Posted on

fcon by the sea: the story of a bookish fool

Now that fcon is well and truly over, convention dictates that I should write a blog post in which I drop the names of all the groovy people I met in Scarborough and talk about the cool stuff we did together… or at least the cool stuff we did near each other, or the cool stuff they did while I watched from a respectful distance. Anyway, it would be rude not to do a little blog, really, under the circumstances. I’ve been thinking for ages about what to write, and I don’t quite know where to start, or how to end, or what to say in between. I’m overwhelmed at meeting so many friendly, thoughtful, charming, engaging, fascinating, funny, and kind people all at once.  Thank you all. It was a fantastic weekend, so fantastic that I have in fact forgotten most of it already. I’m pretty sure that some of my comings and goings are fully known to no-one but the delightfully snarky concierge at the Royal Hotel Scarborough… I’m joking, of course. Even he doesn’t know everything… the only people who know everything are too dead to talk.

The very first person I bumped into on the Friday was Neil Williamson, who happens to be a person I actually know in real life. Neil sidled up to me at the bar and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing. Buying a glass of wine, I said. Neil shook his head. Amateur, he muttered. He whisked me away to James Bennett’s book launch, where he introduced me to several wonderful people, and several wonderful glasses of free wine. Amongst the people Neil introduced me to were Alistair Rennie, who turns out to be my neighbour in Edinburgh, and James Bennett, who turns out to be my neighbour in sick humour, oversharing, and excessive consumption of alcohol. That night, I gatecrashed Neil’s dinner with Ruth Booth, but she turned out to be in great demand and I lost her later when we ventured into the disco. (The less said about the disco, the better.)

I liked everyone so much that I thought I might explode with feelings. I was especially happy to meet Vince Haig, who I’ve loved since he illustrated my story, White Rabbit; and Helen Marshall, who I fangirled over like some sort of lovestruck booknerd. I took to following Vince and Helen around the con, and went to a lot of trouble to arrange things so that I’d “accidentally” turn up wherever they happened to be. Obviously I did my best to appear to be a normal person, but I think they saw through my act. At one point, Helen intimated that she may in fact have to kill me. She said that I carried within me the seeds of my own destruction – which I found quite apposite, as I had just downed several bottles of free red wine.

In my defence, I had only recently discovered that wine is free at fantasycon and simply appears before you whenever you buy a book. Or stand near a book. Or stand near Jess Jordan. It would have been cool to hang out with Jess and her partner, the talented and lovely Ray Cluley, but they kept getting away from me – though we do have plans to cause a scandal next time we’re together. Or is it that I have plans to scandalise them? One or the other. I talked to Tom Johnstone at length about my problems and opinions, which I’m sure he found completely inspirational and not at all like having an annoying drunk/hungover person talking at him non-stop for hours on end. I also spent many hours following Priya Sharma around and bending her ear about various things, which she tolerated because she is so very lovely and award-winning. Priya, Tom, Tracy Fahey, Victoria Leslie, Lynda Rucker, Rob Shearman, Maura McHugh, and my neighbour and co-panelist, Alistair Rennie, all generously tried to help and encourage me before my panel appearance on the Sunday, which I was fully dreading because of my severe lack of brains. They were all far nicer to me than I deserved, and my panel wasn’t a complete disaster. I managed to make a few jokes, and even threw in the words, ‘vagina monsters,’ so I think we can call that a win.

I bumped into Des Lewis on the seafront early Saturday morning, each of us going for a stroll and taking some pictures. At the launch of Almost Insentient, Almost Divine by DP Watt, Des told me that if I didn’t like the book, he would personally refund my money. But it seems unlikely I would give up on such a beauty. Sophie Essex took one look at my copy and the next several times I saw her she was asking me, have you seen DP Watt anywhere? I want to buy his book. Can you remember what he looks like? And I would say, not really. I remember he has dark hair, but that’s all… there’s just a blur where his face should be. I wonder if anyone has seen DP Watt – I mean, really seen him.

