The Turn of the Tickle

It is sometimes a strange thing being a 'creative' type. As you know, if you read this blog, I spend my time doing other things - teaching, marking (groan...), writing academic papers and essays, readings, radio interviews, etc. all of which are quite prescriptive and set-out in advance. But, as you also know, I also do my creative writing.

One thing which often occupies my mind - as it does many other writers and readers - is the concept of where ideas come from. The truth is, I don't know. Okay, sometimes the moment of inspiration is obvious: you see a news story, or see something happen in 'real' life, and there it is, the story you want to tell. But the thing which appears on the page is always changed and altered. You will have added characters, changed details, provided motivations, or explored areas that you never read about or saw. Where did they come from, eh?

In other cases, the moment of inspiration is less clear. You may be grouting the bathroom, driving to work, shaving the cat or cleaning a lamppost and, all of a sudden, poof, there it is, an idea. It appears in your brain without any warning and suddenly you have lines of prose (or poetry, if you're a poet) unspooling in your head. You try and trace what the thought was which led to the thought which led to the thought which led to the idea, but it's pointless. The aliens have beamed it into your head and there it is.

And then there is the wonder of flash fiction (yes, that again) whereby you don't even wait for the aliens, but sit down, pull up a prompt, plug your brain into your keyboard or pen, and watch the story emerge from nowhere.

None of this is news, this is the stuff writers have always talked about: the impossibility of pinning down just where the stuff we do come from. However, yesterday I reached a new level of this mystery. A friend posted a picture of an abbey on their Facebook profile. I didn't click on it to look at the larger version, I was hardly even aware that it was there in amongst all the other posts in my news feed, and yet... I felt a tickle. It wasn't inspiration, it wasn't a story, it wasn't anything more than the knowledge that if I sat down to write then this picture had a flash-fiction buried within it. I didn't know what it was, and I did my best not to think about it, but I could feel that the story was there, waiting.

And, sure enough, several hours later I sat down, had another look at the picture and then 20 minutes later I had a nice little story which I am very pleased with. Now, can somebody tell me, just where did that come from, and how did my brain known that this picture contained the seed?

Ah well, I guess if we knew the answer to those questions, then the mystery would disappear and it would all be boring and prescriptive and pointless.

Still, the whole thing has given me the inspiration for a project. Having found the strictures of NaNoWriMo to be so useful and productive, I have decided to see if I can write 31 flash-fictions in January. I'm allowing myself to count yesterday's ('The Abbey') as the first, which leaves me with 30 more to write. That's one a day with a few 2 story days in order to catch up. As best I can, I shall keep you up to date with my progress. What I would ask, though, is if you come across a phrase, a word, an image, a photo, or whatever, that you think might serve as a prompt for a story, send it through to me, and I'll see what it provokes. All prompts which lead to stories will get a public credit. (In that spirit, a public thank you to Vanessa Gebbie who's photo of Kirkstall Abbey led to last night's story.)

Oh, and if you feel like joining me on what I have christened CalFlaWriMo (Cal's Flash Writing Month) then feel free. Let me know and we can jolly each other along.

So, with all that said, here's to the next tickle!

All things post-Nano

I've been rather quiet for a while. The last stages of NaNoWriMo kept me busy, but, as you know, that finished nearly three weeks ago. So, what's the news? I hear you ask.

Well, I finished the 50,000 words required by NaNoWriMo on 28th November - 2 days before the deadline - but I have yet to actually finish the book. Without the external deadline pushing me on (plus the embarrassment of failure after all my going-on about it) it just hasn't been a priority. Plus, I already know in my head how it all ends, so the impetus to find out by writing has also dropped away. Add to that the burden of teaching and marking and it just hasn't been done. Which is not to say that nothing has been done with it. Thanks to pressure applied by my partner, Kath, I have completed all but the final chapter and the epilogue, and over the Christmas break I hope to write those too.

So what next for the Nano-book? Well, once it's finished I plan to do a quick clean-up on it, and then I'm going to send it off to anyone who wants to read it and give me feedback. If you think you might like a look, drop me a line and I'll add you to the list.

In other news, I've had more stories accepted - two in Flash and one in the delinquent - and have been doing some other writing of flash fictions.

I've also been doing some readings for the Bugged anthology, and one for the Bad Language anthology, all of which have been very rewarding. I even managed to end up on Radio Lancashire/Radio Manchester's Late Show last week, being interviewed about Bugged and writing in general for about 40 mins.

So, all in all, it's an exciting time in my writing life. When I get round to it I shall blog about all the things I learned from doing Nano - of which there are many - and about my plans for 2011. But that's for another day. Today, I shall just use the approaching end of the year to bask in the successes, and send out many thanks to all of you who have helped and supported me.

