Fragment

"I don't hear you," she said, her American syntax making it sound like a habit or policy.

My Top 10 Best Novels

This is an idea that caught my fancy - mainly because the revelation of the lists seem to expose aspects of reader's histories and tastes that are surprising.

1. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

I often re-read this in times of stress - I remember the eve of one final exam at univeristy where I was unable to sleep  and started to read it to calm me down.  Unfortunately this led me to saty up until dawn racing the the end.  When discussiing Lizzie witha froiend at teh time she said 'You sound half in love with yourself'.  Being young and stupid, or younger and stupider, I deined this vehemently, rather than accpet this as simple fact.

2. Scoop, Evelyn Waugh

Henry Boot is an Everyman, plucked from a comfortable home life into unwanted adventure.

3. The Old Devils, Kingsley Amis

Almost any of his books would count, but this captures the trials of age and tricks of memory in a positive light.

4.  Feet of Clay, Terry Pratchett

The start of the run of good form in the series, moving and profound as well as funny.

5. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Douglas Adams

A complex time travel plot, and more heart that the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (including a heartbreaking scene on Mauretania seeing the last dodo).

6. Towards the End of the Morning, Michael Frayn

Everday life in a newspaper office, standing for the world of pointless wok.

7. Fatherland, Robert Harris

Alternate history in which the Nazis are victorious and a detective uncovers eveidence of the Final Solution.

8. The Warden, Anthony Trollope

The first and best of the Barchester Chronicles - real people in moral dilemmas.

9. So Much Blood, Simon Brett

A Charles Paris murder mystery set in teh theatrical world.

10. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick

Another alternate history about the Second World War, Dick's most coherent novel.


Nearly made the cut: Martin Amis, David Lodge, Philip Roth, Joseph Heller, Barbara Pym
  

New readers start here

Welcome to A Few Words, a writing blog I have been maintaining since 2004, off and on. Most visitors end up here after searching for a Marks and Spencer food advert parody , analysis of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, Highlands, or Blowin' in the wind, or background about Sandi Thom's mysterious rise to fame. None of which represent the best or most interesting of the material.

Good places to start are:

Change and Decay:
a long short story about an archivist's visit to a crumbling gentry estate (this was posted in chapters here but is presented in the right order in its own blog; it can aslo be downloaded as ae pdf, or bought on paper, in the volume File Under Fiction.
Written in your heart:
a radio play about Friends Reunited, old girlfriends, and midlife crises;

Dooced:
a radio play about an employment tribunal for an employee sacked for blogging about her work (life shortly therafter imitating Art, or at least artifice, in the form of Petite Anglaise);

Martin Amis criticism:
A long-term endeavour to cover all of his works, eventually, if I don't lose patience with his current rabble-rousing geopolitical insights first;


Stuff which won't be found here is poetry, which is at Complete and Utter Poetry, and archaeological project management, which is at 10 Simple Steps.


This post is a sticky and will stay at the top until I get bored with it.

Sinners, all: short story

Kaz untied her apron and handed the till keys over to Tim.
‘It’s been quiet this afternoon,’ she said, nodding at the loners and couples scattered around the bar.
‘Maybe it’ll pick up,’ replied Tim in Antipodean optimism.
‘Maybe,’ said Kaz, doubtfully, ‘See ya!’
Tim wiped down the counter, glancing up at the TV screen showing a music video channel.

At a corner table, two men were drinking coffee. The tabletop’s accumulation of used crockery showed that they’d been there for a while. The two were of similar age: well-preserved late middle age, but were otherwise contrasted in appearance. One had a rosy face framed by bushy white hair and beard; the other was tanned, with a neat goatee beard, short black hair, and inquisitive eyes, the last effect heightened by a habitually-arched eyebrow.
‘What about sin, then, the Cardinal Sins?’ asked the man with the black beard, in the easy tone of a friendly argument long continued.
‘People get mixed up,’ replied the man with the white beard. ‘Cardinal Sin’s quite a precise and obscure theological concept. I don’t think anyone said they were supposed to be of universal application.’
‘But you’re cheating again – you always say things like that when you’re cornered.’
White Beard shook his head and wordlelly held up his empty cup.
‘More coffee?’ asked Black Beard. ‘Or is it time to move onto stringer stuff?’
‘Perhaps a malt whisky, thanks.’
Black Beard walked up to the bar. Tim was scowling up at the screen.
‘Shoulda been me!’ he said bitterly. ‘Anyway, what can I get you?’
Black Beard navigated the laden tray back to the table.
‘Envy’s still going strong,’ he said.
‘That’s not the point,’ said White Beard. ‘Sure, people commit sins, but they’re not defined by them. They can always choose to be better people.’
Black Beard surveyed the room. ‘What about this lot? I bet they’re all stuck by habit into selfishness.’
White Beard leaned forward. ‘I’ll take that bet.’
Black Beard offered his hand. ‘Shake on it, then.’
‘The usual stake?’ asked White Beard, solemnly.
‘It’s a deal.’
They sat sipping their drinks, waiting for something to happen.

The door was pushed open abruptly. A man in shirtsleeves rushed in breathlessly. ‘Can you help me?’ he asked the room generally, ‘there’s someone collapsed outside.’
A couple of the drinkers stood up and accompanied him out, returning a little later burdened by the body of a tramp, his clothes stained with mud and reeking of the street. They laid him on the floor, while onlookers cleared a space around him. Coats were offered as pillows or blankets.
‘I’m a taxi driver,’ the first man explained, ‘I saw him collapse on the pavement. Is anyone here a doctor?’
Heads were shaken firmly. After a pause, someone spoke up. ‘I’m a first aider,’ he said, coming forward and kneeling down to check the tramp’s pulse.
‘Hi. I’m Michael. Can you hear me? What’s your name?’
His eyes opened briefly. ‘Harry,’ he coughed.
Michael looked up. ‘Call an ambulance – he’s in a bad way.’ Mobile phones were brandished at once.
Harry’s eyes flickered and closed, and his breathing grew more laboured. ‘He’s arresting, I think,’ said Peter. ‘We’re going to need to do CPR.’
By now, most of the patrons had gathered round, offering help, advice, or just commentary. Peter recruited a couple of them to assist in the rotations of breathing and chest compressions.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedic took over, efficiently collecting the victim.
‘Is there anything we can do?’ asked someone.
‘No thanks, we’ve got him now,’ the paramedic replied, closing the door and heading off, siren screaming.
Now that the drama was over, people seemed embarrassed, and soon most had gone.

‘All right, there’s quite a few helpful people here’, said Black Beard, ‘but what about the barman?’
‘Let’s go and see,’ said White Beard.
“What did you mean earlier,’ Black Bear asked Tim, ‘when you said it should have been you?’
Tim took some time to think back before the tramp’s intrusion.
‘Oh, that. That lucky bugger on the video was at school with me – now he’s a big star, rolling in money and girls, and I’m here, behind a bar. But back in the day, it was going to me who made it.’
He paused, tilting his head judiciously, then shrugged.
‘Still, he was the one who went for it, I guess. He put in the hours, practicing, extra classes, special courses, learning the instrument; I never had the patience. So good luck to him.’
White Beard smiled at Black Beard. ‘I win, I believe.’ Black Beard asked Tim for a packet of peanuts, then wordlessly handed them to White Beard.
‘It’s good to see that the Devil’s a man of his word,’ said God.
‘You know me of old,’ said the Devil, and they walked out into the night.


This story appears in File Under Fiction.

