Narrative Fiction or Narrative Fact?

I've been thinking about narrative recently, what it is and how it differs from reality. So, what is narrative?

• A single strand extracted from the infinite tangle of reality
• A language for the description of time
• A tool to show that reality has a direction
• A tool to show that reality doesn't have a direction
• An argument to be pitched against other narratives

And many other things besides. Please feel free to add your suggestions for what it is. I'd love to read them.

It seems that using narrative is one of the things that characterises human beings. But, paradoxically, to be a prisoner of narrative risks us behaving in the most inhuman way.

Crime and Diversity

Have you ever agreed to do something and then regretted it?

How many months ago was it that the Literature Development Officer for Leicester asked me to give a workshop on Crime and Diversity? It was easy to agree - what with the event being so distant. I'd have something to talk about, I reasoned. Diversity is an issue that fascinates me. I'm a crime writer. How difficult could it be?

But as the time for the workshop approached, I started to worry. The more I thought about the title I had been given, the less I seemed to know about the subject. Instead of being able to formulate ideas and come up with activities to demonstrate them, I had more and more uncertainty. Finally, on the day of the workshop, all I had was a list of questions.

And that was what I took to Knighton Library in Leicester - questions. Thankfully, the people who came along to take part had plenty of answers. So I spent a very pleasant two hours listening and learning from them.

Thank you to all who helped. I'm still not sure I know any more answers. Perhaps, in this case, it is enough to ask the questions.

Memory and Writing

I was doing an author event in Market Harborough library last week, alongside Clare Littleford and Sally Spedding. We did our Hazard Warning performance, then spoke about our writing and finally took questions.

"You have written three books centred around a fictional riot," one audience member began. "Have you ever been in a real riot?"

"No," I said.

But then, as Clare and Sally were speaking, a memory came to me, unasked for and un-accessed for many years. When it was my turn to speak again I had to correct my earlier answer.

It all happened when I was ten years old and we were living in Ghana in West Africa. We were stuck in traffic in the capital city that day, sitting in the car, waiting. Then along the road came a demonstration. I remember lots of men moving towards us, surrounding the car, chanting a slogan - something about the things of Ghana being for Ghana, about not wanting foreigners. I remember hands slapping down on the windows and on the roof of the car, faces peering in at us from all sides, the car being rocked. The traffic in front of us cleared. Somehow we were moving again, passing through the crowd. Then we were out of it and away.

So here is the question - is it a coincidence that I spent 4 years of my life writing about a fictional riot, kicked off by a car being rocked and then turned over?

Chocolate and spelling

I have now brought a black bin bag into my study and started to fill it with the detritus that results from writing a novel (at least, in my case). There are sheets of paper with notes scrawled on them. Page numbers jotted on old envelopes, referring to places where things don't connect. There is a huge sheet of paper on the wall - which has a schematic diagram of the novel as I conceived it at the start. (perhaps I should hold on to that and auction it on e-bay if the novel does really well). And there are chocolate wrappers. If emotion is the fuel that drives the narrative, chocolate is the fuel that keeps this novelist going.

And the novel? My wife is kindly proof reading it for me - finding some of the spelling mistakes that result from my dyslexia. Since I don't spell check this blog to the same degree of caution, you will probably have picked up the occasional glitch and will know what I'm talking about.

Yes Yes Yes

A very short blog entry today. I just printed out my novel. Novels are never finished, but when you can print one and give it to another person to read as a whole story - this is a significant moment.

Perhaps tomorrow I will start tidying my study.

And I notice there is another Martin Cruz Smith novel out - which I am very much looking forward to reading. Perhaps tidying the study will have to wait till I've finished that.

So close...

Each week for the last month I've thought I was going to finish writing the novel in the next couple of days. It's not that I've been slacking. These have been some of the most productive writing times I've had for ages. It's just that I seem to be a bad judge of how long it is going to take. Or perhaps the job is expanding.

But now I really can taste it. I'm so close to finishing. The shape of the novel is there - all on the page. Admittedly there are still a couple of places where I have a line of asterisks and a remark such as 'HERE I MUST PUT A SCENE WHERE WILLEM CONFRONTS HIS GIRLFRIEND AND THEY HAVE A HUGE ROW'

There is still work to do - but today I can really see it as a novel. And I'm excited.