So, Kath, Elaine, Jo, Ness, Mike, Ian, Daniel, Angi, Liz, Carrie, Mignon and Becky, this blog's for you.

NaNoWriMo Day Twenty Two (Sorry, been too busy writing to blog)

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinatory):
- Oh, you know, life.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Other types of life.

Writing music used:
- Various including They Might be Giants and Little Feat.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Bringing in new character focii, despite the novel starting to head towards its end.

Important Realisation:
- That just pushing through and not caring how little you actually want to write can still be productive. Okay, so those days might need more rewriting than others, but at least the story is moving. And some of the words might just be okay.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount (according to Nano): 1,748.

Today's cumulative word goal: 36,667.
Today's actual total (according to NaNo): 42,552.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Guinness. No, not chocolate, but tasty and treaty nonetheless.

NaNoWriMo Day Thirteen

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinatory):
- Visiting my mum.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Watching tv, doing the washing-up, eating. You know, life.

Writing music used:
The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on 6 Music.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Allowing one of the character's story-lines to lie dormant for a few chapters while I followed the other one.
- To go back and delete a flash-forward I had written as it just wasn't going to work, and I was trying to skew the story in its direction, rather than letting it flow.

Important Realisation:
- That the concept of an 'Ivory Tower' for writing - a particular space, using a particular chair, and an uninterruptable block of time - which I had thought was necessary, isn't. In the last week I have taken my netbook (a new computer, not my usual 'writing' one) to a number of locations, and written equally easily in each of them. I have also written in tiny blocks, sometimes as small as 10 or 15 words between interruptions, and have still found that the story flowed.
- That a structure for writing is a wonderful thing. I have been more productive in the last 13 days than in the last 2 years.
- That my remaining wordcount for NaNoWriMo success - 21,667 - is the same as the amount I should have written by today. That feels significant but probably isn't.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount (according to Nano): 2,554.

Today's cumulative word goal: 21,667.
Today's actual total (according to NaNo): 28,333.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Oreos.

NaNoWriMo Day Nine (apologies for the break in transmission...)

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Eating tea and thinking about that the heck I was going to write tonight.

Procrastination undertaken:
- None. Ate tea and then sat right down.

Writing music used:
None.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Decided, once the opening section was over, to expand the focussed third-person narration to include new characters. Some of these may not survive.
- To just relax and have fun.
- Whenever I get bored I am allowed to blow something else up (in the book, that is...)

Important Realisation:
- That somewhere along the line, around the same time as I started teaching and studying for my PhD, that I became somewhat ashamed of writing sci-fi, action, fantasy etc. For some reason I have always allowed myself a little crime or magic realism, but this is the first really 'imaginative' fiction I have written in a while. It's incredibly character-based, but it still has aliens and zombies in it. It's nice to be back.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount: 1,676.

Today's cumulative word goal: 15,003.
Today's actual total: 20,254.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Maltesers.

NaNoWriMo Day Four

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Just getting out of bed was an effort.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Loads. Facebook, reading, watching tv, marking essays. All kinds of non-writing things.

Writing music used:
- The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- To bring other characters into the book, and start to create tension between my two leads so I can resolve it later.

Important Realisation:
- I have now written over 10,000 words and yet not even 30 mins have passed. This book might be longer than I anticipate.
- That the beginning is over, and it's time to get stuck in.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount: 2,513.

Today's cumulative word goal: 6,668.
Today's actual total: 10,096.

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Ice Cream Mars Bar.

NaNoWriMo Day Three

Important pre-writing activities undertaken (non-procrastinary):
- Student assignment marking, so that writing feels like a reward.

Procrastination undertaken:
- Looking out of the window and taking the 'Which rock musician do you most resemble?' quiz on Facebook.

Writing music used:
- None.

Important Writing Creative Decisions taken:
- Allowing myself to write chapters of different lengths. My last novel had uniform chapters of about 2000 words. In this one, because of shifting perspective, I have decided it's okay to allow short chapters of only 400 words, or longer ones of 3000 or more, if necessary.
- I'm still not happy with the male character name (thanks, Kath, for helping me clarify this thought) but I don't know what else to use. Global search and replace will sort this later.

Important Realisation:
- Writing a third person narrative with multiple characters is much different to my last novel - first person autobiographical style - not least because I get to include dialogue. I realise how much I missed that and how much I like writing dialogue.

Daily goal: 1,667.
Today's actual amount: 3,456.

Today's cumulative word goal: 5,001.
Today's actual total: 7,582

Chocolate treat to be eaten:
- Another Tesco's Cookie.