal area of a can and maximising the volume of liquid it could hold – all very useful for maximising profit.

Books it seems follow the same rules, all be it with easier maths.

Popular consensus sits as a good work of fiction sitting somewhere between 80,000 and 90,000 words.

Padding is allowed for Sci-Fi or Fantasy novels – to allow for world building, but it is accepted ONLY under duress.

Okay, them are the rules.

So, the above in mind, what books are yours like?

Hmmm.  Can’t be too pretentious, can’t offer anything obscure as nobody will get the reference, but at the same time if I compare with a known and successful book the accusation may be that I’m claiming some sort of equivalence beyond my proven abilities?

Good questions all.

Me, I’ve taken four books as reference, and I’ll briefly explain each as we go.

#1.  A Falcon Flies: Wilbur Smith (176,000 words).

This is a sweeping historic drama dealing with cruelties of slavery with a strong female lead – Dr Robyn Ballantyne.  We deal with dark subject matter AND a man writes with a female lead. 

#2.  The Alienist: Caleb Carr (152,000 words).

A good historic crime drama dealing with the unpalatable themes of child prostitution and murder.  Sold by the hundredweight – as repulsive as the theme was people read and enjoyed it.

#3.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: Stieg Larsson (116,000 words).

A superb noir tale with an incredibly strong female lead.  We have rape, murder and torture – but still this book sold and sold and sold and sold…

#4.  The Clan of the Cave Bear: Jean M. Auel (123,000 words). 

A strong female protagonist who grows in self-reliance as the tale progresses.  An initial offering that spawned a whole series – one woman finding her way in the world. 

The keen eyed amongst you will have noted two things.

One – ALL the books come in over the (arbitrary) figure of 80-90,000 words, and ALL have very strong female characters. 

Is that a chip on his shoulder?

I think it’s a bee in his bonnet!

Amy Grace: Payne comes in at 130,000 words. 

It takes that many words, because that’s how many words it takes to tell the tale. 

I could trim it down like a blockbuster film being shown on terrestrial TV – but we all know that these versions are never as good as the cinema showing. 

To meet the 90,000-word upper limit I’d need to drop 40,000 words.

At 250 words a page, that’s some 160 pages! 

That’s nearly a third of the novel…

Yes, a good editor will help to improve the brevity, highlight any duplication – but 40,000 words?!?!

What to do, what to do…

The art is good – it is. 

The telling is good – it is.

The tale is at times dark – indeed it is.

There is no Disneyfication of suffering, no exploitation or trivialising of pain – there is instead honesty and heartfelt sympathy.

So, it seems I must continue to rage against the machine – continue to hope against hope that I can convince others of the merit of this told tale.

We can hope.

Down, but not out.

Hug those you love and keep them close – stay safe and remain sane!