Tag: Fiction (Page 2 of 3)

The Dark Side of Love

6th February 2012 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Maybe it’s because I spend a large chunk of my working life writing about disastrous relationships but I’ve never been one for sugary romance. In fairness I was of a fairly cynical bent before I ever set foot in a courtroom but the last six years have not helped! The avalanche of cherubs, roses and all shades of pink that erupts so soon after Christmas these days just puts me in mind of the dentist. I listen to Jacques Brel singing Ne Me Quitte Pas and I think of barring orders and don’t get me started on the kind of stalking popularised by blokes of a vampire persuasion (see Twilight or Buffy for copious examples).

Perhaps this is why I’ve always liked films that look at the twisted side of love. Last night I was watching the unusual Hammer thriller Straight on Till Morning.

Hammer’s Straight on Till Morning

Staring Rita Tushingham and Shane Briant it’s as dysfunctional a love story as you can get. Brenda, who writes children’s stories in her spare time, leaves her home in Liverpool to go and get knocked up. Unfortunately the first bloke who gives this “ugly duckling” a second glance in swinging London happens to be a serial killer with a Peter Pan complex. He likes her coz she’s not that attractive. She likes him because he’s got a pulse. It’s not going to end well. Made in 1972, it was probably cashing in on previous successes in this very specific genre, but it’s an interesting film nonetheless, though rather stuck in its time. This isn’t Hammer’s usual fare. It really is a love story, although a twisted one and the frequent referencing of J.M. Barrie’s book gives a literate shorthand to some psychological complexity.

Straight on Till Morning though, pales in comparison with earlier explorations of this kind of theme. Another of my favourites is the 1965 adaptation of John Fowles’ The Collector.

I read the book when I first moved away from home and it’s story of a lepidopterist stalker left me paranoid for weeks afterwards. The film, starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, is a damn good literary adaptation. I still think its one of the most unsettling accounts of obsession. Freddie Clegg has watched art student Miranda Grey for half her life and becomes convinced that if he could only get her attention she could fall in love with him. When he comes into a large sum of money he decides to take action.

But to my mind the best of the bunch is the brilliant and unsettling Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell of Powell and Pressburger fame,

Made in 1960 this was the film that arguable brought Powell’s career to an end. The story of quiet, monumentally screwed up cameraman Mark, played by Carl Boehm with Anna Massey as his lodger Helen, was too dark for critics and audiences alike. It is a brutal story, though relatively tame by modern standards, but it’s also a brilliant examination of the cinematographer’s gaze and the distance both filmmakers and cinema audiences have from the subject. Once again, the central relationship at the heart of the film is a dark reflection of romantic love.

But it’s worth remembering that all three of these films are disturbing echoes of a reality that is all too common. I’ve seen way to many trials of men who killed their partner because she threatened to leave. In reality I always struggle to understand the mind of someone who would want to possess another human being to that extent. In many ways obsession is far scarier than any monster or psychopath. But there seems to be a fine line between desirable romantic passion and the time to change your phone numbers and notify the gardai. But then at this time of year I’m always the one pointing out that anonymous Valentines cards are really quite a creepy idea. But then, I don’t do sugary romance…

The Flow of the Narrative

2nd February 2012 / Abigail / 0 Comments

I was watching The Last Seduction with the Husband last night. It’s one of my favourite films. Afterwards we were jokingly wondering if this might have been the film that gave Sharon Collins the idea for her ill-judged bit of online retail. It’s doubtful. The similarities between fact and fiction are slim, to say the least, but it’s a joke we always make. After all, if Sharon had simply been one of my characters then she probably would have been influenced by one of my favourite films, I could have made her influenced by anything I wanted.

It might seem like an obvious distinction between fiction and non-fiction but it’s one that it’s all too easy to blur in the writing. Writing a book is completely different from writing a piece for a newspaper or a post for this blog about the trial while it’s going on. It’s an opportunity to stand back and look at how the story flows, to find the rhythm at it’s heart. It doesn’t feel any different telling a true story or making one up once I get down to writing. The research and planning stages might be different but once the story starts to pick up speed it’s always a question of following the narrative flow. It’s the same with characters. Whether I’m replaying in memory words and actions I know happened, that have been proved in front of a court of law, or allowing the characters to block out their own movements in the theatre of my imagination, it all comes out much the same.