Street science: short story

I met Carl in the city hospital's casualty department. He hobbled into the waiting area shortly after I had been abandoned by my wife to the mercies of the health professionals, such as they were.
I had broken my leg falling from a ladder while re-routing the satellite dish cable across the front wall of the house. Somehow this was my fault, she implied, forgetting that she had been the one who argued that me paying hard-earned cash to a spiv tradesman was a waste. She had her reasons, of course - if anyone was going to be spending my executive bonus on pointless fripperies it should be her. The house is one of the big ones on the hill, set back from the road with broad gravel drives. Apart from the cleaner and the gardener, we didn't mix with the lower orders on the sloping streets around us.
Carl was unexceptional in appearance at first glance, but something about him caught my eye - he was aware, watchful; his quick gaze around the room absorbed both geography and population; he headed over on his crutches and sat down next to me, groaning and tutting. He pointed at my leg.
'Snap! Or should I say snapped?'
I nodded silently.
'No worries,' he said, 'at least we'll jump the queue. Triage, you see.'
I was surprised by his elaborately French pronunciation of the word, and must have shown it, for he went on.
'I've knocked around Europe, all over. I can order a beer in ten languages, swear in more. Life skills.'
He sat back, grinning in pleasure. I realised he was cleverer, and more thoughtful, than he looked. I glanced at his injury. He shrugged.
'War wound. War of the bloody sexes, that is. Fell down the stairs while retreating under heavy fire - verbal mostly, a few shoes. Caught me off-guard. A shame to my profession.'
'Which is?'
'Bouncer, or bodyguard, depending. I'm useful.'
He emphasized the final word to imply some unstated code, somehow managing to convey his judgement that I was, in those terms, useless.
'You must make a bit,' he added.
'I do quite well, yes,' I replied coldly.
'I can tell, you see,' he continued, steadfastly ignoring my tone. 'It's my radar. A scientist of the street, that's me.' He looked me up and down. 'So: winter ski tan, expensive watch, casual clothes with ironed creases, deck shoes. Simple.'
'And my accent, of course.'
'You'd be surprised - accent's a difficult one. These days, especially. It's not so much deliberate gentrification, it's how we absorb what we hear - from kids, TV, music, mates. And in any case, accent is about class, where you came from; it's nothing to do with profession, or trade, or current status. Although,' he paused, considering, 'if your parents were poor, you'd have designer-label casuals, some gold rings or chains, maybe some tattoos.'
There followed a pause as we both looked around the room and silently classified its occupants.
The sign was still showing a three hour waiting time, but it wasn't long before I had been checked, X-rayed and partially encased in plaster. Carl followed me out, and when he herd me order a taxi, he asked to tag along. He only lived a couple of streets away, on the far side of the great social divide. It would have been rude to refuse, so we travelled home together, and I left him outside his house, tottering up the steps on his crutches.

The days that followed were a bit like Rear Window, as I was trapped upstairs with little to do. But it was more like watching Rear Window on continuous repeat. It is surprising how little there is on TV when it's your only option.
The practice nurse at the surgery pronounced herself happy with my progress, and a few days later an appointment card arrived from the physiotherapy department at the hospital.
When I arrived there, I saw Carl in the waiting room. A moment's reflection established that this was no more than logical - similar injuries, on the same date, would have treatment programmes that run in parallel.
He greeted me enthusiastically.
'I'm an old hand here,' he said with a hint of ownership. 'A regular, you might say. My body gets a bit of punishment, even when I'm dishing it out.' He cracked his knuckles. I asked how he as managing.
'I'm not working - I can't. You have to have at least the threat of force. I do some security work - watching the CCTV. Bores me rigid, though: I read a lot.'
We were called through to the clinic together, greeted by an impossibly young and petite nurse. We soon found that she was stronger and more forceful than she looked, as she took us through a long routine of exercises and performance measurements. Carl seemed to lose a little of his self-assurance, and retaliated by a stream of innuendo and banter that she steadfastly ignored. After half an hour we were exhausted, muscles aching.
'Now this is important,' she said. 'If you just sit around for the bones to heal, you'll be facing months before you rebuild your muscle tone. You need to keep active, even while the plaster's on - that way, you should be fully recovered in a matter of weeks.' She handed us a card. 'Here's an exercise schedule.'
As we hobbled out, Carl suggested we meet up to walk around the neighbourhood, and I agreed it sounded like a good plan.

We made an odd couple, as we circled the streets, clanking on our crutches. It was an eye-opener for me to explore the intimate geography of the housing estate, its passageways, lock-ups, desolate parks, and glass-strewn playgrounds.
'Look,' he said, in a back alley, pointing up at a row of high garden walls. 'You can tell when they were robbed by the age of the protection.'
I looked along the variegated barriers - barbed wire, anti-vandal paint, cameras, lights, locks and chains.
'It's defending your patch, see. Round here, the public spaces are no-man's-land - even villains have right of way. So all you can do is look after your own territory. It's something of an arms race, too - thieves are lazy bastards. You don't have to make your property completely secure - just harder work to break into than your neighbours.'

Over time, our walking speed increased, and Carl's commentary shifted to the people we saw. We developed a contest - he would spot a pedestrian, and I would try to work out how tough they were. He relished these opportunities to demonstrate his superior knowledge.
'Nah, not him. He's not ripped, just fat. No stamina, see. Keep him arguing for a couple of minutes and he'll be puffing for air.'
'What about him?'
'See how he's walking - rocking from foot to foot, with his upper body straight. Boxer. Yeah, I wouldn't fancy taking him on.'
I learned a lot about tattoos, too - prison, gang, sailor, biker, fashion.
'That's gone to pot. I tell you, there was a time when they were like a badge for hard men. These days any sulky teenager can get some Chinese gibberish on her arm. Ditto for piercings. That's without mentioning the gays.'
He spat the word out as if he'd never heard of diversity training, let alone had any. He wouldn't have lasted long in an office, as I realised when I returned to work on light duties. It was strange to contrast the dull complacency of my staff of middle-class graduates with his eager curiosity and energy. As I sat watching the rain spatter the window, the phone rang. To my surprise, it was Carl.
'Michael, mate, I need a favour,' he panted. 'I'm back at Casualty. Can you bring my bird in? She's stuck at home.'
I picked her up from outside their flat. Stella sat silent and prim in the passenger seat as I negotiated the streets and threaded through the traffic. I parked and she dashed ahead of me into the hospital. I followed after locking the car, and was directed through to the cubicles.
He looked terrible. He now had an arm in plaster, and his chest was dappled with purple and black bruises. His face was criss-crossed with black ridges of dried blood where cuts had been stitched. Carl nodded weakly to me, his movements restricted by a neck brace. Stella patted his healthy arm.
'Christ, love. What happened?'
'I'm alright,' he whispered, 'never you mind.'
After they had chatted for a while he sent her off to get a cup of tea.
'Cheers, mate,' he said.
'No problem. Someone caught you out?'
'Squaddies.' He winced. 'Three of 'em. You got to be careful with them - they know how to fight, and they don't hesitate.'
'What was the problem.'
'They didn't like my attitude,' he replied dismissively.
'Are you going to report them?'
'Nah, keep the filth out of it.'
'How bad is it?
'A few weeks off work again, I reckon. They keep saying that they're worried about my brain, but people have been telling me that for years!'
He chuckled softly. I heard the door open behind me. 'Nothing to her, mind,' he said, putting a finger to his lips.
Stella said she could get home under her own steam, and I left to return to work.

So I wasn't there to witness Carl's dramatic deterioration, the rush of the nurses, the clatter of equipment, the flimsy privacy of the screens, the bleeps and shocks, the 'bad news' and 'we did our best.'

I attended the funeral, feeling out of place in the swirling crowd of thick necks, shaved heads, and pumped-up limbs. There was some bitter amusement to be gleaned from the minister's awkward search for euphemism as he tried to summarise Carl's character. I hope I've done a better job here.


This story appears in File Under Fiction.

