I hope when you saw / see the photo in the previous post you think to click on it for enlargement – and again so! 

Janet, a member of the three-dimensional book group I infrequently enjoy, loaned me her copy of Arthur & George by Julian Barnes. The group had discussed this Man Booker 2005 short listed novel and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not wishing to miss out on enjoyable experiences I asked to borrow it even though it was not a sci fi.

Initially I was put off by the frequent scene switching between the two distant characters – Arthur (the early Conan Doyle) and George a solicitor in the Midlands. They had their own conflicts: Arthur struggled with passion, George with malicious blaming leading to false imprisonment. Eventually the two characters coalesce and Arthur tries his hand at solving an interesting mystery akin to his Sherlock Holmes, even though he protests that he is only a writer and not blessed with his creation’s detective prowess.

Although I skip some tedious tell passages, I find myself falling into the languorous nature of the style with anticipation of the relaxing and excellent writing, and the slow action. As with all my reading I make notes of phrases I wished I’d written. One such comes when Arthur and his secretary cross a farmyard:

 ”they squelched across the consequences of a herd of cows.” 

Marvellous – not the toilet humour but the choice of words. If I’d written that as a newbie author I’d have editors yelling at me to cut such pretentious writing and that by drawing the reader’s attention to the writing, the author is not invisible and so the fictive dream is broken. Bah – I love reading not just for the story but the way it’s reading. Well done, Julian!

Yesterday I caught a train along the North Wales coast to Llanfairfechan, my favourite starting place for walks. 8 miles of steady uphill brought me to the summit of Llwytmor mountain after having plodded up Drum. From both I had a spledid view of the Anafon valley – the setting for some of my Left Luggage sci fi book where an uninfected group hide out.

It was a brilliant day in which the downhill walk on mostly loose rocks was harder than the uphill. I had thought to walk on to Rowan Youth Hostel last night but the train station was closer so I came home.

On the train my seat was decorated with a copy of the Independent newspaper. I enjoyed its read until after coming out of the blackness in a tunnel my tired eyes fell on yet another HUGE advance paid to an unknown first-time novelist. Lucky man, I thought, or very clever man. Then I read on. So, how did Nicholas Cornwell grab an agent – we’d all like to know – yes? Well, he wrote his sci fi book – a rather dodgy premise, but I’m good at concocting those too <wink> – and then mentioned to potential agents that he didn’t want anyone to know that his father is Mr David Cornwell. Who? David Cornwell is the real name of John le Carre. Yeah right. And so an agent snapped him up and put it around that the son of John le Carre has a book. Immediately the auction started and hence the biggest advance for a sci fi book in the UK.

Nicholas made a good job of being anonymous didn’t he? Just look at the headlines:
http://arts.independent.co.uk/books/news/article2617455.ece

And of course it does no harm to have a mum who happens to be a senior book editor at Hodder & Stoughton…

Of course, the book could be brilliant – probably is. But I’d like all agents and publishers to know right now that I don’t have a famous father, or mother, and so am available for huge advances for my Left Luggage sci fi trilogy, No Exit sci fi, and Hot Air thriller. I’d be happy with a £250,000 advance, £100,000? £20,000 - OK £20 and they’re yours.  

In my Exit sf story, a work in progress – allegedly – in a back story I need a chap to have an accidental death. I don’t mean an unusual murder, I am worringly good at devising those, but an accident. It would be silly because unbelievable to have a completely rare death – eg only one person in recorded history has died from a meteorite hitting him, but if I have to have morbid events in my writing I might as well have them being interesting.

While my brain tried to focus on this I did a bit of investigating into real-life-deaths and came up with these. I shan’t use them but share them out of gruesome curiosity.

Texas 1947 As a prank, a captain riding in the jump seat engaged the gust lock in flight. The command pilot, not knowing the gust lock had been engaged, rolled the elevator trim tab with no response. When the jump seat  captain disengaged the gust lock, the aircraft went into into a steep dive, executed part of an outside roll and become inverted. Neither the command nor jump seat captain had seat belts on and they accidentally feathered No. 1, 2 and 4 engines when they hit the controls with their heads. No one realized it at the time but the feathering reduced power and allowed the co-pilot, who was strapped in, to pull out of the dive 350 feet from the ground. 