I’ve remarked here before about how strange it feels seeing “characters” in the flesh when a case comes back to court. Something happens when you’ve spent weeks in front of the screen with a subject. In a way it becomes part of you, as do the dramatis personae. You can get rather possessive. With recent cases the problem’s academic. They’re live stories that will continue to develop outside the scope of my book. But today I’m more concerned with the flow of the story itself.

Why does it seem amusing that Sharon Collins might have been influenced by The Last Seduction? Because it works with the story. It underlines her mixed attempts to be a real life femme fatale by contrasting with a great fictional example. When I was writing Devil in the Red Dress I used to listen to the Last Seduction soundtrack (a great noirish jazz affair) and my movie viewing tended to revolve around Bogart and Bacall or the Coen Brothers. While I couldn’t do anything with the facts of the case or the words of the witnesses, the underlying beat to that one was most definitely Hollywood Noir with a rather comic edge.

I’m not one of those writers who has to work in silence. I’ve been a journalist for too long for surrounding babble to worry me that much but given the choice I’d rather have my choice of music than Sky News and radio bulletins. So far each book has had it’s own mp3 playlist on my laptop. Devil was smoky jazz, Death on the Hill was written to an accompaniment of mainly French pop and this new one appears to be insisting on passionate instrumentals of Irish or Russian origin. When I was working on my novel I had a different playlist for each character – it helped to keep them solid while I was still working them out. Whatever it’s content though the playlists all serve the same purpose. They’re a shortcut to the narrative flow. A way of getting to where I need to go.

At the moment, because I’m at an early stage of writing, I’m still feeling for that rhythm but I know it’s there. I think that narrative flows through life like an underground stream. We all instinctively know what works and what doesn’t, based on the facts before us and our knowledge of our fellow man. It’s that same knowledge that can lead a jury to a verdict or make a novel feel like it isn’t working. It’s that gut feeling that creates archetypes and truisms. There’s a rhythm that undercuts everything and any story has to fall into step or at least be damn good at syncopation. I’m not talking about the simple stuff that we’d always like to be true – boy gets girl, good always triumphs and evil gets it’s just deserts. It’s just real life. They’re basic rules that always affect the story no matter what you write – true crime or crime fiction, chick lit or fantasy.

At the moment I’m working on something where hearing that rhythm feels more important than ever. I don’t have the benefit of observing my characters and I can’t make them up. If I get them wrong I’m doing a disservice to a story that has, after all, already unfolded. It’s rather different from anything I’ve ever done. But I think I’ve found the melody at last, enough for me to follow until the narrative flow catches me and the story takes hold.

Back in the Saddle

11th November 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

After a break of several months I’m back into murder mode this week. Next week I’m back in court for a trial and this week I contributed to a new series on murder that’ll be shown in the New Year. After spending the summer working on fantasy, this week reality came back with a bang.

Normally when I’m working I flit between journalism and fiction easily enough. I’m used to working on both so it’s a question of what the circumstances demand and I can flick from one to the other pretty easily. This summer however I had the luxury of writing only fiction. The courts were on their summer recess and I had an October deadline to get my novel ready for my agent to send around publishers. I was free to spend my days in a world of my own creation, working on my characters and my plots…all those things that you don’t get to create as a journalist. One or two have tried but that’s not my way of doing things at all!

So I’ve been writing fiction for the past couple of months, doing the whole writer thing, sitting in my pajamas, drinking too much coffee and hardly leaving the house. It’s quite different from what’s generally required in journalism.

But that little idyll is now at an end and the day job beckons. Maybe one day I’ll make enough money from fiction to hang up the Press hat for good but for the moment the media is well and truly the day job.

It’s been a nice break but now I’m back to juggling.

The Work Has Begun!

5th November 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

I’ve been trying to get down the first scene of the new book for the past week and a half. The blank page is always a little scary but I think I was thrown by starting something so completely new. My characters were waiting in the wings ready to start the action and I knew where that action was going to take them but the opening sentences I’d tried up until today just didn’t set the scene I wanted to set.

