5th February

Dear Lance…

This blog is for detailing my writing. But occasionally a topic arises that demands attention. The last few weeks the subject of Lance Armstrong has once again come to the fore, mainly because the BBC thought him worthy of interview.

In it he suggests that maybe it is time he be allowed off the naughty step, that his punishments have been too harsh. Others, including a man who walked away from the systemic cheating of professional cycling, have voiced a similar idea. Well, here’s why they’re wrong.

For many years I was a staunch advocate of the innocence of Lance Armstrong. How could anyone have the terrible disease he did, then put his life and career at jeopardy by taking drugs? Not only that, while other accused riders prevaricated and dissembled (before being unmasked as cheats) Lance always stood right up, called his accusers out, and denied it – to the point of winning a court case for libel. No, for me, Lance Armstrong was the poster boy of triumph against adversity.

I discussed the case with my Brother-in-law, himself a keen cyclist, and now the owner of a bike shop. At that point I was swithering in my conviction. There were so many rumors and reports, so many in the pantheon of his peers had been discovered to be cheats. My B-i-L’s view was simple. This was the most tested cyclist on the planet. And if he was cheating, why risk taking on a libel lawsuit?

My faith returned to true north. Lance was clean.

It stayed that way right up until the USADA report. I read the entire thing, I read the references and the appendices (yeh, all of them). By the end I was utterly convinced of its conclusions. Others remained unconvinced, feeling it was a hatchet job to take down an all-American-hero. Well, even they had to agree its truth when Lance admitted guilt to Oprah, right there on television.

I remember a particularly odious tweet Lance put out around the time of the report. A picture of himself laying on a couch at home, his seven maillot jaune in glass frames hung on the walls around him and a tag line of something like ‘Just chilling.’

So, my firm belief in the innocence of Lance Armstrong was overturned. But it is not a mere sense of wounded sensibility that gives me the firm desire to never hear or see the man on a screen or radio ever again. I’ll be honest, I don’t want to see any one convicted of deliberately, knowingly, and illegally taking performance-enhancing drugs being allowed anywhere near the sport they defiled. But again, this is not the driver for my belief in Lance being permanently excluded from the media spotlight he seems to believe is his right.

It goes back to his stance when he was proclaiming his innocence. It goes to the way he trashed the lives of people who called him out for being the liar he was. People like Emma O’Reilly, David Walsh, and Betsy and Frankie Andreu. In calling these, and others, liars he induced courts to further enrich him by paying prize money his cheating made him ineligible for, and a payout for libel.

This, then, is the reason Lance Armstrong should forever be banished. He cheated, he lied about cheating, he made personal and vitriolic attacks against people who accused him of cheating, he sued people who accused him of cheating. Then, in his most recent interview, he says he’d probably cheat if put in the same situation.

This is a man who has a moral compass which points only to his own aggrandizement.

Now, let’s make some things clear. Livestrong (his charitable foundation) did a lot of good while LA was lying and cheating his way through his career. I’m sure he’s a personable fellow, and that some are proud to call him a friend. No person is all one shade. As despicable as his public actions have been, I’ll wager there are a myriad quiet private ones that show his decent side. It’s just a shame that they will forever be overshadowed by the lying, cheating, and defamation.

There has been an argument put forward that Lance, and other American cheats, have been dealt with more harshly by cycling authorities than Europeans. The argument goes that because some European cheats got to retain titles, so should Lance. No, the European cheats should lose their titles as well.

Back to Lance. Someone who has publicly confessed that they are a cheat, and that they would do so again, is not someone who should be involved in the sport, in any sport. Of course, politics is still open to him. No barriers that I can see. His arrogant duplicitness looks a natural fit.

Rant over.

Oh, by the way, of course I have a story that ties in with this. It goes back in time to when post-war amphetamines were first being experimented with in the peloton. It’s under one of my writing names and can be found at QuarterReads. The title is ‘A Cyclist’s Memoriam’ and you can read it for twenty-five cents.

(If anyone can point me to a link for a website or twitter feed for Betsy Andreu I’d be grateful)

3rd February

Writing is re-writing

I think the above is the biggest lesson I have learned as a writer.

It’s also the lesson I am struggling most with.

Looking back over a couple of years of concerted writing I can see a vast improvement. Firstly, the basics. Sentence structure, use of grammar, &etc. Having been an avid reader from the age of four, and blessed with a decent level of intelligence I was shocked to realize how much of these basic things I just wasn’t really aware of. I’m still no perfect and more than capable of splitting an infinity or dangling a participle. But less so, and I remember to attribute action and speech correctly on a much more comprehensive basis.

On the story and plot front, that seems to be okay – especially in the world building department, I keep getting compliments on that – though I still have a tendency to have things move to slowly at the front end, or even start in a place that doesn’t serve the story best.

Which brings me to the issue of the re-write.

I really struggle with it. I struggle with stripping a story down to the bones, and re-assembling it to resemble something different to the form I envisaged when doing the initial write.