The price of everything: short story

I’ve got a favourite spot, between the Lloyd’s cash machine and the newsagent. There’s a closed-down office with marble steps up to the doorway, and a portico provides some cover from the rain. I sit on cardboard to keep out the worst of the cold coming up from the underlying stone. There’s a lot of competition for this pitch – location, you see, location, location, location, as I used to say when I was an estate agent, before buy-to-let turned into a passport to debt, taking home, car, job and wife with it. Maybe you knew me then – good old Flash Harry, king of the property jungle. Maybe you owe me one. More likely, maybe I owe you one. Hard luck, if so.
Anyway, about my spot. Begging is all about traffic, throughput. There’s a fraction of people who will drop you a coin as they pass – one per hundred, one per thousand, whatever it is. So the more go pass, the more you make. They say it’s dying out, begging, killed by the credit card. You get them, sometimes, walking past you patting their pockets, pretending they’ve only got plastic and so can’t give you the cash they otherwise would. Makes all the difference, I don’t think. And of course, the cash machine’s customers really haven’t got any coins.
You could argue these days that the traditional ‘price of a cuppa’ could easily be a note, but that’s not what it’s about. You used to get those stories about how you could get rich from begging, but they were lies, or at least, unrepresentative. If begging was hard, beggars couldn't do it. These are people who find remembering their name a challenge, washing a distant utopian ambition. Begging is what you do when you've run out of options. Every day there's the struggle, the desperate hope, putting the hours in until you've earned your target. If all you're feeding is your stomach, that's not so bad - a long morning will set you up. I wouldn’t want to be an addict - waiting for the cash to match the cost of a fix, penny by penny.
There are some people who can get £5 at a time - the posh lot, the buskers, slumming classical violinist or under-employed folk guitarists, who rake it in at Christmas by making the crowds feel good. I don't do that, spread the warm feelings. The best I can hope for is to be a lucky charm - sometimes passers-by reckon that if they give me money, they won't end up like me. So for me it's coins, one here, one there, Thank you, sir, Thank you love, Thanks, kid, adding up through the day.
They say that begging is like selling: it makes you cynical, eyeing up everybody as a possible mark. Not that I wasn't cynical before, but it's true, I guess. A lot of waiting in both jobs, of course. It's fun here, sometimes, watching everyone come and go. Best of all is the parking meter. For a start, you get to spot the liars who walk past you saying they've got no change, and then feed some into the meter. But there's the next bit, too - the traffic warden solemnly photographing the cars, checking his watch, reading the meter, then taking out his ticket pad.

It happened today, for example. A new BMW roars into the space, the driver, all suit and sunglasses, sprints into the shop, and comes back to find the red package on the windscreen. Oh dear, oh dear; my heart bleeds. Now the warden's come back, and the driver's arguing. The warden keeps calm.
'Surely, sir, if you can afford such a fine vehicle as this, you can find the parking fee?'
This doesn't go down well. The driver starts shouting about appeals and lawyers and complaints, and doesn't notice that the warden's speaking on his radio.
'You there!' the driver says, pointing at me, 'You saw it all - I was only there half a minute.'
I stand up and walk towards them, my legs stiff.
'What did I see?'
'You saw me arrive.'
'Did I? I don't remember you passing. Did you give me any money?'
'No, I . . .' He pauses as my meaning sinks in. He gets his wallet out. 'I was in a hurry then, but now - ' He fingers a £20 note. I turn to the traffic warden.
'He wasn't here long, you know.'
The warden nods grimly.
'Must just be your unlucky day, then, sir.'
The driver starts to put the note back in the wallet.
'Oi,' I say, 'I think that's mine.'
He shakes his head. But he doesn't notice what's happening behind him - the tow truck's now blocked his car in, and the crew is getting out of the cab. He looks around and starts shouting again. The traffic warden retreats and calls the police.
The driver sags in defeat, gets out his cash, pays the clampers, pays the warden. He looks at me in disgust. The feeling's mutual, mate. In minutes, the street clears.
I spot a pound coin in the gutter - that's my tea sorted for today, I think, so I head back to the hostel, feeling relatively positive for a change.
Tonight, no doubt, in some leafy suburb, in a stunning domestic residence enjoying extensive views, the driver's telling his uninterested wife about his day in the City, and how it cost him a hundred quid, bitterness curdling his stomach.



This story appears in File Under Fiction.

The seducer's tale: flash fiction

'Not bad, not bad,' Phil said out loud, looking at his reflection. Condensation from the shower framed his features. He worked his way through the tedious toolkit of body care - clippers, sprays, trimmers. He decided against shaving, the stubble serving to disguise the thickening of his chin. There was a touch of salt-and-pepper greyness coming through, he noted. Oh well, he'd have to face that soon.
Fresher's Balls had changed a lot over the years since Phil's first one. The days of wide-eyed ingénues overwhelmed by the heady mixture of freedom, alcohol, music, and social unease, ripe to be entranced and exploited, had gone. Nowadays the would-be squire needed a bit more on his side than age and wisdom - he had to differentiate himself from the young lads whose charmless innuendoes rolled off their tongues like football chants. Phil could usually count on finding some girl to inveigle into a quiet corner, where he provided mature advice and sympathy, a paternal voice . . . Phil shook himself. From his PhD research, he knew enough about Freud to want to avoid the whole question of why some men liked young women and women liked older men. It amazed him that the term 'Daddy's girl' was bandied around in polite society without raising any concerns. He thought for a second and shook his head. His motives were clear enough - it wasn't youth he wanted, just opportunity. For some reason, he found it difficult to sustain relationships with women of his own age - they seemed to find him safe and boring, and self-obsessed. 'Well, who else should I be interested in?' he had countered in one final row. 'Me!' she had answered.
He had hopes for tonight. He combed his hair, cleaned his teeth, and slid a condom packet into his pocket.

* * *

Kaz blinked at the brightness as the bathroom light flickered on. She swayed across the cool tiles, rested her hands on the sink, and stood, waiting for her head to clear. The E she'd taken before coming out was wearing off, leaving her feeling flat. She opened her clutch bag and took out a sachet. She expertly rolled a bank-note and sniffed up the coke. 'Just sprinkling some magic dust,' she thought to herself, 'I'll be a princess!'
Prince Charming left something to be desired, though. Paul or Pete or Phil or whatever his name was, was waiting in his bedroom. Oh well, she'd had worse, she thought, remembering wild antics in nightclub toilets, bus shelters, cars, parks, car parks, even beds, sometimes. Her new flatmate buddy had abandoned her earlier, gone off with some stud, leaving her alone until this chap had turned up. He seemed to think she was new to all this, and she hadn't corrected him. He'll be in for a shock when he discovers my metalwork down there, she thought. This struck her as funny, and set off a giggling fit. She subsided onto the floor.
As she moved, a cupboard door swung open, revealing a hot water bottle and a jar of liniment. She sobered up. What was she reminded of? That's right - her parents. He was old, too old.
Kaz considered her options, and decided to leave without explanation. That was best, she'd found - made her seem mysterious and willful. She smiled. Men are such dopes, she thought.


This story appears in File Under Fiction.

New expanded and improved version of File Under Fiction

File Under Fiction is now completely re-formatted, expanded with six extra stories including A night like this, and parodies of Jane Austen and Thomas Boswell. See contents here.

Work in progress

There is an interesting distinction between prose and poetry writers and their attitudes to ideas. Poets without inspiration can do nothing, but can pursue any idle thought without investing too much time; they therefore tend to be passive and, if uninspired, concerned. Prose writers will usually have more ideas than they have time to deal with, and therefore treat the writing process as more of a routine chore. This doesn't, however, make them any happier about talking about a work in progress.

For a start, there is the superstitious fear that saying out loud that it's going well will be the cue for it to stop. Then there is the more rational advice that if you tell somebody about how the story ends, you will lose all interest in typing it, since you have reached the conclusion. But the biggest stumbling block is trying to capture the nuances of the tale which reaches beyond bald plot summaries. I remember seeing a discussion about the value of writer's endorsements on the c0ver : 'I wished I'd written it!' - Dan Brown. The conclusion was that publishers are very keen on them but buyers aren't: they ignore them. What they want, and are often denied, is an idea of what the book is about.