So I fell back on that old reliable – a change of scene. This morning I packed myself up and headed into town determined to banish the blank page and make a dent in Chapter 1. I love writing at my desk at home, surrounded by all the the junk that I like to think are prompts when the muse is stubbornly absent. I’ve had the desk since I was school and it’s always been a little oasis where I know I can work. This summer when, for various reasons, I couldn’t work there to finish my last book I spent a week going absolutely distracted as I got used to my new surroundings.

But sometimes the old familiars just don’t work. It’s nice to have the luxury of a writing space at home but as a journalist I’m used to working wherever there’s desk space if a deadline is looming. With fiction I’m a little more picky, I have bolt holes that I know will always have a condusive atmosphere to get me over a hump, where I can sit undisturbed and write, preferably with a handy plug socket for when the laptop battery starts to die.

When I headed into town today though, none of the usual haunts appealed. This new book is very different to the fantasy I’ve written up to now (that’s in terms of fiction…not journalism) The character who tells this story had his own demands and I ended up in Starbucks upstairs in BT2 on Grafton Street. As I said before, I tend to be a little bit method when I’m working on a new character.

Normally the clatter of the ladies-who-lunch and the students from Trinity yattering over their lattes would keep me at bay unless there was a particularly pressing deadline. Today though it was what was needed and the words soon started filling the page. By the time I’d finished my non-fat latte (well, when in Rome and all that) I had 1100 words of an opening.

It’s only a first draft and will probably go through numerous permutations before I’m happy with it but there is no longer a blank page and the story is suddenly a concrete thing, a real “work in progress”.

Which reminds me. Having written two books using Word I decided to try out some dedicated writing software this time round. I’ve been using Word all my working life and it’s second nature but negotiating your way around a100,000 word manuscript can be a bit cumbersome to say the least. I’ve also been caught on numerous occasions when my computer crashed when I had been caught up in the flow of a scene and hadn’t saved. Even with Autosave I’d usually lose the last paragraph at least.

I use Twitter a lot these days and it’s a great place to keep up with the more techie things that are going on in the world. It hadn’t occured to me that software existed for writers – I’d heard of programmes that helped you plot a novel that seem to be marketed to all those desperate to write the next generic blockbuster but a programme that simply existed because writers aren’t necessarily best suited for the standard office word processing programmes.

I decided to investigate and found PageFour. There are a lot of these programmes out there these days but I’m happy with this one. You write directly in the programme and your work is saved as an Rich Text document. This means that your formatting will show up in whatever programme you export to when it’s time to print or send it off (in my case this will be the old reliable, Word). There are all kinds of handy little features like a search for words you over use and an easily accessible word count. But the big thing I like about it is that whenever the programme shuts down, whether you’ve closed it or it or the computer have crashed, your work is intact. When you open the programme again it’s there down to the last letter.

I’m using a trial version at the moment but I think I’ll be getting a license. I don’t normally plug stuff here but I’m surprised at how handy the programme is so I thought I’d share. I won’t be ditching Word, it’s what I use for journalism after all, but it sometimes pays to be open minded.

OK sales pitch over and I’m heading back to my chapter but it’s a good feeling to know that I’ve finally made a start and the new book is underway. Now the real work begins.

Jungian Psychology & MP3 Playlists for Building Characters

2nd November 2009 / Abigail / 1 Comment

So I’m starting the new book. For the first time in years I’m building my characters from scratch and I’m remembering all the techniques I’ve used over the years to flesh them into believable people who will help to form the plot I’ll build around them.

I grew up the child of actors and I’ll admit my approach is a little bit method but it’s always worked for me. When I first start work on a character I know them as a gut feeling, the bare bones of them. I know what they’re capable of and how they think but the surface stuff like dress sense, hair colour, height etc, etc, etc just isn’t there yet.

So there are two techniques I use again and again. They help to give a framework to the instinctive stuff that all the rest can be hung on. It might sound a bizarre or, heaven forbid, pretentious way of going about things but it works for me.

Jungian psychology mighsound a bit involved but really I’m only talking about a psychological tool used extensively by recruiters, team building coaches and their ilk. I spent a few months many years ago working for a crowd of occupational psychologists. They liked to know what made their staff tick so we were all made to do all kinds of psychometric tests, including the MBTI.