There was lots to do at fcon, but the readings were my favourite. Hearing Victoria Leslie read from her extraordinary novel, Bodies of Water, was actually thrilling. She read alongside Alison Littlewood, who gave us the first chapter of her novel, The Hidden People. The two books resonated weirdly together – we all wished for several hours of discussion afterwards. I also enjoyed hearing Priya Sharma read her nasty little fairytale, Egg – everyone was a little freaked out by that one. Tracy Fahey spellbound us with her old, deep story about Wild Goose Lodge. And listening to Helen Marshall not so much read, but propel her story into the world with all the force of her talent – that was cool af.

It was great to spend time with some really full-on, intense, super-clever, hilarious, unconventional, interesting women. I was lucky enough to hang out with Priya Sharma, Victoria Leslie, Laura Mauro, Cate Gardner, Rosanne Rabinowitz, Tracy Fahey, Sophie Essex, Lynda Rucker, Maura McHugh, Alison Littlewood, and Helen Marshall to name but some – each of these women alone is a brilliant talent, but put them together and you have a terrifying powerhouse of writing and artistic genius. Ideas proliferated, friendships and collaborations were initiated, and plans were put into motion. Great things are afoot amongst the women of genre… be afraid.

Biggest disappointment: All the people I didn’t get to meet, and not having enough time with those I did meet. I inflicted myself briefly on various excellent people such as James Everington, Phil Sloman, Jim McLeod, Teodor Reljic, Andrew Hook, Simon Bestwick, Emma Cosh, Sarah Watts, and the enigmatic Pam! to name but a very few (and I know I’ve forgotten loads of names along the way, sorry!)  I wanted to kidnap each and every one of them and get them into all sorts of trouble, but there just wasn’t enough time or rope, so, regrettably, I had to let many go free, unencumbered by the memory of my ingratiating smile or the chafing of the handcuffs as I declared us to be “friends forever.”

Best George: this was a tie between me (obvs) and the fabulous Georgina Kamsika. I’ve never met another proper George before! We were very happy to find one another and made immediate plans for world domination.

Best Secret moment: The highlight of the whole weekend was when Victoria Leslie and I stole Sophie Essex away to a quiet place and made her read her astonishing, remarkable poems to us. Other things happened in Secret Poetry Club that I’m not at liberty to divulge, but the genius of Sophie Essex ought not to be hidden from the world.

In conclusion: This was my first fcon and I loved it. The volunteers were friendly and fun and made everything run smoothly. The Royal Hotel was creepy and creaky, they made me gluten-free toast for breakfast, and their concierge was my best friend from the moment we met. Scarborough was gloriously sunny and weird, and running between the hotels with my arms full of books and wine and people was part of the fun. I barely slept but was running fine on alcohol and adrenaline all weekend. Also: books. And, furthermore: more books. I bought and was given several books – reviews and thoughts to come soon. In the meantime, thanks again – you’re all lovely, and charming, and I miss you already.

Posted on

bookish winter things

 

Winter is cold and depressing (my favourite). I continue to fill my empty existence with reading and writing. My field notes from January:

My Black Static story “White Rabbit” has been well received, and even garnered a very nice mention in the Guardian! It’s good to see Black Static getting some recognition in the mainstream press for its support of new and established writers. And it’s good to see genre writing given serious consideration. And my family and friends are most impressed.

Des Lewis wrote a dreamcatching review of “White Rabbit” which I thought a sensitive and telepathic reading of the story. The whole point of writing is to make that connection with other humans, so this pleases me immensely.

Work continues on the novel. The 5.30am starts don’t get any easier. I may be reaching some sort of ending, if the panic attacks and attempts to run away are anything to go by.

On reading: this is a picture of all the books I read in January, arranged left to right in order of how great I think they are. The blue book on the far left is “A Spell to Conjure Violets” by Kate Mascarenhas, and it is really, truly wonderful. A strange, clever, moving story about parallel universes, paths taken and not taken, and how to account for our mistakes. The reader is drawn in through the completely believable characterisation and setting. Mascarenhas prints and binds the books herself, beautifully, and has paperbacks of this for sale now. You can contact her via twitter – she is @flynnker and she’ll be delighted to take your order

Posted on

bong! the news

 

A brief update on what’s what and what’s not in my world… I finished the first draft of my novel at the end of the summer holidays, which meant I had three whole days of holiday left before starting back at work. I spent those days in a whirl of shock and delight and terror. It was fun. After that, I put the novel in a drawer to cook, and went to work on a couple of short stories. How exciting to write short stories again after being neck-deep in a novel! You can write them in a weekend! It’s like magic.