I'm not sure, though, that this really helps. When I say on the back of File Under Fiction that it has a story about a gentry family living on a country estate, I presumably may arouse the interest of fans of Evelyn Waugh, Jilly Cooper, or Joanna Trollope, but most of them would be disappointed. The danger is that in the abstract most stories sound dull - imagine a novel about this big shark, that eats some swimmers, and then is caught; or, a whaling captain tries to catch a whale; or an old man tries to catch a big fish. None of them sound like winners, really. You really do need some sort of meta characterisation about pure plot, to give readers hints about the sort of book it is.

These days most of this information about style is provided typographically: chick lit books are instantly defined by the zany font and colour scheme, just as thrillers will have short titles in bold letters. Although this can be convenient, it does tend to ghetto-ize people's reading habits, so that they only read the sort of books they have read.

The reason I'm thinking about this is that the book is finished, and at 180 pages is something you could point at as something substantial, something that could be marketed. But who to? But another reason is that I feel I've reached a natural end-point; I have been working on and off on the long stories for five years or more, and now they're done I'm wondering what's next. I've got some ideas, but they would sound even stranger than the ones I've completed. But one thing I have noticed recently is that I really can sit down and write: the Dylan story was complete in outline in my head by the time I was back home from the gig, and complete on paper the next day. So whatever it is, it should go smoother.

A night like this (January 7th 1974): short story

Phil awoke, cold and stiff. He was alone, still clothed. He must have dropped off where he sat. The scent of tobacco and dope smoke engrained in his crumpled clothes competed with the unfamiliar apartment's own odour of damp and decay.

From the stereo speakers in the corner came the repeating click and hiss as the needle followed the circling groove around the label; on the floor lay the shiny album sleeve, disfigured with stamped warnings: the review copy of Planet Waves which he'd picked up yesterday at the gig. It wouldn't be in stores for a few days. Outside, dogs barked in the street.

He patted his pockets for cigarettes, found none, and coughed instead. He looked around the room, taking in the glasses, ashtrays, and bottles. And books. His memory nagged at him; there was something important he'd found out last night.


He'd first noticed the chick in the crowd at the Maple Leaf Gardens arena, while standing in the darkness of the auditorium waiting for Bob Dylan and The Band to come on stage. She stood with her eyes closed, arms part raised, ringed fingers extended, rocking and swaying gently to some silent rhythm. As the concert started, she opened her eyes and stared at Bob intently, following his every move. As the crowd shifted over the next half hour, she ended up alongside Phil as he lit up a joint; in response to her questioning look he passed it to her.

Then, as Bob ended 'Just like a woman' with a magically inventive and expressive harmonica solo, their eyes locked and they nodded in recognition of the artistry they had witnessed. Putting his arm around her shoulders seems a natural response, and by the time the lights went out on the encore of 'Most likely you'll go your way and I'll go mine', they were kissing passionately. Things were looking good, he thought.

They stepped into the cold hard air of the night. Toronto was quiet to his ringing ears.

'Where do you live?' he asked.

'Not far, McGill Street,' she replied, 'although it's nothing much.'

They settled on her place; his was nothing much either. Being a music reviewer for a small alternative magazine wasn't a job for people interested in material success.

They crossed the street to the empty sidewalk and went down an alleyway between two tattered billboards, emerging in a back street. As they mounted the spidery lattice of the fire escape, she turned towards him.

'He's great, isn't he? Bob? So complex.'

I revealed the treasure in my bag.

'I know,' she said, 'I saw you get it at the gig: I can't wait to hear it!'

She squealed and ran up the steps.


They settled down on the sofa as the music started. She sat up with a start as 'Tough mama' began, shaking off his hand.

'Wait,' she said, 'I'm listening.' He listened too; it counted as work, after all. When the track finished, she stood up and repositioned the needle to start it again. She picked up a battered notebook, opened it to a fresh page, and wrote down notes as she picked out the key phrases. When the song ended, she let the album play on, but only because she was reaching up to a book shelf.

'New morning was about the Abrahamic God as Father,' she said over her shoulder, 'I think this is changing to the female principle - don't you see? Goddess - angel - beauty - mama.'

Phil nodded dejectedly. She took down a Bible, its pages interleaved with Tarot cards used as bookmarks.

'Cities of the plain,' she muttered.

Phil felt he should make some contribution, what with being an English major and professional critic and all.

'There's a Eugene O'Neill play about drug addiction - Long day's journey into night - I'm sure he's alluding to it with 'night's long journey',' he said.

'Of course,' she replied dismissively, 'or it's re-birth: that would fit better, wouldn't it?'

And so the night had gone - research, theory, listening, reading. He was eventually overcome by exhaustion and boredom.


He yawned, stretched, and stood up. He went to knock on the bedroom door, but it swung open to his pressure. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, still dressed; it was concealed benath a mat of paper, books lying open, and closely-written index cards.

'Oh, hi,' she said distractedly. 'You fell asleep. I feel like I'm getting somewhere.' She gestured at her notes. 'The number nineteen is the key, you see.'

The walls were covered with posters of Dylan, newspaper cuttings, occult symbols, and handwritten transcriptions of lyrics.

Now Phil remembered what it was. She was crazy. Not crazy like a crazy mama, or crazy like a fox. Call-the-nut-wagon, straitjacket, padded cell crazy. What were the chances of him picking up someone like that?

As he retrieved the album and crept out of the building, he realised that the chances were quite high, all things considered.

Author's note

A night like this was devised after seeing Dylan live for the first time recently. I had looked around the audience and noted the preponderance of male fans; most of the female fans had come as part of couple. 'What were the ones who came alone like?' I wondered, and realised that I knew, or could guess. The story's setting is as true as research can make it, although normally I wouldn't count that as a particularly important question: credibility is more vital than accuracy. Dylanologists will enjoy spotting references to songs in the text.

This story is included in the new edition of File under fiction.

The gift of the gab (short story)

I suppose you're wondering how an innocent, or fairly innocent, PR guy from England ended up in the cellar of an Italian deli in Toronto waiting for the Mafia bosses upstairs to decide how they were going to 'take care of me', or take care of me. To tell the truth, so am I. The start of the slippery slope was a year ago, in the form of a coincidence or accident. Back then, I was still working for a big public relations agency - although these days they prefer to brand themselves as 'relationship managers' or 'image consultants'. Whatever. Anyway, I won't bother telling you their name: you won't have heard of them. Only in England, I used to say bitterly, would you get a PR company that prized modesty and self-deprecation. They managed to stay below everybody's radar, including that of their clients, and money was always tight.

The firm had a fixed rule about travel expenses: if the client is paying, go first class, if the company's paying, go coach. As a result, I had become wearily resigned to arriving at obscure little airfields, miles from the labeled destination, at the whim of inventive bargain airlines. I had argued in vain before that the cost in time and energy of dealing with the transit links outweighed any saving in the fare, and repeated this opinion at length while preparing for a trip to Stockholm for a client presentation. My tantrum extracted a vague promise from the office manager that they would have a go at organising a car to pick me up from the airport while I was in the air.

So when I arrived in the cold, dark, windswept, hangar and trudged through customs, I was pleased to see a smartly-dressed chauffeur at the barrier holding a sign for "Mr Wite". I was used to answering to multiple personalities thanks to the vagaries of phonetics and accents, so I greeted him, gave him my bag, and gratefully entered the cosy interior of the hotel's courtesy car. After a painless and worry-free half hour, we reached the hotel. The driver gave me my case on the steps and was hailed by a departing guest; within seconds he was off again, leaving me to walk to reception. The hotel seemed well above our usual budget, but I wasn't complaining. It was only when I came to register that things came unstuck: the booking wasn't for me, Dick Wright, but for a Gary White, who was presumably still standing at the airport. The staff apologized for the mistake, and directed me to a nearby hotel which had vacancies. I was happy: I had been spared a lot of hassle and some expense.