A good example of this is a current story geefourdotalpha.  I love this story, the tale of a robotic war machine that is mostly destroyed, that lies for centuries in rubble and a growing forest, that develops full sentience, that is discovered by a woman who chooses to live far from the hubbub of life, who then destroys the AI because it threatens her peaceful existence. This story has been around for about 9 months now. It’s been rejected six times (I had thought it five, but forgot the original prompt supplier had been the initial rejection). There have been some kind words on it, but I the most comprehensive response suggested I started the story in the wrong place. I couldn’t figure a way to change it.

I supplied the story for critique as part of my writing class by Cat Rambo and included my rejection notices. The basic agreement was to start the story elsewhere. Mark was very helpful in suggesting what scene to start with and, more importantly, why. But it is still difficult. Now I feel like I am writing a whole new story, but with a more comprehensive prompt. The difficulty is I know why I structured it in the way I did. So I am having to remove that backdrop and re-imagine the whole set up of the story.

This is a thing I am struggling with.

Especially as I know it is an exercise I am going to undertake with a lot of the other stories I have written in the last 12-18 months. At the same time, I’m still trying to produce new output, but hopefully of a nature that reflects he lessons being learned here.

But I also know that if I want to be more than a semi-enthusiastic dilettante then the re-write is a skill i must develop. It is a major item in the writers toolbox, to refuse to use it would be like a carpenter refusing to use a plane and sandpaper. The basic quality of the item constructed may be good, but it will always look unfinished, and therefore undesirable. Finishing a story is one thing, completing it is another. Presently I have finished a number of stories. Now I need to complete them, to polish them so that the grain is revealed, to add the lustre and shine which can add warm appeal.

I have written.

I must re-write.

January 25th

A Challenge! I’m going to attempt to write three flash stories with a common thread that, at the end of next week, will be a single complete story.

Well, I’m guessing it’ll need some linking work, but that’s the challenge.

Three flash prompts – one united story.

Check back to see how that goes.

Come the Revolution

Part One

None of us really believed in the revolution until the night Baz-Baz Chinnelle went missing. He’d always said he and Gina would get out before it started. I’d picked up their mail direct from the station. Not a hardship, the freight-train from Yeginder got in just before I came off shift. A cold breeze blew up the Wyrnal Canal and down my neck and I looked forward to a cup of chai with, if I was lucky, some of Gina’s home-cured marhog bacon on a still-warm bap.

The first indication anything was wrong sat on their door-step.

“Hey, Carradine, what you doing sitting in the cold?” I bent and stroked the overweight tabby who viewed Baz-Baz and Gina as butler and maid. She meowed plaintively. I knocked the door. Carradine mewed again. I knocked louder. When it remained unanswered I leaned an ear to the wood. A faint tinkle of wind-chimes was the only sound from inside.

This was the first time I wondered if Baz-Baz’s revolution was going to happen. Gina never missed the weekly packet of mail from back home, never. And they both doted over the fat cat who rubbed against my leg.

“C’mon, Carradine.” I scooped the cat up and headed to my flat. Carradine didn’t seem impressed, but a few chicken scraps and some milk mollified her.

If the revolution was coming, it seemed sensible to prepare. My tiny garret flat began to look like a store-room. Boxes of tins, jars, and bottles were stacked everywhere. I put a new lock on the door, and installed a sliding barrier behind that. It was strange, though, I seemed to be the only one preparing. I said that none of us believed in the revolution until Baz-Baz and Gina disappeared. Afterwards it was only me that believed. The others wrote him off as an ex-cadet with memories of hope, but no future other than the castles built in his mind.

“Gina’s dragged him back to her hometown,” Jonas said.

The others agreed.

“But, the revolution—“

Carra interrupted me. “Sar-Chona’s always revolting.”

Even I laughed at that. But no one else believed change was coming. No one. There was an ingrained expectation that The Inspectorate, the city’s security arm, would be on top of any situation. They had a reputation for having spies everywhere, and were run by a woman whose name, Kelly Secnish, was a byword for ruthlessness. Doing a Kelly, or being Kelly’ed meant doing, or having done to you, very bad things.

Two weeks after Baz-Baz flew the coop things started with the unexpected death of Kelly in a shoot out. The city was quiet for two days before hell broke out. I holed up in my flat for nearly a week, watching the city burn, listening to murder and death from the street below, and wishing Baz-Baz and Gina well wherever they had escaped to.

Part Two

Everyone loses in a revolution. That’s my assessment.

When I eventually ventured outside, Sar-Chona was no longer Sar-Chona. I made my way through dark and quiet streets, assailed by putrefactions rankness. The water-pump still worked, something I’d worried about. Returning home safely was a relief.

Over the coming days my outside explorations lengthened. The factory I worked in was a charred ruin. Near the remains of a barricade I met Carra.

“Where’s Jonas?” I asked.