The first of these stories, The Art Lovers, is a nasty little tale of crime set in Italy, Greece, and London sometime in the 1970s, with our protagonist living on a Euro rail card, a student grant, and an unhealthy delusion about the nature of women. It’s due to appear in Crimewave 13, from TTA press. This is really exciting for me – I don’t often write crime stories, so to have one published in the best genre magazine in the country is an incredible privilege – and stroke of luck.

White Rabbit is the name of the second story, and I’m pretty sure it’s the best thing I’ve ever written. It’s kind of creepy, a little bit sad, and fairly psychedelic. I’ve always loved Alice in Wonderland, and this is a fairly twisted way down the rabbit hole. It’s set to appear in Black Static 50. Very excited about this one.

I’m back to editing and redrafting the novel now, which explains why I’m finally getting around to writing a blog post. Because when faced with trying to bring sense to the mess of scenes and chapters and terrible sentences and logical black holes and broken timelines, everything else suddenly seems a lot more fun. Writing my blog, cleaning the flat, disembowelling myself with a teaspoon, whatever. And yet, it has to be done. I don’t know why. It just does.

Posted on

Three things

The talented, charming, and persistent(!) Priya Sharma has tagged me in a game of blog hop called “Three things I don’t write, and three things I do.” Priya’s stories are regularly published in prestigious markets and are then invariably snapped up and published in the year’s best collections. I’m lucky enough to be sharing a table of contents with her in Salt’s forthcoming Best British Fantasy 2014.

Three things I don’t write about…

I am not remotely interested in good-looking people having romances with each other, even if they are vampires or zombies. Especially if they are vampires or zombies. As a reader, that kind of thing makes me fall asleep, and as a writer, I just haven’t got anything to say on the subject.

High fantasy, and secondary world fantasy in general, is not my thing. I might write alternate histories or futures, portal fantasies or liminal fantasies – but they always have one foot in reality, because I think a writer’s job is to comment on the world – our world. Inventing other worlds as a form of escapism is of no interest to me.

I also hardly ever write about fruit.

Three things I do…

My characters tend to be people, usually women, who have some kind of problem with reality.  This theme runs deep through all my work, and it is from this well that all my stories come bubbling up. Reality in my writing is nearly always ‘the real world’ (as opposed to a secondary or fantasy world) and the tension between consensus reality and the character’s reality is where all the interesting ideas come from.

A problem with reality might be triggered when a character experiences a head injury. I’m interested in injuries and illnesses and how they affect our experience of the world. We are our bodies, in very real and important ways. We live in our bodies. So I’m interested in how living in a compromised and hurt and injured body affects our relationship to reality.

Birds, dogs, and other animals are the messengers of the fractured realities experienced by my characters. We have such strange relationships with other creatures. They are the recipients of our great kindness along with our incredible brutality. (They can tell us a lot about what it is to be human.)

Tagging the wonderfully cool and super amazing Katrina Leno. Her YA novel, The Half Life of Molly Pierce is out now. And I really want to know her do’s and don’t’s so I can copy her and be as fabulous as she is.

 

Posted on

silence: broken

The man who lives in the apartment upstairs has a wooden leg. His dog has a little cart with wheels, strapped onto his body where his hind legs used to be. In the early mornings, the man and the dog chase each other over the hard wooden floors, and fight over a bone.

I’m just speculating.

There’s no such thing as silence. Right now I hear the high chimes of glass being poured into the recycling bin, and the rumble of the council van. The river’s white noise, rain on leaves, and the birds’ whistles. Distant voices, footsteps on the stair. The click and pop of the kettle, cooling.

I read recently a beautiful essay by Kathleen Jamie, about a trip to the Far North. She says that there she came across a silence beyond silence. And within it, her mind was suddenly clamourous with thoughts, a kind of panic, rushing heart. I would like to hear that silence, just once.