It was only later that I realized that this was a trick that could be used deliberately: whenever I didn't fancy using public transport, I could pick out a driver with a name sign (proving that they didn't know the person they were meeting) and be whisked away. I tried this a few times, with varying success: sometimes I found myself ensconced in a pre-paid luxury room, sometimes there was a long and loud exchange of views on the steps of a run-down hotel. But it wasn't dull, and it was free, and I could usually employ my eloquence to escape any consequences.

The cost became a significant factor for me when I started to work on my own, my employers having tired of my freely-imparted wisdom. Unfortunately, clients proved hard to find. When I heard that Deano Rosso, the film star, was in need of representation, I had little choice but to max out my credit card on a plane ticket to Toronto in the hope of signing him up. Deano liked to call himself the Italian Rapscallion, but he was more generally known in the industry at The Meathead. He was a jerk, more famous for his bizarre and outrageous off-screen behaviour than for his talent. But I wasn't a critic: somebody with a lot of negative press attention was somebody who needed a publicity handler. His previous spokesman, who had tipped me off, was entering witness protection, having testified to a grand jury about some of Deano's earlier exploits.

So I arrived at Toronto needing a cheap way to the city centre. My spirits also needed lifting after seven hours sitting between a loquacious woman from Yorkshire impervious to her audience's indifference and a teenager whose earphones leaked tinny rock music for the entire flight. I was on the look-out for a suitable ride; there wasn't a lot of choice, so I had to answer to a different surname: I selected the name 'Giorgio', held up by a thin man in his twenties wearing sunglasses, a dark tie and sharp suit. When I went up to him, he simply nodded and led me silently to an old-fashioned limo with tinted windows. The interior smelt of leather; I sank back into the seat and enjoyed the ride. After the freeway and main route, we dived off into a tangle of smaller streets and smoothly drew up outside an old-fashioned building festooned with Italian flags. It wasn't a hotel: it was a deli. That's odd, I thought, while mentally I started to prepare an exit line so I could walk off. Before I had a chance, the driver had opened the door and hustled me across the pavement, through the deserted shop, to a staircase behind the counter. Here two more men were standing, also dressed in suits and sunglasses. The straps of shoulder holsters were visible beneath their jackets. I started to speak but was silenced by their immediate response: raising a finger to their lips. One pointed up the stairs, so I started to climb. There was a wood-panelled door; I knocked and entered.

The room was set out for a formal function: a table ran the length of it; on the far side were sat a row of men, dressed in suits. In the centre was a white-haired man, his thick fingered hands resting on the white tablecloth in a gesture of welcome. An empty chair was in the centre of the room, facing him; I sat in it as instructed. A little light entered the room through the vertical blinds on the street frontage; there were no other windows.

'You're probably wondering why you're here,' he started, 'after all- Vince Bellow's been in charge of this town since whenever. For a hundred years we have looked after ourselves. We have strong family traditions, and loyalties, and of course we have our commercial operations, our funders, and our colleagues in uniform. We're proud of our record. But we must be realistic - we cannot live on our past glories. And we have a problem.'

The men seated at his sides, who had been nodding smugly, leaned forward with interest.

'Over the last few years, the police and the FBI have been chipping away at us, and since Peter Safowicz became DA, we can’t move. They seem to know every member, follow every automobile, they track emails, tap phones, and check bank accounts. And they're beginning to get somewhere - it's not just the foot soldiers any more. They're moving up the hierarchy. Some of the fall guys are making deals; the city has lost its respect for us. They ain't scared of us no more. Our old friends in the police force can't help. They can tell us what's going on, but they can't protect us. We need to roll this back. That's where you come in, Mr Giorgio.'

I had been listening to his speech with mounting horror, and at last had my chance to speak. Unfortunately, my mouth flapped wordlessly and so he continued.

'We got a plan, you see, a perfect plan. If we are too well-known to get away with anything like that, we'll bring in an outsider. That's why you're here. Next Saturday, my daughter is getting married in the cathedral. The entire organisation will be there. I've invited politicians, police and the media. We'll have the firmest alibis ever seen. And while we're there, you'll be doing your job: shooting Safowicz. That should stop the rot and get the FBI running scared.'

He paused to look at his colleagues, savouring their evident relief. He smiled a little until I spoke.

'I'm sorry,' I started, my voice coming out as a squeak, 'there's been a mistake. Your driver picked up the wrong man. I'm Dick Wright, from England.'

Bellow gestured to someone behind me. I was pushed back into the chair and patted.

'He's clean. No wires or weapons', the searcher reported. Bellow relaxed a little. A thought struck him, and he turned to his neighbour, who was looking worried.

'Well Michael, where the fuck is our man?' he asked.

Michael produced his cell phone and started to punch at the buttons. Others started to mutter, the mood of confidence evaporating in an instant. Bellow tapped the table. Silence fell obediently.

'The plan is still sound: we just gotta wait. Take this pansy downstairs. We'll decide what to do with him later.'

So there I was, unwontedly privy to Mafia secrets, the condemned man in a cell, as good as. No doubt their best approach would be to kill me and dump the body somewhere obscure. I wouldn't be missed for days. Self-pity washed over me.

But then I started to rally. Maybe I wasn't going to make a pitch to Rosso. From a management perspective, though, the Mafia sounded like a business in trouble, with major reputation problems. The big secret with good PR is understanding your client's psychology, and I could sense how Bellow was feeling.

If I begged for mercy, he'd crush me like a cockroach without a thought. But he was astute enough to recognize that his operation was in a difficult situation, where his old certainties no longer applied. He had to be a leader, but he had no real idea where he was going. That was his weakness, and maybe I could exploit it by showing him a way out. I'd have to be convincing, though - I'd be pitching for my life, literally. And to make any impression I'd have to transform myself in their eyes from a quivering effeminate wimp to a master of business. I started to smarten myself up, and paced up and down the room, rehearsing phrases in my head. Then I knocked on the door: the guard glanced in without interest.

'Tell your boss I've got a deal to make,' I said.

He shrugged and led me back upstairs. As we approached the room, raised voices could be heard, which continued as we entered.

Michael was staring at his phone in disbelief. 'Are you telling me he was here? He landed? But the Feds got him? Shit!'

A concerned murmur ran round the room. I stepped forward and spoke loudly.

'You've got a problem - I've got a solution.'

The room quietened a little. Bellow gestured for silence, then spoke.

'You -help us? How? Right now you ain't got much of a future. Unless you're a sharpshooter?'

'No. I am an expert, though, at what I do. Which is to help organizations. I tell you what: you give me ten minutes to make my case. If by the end you haven't got three new actions based on my advice, you can shoot me.'

'Thanks for the permission,' Bellow smirked, but I could tell he was interested.

'I'll start with the obvious. You seem to be surprised that the police can spot you. But I could spot you, just because of the way you dress. Wearing sunglasses indoors, cars with tinted windows: you might as well put up a sign saying Something illegal happening here. Why do you think rock starts go around like that: is it so nobody notices them? I don't think so.'

One of the men quietly removed his sunglasses, prompting sniggers from his neighbours, and from Bellow.

'More generally, though,' I continued, 'you wear a uniform. Nobody wears suits any more.'

I lost the room: they sat back, offended.

'No, come on. There was a time, a generation ago, when you'd be wearing the same sort of clothes as everyone else: a little sharper, a little better cut, but broadly comparable. You haven't moved on: everyone else has. Again, you're standing out from the crowd. I can see why you might want to, but it’s not helping you at the moment. You think you're the only people with this problem? Every family business runs into this: there comes a time when the traditions and skills can no longer help, and you risk losing out to newer firms who are better attuned to the new opportunities.'