Wish me luck.

Still Alive

Yes, the title of this entry is true. I'm still alive - though the level of activity on the blog for the last month might suggest otherwise. The reason for my silence has been a period of total immersion in the novel - which isn't really news, because that's what I said in the last couple of posts.

But other things have been happening. There was a really good talk at Leicester Writers' Club last Thursday - Peter F Hamilton speaking about his impressively immense science fiction novels. Also on the LWC front, we had a childrens writing competition, judged by the marvelous Chris d'Lacey - which I am proud to say I came second in. The well-deserved winner came from the pen (keyboard) of novelist David Hood.

I recently applied to take part in another regional writers project - this time organized by the literature development officers of Leicester, Nottingham and Derby. After an interview I was accepted, along with five other writers. The result will be a commissioned piece of writing and a series of creative writing workshops. More on that when there is more to tell.

What else? Not much. My life has been so full of this novel that it's pretty much all I can think about right now. But the end, as they say, is nigh.

Updates

Update on the Googleblat web search story - no one has reached my website by searching on any of the words in the story (other than herpetologist). But the number of people looking for herpetologists is apparently growing. Strange.

Update on the progress of the novel - Two days ago I was convinced it couldn't be written and I'd wasted a year of writing time. Yesterday I changed my mind and decided I might manage it - with a lot of work. Today it seems to me almost finished.

In that time all I did was a little editing. I also decided a chunk of the writing was completely wrong and cut out 4,000 words. Then, after looking at it again, decided the 4,000 words I'd cut out were wonderful and put them back - though in a different place.

I intend to get a workable version printed out by Friday. I'm going away to Baha'i National Convention that weekend, and it would be good to have it off my mind by then.

We will see.

Word Search

I've noticed a lot of visits to my website this last month that have apparently come from Google searches on the word herpetologist. This had set me thinking. Perhaps I have been going entirely the wrong way about things. Instead of attempting to produce good writing to attract a readership, I should just concentrating on fitting in the right combinations of words.

With that in mind, I have put together the following story. I hope you enjoy it.

Black Hole

Picture This

I've finally managed to find a place on the web to take my weekend snaps. Rather than putting them on this page, I'm leaving you the link and letting those nice people at photobucket.com do all the clever formatting.

For those of you who know Leicester Writers' Club, some of these faces may be familliar to you.

Photos from the Writers' Weekend

Writing Weekend

I'm back from the Leicester Writers' Club away weekend. Fifteen writers in an old manor house in the countryside with only each other for company. It might sound like a recipe for disaster. But the reality was really very pleasant.

True, we didn't spend a lot of time writing. And true, we didn't have a huge number of talks either. But chatting to the people there has taught me... Well, I'm not sure exactly what it's taught me. I suspect the answer to that will emerge over the coming months. But I feel as if I have learned a huge amount.

Photographs do exist of the weekend. I'm presently trying to work out how to share them with you. If not on this blog site, then somewhere else. I'll keep you posted.

Turning off the tap

You might have thought that after several days of solid writing I'd be keen to take a break. It's the weekend, after all. And yes, you'd be correct. I am very keen. But it is hard to turn off the tap.

I've written some 5 or 6 thousand words in the last 2 days. It's now Saturday morning. I woke up before seven and immediately started thinking about the novel. And then the thought came to me that I wasn't going to get back to sleep anyway, so I may as well be writing the thing.

But the end is close...

Wish me luck.

Obsessive Compulsive

I've been away from this blog for the last few days because I've been busy writing towards the end of my novel. There comes a stage in the writing process where you get so into the story that it becomes hard to figure out exactly what is reality and what is fiction.

No - that's not exactly right. You do know - if you think about it - which is which. It's just that the emotions of he narrative you are telling start bleeding into real life. Like watercolour paint spreading out into a sheet of paper.

It is the obsessive end of the writing cycle - for me, anyway.

Now... where was I?

Definitions

Block suffered by internet writers - Blog Jam

The journey to the weekly writers' club meeting - Narrative Drive

The car on the left with all the bumper stickers and stuffed toys - Character Driven

The car that has just cut in front of you - Clot Driven

Any more suggestions?