The other kinds of silence I know all too well. The silence of things left unsaid, words unwritten, dances stilled, songs stopped in the throat. Those are the silences that hang from my body like a coat, a heavy coat, too heavy to do more than shuffle around in. Those are silences I would like to shrug off me, like letting a coat slip from my shoulders. It would fall to the ground and make a sound like hundreds of pieces of cutlery dropping onto a stone floor. After that, I would speak, and tell you how I really feel.

Posted on

here i am

So the last few weeks have been crazy busy but yesterday I finally handed in three assignments, cleaned my flat (sort of), made dinner for some people, drank a lot of red wine and laughed a lot and rolled my eyes a lot at the silly things everyone was saying. And later I said goodbye to a friend who is leaving for America and never coming back. She gave me a load of stuff she didn’t want to take back with her, like curling tongs and a blanket and the biggest pack of q-tips I have ever seen. I said goodbye to her on my doorstep, and I wanted to say something big and important that she could hold on to, but I didn’t know what that might be and life isn’t really like that.

This morning I had a dream about being at a party with my best friend. We were about to go home, when another friend turned up and told us – you can’t go, I’ve got you some drugs. And the drugs were all completely legal, smart drugs. They were in the shape of big lozenges and they had words embossed on them, like Friends and Just Friends and Sweet. I had a ‘Friends’ and it made me feel really happy.

Then I woke up and I lay in bed the whole morning, reading a book. Because for the first time in weeks and weeks I didn’t have to get up and do things or worry about not having done the things. My course isn’t over yet, but it nearly is. Assuming I pass my assignments (not a given,) the worst of it is over. No more classes, none to speak of, anyway. I mean, I have to write a novel, but I would be doing that anyway. And I have two jobs now, so it’s not completely easy. But it feels like a big, horrible thing is finally done with, and now I can start to get over it.

So, here I am again.

Posted on

the opposite problem

I’ve neglected this blog a lot recently, and I’m not quite sure why. I enjoy writing posts here and talking to all of you who comment here and on facebook and elsewhere.  I think sometimes I just don’t really want to do the things that I enjoy doing, including writing. Sometimes I just want to feel the way I feel when I don’t do those things. It’s a different way of relating to the world.

Perhaps it is simply that I have grown comfortable with being alone, not really sharing much with others. Many people I know are deathly afraid of their loneliness. But I have relaxed into it as I’ve gotten older, and I have the opposite problem these days, that I sometimes fear connection with others. For me, it is so terribly painful to be misunderstood, to not be known. I guess that is a kind of loneliness, too, now that I think about it.

Of course I like to think that my inner life is more real and full of depth and meaning than any interaction with others.  You have to think like that in order to become a writer, and being a writer, you have to talk about it as though it makes you somehow special, when perhaps any introvert will feel the same way. It becomes more comfortable to be alone, to try to contain yourself and all your worlds inside your own body.

I think that when a way of being becomes safe and comfortable, it is time to change. Perhaps even to destroy, annihilate, devastate and abandon! If not, we get stuck in a ‘safe place’ with our writing, and we fail. We are too scared to throw it all out and start again. But creativity is always yin/yanging with destruction. True artistry does not spring from balanced contentment, but is the phoenix that is born from the flames as the old world burns to ashes. I’d really love to write that sentence in a less pretentious way, but there it is, that’s exactly what I want to say right now. Change or die, people. Change or die.

 

Posted on

i can smile about it now but at the time it was terrible

Yeah, bye 2011. Apart from the last couple of months, you were rubbish.

I don’t really do New Year’s resolutions, because the truth is that I’m constantly resolving to do better and change things in my life. But this new year has fallen at an auspicious time for me, a time when I am already in the process of making big changes. So that whole ‘fresh start’ thing is a nice boost.

Amongst other things, I resolve to blog more often. I mean, at least once a week. If you don’t blog once a week, then you can’t really call it a blog, can you? So there’s a public declaration of intent… feel free to kick my butt if I fail on this one.

I’ve got a load of writing goals this year, the main ones being to finish what I start, and to get these damn novels written. I have three, in varying states of unfinishedness, and I need to whip them all into shape. Apart from that, there are various other goals, some of which will remain secret, and some which are just too pedestrian to recount here. But 2012 is going to be the year when my writing career starts kicking into gear. At least, that’s the plan.