I stepped across to the window and opened the blinds. Those sat nearest the window flinched a little, as if half expecting a sniper's bullet; they then attempted to look unruffled.

'Look out there: main street. Small shops, small businesses. I suppose you go round and pick up protection: bags of coins, some low-value bank notes. The city's moved on, leaving just the small change behind. And see that office block: International Trading Partners, it says. What do they do? I have no idea- nor do you, or anyone. It's just an office; I bet the police walk past that every day without ever going inside. They could be running complex currency fraud, for all we know. Electronic money. And the beauty of it is that they can look after themselves. Their security is tight: they've got CCTV, and they've got guards who wear weapons openly. Just think about it!'

It was clear that I was persuading them.

'But let's go back to basics. Your ancestors looked for the opportunities of the time, and took them. You need to do the same. Think big. You know these boiler rooms: rooms full of scammers chiselling a few hundred dollars from investors' savings. Hard work, for little gain, when you think abouyt something like Enron, or Madoff's hedge fund. Reputable people queuing up to hand over their cash, no questions asked: that's the way to go!'

'And here isn't really the place to do it; you're wide open to scrutiny. You should follow the legitimate businesses out of town: get your own building in the middle of nowhere, with a perimeter fence and secure parking.'

Suddenly, people's eyes widened. I'd done it. They started nodding.

'That's what I've been saying,' whined one.

'It would help with the commute: I spend goddam hours on the freeway,' said another.

'We could have a firing range in the basement.'

Bellow looked around at the buzzing room, approving. He clapped his hands for silence.

'I'm impressed. You're smarter than you look. But now you're solving our problems for us, what's your big plan? How do we change?'

'That's not really my area, but since you ask me, I'd say you need to reposition yourselves in the market. Your old operations are the ones that are generating all this police interest. You could close them down, but it might be better to sell them off to your competition: you get the cash, they get to deal with the law. If you felt like it, you might even drop a few hints to the police: you won't be needing to pay them off anymore. But that's up to you. The biggest problem you'd have left is that there will be a lot of loose ends, unsolved crimes. I'd suggest persuading a few people to confess to all of them, and that would be that. I think my time's up.'

Bellow stood up and extended his hand. I shook it as firmly as I could.

'So why are you in town?' he asked.

I explained about my quest for a client to represent.

A little later we parted on good times and I stumbled to a hotel. The next morning, I tracked down Rosso's apartment and arrived there. He seemed hungover and confused, but was happy enough to see me.

'Hiya,' he mumbled, 'I hear you're good.'

I wondered who might have praised me, before I remembered that the Italian community was probably quite well-connected.

'Well, you've got the job: you can start straight off.'

For the second time in two days, things were looking up.

'Now,' he continued, 'I've had some trouble, and the press are all over it again. What you gotta know to start with is, I swear I thought that sheep was female.'


THE END

Copyright Martin Locock

How to beat writer's block

There are two different types of writer's block:

• when you know what you should be writing but cannot settle down to it;


• and when you don't know what to do at all.

The second type is hard to address: where do ideas come from, after all? The best solution is avoidance: write down any ideas you might have as you go along. I've got a couple of things that have been on my to-do list for over a year now (Martin Amis book reviews); that's ok, they are there, not going anywhere, and I can move on to them if I finish or get fed up with the more active projects.

But the first type is the main one people mean. It seems so much more attractive to do anything but what you need to. I'm sure that one of the reasons that novelists these days go overboard on research, as if they were writing a text book rather than a work of fiction, is that it's a good way of putting off the fateful moment of having to put it down. From my experience, I think, much as stage fright for actors (which is perhaps a closely comparable phenomenon), writer's block is an expected, perhaps mandatory, element of the writing process; it is therefore not an admission of failure when it occurs. But it is a practical problem, and here are some tips that might help:

write the stuff you want to

I had planned out The Time Zone Rule for a long time but somehow couldn't face the task of scene setting, introducing the characters, and giving them their back-stories: the interesting bit of the story to me was the development of the central relationship from a sexual to a fraternal one. So I decided to start writing there and deal with the introductories later; as it turned out, I left the story in the order written, rather than in chronological order.

If what you're writing doesn't interest you, I don't think it will work for anyone else. One point I realised was that you can use the narrative freedom to describe what you want to: you could describe someone making a cup of tea, if you wanted to, or you could jump straight to the next incident.


switch projects
If you are inspired to work on something, go for it. I've had several ideas that have jumped the queue because I was ready to advance them. nThat's good, not bad.


plan
If you don't want to apply yourself to the grind of writing a scene or chapter, why not spend some time planning out the plot instead? Although I don't think you have to plan, it provides a great safety net for inspiration and allows you to start building in ironies and hints.

organise
There's a lot of tedious record-keeping, filing, proofreading etc hwich needs to be done; do that instead.

re-write
Go through the complete draft elements and see whether they can be improved: they probably can.

go for walk
Define your specific problem: is it a sentence? a character? a plot element?
Then go and do something else and come back with the best solution you have come up with.


Or, of course, you can write something else, like a blog post, rather than get the radio script written (it's a long story, but not yet long enough).

File under fiction: available now from Lulu.com

This debut collection of short stories by Martin Locock ranges from the misadventures of an archivist dealing with a landed family to a solicitor's obsession with a perfect family seen through a window.

The stories are fast-paced, sexy and funny.

Published by Carreg Ffylfan Press.

Contents:


Change and Decay

An archivist meets a gentry family amid a decaying estate and reveals some family history they had wanted to conceal.

"The train muttered and grunted to a halt, and the doors hissed open. I stepped out onto the deserted platform- none of my fellow-passengers were inspired to alight. I walked through an archway, leaning to even out the weight of the laptop case and suitcase, past spare mail trolleys queued for an unexpected pre-Christmas rush. A bus timetable yellowed behind a cracked glass display, ready to be sold to some transport museum as a bygone."

Read it online.


Exchange Mechanism

Developing a telepathy machine presents an opportunity for misuse and manipulation.

"I had got used to the prevarications of a series of boyfriends who would drag out our vidchats interminably on the offchance of catching a glimpse of my roommate Kristin walking around in the background. Although I'd tell them at the earliest opportunity that they were wasting their time (Kristin was 100% lezz), that didn't stop them looking."

Read it online.


Candles on the Table

What looked like the perfect family hides a dark secret.

"Stephen looked to the far side of the road, and saw a small neat cottage; one of the downstairs rooms was lit, and he could make out, with intrusive clarity, a woman setting cutlery on the table. Two candles were already burning in elegant simple candlesticks. On the wall behind the table there were small framed pictures and blue-and-white plates. He was enchanted, as much by the room as the figure; he had once thought that he would occupy such a house, everything just so."

Read it online.


The Time Zone Rule

Two colleagues are sent at short notice to Morocco; they succumb to the romance of the situation but then have to deal with the consequences.

"Sue's people carrier circled the staff car park while she became increasingly frustrated. Her criteria for what constituted an adequate space dropped ever lower. Designated personal parking spaces had been abolished the year before in a fit of executive egalitarianism, on the advice of a touchy-feely consultancy brought in to make the company 'a happier place to work'. It wasn’t working for her today, she thought grimly, gritting her teeth."

Not available online.


A night like this

A music reviewer picks up a girl at a Dylan gig in 1974.

Read it online.


The Grand Tour

A tourist in Italy spends the perfect afternoon sitting in a station cafe watching the world go by.

