All posts by Paul

I am a self-employed writer, which means I’m working for an idiot who doesn’t pay me enough – but the holidays are great. I’m ex many occupations, from the respectable ‘career-ladder’ to disreputable “somebody’s- got-to-do-it”. All a good way of seeing someone else’s point-of-view. Best job, apart from writing, was dispatch-riding on a motorcycle in the 70s, though I’ve also enjoyed teaching, librarianship, counselling and helping to run a community-centre. Sometimes I’ve looked respectable in a suit, other times a bit more wild and woolly (though still stylish) as a biker. It’s strange how differently people treat you, depending on what you’re wearing. A suit means I’m sometimes addressed as ‘sir’, but in motorcycle leathers I’m always referred to as ‘mate.’ The worst job that I’ve done ? You really don’t want to know, but it was in a processed food manufacturer’s factory – put me off bacon, sausages and quiches for a long time, and made me look at pet food in a new way. I’m very glad that I don’t have any pictures. I’ve been writing since I was eight, when I penned a story about a desert island and attempted to compile a dictionary – as Clarissa does in my short story ‘The Moon Is Out Tonight’. I’ve written for magazines under a variety of pen-names, ghost-written a couple of biographies and had a column in a local newspaper. I used to concentrate on non-fiction of an informative, how-to instructional nature, as I’m a firm believer in the dissemination of knowledge to enable people to do things for themselves. Knowledge is power, and in these troubled times of economic downturn and increased intrusion into our lives by government agencies, its vital to know how to get through. My fictional stories also show people coping and finding ways to survive. I’m based in a Celtic nation, the county of Cornwall or Kernow. I’ve been here for twenty years, and have lived all over the country, as well as abroad in France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and the U.S.A.
Writing

Why do you write?

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I’ve completed five novels in a series about a Cornish detective. I’m making plans for the sixth story and am feeling optimistic about the future. I don’t feel like I should be doing anything else, other than writing.

I recently read Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, which while about running, is also revealing about his creativity. Murakami is very good at letting the reader into his thought processes, something he also does with the characters in his novels. Their internal dialogue is gripping, and it’s something I try to emulate with my novels.

Image result for haruki murakami

This article in Flavorwire, where famous authors give their reasons for writing, made me ponder my own motivations for writing. 

15 Famous Authors on Why They Write

I agree with what they say about it being a solace, source of happiness, a delight and a way of expressing myself on something. It also has a feeling of making my mark, leaving some trace of who I am. I’m not suggesting that I’m striving for immortality, for it’s a sad fact that a tiny number of writers are remembered by name through history.

How many of you have heard of J.P. Marquand?

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He was a hugely successful writer in the early 20th century, reaching millions of readers and winning the Pulitzer Prize for literature, yet today he’s forgotten. I came across him as an answer to a crossword clue, which might be an apt comment on the transience of success.

So, why do you do it?

Why do you write?

( Showing off is a good reason!) 

Writing

When Do You Stop Writing?

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I’ve gradually refined my working method, since returning to creative writing six years ago. With my first novel, I did some editing as I went along, but the bulk of it gripped me like a grizzly bear after I’d typed ‘The End’. Five months of editing saw me interacting with my story as a recalcitrant object, rather than an interesting crime novel, as I hunted down punctuation errors, repetitions and clumsy phrasing.

These days, after completing my fifth novel, I edit assiduously as I go along. Some writing experts recommend using a word processor not connected to the internet, which I understand if you’re easily distracted by emails and social media, but I prefer to research facts close to writing about them. I do tons of fact checking beforehand, two months worth for my last story, but there are still times when details need refining.

In this way, I don’t trouble myself with reaching a set word count each day. Nor do I worry about finishing a chapter. Instead, I’ve taken to leaving off writing when I reach an intriguing development that poses questions of the protagonists. This usually happens after many hours of writing, when I’m also feeling weary.

Several famous authors recommended a similar approach, including Ernest Hemingway, who stopped when he still had an idea about what might happen next but didn’t want to empty the well of his imagination. There’s a difference between dropping anchor to moor safely, and foundering on a reef.

I’ve also adopted a trick suggested by Thomas Edison: Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious. In this way, my brain sometimes offers solutions to a predicament while I sleep, that I wouldn’t have thought of when awake.

When do you stop yourself writing?

Writing

Stealing: My Confession

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It’s been said by various fine minds, T.S. Eliot, Steve Jobs and Alfred Tennyson included, that: ‘Good Artists copy; great artists steal.’

I don’t mean plagiarism, where long sections of a previously published work are lifted and used by an inferior writer; there have been many examples of that through the years.

Nor do I mean the alarming theft of whole ebooks which are hijacked, given a new title and published online under a pen name by ratbags wanting to profit from an author’s hard work.

No, I’m referring to when we read a phrase or see a literary technique that we can ‘borrow’ and turn to our purpose. To a large extent, we writers are magpies picking up anecdotes, interesting snippets of language and overheard conversations to decorate our own nests.