My word for the coming year is COURAGE. I often lack it, and I need a lot of it. Sometimes it takes courage just to sit down and write something, ignoring the terrible voices that seem to have a lot invested in the idea that I can’t, or shouldn’t. It takes courage to do simple things, make big decisions, ignore petty people, stay focused. I know I will have a lot of challenges this year, and I hope I’m courageous enough to do what I need to do.

And as for you in 2012? May your neurons fire without fail; may your dendrites be stimulated; may your chemicals remain balanced; may your body support all your mind’s plans; and may the mysteries descend upon you.

Posted on

the reason

I keep forgetting I have a blog. I’m sure I read somewhere that one of the first rules of being a blogger is to remember you have a blog. I expect there are lots of other rules, too, such as updating blog on a regular basis, being interesting about a variety of stuff, telling funny stories about my (non-existent) cats and so on. But I imagine the main rule about blogging is that you’ve got to blog.

A bit like writing in general, then. The big difference for me is that I have gone for most of my life without blogging. (In fact, for the best part of my life, there were no such things as blogs. There weren’t even computers for the first few years. I vividly remember wondering what the hell this ‘world wide web’ thing was that everyone was going on about. For me, blogging is a futuristic activity that makes me wonder why I’m not wearing a jet pack and eating my meals in tablet form.) In the entirety of my pre-blogging existence, I never once wished that there was a way for me to share my personal experiences and private thoughts with every single person in the whole wide world.  I was more of a heavily-padlocked-diary-hidden-under-the-loose-floorboard-guarded-by-dragons kind of a person. Blogging is a whole new world for me.

Writing, on the other hand, is central to my existence and always has been. I feel like I was born knowing how to read and write. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing both every day. If I don’t write much for a while, I get symptoms. My mental and physical health deteriorates rapidly – I become ill and unhappy and more or less want to die. It’s not an exaggeration to say that writing is the activity that gives my life meaning and purpose.

And yes, I realise that blogging is a form of writing. It’s not one that I feel completely comfortable with yet. There is something alienating about writing directly to a reader. When I write fiction, notes, poems or anything else, I’m writing for myself. Even when I’ve got a potential market in mind, the thought of sharing and selling my work is not foremost in my thoughts. It’s just me and my imagination. Unlike a blog, where I have to think about the reader and what is and isn’t appropriate to say to you, in my writing I am free to say everything, no matter how bizarre or humiliating or painful or even boring it might be.

Which is not to say that I love writing all that much, either. When the ideas and the words flow through you, it connects you up to the universe and fills you with joy. But that is rare, and the rest of the time? Not so great. I sometimes see quotes about how writers are supposed to adore writing above all things and how if you don’t spend every waking minute obsessed by writing then you’re not a real writer. And then I worry that I’m not a real writer, because I do have other interests and loves, and quite often I have to force myself to sit down and write when there are several million things I would rather be doing instead. I don’t know if I’m a real writer or not. I wish that I loved it more, that I was less lazy, that I didn’t have to keep kicking myself into action. I’m jealous of writers who have a constant passion for writing.

I don’t know if my passion is constant. I only know that when I don’t write, my life is meaningless. So that’s why I do it. So that I don’t die.

Why do you write? Do you make a distinction between ‘writing’ and ‘blogging’, or do you think that’s just a transparent attempt on my part to divert attention from the fact that I’ve neglected this blog for weeks on end? Have at it in the comments.

Posted on

not the daily george

Folks, I am reconsidering this whole blogathon thing. I am really struggling to find writing time at the moment, and I am way way way behind on critting and editing and subbing stories. I think a daily blog is just too ambitious for me right now, so I’ve decided to reel it in a bit.

From now on I’m going to be blogging twice a week, probably on Mondays and Fridays. I want to write blog posts that are interesting and entertaining, rather than ones that are rushed and full of complaints about how little writing time I have. The last thing I would want is to suck all the joy out of blogging! It is a really fun thing to do, and I love hearing from people, and I hope that by posting less frequently, there will be more here that’s worth reading and talking about.

And on that note, it’s back to work on the novel…