Mock Duck

Grumpy Post

I have been thinking again about why people write and why so many want to write novels.

Apparently, according to a poll now receding into the dim and distant, being a novelist outstrips acting or sporting achievements as to top-desired occupation. Is it the fantasy of an endless round of coffee-shops and staring into space or the lure of JK's billions that have set the public imagination on fire?

I admire anyone who sets out to write a novel. It takes bloody forever, it's lonely and the endless polishing, editing and searching for "its/it's" is enough to drive a previously happy person straight to the lunatic asylum.

True, as a writer I know says, it's not like ploughing fields. Why all this fuss? But, on the other hand, it's a weirdly solipsistic thing to do. It isn't really grasping life, as such. Writers aren't the kind of people who wake up yelling "Aha! I'm off to grab some life this morning." They are far more likely to be on the internet tetchily checking their Amazon ranking over their glowering expresso.

Fictionbitch recently wrote an interesting post on the trend nowadays to talk about the "craft" rather than the "art" of writing.

In true grumpy spirit I've decided that I dislike both terms.

I suppose, what these terms represent is two positions. That writing is somehow elitist, higher, a talent, touched by - what? - inspiration maybe. Or the more proletarian idea that writing is open to anyone and is about hard graft and should be taught by a set of grim-faced tutors with a rule book.

You see these positions particularly exemplified by writing forums, which seem to take advantage of everyone's insecurity or fragility or even just desperation to be published to be dogmatic and soulless.

If I hear one more time "you need to know the rules in order to break them" I think I will scream.

There is someone I admire very much on a writing forum. She is truly creative, playing with her work, ripping things out, changing the gender of her characters for a laugh, telling the whole thing from the pov of a hatstand...you name it, she transgresses happily across it. And her work has a sparkle of pure brilliance. Original and surprising, never pretentious - always genuine.

What she has, it seems to me, is worth a million rules: True creativity and just a genuine playfulness of mind, and a huge pleasure in her work. She is a genuine writer. Whether published or not, whether she gains a readership or not. She remains the real deal.

"Art" or "craft" - it doesn't really matter what you call it. Keeping hold of playfulness, curiosity, fun in the face of nay-sayers and rule-book bangers and those who prowl the internet claiming to be in the know. That's the real challenge.

Sending out the Mortuary

So, on to the council...

I went to a council swimming pool and found the changing room was covered in blood. There was blood on the floor, blood splattered on the lockers, blood in the sinks. I covered myself, shivering in a towel and tottered out into reception.

"Umm, I think someone might have cut themselves or had a nosebleed in there," I said. "There's blood all over the place."

"Oh, ok, I'll get someone over."

A few minutes later, an attendant appeared with a hose. "Here we go," he said, cheerfully, and swooshed the hose about the floor (and my naked feet).

Somehow I didn't feel much like a swim after that. So I changed in a cubicle and went back in. But there was still blood all over the place - on the lockers, in the sinks, on a wall...so I went home and wondered what to do. Somehow I couldn't believe that was how you clean up a load of blood. Plus I wasn't sure whether it had got onto me. After a quick shower, I decided to phone the company that runs the gym. No, there was no-one there who could answer that question and no, no-one could tell me when there might be someone there who could answer that question, etc etc. I decided to phone the council and see what they usually recommend for cleaning up blood.

"Hello, is that Environmental Health?"
"Yes."
"I was just phoning to enquire about what kind of policies you have in place for cleaning stuff like blood in public facilities."
"How do you mean Ma'am." (He really did say "Ma-am", not in a John Gieldgud type way but in a stern serious authoritative emergency-type way, like someone performing electro-somethingorother (you know the thing with the chest pads) off ER or something. Maybe it's "Mam", but that would look like he's addressing his mother, which isn't right at all.)
"Well, I went to the gym just now and there was some blood in the changing rooms and when I told them they just sort of swooshed it around a bit with a hose, but no disinfectant or anything and there was still some on the wall and in the sink and..."
"What do you want me to do about it Ma'am?"
"Well I just wondered if you had any policy..."
"You want me to call the mortuary, Ma'am?"
"What?"
"The mortuary, Ma'am."
"That seems a tad extreme."
"That's the only thing we can do, Ma'am."