We’re always ‘on’, especially with a WIP, alert to possibilities. Just recently, I came across a couple of choice descriptions in a novel and a poem. One was in Tim Gautreaux’s fine novel The Missing where he described some dilapidated store fronts ‘faced with cupped pine boards bleeding nail rust’. I loved the idea of old dried-out timber bleeding nail rust, so purloined it to add to a scene where my protagonist detective visits a seemingly abandoned ramshackle farm, only to find the farmer dead inside, sitting mummified at his kitchen table.

A charming poem An Hour by Polish bard Czeslaw Milosz spoke of the ‘zealous hum of bees’. Yoink went I, adding it to my opening chapter where a mysterious woman is lying among the heather on a hot summer day, before going to a rendezvous with a man who will murder her.

That’s my confession!

Have any of you stolen anything juicy recently?

(Fess up—it’s good for the soul)

Writing

Finding ‘The Others’

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The latest bulletin from Zen Pencils was delivered to my inbox this morning. It’s a piece of advice from Timothy Leary, the counter-culture psychologist, author and pioneer of psychedelic drugs, about how we need to search to find ‘The Others’—fellow members of whatever tribe we belong to.

102. TIMOTHY LEARY: You aren’t like them

Then I wondered, in a whimsical way, about how I’d recognise a fellow writer out in the wild. Would they be like me, somewhat distracted and living in their fictional world, scribbling down ideas on a shopping list as they navigated the supermarket aisle. Possibly they’d be muttering to themselves, as dialogue was tried out and rejected.

In a library or bookshop, an author with a work in progress might have an expression that mixed delight at being among books, along with annoyance when they saw the works of a writer they despised and whose success they didn’t understand.

For my own part, I spend so much time alone indoors writing and editing, only venturing outside for a couple of hours a week to shop for food, that I sometimes feel like a creature on parole from a zoo’s nocturnal collection. A bushbaby blinking at the light, wondering at all of the people going about their normal business.

Reading

Authors & Their Day Jobs

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This infographic shows some famous authors who once had unconventional jobs:

Authors and Their Day Jobs: INFOGRAPHIC | GalleyCat

I think it’s intended to be inspirational, in a “well, if they can do it, so can I” way. I’ve certainly had some horrible jobs in my 65 years, including a few that were when I was on a career ladder as a librarian and teacher—rather than just doing a humdrum job to pay the bills.

The worst, and this might make vegetarians feel faint, was working in a food factory that manufactured bacon, pork pies and quiches. It was a long time ago, in the mid-70s, and I’m sure hygiene standards have improved since then—though, the factory where I worked was closed for contravening them. Everything happened on site, from slaughtering the pigs to making the product, packing it and sending it out to supermarkets.

One of my first jobs was sweeping up pigs ears and putting them in a dustbin to be used by a pork scratching maker. They do say that no part of a pig is wasted, and this was proven by my promotion to a new task. A supervisor took me into a steamy room and gave me a chain mail glove to wear on my left hand. My right hand wielded an electric knife with a rotary blade. Three black dustbins were placed in front of me. One contained 1,000 pig testicles, the others were for holding the gristly middle that I’d cut out and the meaty flesh. The gristle went to a lard manufacturer, the meat was used to make pet food.

I did this onerous task for eight hours a day. Holding onto the slippery testicles turned my hand into a claw—I could barely open it at the end of the day. It certainly made me look at my own manly body differently as I soaped myself clean in the shower!

It’s not the sort of thing that will appear on my author biography when I’m rich and famous, but I’m sure it contributed to my strength of character.

What’s the worst job you’ve done?

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Querying, Writing

Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t

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I’ve read about 30 writing handbooks in the last few years. One of the best is The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. It’s not a writing guide as such, more a motivational boot camp nag into how to overcome obstacles in the creative process.

He really knows what he’s talking about, from long and bruising experience:

Steven Pressfield – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

His website: Books | Steven Pressfield

Pressfield is closely allied with Shawn Coyne, who is his agent and quite a writing guru himself. His Story Grid method of writing a book is worth a look—it’s cheaper as an ebook.

His website: Story Grid

Together they started a publishing company called Black Irish and published a sequel to The War of Art. It’s called Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t and is available as a free audio download if you sign up to Audible.

Health

Handedness—are you Left or Right-handed?

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I spent some time researching handedness, for the plot of my third Cornish Detective novel. A dead woman has been found with a blow to her right forehead, which looks to have been struck by a left-handed assailant. The problem for my detective is that the main suspect appears to be right-handed, though he carries a shotgun in the crook of his left arm.

This set me thinking about how I use my hands, and whether I only do some things with one hand or the other. I’m right-handed, though strive to be as ambidextrous as possible just for the mental workout. It’s reckoned that 10-12% of people are left-handed, and all sorts of sweeping generalisations are made about how this affects creativity or a tendency to be better at the sciences.

By coincidence, an article came in from the Brainpickings site which referred to the writer Maria Popova teaching herself to write with her left hand; it had unexpected benefits for her: 

Beyond the tangible satisfaction of mastery painstakingly acquired, the endeavor had one unexpected and rather magical effect — it opened some strange and wonderful conduit through space and time, connecting me to the version of myself who was first learning to read and write as a child in Bulgaria. Generally lacking early childhood memories, I was suddenly electrified by a vividness of being, a vibrantly alive memory of the child’s pride and joy felt in those formative feats of the written word, of wresting boundless universes of meaning from pages filled with lines of squiggly characters.

