…and I feel fine. Well, mostly.
So, the Mayan apocalypse is happening later on this week – Friday, to be exact. We’re all going to die. Yes, that means you. No Christmas presents, no turkey meal with all the trimmings, and no festive repeats on TV… so it isn’t all bad.
But if you knew that underground bunker everyone talks about was going to do the trick, what three things would you take with you? I’ll start:
No, really.
I finished a short piece today called I Think Maybe it Should Start With a Joke, which – following You Have a New Friend Request! from February 2011, and Thirty-Eight Minutes from October 2011 – is the final corner of my ‘Suicide Trilogy’. Each has nothing to do with the other, beyond the central theme, and the fact that they are all first-person tales of desperation and loneliness.
As a topic, it’s interesting to explore, but as an emotional investment it’s very difficult to maintain a level of objectivity while also immersing yourself in the piece of fiction you’re trying to write, especially when you are so close to the subject matter.
Sometimes the line in the sand is not very clear. So, that being said, I think I am done with suicide.
…so to speak.
I have read a wealth of Dean Koontz novels over the years – from the abysmal Tick Tock to the glorious Mr. Murder – and he is one of those authors I will always find a way back to if I can’t think of anything else to read. He knows how to write a good thriller, and for the first third of Velocity, I really thought it was going to be his best yet.
Unfortunately, the idea – which is great – pulls towards a fairly unsatisfying conclusion with a couple of plot holes that you could have driven a truck through. But I won’t spoil that…
Our protagonist, Billy Wile, finds a hand-written note under his windshield wiper:
If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blond schoolteacher. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have four hours to decide. The choice is yours.
— and that is the set-up.
It runs at a blistering pace, with a few clever moral quandaries to mull over. It’s fantastic for the first two hundred pages, but once Billy starts to gain a little perspective on the situation and begins to think for himself, the novel slows down, and it really isn’t as exciting or interesting anymore.
Negativity aside though, I envy his style. Koontz doesn’t write long-winded paragraphs. He squeezes a lot of character into so few descriptive words, and it always makes me go back and look at some of the stuff I have written for comparison. I used to think it was poor writing or (worse) laziness, but it’s most definitely a skill I admire, and very few people can do it better.
So yeah, pick up Velocity for a quick, easy read. You could do a lot worse. But be warned: the ending is a let-down.
I have written stories for longer than I can remember, but today, my first children’s publication – Toby the Triceratops – has gone live at knowonder! There are a few questions following the tale – posed by the editors, to get the children involved – and a space to leave a rating and a comment as well.
I was a dinosaur freak when I was a youngster, and Triceratops was my favourite one, so it’s only fitting that I lose my cherry with this piece.
Although, to an extent, formulaic, both rhythmically and morally driven, it’s not as simple as I thought it would be to knock out a worthy tale for kids, but it’s an avenue I would like to continue pursuing, given the right idea and the right market.
knowonder! is a cracking site, filled with lots of imaginative content. If you’re nine you may enjoy my piece, but I’m… quite a bit older than that, and I think it’s pretty good too.
Jerry Seinfeld was right about that.
Needles too. Doctors love needles. Seems they want to stick you with one every time they see you. Maybe every prick is commissioned.
Anyway, next time, I’ll just go commando. It will save a few awkward moments after the handshake.
It would be worth it just to see the look on his face, don’t you think?
He is a retired baseball player. Oh, you knew that?
I didn’t know that before this book came out in 1999. Ask me to name as many baseball players as I can, and I promise, I don’t even need two hands.
That is in no way King’s fault, but this short novel will read a lot better to fans of the sport, and even to those who have only a passing knowledge of it. Still, most folk across the pond will be fine with the references, and the psychology of it is still intact, despite the (admittedly, only infrequent) lengthy baseball paragraphs.
Some of King’s greatest pieces – The Mist, The Langoliers, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, and The Body – have been novellas, so I had high hopes and expectations for this one. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reach that lofty standard and ultimately – even as brief as it is – this feels a little stretched.
I think, if this was trimmed by a third, it would be a damn fine piece. As it stands it feels like King is really on autopilot for a lot of the time. Then again, that still means it’s better than a lot of stuff out there…
“If you sit down to think of a reason not to throw yourself off that ledge, and you can’t think of a damn thing; if you start by asking yourself why, and finish by asking why not – then you’re in trouble.”
…excerpt from THE OTHER ME
…and blood, of course.
This week I finished writing a complex fantasy/horror piece called Bleeding Outside the Lines. It’s a story that’s been on my books for – quite literally – fifteen years.That is sometimes how it goes with me: I get an idea, write a few words, and then something else takes my fancy, and I forget about it for a while…. or a decade.
Not the same with women; just stories.
In that time it has gone through several name changes and even threatened never to see the light of day. It was supposed to come in under 5000 words (because this is the upper limit for most publications), and then – when that ship well and truly sailed – it was supposed to be no more than 10,000 (because by then, the potential publication list is really thin) but I waved goodbye to that as well round about the start of Act Three.
But a writer should always stay true to the story: it’s as long as it needs to be. Nothing else really matters. So, I finally put Bleeding Outside the Lines to bed after 12,500 words, most of which are pretty good. And yes, it’s in that murky-grey place called Novelette, where nobody wants to visit, and sounds a lot fluffier than it actually is.
I will begin searching for a home shortly, but right now… I need a break.
Alfred Hitchcock made a lot of movies, and many of them have since been hailed as classics: The Birds, Rear Window,Vertigo, Psycho, Dial M For Murder, and North by Northwest, to name only half a dozen…
But back in 1948 – long before any of these were filmed – Hitchcock made Rope, an often overlooked masterpiece. Ever since I first watched it when I was a teenager, I thought it was fantastic, and today I landed on it while channel-hopping, just as the credits were starting. Awesome.
The premise is simple: two college students (John Dall and Farley Granger) strangle someone to see if they can get away with the crime, and then have a dinner party while the body lies in the chest upon which they have arranged the food… and to say anything else would spoil the treat for those who haven’t seen it.
It’s only short – eighty minutes – but it’s extremely tight, and there’s no flab in the script at all. It’s an early example of ‘real-time’ film-making, and it also makes use of some (for the time) clever editing techniques to make it seem as if it has been filmed in one continuous take, giving it an intimate, claustrophobic feel.
James Stewart was always effortless, and like all great actors, you never saw him acting – whether it was talking to a seven-foot rabbit in Harvey or defending his family as a grizzled farm-owner in Shenandoah. He lived every part he played, and his role here as the curious professor who tries to figure out what is going on, is no exception.
These elements make Rope an absolute gem of a movie, and if I can write something this precise – this lean – I’ll be very proud of myself.
-- Purveyor of Imagination -- 