Now despite the fact that the detailed analysis of the types has always reminded me of horoscopes, the test can be a handy for building characters. Apart from the fact that, to get it, you have to answer a detailed set of questions as your character – which is always good practise before you start putting words in their mouths – it also gives you an overview of what makes your character tick. Each of the 16 types has a detailed definition which covers what kind of worker they are, what kind of romantic partner, their strengths and their weaknesses. If you don’t know them already, a detailed read gives you all the buttons you might want to press (if you’re planning on giving your character a hard time.)

I wouldn’t necessarily do the test for every character but certainly all the main ones. There are readily available free versions of the test online. The actual MBTI test is trademarked so the free versions that you find (like this one or this one) will not correspond exactly but despite what is said about them they give much the same results. Once you have the personality type that fits your character then the definitions are widely available with a bit of Googling.

I also make playlists for my main characters. I’m used to working with noise around me so I’m not one of those writers that needs absolute silence to get the words down. I always have music or the radio on while I’m working and listening to music that my character would listen to rather than my own personal taste helps to get into their heads. We all listen to music for so many different reasons; because of memories, because we identify, because we are fitting in with the herd or standing out from the crowd. Listening to their choice of music helps me see through my characters’ eyes, not to mention get into the right mood to write them.

Everyone has different ways of working. These are just two things that work for me. As of today my two main characters are personality typed and playlisted. Now the real work can begin.

Starting Again and Getting to Know New Characters

30th October 2009 / Abigail / 2 Comments

I haven’t been writing here much recently. There are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly the courts have been extremely quiet since they went back at the start of October so I haven’t been covering any trials (which I write up here as well as cover for the Sundays).

The second reason is that after finishing the novel I’ve been working on all summer I’ve been taking the time out to think about what to do next. The novel was something I’d been working on for years and finally finishing it and saying goodbye to the characters I’ve got to know better than some of the people I know in real life was a bit disorientating. The feeling was a little like the one when you’re suddenly torn away from a book that you’ve lost yourself in but more so.

I’d spent all summer living in a world of my creation and the realisation that the book was finished, the changes made and the story at an end was rather sad. These are the first characters I’ve ever fully formed, they’ll be back in sequels but never as they are in this first book. When I write them again they’ll be older, wiser, different from the innocent kids I’ve been writing about for so long. I like the way they’ll be in the next book and I’m looking forward to continuing their story but it’s still a strange feeling.

A lot of writers describe feeling down when they’ve finished a book so I presume my feelings are normal but for the moment I’ve nothing to base it against. I spent so long writing this book when it was just a dream, something I hoped to some day find a publisher for but that I was still only writing for myself. It was a welcome break from newsroom life and a story I had first come up with many, many years ago but finding a publisher was simply a dream.

This summer I came back to it as a published author. Devil had been on the shelves for some months and I had since signed up with an agent. Suddenly my private project had become part of the day job and that brought it’s own differences in the way I worked.

Now it’s finished. My agent is subbing it around publishers and all I can do is wait and turn my attentions to the next project. Not going straight back to court meant that while I was deciding on that next project there was nothing else to distract me. For the first time ever there is no manuscript to tinker on and whatever I start on next will be a completely fresh start.

I had been tossing around several different ideas since I sent off the manuscript but nothing really felt right. Then last week, having an end of the week pint with the husband we started talking about what ifs. One thing led to another and an idea started to form. By the time we had finished dinner there was a plot, two main characters and several supporting cast members. I knew my protagonist as if he was someone I’d just met and had an interesting conversation with, his female counterpart was sashaying across my mind like a memory. I knew how the story opened and the main twists the plot will take. It was an idea that excited me and that I could see had the potential to grow into a book.

So after weeks of having very little of sense to say here I finally have something new to write about. It’s going to be a bit of a departure, crime fiction instead of true crime, a genre I’ve not ventured into up till now but these characters are insistent and already feel familiar.