At this point I sat in silence for a while, trying to digest this piece of information. I mean this is the Edinburgh City Council we are talking about here, not CSI Miami. It's hard enough to get them to send one of those little road sweeper things to clear the rubbish off the pavements. Actually, I'm being unfair - it's easier to get hold of one of those little road sweepery type things than to find a particular department on the telephone. In fact, even they can't seem to find their own departments on the telephone.

"The mortuary?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"I think you might have misunderstood me."
"No, I understand, Ma'am. So you want me to send the mortuary Ma'am?"
"But there isn't a body!"
"They're the only one's with the right chemicals, Ma'am. Do you want me to send the mortuary, Ma'am?"
"Don't you think that's a little bit of overkill?"
"Well, what do you want me to do, Ma'am?"
"I thought perhaps you could just tell me your policy..."
"It's the mortuary or nothing Ma'am."
(This is the point I begin to lose my temper.)
"You are seriously telling me that a small child has a nose-bleed at primary school and you send out the flipping MORTUARY?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"That is totally ridiculous!"
(Now he starts losing his temper.)
"Do you want to terminate this phonecall?"
"Eh? I just want your policy on cleaning up blood."
"I told you, I can send out - "
"- the mortuary, yes I know. Look, can I speak to someone else?"
"Why?"
(Because you are obviously a total cretin.)
"Err...just about another matter..."
"What do you want me to do about the mort-"
"- Just hold the mortuary for the moment."
"So you don't want to take this forward?"
"No, that's ok. Thanks. So, can I speak to someone else?"
(Anyone else.)
Pause.
"Just a minute, Ma'am."

I hold my breath.

"Hello?"
"Hello!" (Oh please be a remotely normal person?) "Umm, I was speaking to...him..just now and..."
I explained the situation.
"Ah."
"I wasn't sure the mortuary was strictly-speaking necessary - in this case."
"Err. No. Sorry about that. He's new."
"I see."
"Gets a bit...carried away."
I'll say.
"So, about this situation - do you have a policy?"
"Oh no."
"But they are council gyms?"
"You'd have to speak to the company that runs them."
"But no one will speak to me."
"Ah well."
"So there is nothing the council will do?"
"No."
"Although it's your responsibility and a public facility."
"We don't deal with them."
"But you are environmental health and they are your gyms."
"We don't deal with them."
"So you said."(I'm fuming now.)
"I'm sorry, do you want to terminate this phonecall?"
"No I don't!"
"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you want me to do?"
(Attempt to withhold expletive.)
"I tell you what I want you to do! - I want you to send out the fucking mortuary!"

(As I don't have a tape recorder brain I suppose this should be counted as "fictitious" although let me tell you that the real event was even MORE ridiculous...I got even MORE heated and frustrated and the "Ma'am" guy was even more annoying and went on about calling out the mortuary with even MORE frequency. In fact the first time I asked to be handed over, he wouldn't. So I had to phone back several hours later - and got him again! So this is a bit of a condensed version of events. TThe difference between an amusing anecdote and an actuality that saw me beating the telephone against my head in anger. They say comedy is just tragedy speeded up...)

Extremes, Flaws and Imperfections

At last!

I've been trying to write book two since Christmas. And it hasn't been going well, probably because I've just felt too agitated and sad about other things (not to do with writing). But suddenly, it is like the sun has come out and the mind has started firing on all cylinders again. What a great feeling! Let's hope it lasts.

It has to be one of the most perverse ideas I've come up with yet, but maybe that's the key. I remember (oh here we go about forums again) having a debate with someone about what works for us in writing. He said that it is all about balance. That if people can pick out all sorts of flaws and extremes then it isn't working. And I remember thinking at the time how that is the opposite of what I like...I like the extremes. If it is ornate - I want it suffocatingly ornate. If it is pared back - I want it dry as a biscuit. I want to pick up something and think "what is this?" not "oh good it's another one of those".