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Intrigued by this, I had a go by compiling a list of descriptive words that I want to include in my WIP. I wrote a few in a spidery left hand, coming up with words which I might not have thought of if typing them on the keyboard—probably the most ambidextrous thing most of us do.

For some reason, I use my left hand to operate taps/faucets.

Which hand do you favour?

Writing

Quotation Marks—Why Bother?

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I took a three-year break from reading novels after I returned to creative writing. Instead, I read poetry, self-help books (I need it!), writing handbooks and authors’ memoirs. I avoided fiction, partly because of wariness about my own writing style being affected, but also because I read a novel a day for four years while keeping company with the black dog of depression—I was suffering novel overload.

The novel that regained my attention was recommended in a Guardian article about top 10 chases in literature. William Gay was a writer new to me and Twilight was the only title on the list which I hadn’t read. I like picaresque Southern Gothic thrillers, by such authors as Cormac McCarthy, Harry Crews, Barry Hannah and Flannery O’Connor, so bought a copy of Twilight on eBay for £2.

It’s everything I hoped it would be, and I was 20 pages into it before I realised that there were no quotation marks to delineate speech. It read OK without them, though I’ve seen the advice from writing gurus that readers like seeing quotation marks on the page ahead of them, as conversation is easier to digest than blocks of text. Cormac McCarthy despises most punctuation, especially quotation marks, so perhaps William Gay was influenced by him.

Here’s an extract from Twilight, to show you what I mean:

Coming into Ackerman’s Field the wagon and its curious freight accrued to itself a motley of children and barking dogs and a few dusty turtlebacked automobiles and such early risers as were stirring and possessed of enough curiosity to join the macabre parade to its ultimate end on the courthouse lawn.
Before he even stepped down from the wagon the man said, Get Sherriff Bellwether out here.
A fat man in overalls had approached the wagon. Bellwether’s done been sent for, he said. Who all is it Sandy?
The man pulled back the quilt covering with the faintest flourish, not unlike a nightmare magician offering up for consideration some sleightof-hand.
Goddamn it, Sandy, that girl’s half naked. Did you not have enough respect to cover her up?
The man they’d called Sandy spat. I ain’t Fenton Breece, Hooper. All I undertook to do was bring em in. That’s all the undertakin I aim to do. You want to handle them then you cover em up.

I quickly adapted to his style of not using quotation/speech marks, and though I paused and went back a few times to clarify the meaning of what he was saying, I’m not sure it was any more than I’d normally do if an author followed conventional practice.

One thing I’m sure of—if I tried querying a literary agent with a writing sample devoid of punctuation to show when someone was talking, it would be immediately rejected!

I’m not planning on eradicating quotation marks from my writing, but do any of you get by without them?

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Writing

Am I repeating myself—yes I am! Do you?

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I returned to creative writing in 2013, initially with short stories, novellas, poetry and song lyrics. I wrote my first novel in 2014, a crime novel and tried querying almost 200 agents and publishers with it before realising it was double the length it should be for a debut novel by an unknown author. D’oh! 

Undeterred, (I’m stubborn!), I wrote a prequel of the correct length, followed by three more stories, running into tricky problems in maintaining continuity through a series.

I came across a dilemma of saying the same thing again, which reminded me of a technique that one of my favourite crime writers Ed McBain used.

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He’s credited as a pioneer of police procedural novels, and his 87th Precinct stories use exactly the same descriptions of his cast of detectives. Protagonist Steve Carella is always introduced as: 

‘He was a big man, but not a heavy one. He gave the impression of great power, but the power was not a meaty one. It was, instead, a fine-honed muscular power.’

These brief hints at the looks and nature of his cast of characters are carried across from one book to another. They become a welcome way of refamiliarising oneself with who’s who, the thumbnail sketch a mantra.

In my series, the Cornish landscape is as much a character as my heroes and villains, and rightly so as it’s a mystical and dangerous place, with plenty of legends and natural hazards. Scores of holidaymakers are injured or killed here every year. Faced with a way of saying this again, I decided to repeat myself:

‘Cornwall could be a dangerous place, and it was usually visitors to the county who were caught out by being too relaxed in its deadly beauty. Holidaymakers tumbled off cliffs and into old mine workings or drowned in rivers and at sea.’

I also repeated myself in introducing one of the characters, a forensic pathologist called CC:

‘She was unmarried but enjoyed plenty of suitors over the years. With no children to distract her she was melded with her career—though an aged Grey Parrot kept her on the straight and narrow. The bird’s language was as colourful as CC’s own, and the pathologist’s screech of laughter reminded him of her avian companion.’

I don’t see this as laziness, and I see no point in rewriting a description just for the sake of being unique. As I found, when reading Ed McBain as a teenager, readers may well like the sense of familiarity the repetition creates.

Do any of you do this?

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