The waitress brought the drinks over to our table. Mine was a cappucino; this was back in the 1980s, before real coffee became universally available, and it was therefore something of an exotic treat. My friends had chosen lemonade in deference to the shimmering heat of August.
Philip unzipped a side pocket of his backpack and brought out a notebook.
'We've got three hours here to wait until the express comes through to take us to Florence.'
He looked around the station café, finding little prospect of amusement.
'I could do with changing some more travellers' cheques,' he continued, 'we'd have to catch the bus up to the main town to find a bank.'
'I'd like to go too,' said Malcolm,' there's a church with a 15th-century pieta I'd like to see.' He paused and turned to me. 'What about you?'
'I think I'll stay here,' I said.

Not available online.


A place of learning

Newbury University's Religious Studies department is rife with internal politics, complacency and frustration, while outside the comfortable Anglican certainties crumble.

Morning. Penelope Zbigniev tilted her head back, wiped her eyes, and yawned. She refocused on the computer screen and continued typing.

'Definitions of prayer vary across the world. For this study, the phenomenological approach has been taken, hence covering all individual spiritual activity which includes both ritual and contemplative components.'

She paused. She knew that a PhD thesis wasn't supposed to be interesting, but she took it as a bad sign that hers bored even the author. She stretched again, the old wooden chair creaking as she shifted her negligible weight on it. The small room was packed with stuff: books, ornaments, cover throws. Her housemates slept; undergraduates kept later hours. She looked out into the yard below her window. An ugly tomcat stalked along the wall, peering suspiciously at the foliage in the overgrown garden. He did this every day. Penelope wondered whether there was a contemplative component to his spiritual activity.

Not available online.


The Austen correspondence

An undiscovered letter from Jane to Cassandra.

Read it online.


Boswell continued

Further adventures of Johnson and Boswell.

"Being an addition by Another Gentleman to James Boswell's celebrated Life of Johnson, in which is described a visit to Lichfield, with instances of the Doctor's wit and sagacity which arose in the course thereof."

Read it online.


Fidelity

'I've left him.'
Sheila opened the front door wider to allow the distraught figure of her sister to enter. In no time, Linda was sat at the kitchen table, alternatively sobbing, sniffing, and taking a tissue.
'Max [sniff] is [sob] having [blow] an affair.'
'Are you sure?' asked Sheila, doubtfully.
'Yes,' said Linda, nodding wordlessly, 'it's a bit out of character, I know, doing something imaginative. You're right about him being dull.'
'I don't think I ever said . . .'
'You didn't have to. But there you go, he is having an affair. Well, good luck to him.'

Not available online.


The seducer's tale

The Fresher's Ball ends unexpectedly.

Read it online.


The price of everything

A beggar recounts an eventful day.

Read it online.


Street science

An unlikely friendship grows from a chance meeting at the hospital.

Read it online.


Sinners, all

A quite night in a bar, an argument, a wager.

Read it online.

Author's Notes

"Change and decay owes its title only indirectly to the hymn 'Abide with me'. I first encountered the phrase when reading Scoop at an impressionable age in my teens: it seemed to me at the time to be most perfect novel ever written, an opinion I have had little reason to alter. Re-reading it recently I became aware of how much of the atmosphere of country house living I had imbibed, reflected in Change and decay."

Not available online

About the Author

"I was born in Barrow-in-Furness, a grim grey shipbuilding town on the north end
of Morecambe Bay, drenched in the drizzle of the Irish Sea. Terraces huddled
beneath the silhouettes of cranes; as the hooter sounded the streets would fill
with tired but boisterous riveters and boilermakers heading for pub, chip shop,
or home, as preference and finance dictated.I cannot claim, however, that I
absorbed much of this atmosphere into my personality. By the age of 6
months I had left forever."

Not available online

188pp, 6" x 9"

It can be ordered from Lulu.com as a book or digital download.

Work in progress

I'm working on a long short story, The Time Zone Rule, which will be included in a collection of my fiction to be called File Under Fiction.

The Time Zone Rule is subtitled 'a modern romance' and is a obverse version of a romantic comedy: it starts with a one-night-stand between two colleagues who end up far away from home, and then explores how they ended up there and what the consequences are.

Fact and fiction

[part of a series about the mechanics of writing fiction]

Will Self recently railed aghainst the classification of the roman a clef as fiction: he said that it should be treated as disguised memoir. I don't really see the point of writing about real people and events and lightly amending names. The drearily literal 'novel' in which everything is researched is a blight of modern times, of course. Don't the writers see that their job is to make stuff up?

Readers of course do like to try to search a text for patches where the writer is simply recounting their own experience unaltered (hence the problem with writing about sex); taken to an extreme this means that it becomes impossible for a writer to describe extreme opinions or actions without being suspected.

My view is that the real world is too dreary to merit inclusion in fiction. As Martin Amis said of his father's books, people spend too much time drinking tea. As a result, there isn't a superfluous adjective applied in my stories: the one thing the reader can be certain of is that a closely-described physical setting or person is completely fictional; the telling details are there to convince.

Having said that, there is a residual validity to the point that questions that interest writers imply something about their thoughts. I may or may not have a negative view of the role of the modern landed gentry in society (on balance yes, but mildly, would be my answer), but I'm intrigued enough by the issue to deal with at at some length in Change and Decay. But having such an interest is not the same thing as having a manifesto or a coherent body of thought around a topic.

Exchange mechanism

[A science fiction story]

I

My office pod was in darkness, lit only by the vidscreen on the wall. I was arguing dejectedly with my boyfriend.

"I'm sorry, Cal: I won't be able to meet up tonight."

He frowned. "Oh come on, Lori, you can't work all the time, and I won't be planetside again for a week."

I explained that I had a research paper to finish, to be sent to Earth in the next transmission window. Eventually he gave in, sulkily blanking the screen.

I had got used to the prevarications of a a series of boyfriends who would drag out our vidchats interminably on the offchance of catching a glimpse of my roommate Kristin walking around in the background. Although I'd tell them at the earliest opportunity that they were wasting their time (Kristin was 100% lezz), that didn't stop them looking. And although I'm not lezz at all, I can see that she ticks all the right boxes for them. Unlike me. So it made me mad, having to compete for attention with someone who wasn't even interested.

I closed down the vidscreen and brought up my text on the viewplate. I was stuck. "The economics of choice" was my topic. I was trying to develop a macroeconomic model of rational consumer choice which allowed for the fact that individuals in the population made decisions on exchange value and price based on partial information about the overall market. If I could resolve it, it would be a major advance in the field, but the mathematics was proving intractable.

Kristin walked in a few minutes later; too late for Cal! I wondered sometimes if she did it on purpose, to cause trouble in my relationships, but why would she do that?

"How's it going?" she asked, "Still stuck?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid so."

"You know who could help? Professor Sandra Bloch - she's a genius. I've seen her at parties; she's even hit on me a few times. No chance; she's too old and ugly for me."

She wrinkled her nose in distaste. Tolerance wasn't Kristin's strongpoint.

"But whatever she looks like, her mind's a whiz- the most-published author in the whole uni, maybe the whole planet. She's co-written papers on everything from architecture to zoology; her main subject's psychology and neurology, though."


II

A little later, I had successfully navigated the virtual directory to locate Bloch's contact details. When she appeared on the vidscreen she seemed unsurprised but unenthusiastic at being called up by a mere research student; she looked me up and down before lapsing into disinterest. Only the mention of Kristin's name stayed her hand as she reached for the off button.

"How can I help?" she demanded.

I breathlessly explained the basics of my research and the difficulty I had encountered. She considered briefly, then nodded.

"You've probably not heard of my work with thought transfer? I have developed a sort of hypnosis which opens the subject's mind, and allows me to telepathically explore it. Often I can see solutions that the subject already has stored, deep in their subconcious, to which they have no access. I can raise them into the rational realm in a form ready to be communicated to the world. You see, great ideas are, in general, simple: most complexity is sheer noise. So you see, I can try this with you now, if you wish- engender the trance state and resolve the problem."