And above all I want bold. I want to feel the thing is trying something out. I don't particularly care if it succeeds or fails. In fact, some of things I love most don't totally come off. Perhaps it is the stuff that doesn't come off that can be so inspiring - because it remains tantalisingly intriguing - can it be made to work? Why doesn't it quite work? The loose end is like a door into the whole, that invites you in analytically as well as just receiving the thing passively like a viewer.

Some things that work, that are perfect in their genre or form, I can admire...but it is as though they are closed - a perfect crystal with all doors and access shut.

Everything I like - art, music, books - have this imperfect quality.  But everything I really like have the same feeling and all I can define it as is that they have their own character - like a person. And who likes perfection in people? 

Oh hell, I'll get onto Edinburgh City Council, I promise...(I can hear the uproar now!)

Give me a minute...

From the Onion

Having just completed the Vulpes Libris news, I had to link to this fantastic piece in the The Onion about the Novelist's Guild of America Strike (do you think that eternally pending piece on Edinburgh City Council is not exactly inspiring me? Hmmm?):

The Novelists Guild of America strike, now entering its fourth month, has had no impact on the nation at all, sources reported Tuesday.

...America's economy (has not) seen any adverse effects whatsoever, as consumers easily adjust to the sudden cessation of any bold new sprawling works of fiction or taut psychological character studies

...So far, sources say, no one has attempted to cross the picket lines, most of which are located in private homes. However, unconfirmed reports indicate that at least one novelist may be breaking the strike by writing under the pseudonym "Richard Bachman."

"We must, as a people, achieve a resolution to this strike soon," novelist David Foster Wallace said at a rally Monday at Pomona College in Claremont, CA, where he is a professor. "The thought of this country being deprived of its only source of book-length fiction is enough to give one the howling fantods."

"I thank you both for coming," he added. (Read it all here.)

Thanks Moira!

My Blog. My Freedom of Speech

So, onto the thorny issue of censorship.

Anyone who empathised with my "Love Affair With Writing Forums" post will be familiar with the cry of "Freedom of Speech" cropping up time and time again on internet forums. Usually when someone is mouthing off at someone else.

"Remember the noble dissidents silenced by totalitarian regimes," you are told by someone defending their "right" to call someone a "stupid c**t".

But I suppose that is the point of Freedom of Speech. That it isn't about whether something is noble or dissenting or not. Or whether the speaker is cretinous and insulting. Its about letting the cretinous and insulting through in order to protect the noble and dissenting. Or is it?

Rowan Atkinson famously said when campaigning about the proposed new anti incitement to religious hatred legislation "the right to offend is far more important than a right not to be offended." Which actually changes things a bit. Not only is Freedom of Speech seen to be a necessary protector of the good and the noble, but is just generally A Good Thing. The implication is that anything worth saying is bound to insult someone, so insulting people is simply necessary in a free society.

And being an argumentative so-and-so, I kind of agree with that. Not only do I think it is not what people say but the way that they say it that is important, but I believe that people should be able to express themselves - in words - in any way they see fit. And slag people and things and ideas off too.

And so onto the dilemma. So what of people expressing themselves on my blog? What about when people on forums can hardly get a word in edgeways without being shouted down by the trolls? What about people verbally bullied or insulted on the internet? What about if someone came round to my house and started slagging off my family, or - shock horror! - my dog?

Is their right to offend greater than my right to chuck them out?

A few years ago, one of the big papers in Ireland had a scandal because one of their journalists wrote an opinion piece about the paralympics. As I can't find the entire article now, here's a quote courtesy of Wikipedia, if you want to read the rest of what Wikipedia has to say about it go here.

"It is time to suggest that these so-called Paralympics . . . are - well, one hesitates to say 'grotesque'. One will only say 'perverse'…Surely physical competition is about finding the best - the fastest, strongest, highest, all that. It is not about finding someone who can wobble his way around a track in a wheelchair, or who can swim from one end of a pool to the other by Braille."