As I said it’s been a long time since I was at this stage with a story. I started the novel I’ve just finished almost seven years ago and back then was learning as I went. I wrote a first draft without any kind of plan, worked out that is not a method that works for me so went back to the drawing board. My characters for that book grew organically. By the time I sat down to give them a more formal planning it was like filling in a magazine quiz on a friend. It was the same with the plot.

My new characters are just that. Brand new. I’ve only had them in my head for a little over a week so now as I sit down to write I realise I don’t really know them well enough to let them run the story (yes I know that sounds a little bit loopy but honestly that is how it feels when the writing is going smoothly, as if you are simply watching events unfold). So my solution is to start from scratch and slowly get to know them.

The time honoured way is to be able to answer detailed questions on the character. This is the stage where you build a character with far more detail than you’re ever going to use in the book itself. I like having a strong character to start with, otherwise I find myself at crossroads in the plot and having to stop and decide what the character would do in that situation rather than simply knowing instinctively. So for the next week or so I will be answering questions about my characters that sound like security questions for Internet banking.

I’ll know what their favourite pet was when they were a kid, how they felt when it died (if it died), were they the kind of child that would pull the wings off flies, what they would be like as a date, what books they like to read, what music they listen to, favourite films…you get the idea. It’s a little like the getting to know you stage in a romantic relationship, when you’re both staying up all night comparing tastes. At the moment I could pick my characters out of a crowded room, by the end of this process I should know exactly what they think of the crowd.

I’ll post again when I’ve got a bit further with all of this, if not sooner. But now I’m off to start getting to know my leading man!

The Blank Page

7th October 2009 / Abigail / 1 Comment

So my novel is finished and with my agent. A whole summer of feverish writing and editing came to an end just as the first leaves fell off the sycamore tree in the back. I’m pleased with what I’ve written. I like my characters, I’ve got rid of the plot holes and the thing comes to a satisfactory conclusion. As far as I’m concerned it’s done.

I’m not saying that it’s absolutely done and dusted. It can’t be just yet. Up until it goes into print there will still be time to tweak and trim but from now on it’s not just my baby. My agent’s got it now and soon we’ll be dangling it in front of publishers to see who bites. Any changes made to the manuscript from this point in will come from either agent or eventual editor. I’ve done what I can with the images I had in my head and now it’s out there. It needs other pairs of eyes over it now.

Which leaves me with the problem of what to do while I’m waiting. I had hoped to segue happily into a nice juicy trial as the Central Criminal Court kicked off it’s new term this week. But life has a habit of not being particularly accommodating and the interesting, news worthy trial I was hoping for failed to materialise. So I’m sitting in front of my computer, staring at the wall in front of me and quietly going mad.

It seemed like a good plan to start the next book on my list to occupy myself while the novel was doing it’s thing away from me. I have plans, notes, even research on not one but two new books. There’s another true crime and another fiction (the sequel to the one that’s so recently finished).

After much deliberation I decided to let the sequel sit – for the moment at least. My characters need a rest and I need a break from the intensity of conjuring up all their emotions, fears and hopes. It’s hard not to be slightly method when you’re drafting a story. Editing gives a distance that allows a far more pragmatic approach but a first draft requires throwing oneself in head long only coming up for air when eating becomes a necessity.

So no sequel. Instead I’ve turned to the next non fiction book I want to write. It’ll be another true crime book like Devil but a bit wider in scope. I’ve high hopes for this idea and have been looking forward to working on it for months.

So why is a blank page staring back at me? I have everything in my head for this project. I know what order the chapters will go in, what sources I’ll use, all the rest of it. I even know how I’ll tell the story. But when I sit down to write, the words will only drip onto the page in sulky fits and starts.

I’ve had the same 300 words squatting in the middle of the page for a week. Occasionally I’ll move some of them around but for the most part they sit there staring at me accusingly. On their own they look a little silly, insubstantial, flimsy. They need the weight of a couple of thousand companions before they can do the job I’m giving them.

But waiting for the kettle to boil for the umpteenth cup of tea today I recognise my predicament. I’ve been here before. Every time I’ve started a book, every time I’ve started a long article, going back further, every time I started an essay. This is apparently what I do when I start a new project. This is the noisy, frustrating birth of whatever the latest project is.