I had no wish to be hurried into volunteering, and stalled. "Are there any side effects?"

She waved her hand. "None at all, nothing. A temporary period of amnesia following the trance."

I nodded my consent, and followed her instructions, sitting in front of the vidscreen; my breathing slowed as I fell into a trance and then complete unconciousness.


III

I awoke with lifted spirits; I lay in bed, opening my eyes to see the pod ceiling. A rush of nested formulae ran through my mind, their interlinking creating the solution I had sought. The text of the paper arranged itself neatly in my head. Of course, I'd credit Sandra as joint author. It seemed the least I could do.

I licked my lips; they seemed puffy and slightly bruised. I felt a weight on my shoulder shift. I looked across to see Kristin's body next to mine, skin to skin. She yawned contentedly, then stretched to bring her face close to my ear.

"Wow," she whispered.


I lay completely still, working things out.

Sandra must have ...
Kristin must have ...
I must have ...

So everyone had got what they wanted.

Good writing and bad sex

It has become a habit of lazy book reviewers to throw in a statement that some of the writing in the work under discussion would be a candidate for the Literary Review's Bad Sex In Literature award. What they often mean is that it is badly written from start to finish, including the sex bit, which isn't the same thing. But I'm not sure whether the criticism is entirely justified: there are good reasons why writing about is hard [hur hur hur] - difficult; unintentional humour is one of them.

More generally, though, there is the question of credibility. Novelists can tell me any sort of nonsense about the workings of the Moscow underground system or the administrative records of a police investigation and I will believe them as long as it sound as if they know hwat they are talking about. I've been told that Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a completely unreliable guide to motorcycle maintenance. But if someone is writing about an area of which I have experience, I can check whether they are not just plausible but authentic. So a different level of scrutiny is applied.

There is a problem here for the writer writing for the naive reader: it will be assumed that any experience described realistically must be real. Kingsley Amis admits to abandoning a novel with a first-person gay narrator because he didn't want his readers to speculate about the extent to which it was true. This seems a bit bizarre: one assumes that Thomas Harris is not suspected of being, or even wanting to be, a cannibal.

Then there is the question of language. Preferred terminology for body parts depends on the writer's (and reader's) age, gender, nationality, class, sexual orientation etc; use of what seems natural for the writer may have an adverse impact on some of his or her readers. For example, Martin Amis' reputation a a misogynist writer incapable of creating a convincing female character may be partly derived for his preference for terminology which is typically male (it is also partly derived from his inability to create convincing female characters: it is notable that the two most fully realised, Nicola Six in London Fields and Mike Hoolihan in Night Train, are cop-outs because Amis explicitly says that they are 'male' psychologically).

And there is the wider question of the extent to which one wishes to be seen to be writing pornography. Somewhat bizarrely, 40 years after the Chatterley trial, using Lawrence's terms in literature would be seen as rude if no longer shocking. To retreat into medical terminology runs the risk of making the act of love sound as exciting as a computer program. Since sex is 90% imagination and 10% friction [source unknown], most of the time writing is about the quality of the activity as it is experienced, and is as much about emotion and attitude as it is about mechanics. This is I think why so much writing about sex is flagged as being bad, in the sense of pretentious or over-ambitious. Even clever writers like Nick Hornby these days steer clear of anything hinting at high style: simple words in simple order are the norm. Purple prose is something of an endangered species in modern literature (with good reason, of course).

There is a danger, though, that being overcritical of the attempts to address the subject will lead to the easily-swayed from avoiding it altogether, leaving us with a mechanical prudishness at the core of fiction. Sex is important as a way of revealing character and a way of communicating mood, and on the whole writers should be encouraged to attempt its description, even if some are bound to fail.

Three stories about shoes

As part of a leadership course I took part in a narrative leadership / corporate storytelling session where we were asked to tell a series of three stories about our shoes. (It made sense at the time).

The first story was factual, and mine was mundane, restricted to the explanation that I was wearing trainers rather than shoes because I was expecting to walk a fair distance, and then that the trainers were a cheap and generic brand because unlike my children I didn't care which make they are.

The second story was supposed to include a fictional element; mine turned out to be wholly fictional: although my trainers looked like a pair, I said, they were in fact the remaining halves of two pairs. My speciality in sports was doing marathons the hard way, that is, by hopping, and so I was always wearing out one shoe faster than the other. In order to ensure that my muscle development was kept symmetrical, I always alternated which leg I used for each marathon, so the next one would be my left leg.

The third story was supposed to be fantastic; mine was just a bit strange. Once upon a time I was getting ready for a job interview, when I realised that my shoes were too tatty, and I rushed into the shoe shop on the way to the office. I looked at the black shoes and the brown shoes but none of them looked smart enough to impress. I had resigned myself to wearing my old shoes when I noticed the rack of trainers, and decided I might as well buy some. When I got to the interview, the panel was composed of three men wearing suits and ties. I was surprised to see that they were all wearing trainers. I got the job.


I think what's interesting about this exercise (talking for a minute with no preparation) is that is demonstrates how commonplace and instinctive storymaking is: you often hear self-described creative types going on about the search for inspiration and the dullness of normal life, but the truth is that ideas are plentiful: it is time to document them that is short.

Thoughts written on hotel notepaper

A distinctive smell, a mixture of gas, damp and tobacco, lingers in the carpets. The corridors snake around corners, ducking underlow arches, stepping up and down on a whim as they negotiate the building's extensions and additions. Passages run on out of view: this place could house an army. It's silent now, though: this is off season, and I'm almost alone.

Wind and rain deter all but the hardiest of tourists, and the high street wears its winter plumage of shuttered shops, closed restaurants, and ragged bunting left over from last year. The townsfolk have a haunted look- they know this place in both its modes, and would find it hard to decide which is better: winter solitude or summer overcrowding. But within them lies doubt- perhaps this time the visitors will not return, perhaps last summer was the final season.

As a result, I feel the weight of responsibility upon me- if I don't get a paper from the shop, use the telephone, buy a drink, the local economy may collapse into the chasm upon whose edge it teeters. When the best the marketing campaign can sugegst is a weterhered gravestone and an ill-defined association with Arthurian legend, eventual defeat appears inevitable.

Dooced: the radio play

'tis done, draft 1 at least: and you can read it at

Dooced: the radio play

.

It is entirely fictional, although since it deals with the sacking of somebody over comemnts on their web site, it obviously nods at Dooce. I have tried to be even-handed on the moral issues involved.

I would be genuinely grateful for comments before I submit it the BBC, especially on the fatal blog entry:

Well, that’s ruined my day. I got here bang on time (and therefore was the first in the office), to find a panicky email from Genghis Can’t, head of operations, calling me in to an emergency management team meeting this morning. No, I haven’t been admitted into the League of Very Ordinary Gentlemen of which said team is composed; he needed someone who could plug a projector into a laptop for his Powerpoint presentation, and since the company does not currently employ any monkeys trained for the purpose, it fell to me.

So I got to sit in on their deliberations as they faced the takeover crisis. The last to arrive was Teflon Man- nothing sticks to him. As they went through the Action Points from the last meeting, for his, he first denied that it had been assigned to him, and then blamed his staff for not having done it. He formed a partnership with Inaction Man, whose response to any question was to sigh and say “It’s not quite that simple…” The Silver Sofa was sat upon by everybody. He seemed more interested in my cleavage than in the discussion(understandable, perhaps, but the blatancy with which he was doing it was embarrassing, and totally gross). Eventually they agreed that the only solution to the takeover was for all staff holders of company shares to hold on to them, and they drafted a memo to be circulated to that effect. Being a young female in the room, they mistook me for a typist, so I had to write it for them. I was glad to escape back to my desk and get on with some real work, although now that I had seen our leaders up close, I didn’t give much for the long-term survival of the company.