Whatever you think about the Paralympics (and I would argue they are a damn sight more interesting to watch than the normal Olympics which IS seriously boring in every single way you care to mention) the whole tone of this article is...well...just off really, isn't it? After a huge furore where the paper initially defended it, there was an apology made (due, it was suggested, to pressure from advertisers) and the journalist resigned. At the time, I remember a lot of "Freedom of Speech!" articles popping up in various magazines in Dublin. (Ok, one magazine. But enough of that already.)

But is it really a Freedom of Speech issue?

How many of us ever get the chance to chunder on about our own little prejudices in the national newspapers? How many of us are ever allowed through the gate-keepers' port-cullises to have access to a large audience in front of which to air our views? How come she has this right to Freedom of Speech but nobody even THOUGHT to publish MY - extremely interesting - thoughts on the paralympics in the national newspapers?

Surely, this is not so much a Freedom of Speech issue, but an editorial issue.

If a paper chooses to run lots of pieces giving across distasteful views, it is their choice to do so. But they can't stand back and pretend it isn't their choice or that it is about "Freedom of Speech". Freedom of speech is about not banning things, it means people have the right to say what they think on their own platform: it does not necessarily mean going "here you are, have a soapbox and a megaphone and represent us while you are at it" to someone spouting all sorts of crap.

Would it be a Freedom of Speech issue if the magazines decided to refrain from slagging off female politicians for their lack of sartorial elegance or stopped being so obsessed with celebrity gussets as they fall out of cars?

"The right to offend is far more important than a right not to be offended." I can't say how much I agree with this and hence am willing to put up with any number of celebrity gussets to prove it. This is what tolerance is all about, after all, and I must do my share!

I totally support Rowan Atkinson's points in his campaign about that piece of legislation. But that is law. The law must uphold people's freedoms to say what they want. To make fun of what they want. To swear or use insulting words if they want to. Something that Stewart Lee brilliantly rammed home in his stand-up show at the Edinburgh Festival 2 years ago after the whole Jerry Springer the Opera debacle. That is not just important, but key to debate and expression and should be enshrined at the heart of our society.

But that doesn't mean everyone on the internet has a right to be heard on someone ELSE's platform. When it comes to forums and newspapers and blogs and people's dinner parties - it's totally up to the person who runs the forum: the editor, the blogger or the person who has invited everyone round for tea.

On my site - this site - I exercise editorial control. I can say what I want. And you can say what you like on your own blog. You can even try saying what you like here too if you like. If you say something rude, I probably won't delete you. If you disagreed vehemently about an issue I certainly won't turn a hair. I may even allow you to slag me off. But if you say something really foul and nasty about someone else I value I will probably chuck you off in an instant...umm, I think...

I'd definitely chuck you out my house if you slagged off my dog. ;)

 

I would like to thank God, my mother...

I'm proud of this one. Actually I'm pretty proud of everything on Vulpes. Like some sort of obnoxious clucky mother endlessly bragging about the fact their child has learnt to use a potty or something. But still. Vulpes is really quite a lot of hard work and involves a fair amount of organisation and general wrangling about how we do things, so sometimes, when I stand back, I feel really quite proud of everyone involved: a nice group of people altogether.

But that's enough of the sentiment from me this morning. (I have a horrible hangover - don't ask - and STILL haven't got round to putting together my fascinating anecdote about Edinburgh City Council...I know you are on the edge of your seats waiting for that one.)

But, in the meantime, here is my interview with Catherine O'Flynn. As she was being interviewed over email from various departure lounges around the world and across some weeks, I was terrified, when it came to it, that I hadn't asked her enough questions and the thing wouldn't hang together at all. But when I managed to combine all the disparate emails...I think the result is not just interesting about the book, but actually quite inspiring to new writers too. I hope so anyway.