I wish I could work some other way. This way is annoying and gives me a headache. But apparently this is what I do. I’ll chip away for the next hours, or possibly days, and eventually the block will shift and the words will flow the way they’re made to. In the meantime, I think I’ll make another cup of tea.

And Now For Something Completely Different!

22nd September 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

For the past couple of months I’ve had my head buried in Word as I worked on finishing my second book. As the end approached I got more and more tunnel visioned and consequently my updates here have been sporadic to say the least.

Well today I sent the finished opus off to my agent. Changes have been made, characters further developed and endings tweaked until I was as happy as I was ever going to be. I’m not saying that I will never write another word in that particular manuscript – there may be changes suggested along the way from agent or, eventually a publisher – but I am now stepping away and saying enough.

It’s been a long journey with this particular book. The opposite experience to last summers frenzy to get Devil in the Red Dress finished so that the book could be released as soon as possible after the sentencing in the trial. The new book is not a trial book. It’s fiction, fantasy fiction at that.

It comes from an idea that had it’s seeds in my childhood. The manuscript I sent to my agent today might have had very little in common with the story I wrote on my mum’s manual typewriter at the kitchen table one winter when I was about 11, but that was the genesis. One or two of the characters share names with the earlier attempt, a few bear a passing physical resemblance but the story is a totally different animal.

I’m happy with my finished draft. I think it can stand up on it’s own but ultimately it doesn’t matter what I think. From now on it’s on it’s own. I’ll be open to suggestions with any last minute tweaks but the story I wanted to write has now been written and it’s time to start something new.

For the past couple of chapters in the edit I’ve been thinking ahead to what comes next. This book will have a sequel, a few chapters of a preliminary draft already exist. Then there’s the world that this blog and Devil belong to. Mainly concerned with crime and courts.

The courts are back in a couple of weeks and I’ll need to check the diary and plan what to do next. I’ve also started thinking about a follow up to Devil but that’s a story for another day.

One thing I’ve learnt about writing over the past year or more is that it never stops. You’re either writing something or you’re thinking about writing something. There is no time when a little part of your brain isn’t looking and noticing and filing away anything that might be useful. This is just the way the mind works in this kind of job, it’s a nervous tick, a habit you get into.

I’ll miss the characters I’ve spent the summer with. They were my first, old friends who I know as well or better than people I see on a regular basis. I’ll never work with them in the same way again and that’s a little sad but I’m excited about what comes next.

It’s been a long time since I’ve explored the thrill of the blank page. I’m looking forward to the blocking and the researching and the roughing that must all come before I’m back to the polishing.

So tomorrow I’ll get up and start that something completely different. The notebooks will be unearthed from their summer resting places and I’ll be back dealing with reality. There’s a couple of weeks to get organised before the courts are back and I’m raring to go.

So I’ll be writing here more regularly from now on. The summer’s over and normal service has been resumed!

A More Fictional Kind of Murder

18th August 2009 / Abigail / 0 Comments

Today I realised one of my characters has to die. It’s a surprising realisation to come to, so late in the editing process but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It’s a sad conclusion to come to though, as this character is one of the few who’s survived since the earliest incarnation of this story. There’s even a picture of him, drawn by a family friend, an illustrator, on the back of the earliest draft of the germ of an idea back when I was only 11 or so.

All the characters feel as real as distant friends. I know their likes and dislikes, their moods, their faults. In the early days of planning I would pick out their favourite music, favourite books, favourite films. It was the same process as new friends or lovers go through…except that I was providing both answer and question. It sounds nuts, certifiable maybe, but I don’t know any other way of getting to know a character as if they are real. When it works then, once the story starts rolling, it can feel as if the characters take control and guide what direction a scene takes. Those are the days when the writing really flows.

But the axe has to be swung. It works for the plot, gives other characters more passion and is generally a good idea. I’ll miss this one but the time has come so now I’m going to have to play at murder.

The problem with the day job is that murder is something I’m rather familiar with. I’ve sat next to quite a few people who’ve killed, over the past couple of years, even spoken to a couple. As I prepare for my fictional murder a wealth of details present themselves. Do I use blunt object trauma? Strangulation? A weapon – knife, axe, slash hook?

