Am I Making Sense?

I haven't blogged in a while so I figured it was time once again to put thoughts to paper, or words to screen, whatever.

I recently managed to catch the breathtaking Black Swan and a whole slew of emotions and new ideas swam through my addled mind as I tried to make sense of the piece. It genuinely will reward in greater measure if you forsake your devotion to 'what REALLY happened' and just allow yourself to be taken along for the ride, allow yourself to be seduced by it. Think David Cronenberg, where things happen that are so bizarre, you're never really quite sure if events unfolded as seen, or anything by David Lynch (Lost Highway being a particular doozy).

Are films genuinely more entertaining if you can make sense of the flick or doesn't it matter?

Directors stress all the time that although audiences are very smart, you can lose them very easily and then it's a real struggle to get them back. A few of my friends found Black Swan's ambiguity too much to take, leading them from anxiety to eventual frustration. I can totally understand this. Some stories are so convoluted and warped in style and structure you almost get the sense the creator literally made it up as they went along with no clear objective in mind.

And here, to the point of this post; how much sense is required for a story to be enjoyable?

My third screenplay plays fast and loose with structure and design, involving complicated dream like sequences and operatic mood pieces, basically you are never really sure if things are happening as they seem. Most that read it detested it for it's non linear approach. I kept stressing that a script is merely a blueprint for a movie and not the finished article, but I had lost them. It was too late.

My stories/novella thus far have been fairly restrained but I do often wonder, how much must a story make sense in order to entertain?

After watching Black Swan, I am ever so slightly tempted to lessen reality's reins on my upcoming tales, although I realise that if I follow through on this, I'm on my own, I won't have the adorable Natalie Portman in my corner to save me from the detractors.

It's a pickle.

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

At last!

Finally, I have finished the twelve short stories that will pad out the paperback edition of Swan Song.

It's been a long time coming and I must admit, those last three stories damn near killed me!

There's truly no such thing as an easy slam dunk! Especially if your quality meter is as high as mine!

What appeared simple became difficult and what appeared difficult became EPIC!!

They are finished, that's the point, and I am very proud of them!

It will be so cool to have people finish reading Swan Song and then just over the page, have twelve new 'experiences' waiting for them! I think that's pretty cool.

In addition, six of those stories will be available as an exclusive FREE ebook collection entitled Against The Grain.

The other six will remain EXCLUSIVE to the Swan Song paperback and, again, I think that's pretty cool.

The stories range in themes, as I have previously discussed here in other posts, yet I hope I have shown my heart in all of them.

There's violence but redemption, love but loss, humour but deadly serious threat and it's all been tied together with one simple premise; the mythic obsession we have with the creature of the vampire.

I promised my publisher a long time ago I would stay true to what I hope is my unique calling card, the London setting for my tales. I am glad to say that except for one story, London played a welcome and fitting host for my stories. At no time did I feel I really had to change locale. It links me to the town I live in all the more succintly and my debut novella.

(Even my front cover for this collection, taken in Camden Town, is the bridge Lewis Morrison finds himself under during the storm when he finally accepts Katrina for what she is in Swan Song. I like this oh so subtle reference).

So now it's all gone off to my darling publisher, and we play the waiting game.....

What does the immediate future hold?

Well, interestingly enough, as mentioned before, I have THREE potentials vying for my affections to be my next REAL book.

It's going to be fun letting them fight to the death!

To the victor, the spoils!

And the 3rd contestant is...

I now have three up and running contenders for my next book!

This won't be a sequel to Swan Song, I've made that pretty clear, but in the course of my short story collection, so much has inspired me that man, I can't nail it all down!

Three ideas are vying for my affections for my second book, technically; my first feature length novel sized story, even a conversation with my wife about the nature of horror films has helped!

So as it currently stands, I need to finish one story for the collection and then I have three already begun ideas for my next book.

And I CAN'T WAIT!

The truth is these ideas are so big in scope, they may take up all my spare time! It's exciting as hell! Ever feel swallowed by your concepts? Daunted by them? Thrilling isn't it?

I'm bad at research. I always have been.

My stories are kept close to my heart, my core, grounded in a reality only I understand. These ideas will test me, push me. I think I need to do that at this point in my writing life. I still adhere to the tried old and tested belief that a story can be small in scope yet epic in moral and message. Usually, those are the most effective (think The Shawshank Redemption, or the incredibly underrated Unbreakable, which I love!) but I do think it's time to push the boat out, as it were.

I just hope I don't come apart at the seams!

Hell, I'll just throw in some hokey jokes and a shocking scene or two to patch up the gaps.

(Joke! That was a joke people!)

Waffling On

Short stories rock.

Short, sharp shocks that require no real commitment to read.

So how come recently every time I start a short story, the bastard grows legs and develops into a fully fledged monster that 6 A4 pages won't do justice?

The problem in the beginning was finding ideas that went somewhere.

Now the problem is every story WANTS to go somewhere and take me along for the ride!

Four times in the last two months, I have started work on what I intended to be the last short story that would complete the 12 story collection that will pad out the paperback edition of Swan Song (yes, that old chestnut again, bite me), and every time, the story mutates into something that 6 to 8 pages of material couldn't possibly contain.

So what do I do?

Chop the legs off a running beauty of a story and prematurely bring about it's demise so I can include in a paperback collection? Or start from scratch with an idea that hopefully won't grow a further head?