Plug plug

Lisa just urged me on the comments to do a few plugs for Vulpes this week. On Monday we have an interview with a very famous comedian...not telling who as want to keep it a surprise - so keep your eyes peeled. And on Wed I have an interview coming up with Costa First Novel Award winner, the lovely Catherine O'Flynn who very generously agreed to answer my annoying questions despite being in various departure lounges whilst touring the world (!!). I urge you to check it out. :)

Here's the link.

Do Female Characters Have to be Likable?

Well I have a corker of a post to write about...umm....Edinburgh City Council. (Ok, that doesn't sound exciting I know, but I have a long rant to subject you to nonetheless).

But it's the weekend and I'm feeling lazy so I'm going to pass and link, instead, to a great piece on Vulpes today.

A friend and fellow-writer, Mary, had an interesting discussion recently about characters, specifically in relation to women readers.

Is there a difference, she asked, between men and women and what they look for in a character? In essence: do women demand their characters be "likable".

It is often bandied about an important aspect of writing should be warm identifiable-with characters. Is it just me or does anyone else enjoy reading about nasty pain-in-the-ass characters? Isn't this the whole basis of satire, after all? If all the characters must be warm and cosy, no wonder there is a bit of a dearth of comic writing in literature at the moment.

Not about comedy at all,  but certainly about women in literature, Lisa's incredible rabble-rousing review on Vulpes today of Alice Sebold's Almost Moon (for Mother's Day Week, rather ironically) explores issues of likability and identification in female characters. It's not just a normal review but a whole defence of storytelling and darkness and not listening to critics and not being afraid to represent the disturbing... I found it fascinating and I'd love to know what you all think about the questions it raises.

Here's the link.

And here's a snippet:

Several reviewers seemed to think that Alice Sebold was breaking taboos for the sake of it, purely to shock, to disgust. I would argue that if they looked behind their shock and disgust, they would find some truth. The truth that people sometimes do come to loathe mentally ill relatives, they do sometimes fantasise about killing them, and perhaps when faced with shit both literal and metaphorical, some of them murder. Is it wrong to write these stories? Is it wrong to try to understand them? Would it have been acceptable if our narrator, Helen, was a nicer woman? More generous? More selfless? If she regretted what she did? Would it be acceptable to write this story if the author was a man? Or if the characters were father and son? Is this a parent/child taboo? Or a daughter taboo?

As I read the reviews I kept thinking ‘Why can’t female authors write about these troubled non-cookie-cutter relationships between mothers and daughters? Why shouldn’t Sebold write about a woman who kills her mother and is relieved to have done so? Why should it all be about aspiration? About lovely women leading middle-class lives?’

Another Shaggy Geek Story

Talking of artwork, I have been doing a charcoal drawing of the Geek, who was posing prettily in front of Gavin and Stacey. Next day, in a rare fit of cleanliness, The Geek was doing a bit of tidying - picked it up off the floor and rubbed it vigorously to (as he put it later) "get the crumbs off".

"Oh," he said, in a surprised voice. "There was a face just now..."

The Art of Commissioning

I have been commissioned!

Well, I have been re-commissioned.

Last autumn a friend commissioned a small painting as a wedding present for their friends. Then, yesterday, after several months, I finally received a FB message to inform me that the painting wouldn't do and I would have to do something else instead.

Agony. Self-doubt. What did I do wrong?

The truth, it seems, was slightly more shamefaced.

"We got it framed and it was sitting about the house for a bit and..." My no-nonsense friend told me with a slightly shifty expression over dinner. "And we decided that they wouldn't really like it after all."

"Oh."

"So we put it up...no point in wasting it."

"Ah."

Bit of a tough commission, then. To paint something that they wouldn't think too shabby to give to a beloved friend, but not anything that is in danger of never reaching the intended recipient. Basically - something my friend doesn't like.

We are going to a building site next week to collect some exciting photos for the project. She loves industrial scenes: cranes, scaffolding, stripped buildings. What's the chances that the next one goes the way of the first and gets no further than my friend's sitting-room wall?