It sounds callous, ghoulish even, but when you spend a lot of time listening to evidence in murder trials it can be difficult not to sift through the details like a connoisseur looking for the juiciest chunks. You become desensitised to the horror of forensic details. As a journalist you look at evidence in terms of the hook that will snare your reader down past the first paragraph. As a writer you look at the details, the relics of someone’s life and death as components to be filed away for future reference.

So now I’m planning my own murder from the pick n’ mix of details, real and fictional. It’s impossible to think of a knife attack without memories of dozens of post mortem accounts, the length of the blade, the angle of thrust, the difference in slicing or stabbing gestures.

If poisoning is the option do I go with historical methods – take inspiration from the Borgias perhaps – or do I tread a more familiar path – look into the poisons mentioned in the emails between the Devil in the Red Dress herself, Sharon Collins, and her Internet “hitman” Essam Eid?

I’m fond of this particular character. It’s a long and interesting association. I want the death to be a fitting one…the sacrifice will make a better book. I’ll plan the murder carefully so that it satisfies both the journalist in me and the storyteller. And then I’ll raise a glass to the fallen character and get on with the rest of the book.

A Cuckoo In the Nest

12th August 2009 / Abigail / 2 Comments

: Image via Wikipedia

Writing a book is hard work. When it goes from being a hobby, something you can take as long as you like over because the only deadlines you have are your own easily breakable ones, to something that might just might have a future, things change.

I’ve written most of my life. When I was a child I wrote stories about my toys. As an adult I became a journalist so that I could earn my living through words. I’ve written books because I had a story to tell and a dream to follow and I’ve written one as a seemingly impossible feat as publication loomed mere weeks after my story was over. Each stage has been different and each stage has taught me new things about writing.

Over the last couple of years that learning curve has been particularly steep as the words became more than something I did and became part of how I paid my rent. I’ve learnt that I can hit a deadline with a book just as I can with an article. I’ve learnt that when the whistle sounds writers block is a luxury there just isn’t time for.

I’ve also learnt that several of the things I had indulged in when I only dreamed of being a writer are actually necessary to getting the whole ball rolling. I’ve read interviews with authors over the years who talk about their obsessions with a certain kind of ink or a certain kind of paper and thought, nice work if you can get it. Those of us who hack away for a living can’t afford the luxury of being picky. Any pen and any paper will do as long as the moment isn’t missed.

Now I realise that some touchstones, some rituals are actually part and parcel of the job in hand. Writing a book isn’t like writing an article. There’s a lot more of it for a start. You have to sustain the pace and the concentration to get to the end. That’s a lot of concentration.

When I obsess about working at my desk or drinking the same kind of tea or coffee for the duration of the project in hand it’s not because I’m being pretentious, it’s because it’s one less thing to worry about.

For the past six weeks all the order, all the usual, comfortable things were displaced and I learnt another thing about writing. Writing, at least to deadline, makes you antisocial. House guests should be accepted with caution. House guests who intend to stay for six weeks and who expect life to revolve around them should be avoided at all costs.

I freely admit that I’m territorial. Who doesn’t care about their home? I grew up as an only child and like my space. Writing hasn’t caused this territoriality but it has definitely exacerbated it. But hold on a minute. When it’s my space anyway, why should I worry about getting cranky when it’s invaded? When I have a big task ahead and am at a stage where I’m a step closer to the goals I’ve had for as long as I can remember, why shouldn’t I resent someone who disregards that, who should know better.

The common cuckoo, cuculus canorus, has a rather unattractive trait. It’s a bad mother, a dirty stop out who doesn’t see the point of raising the offspring once the egg has been laid. So it finds someone else to do the job for them. The poor unsuspecting foster mother raises the cuckoo chick as her own, unaware that her own chicks have been booted out of the nest leaving a hungry, demanding monster in their place. That’s what the last six weeks have been like. Paying court to someone who took advantage of hospitality and patience while my own chicks, the book, the husband (I make no apologies other than this one for that order – there’s no deadlines with the husband!) have been pushed very firmly out of the nest.

It should have been a no brainer but this was one writing lesson I obviously still needed to learn. For that matter it was also a life lesson that had passed me by. It’s not a mistake that will be repeated.

The Books

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