I'm actually asking!

In truth, and I wasn't going to admit this, I went back and looked into my older work, stuff that NO ONE has ever seen, and pulled a bit of material from it in order to further my collection.

Problem is each idea that frustrated me then blossoms into an uncontrollable flower the minute I put pen to page, or fingertip to key. I can't keep these bastard stories short anymore.

Is it time to write a follow up to 'War And Peace?'

With vampires?

Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me?

Music To Soothe The Savage Beast

Simple enough intro to this post :

Do you write to music?

I recently bought The Deftones new album, Diamond Eyes, and it's the perfect blend of brutality and beauty, just what I always hope to invoke in my writing.

The music, metal at it's most sensitive, is blistering in it's power yet the layering of leads beneath, coupled with reflective and uncharacteristically positive lyrics, has helplessly enthralled me. The band have always been good but this album is undoubtedly their crowning achievement, so far.

I often write in total silence.

(Hey, if I have music playing, how can I hear the voices in my head, of which there are many?!)

I simply prefer to hear the words flow in my head without the added distraction of music. If a song is playing, my mind naturally latches onto the lyrics.

However, I have to add this, movie scores are truly wonderful in this sense. An orchestral piece, sombre and thought provoking, is often just what the doctor ordered.

Vampire films, typically, have wonderfully suitable scores to write dark material too, Interview With The Vampire, Fright Night and the actual score from, of course, The Lost Boys. Inparticular, I URGE my fellow vampire writers to check out Tangerine Dream's haunting score to the classic vampire 1987 western tinged flick, Near Dark. It's flawless!

I find the right piece of instrumental music really helps to set the tone for my writing.

So how about you?

Is music a suitable writing companion for you?

Juggling Styles

As I near the completion of the twelve short stories that will accompany Swan Song into print, a single goal has been in my head throughout the writing process.

Each story should be different.

I've attempted to change tone, pacing, structure, theme and mood with each new idea that I've penned down, desiring that each new tale starts completely fresh, both in style and intent, from the one previous.

So far, it's worked out, I think, but can you have too much of a good thing, no matter how varied?

What if, whilst attempting to showcase the multitude of styles I have at my disposal, I overwhelm my reader? Might it finally appear in conclusion that in order to appeal to everyone, I've thrown in everything, including the kitchen sink?

This dilemma takes me back to my music days.

I once had a phone conversation with an A and R man at Fire Records who attempted to explain to me that a band that sounded like all their favourite bands was a bad thing.

'You have to find your own unique sound...'

He explained.

'...you can't sound like Madness one song, Nirvana the next and close the demo sounding like Sting. It won't work. It will sound like you are trying too much to be everyone and you will end up sounding like no one.'

'Isn't that a good thing...?'

I cheekily replied.

'...what band in their right mind would try that? That could be the unique sound!'

To this day, I am not sure if I was being serious or not.

His point was well made.

He meant be true to your own style and try not to juggle too many styles or you will appear directionless.

For the established artists that can re-invent themselves with every new work, well I guess that comes later when you have gained the freedom and power to do so. In the beginning, mark your territory.

(Look at me! I'm only one novella down and I'm already talking about being true to my own style! You see how blogs make you pretentious!)

In literature, I think there is a lot more lee way.

In an author's collection of stories, I expect him or her to mix it up. I expect variety of all sorts, be that moving from a first person narrative to a third, and so on. More than anything, I expect a difference in mood and resolution to the stories. Not everything has to end like The Shining right?

I want to surprise my readers with how different each of these stories will be from one to the other, yet throughout, my writing voice will remain the one constant, promising that although the playing field and focus may shift, my control on the narrative will not.

I'm curious to see how it all turns out.

Mood Writing

My wife recently went on holiday (sort of) back to her home country of Minsk, Belarus, leaving me twiddling my thumbs. I thought, great, space and time to do some serious writing.

Nothing got done.

Nothing at all.

And the reason?

I was too lonely to write.

Which inspired me to write this blog tonight; how important is your mood to what you end up producing, if at all?

Cliche; do you need to be happy to write a happy story? Do you need to be sad to write a sad story? Do you need to be angry to write an angry story? Etc....

I found that with my wife gone, even though I suddenly had all this time at my disposal, I lacked the simple drive to get anything done. I generally write my best work when she's sitting on the sofa not two feet from me, surfing the net. We don't talk, not when I am writing, but I know the minute I am finished, she's dying to read it fresh from my fingertips. I guess I never realised how much of a support I find that, it really helps!

I re worked a few ideas, tinkered with titles and juggled the order of my stories that will soon appear in the paperback edition of Swan Song, but nothing new really got created. I was surprised.

Relax Gaynor, my long suffering publisher, she came back a while ago and work is now full steam ahead once more. It just left me thinking about my fellow writers; have they ever experienced anything like this?

George Lucas publicly apologised for the sheer overwhelming darkness of 'The Temple Of Doom', citing his divorce as a reason. In fact, now I think about it, many writers, both novelists and screenwriters, have admitted traumatic experiences have lent both style and creedence to their ideas at the time. I find this endlessly intriguing.

I will say this, before I hand the floor over to the writers whom I know and want to hear from; falling in love definitely didn't stop me from writing and exploring dark material.

So why the hell couldn't I write brutal evil material when she was gone for only a week and a half?