Her face was pale beneath the grime. She shook her head. The expected tears never came. She came home with me and, after eating greedily, curled onto the bed and slept. The cat snuggled against her in sympathy.

Two days later Carra could cry again. She told how Inspectorate forces cut Jonas down as he helped blockade the street, trying to keep back marauders and rioters.

“I never really believed there’d be a revolution,” she said. “I thought Baz-Baz was spinning yarns. He was full of them.”

“This one was no story.”

“No. Where do you think they are?”

“Somewhere safe, and warm.”

We sat in silence. Everyone loses in a revolution. I waited to find out what I’d lost.

Part Three

Normality returns slowly to a city after revolution, the inhabitants nervous to accept safety has returned. The streets were quiet when I checked Baz-Baz and Gina’s place.
The door was open.
I went in, hoping to find my friends, ready to attack looters.
“Who the hell are you?” Asked the stranger. He was as tall as Baz-Baz, and about the same age. And he had a shock-flail pointed at me. My knife suddenly felt inadequate.
“This is my friends house,” I said. “I’m watching it until they return.”
He shook his head. “They wont be.”
He put the gun down. In seconds he went from a looter I was ready to stab, to a sad-faced stranger with the demeanor of a lonely tree in a desert plain.
“What do you mean?”
“Their both dead.”
“What?”
He shook his head, like it didn’t matter.
“Tell me how,” I demanded. The knife wavered in my hand. I gripped it firmly. “And who the hell are you?”
Gina’s wind chimes tinkled softly.
“Does it matter. They’re gone, and so are the people responsible.”
I hadn’t believed there be a revolution. Though I didn’t want to, I believed this stranger who told me Baz-Baz was dead.

January 19th

In Praise of Flash Fiction Do you read Flash? If you read, then the answer is yes. When you read a short news item in the metro as you travel to work, that’s flash. when you sit in the doctor’s surgery and flick through three year old magazines, most of those are flash. Some of what you read will also be fiction (what, in a newspaper, gasp!). Generally viewed as being up to one thousand words, though some places take a more or less stringent view, Flash Fiction is a skill that all writers would do well to learn.

When there are limits on how many words you can use your skills are sharpened, your choice of word and phrase becomes critical. Choosing to wax lyrical about the sensuous texture of a garment, or the unctuousness of a bowl of dolmades, or the gentle interplay of light from the setting sun, well there just isn’t the time and space to do it.Taut prose is good prose. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a place for flowers and purpleness and curlicues. But not for a new writer, and not most of the time.

So how does one go about writing Flash Fiction? What’s the purpose, the point, who cares??? Well, my favorites are lined here. These are venues that provide a prompt and a timescale, so the writing is focused both in scope and time. Yet, consistently, there is a wealth of ideas on display when you read the various entries. So, reader or writer, come have a look. Flash fiction is like the delicious nougat nibble, or bar of Dairy Milk, or caviar blini, or a whole host of other tiny delicious bites. They won’t fill you up, but they will delight you, and give you something to think on for a while.

January 15th

How vital is research?

Having never visited the US some may view it as the move of a putz to embark on a cycle of stories set exclusively in that country.

meh!

Writers constantly write about places they’ve never been. Hence the term, fiction writer.

But this week made me really appreciate how vital (yes, the title isn’t really a question at all) research really is.

My good friend Megan Lewis was taking an initial look at the story I have set in Minnesota. It’s an alien invasion story with a non-traditional structure (in that it ends a place where you think ‘What, is that it? But, what… grrrr, lazy writer’). In researching the story I had spent much time on google earth scrolling up and down roads and suburbs south of Minneapolis, for that is where the setting is. On her first read through Megan picked me up on some line-of-sights descriptions being unworkable, and a route taken by characters making no sense to a resident of the area. She also picked up some rogue Britishisms and a few incorrectly used Americanisms.

So what? Well, for me, it is where factual and fictional intersect. I’m more than happy for this process to be undertaken. I want my tales to have reliable and identifiable roots, even where other events are ridiculous and fantastical. And taking the time to do my own research, and then having someone local to the area check that research, helps me to do that.

Other things from the week include a great opening class with Cat Rambo, and it was nice to (virtually) meet fellow classmates Frances, Elizabeth, and Mark. The next five weeks look to be fun, and challenging.

Yesterday WorldWeaverPress held #SFFLunch on twitter. Editors from the various imprints of WWP made themselves available and some interesting lines of chat sparked of. I admit my main interest was in picking up hints for another submission to Bascomb James Far Orbit: Apogee anthology. While declining my first submission he was very kind in advising me that it was ‘sooo close‘.

Over at Spark: A Creative Anthology I am slowly getting to grips with my role as a Senior First Reader, and the whole first reading team is working hard to reduce the submission backlog. Brian’s determination to provide feedback for every submitter is one of the things that drew me to volunteering as a first reader in the first place, and now that I am more heavily involved in the process I remain convinced that his vision for the submitters is worth the enormous effort. We can always use more first readers. Why not come and do a bit?