 

In
Switzerland in 1963Without authorization, the pilot taxied half-way down the runway to try and clear fog. Braking done during the fog clearing overheated the brakes. Soon after takeoff, the overheated brakes caused a tire to burst which damaged a fuel line and started a fire. The plane crashed shortly after killing all 80 people aboard. 

1982
BrazilThe aircraft broke in two after a hard landing killing 2 people. The pilot’s misuse of rain repellent, caused an optical illusion leading to the hard landing.  

Scary one from
England in 1990 

On a flight from Birmingham, England to
Malaga, Spain, at FL 173, a large section of windshield fell away from the aircraft. The decompression pulled the captain out from under his seatbelt. Despite trying to hold onto the yoke, the captain was sucked out into the opening. A steward in the cockpit was able to grab hold of his legs. Another steward was able to strap himself into the vacant seat and aid in holding onto the captain’s legs. The copilot wearing full restraints made an emergency landing at
Southampton. The captain remained half way out of the aircraft for 15 minutes and suffered only frostbite and some fractures. Improper bolts used to replace the windshield two days earlier resulted in the accident.  

The National Research Council has found out that so far, at least 21 ships carrying scrap metal from machine shops have burst into flames in American portsIf anyone has an idea for an unusual but believable accident for my character – let me know!

A man in Poland was hit by a railway train in 1988 and has been in a coma ever since  – until now, 19 years later. See here

The concept of being in a coma is well known to horror writers and we’ve all read, and possibly written, stories based on the comatose victims being aware of their surroundings and maybe hearing discussions about their life support system being switched off, but not able to do anything about it. – Until the cliche’d twitch of a finger that a relative sees and voila…

I’m fascinated to know how / why this chap came out of his coma & the dedication of his wife who remained at his bedside for most of the 19 years (I told my wife that she can leave me to my chances & get herself a life after 3 weeks. She said she wouldnt wait that long  ).

His rueful comments that modern people with their mobile phones and no food shortages (the post-scarcity society) are always moaning, are quite telling!

 A young writer, Gareth Stack, reminded me the other day about how fresh and coruscating creative writing can be when unfettered by rules and experience. A website Gareth co-writes is Jackdaw Fool and is well worth a visit by writers young and old. It refreshes parts editors often cannot reach!

I’ve just had my bum measured for a new bicycle saddle. Hah! Having suffered from saddle soreness afer the first 35 miles each cycle-day, and having tried a variety of saddles, cycle shorts and creams. I realise that most of the problem is due to the setup of my bike. I love my Dawes Super Galaxy, and she’s taken me many thousands of hilly miles since I bought her in 1997. However, it seems the cycle shop sold me a bike too big. An easy test I’ve discovered this year is to stand aside the crossbar. You should have an inch clearance. I’d have to have major surgery to have any clearance.  My generous wife (the one with all the money) said I can have a new bike for my 60th birthday this Guy Fawkes day. Being a positive chap I don’t just celebrate a single day per year; I have birthday week, month and in this case the whole year, and probably next year too! So I ordered a brand new Dawes Ultra Galaxy, the bees knees of touring cycling – well one of them, Cannondale are ace too. But I don’t want the Brooks B17 leather saddle that comes with it. There are many keen cyclists who love the Brooks. They suffer through the early miles of softening-in the hard leather and then swear they are the best saddles ever. Maybe, but as a veggie I don’t want to ride miles or metres on a dead animal. Also there’s been many new technologies in saddles taking particular notice of our tender regions.  So I was pleased when in ordering a Specialized Atavar Gel saddle the shop lad said: “Hang on there, Sir, while I fetch our measuring equipment.”

Sir? It brought back teaching memories.

Measuring equipment? Am I that much of a lardy? Yes, probably. He brings a rectangular plate, puts it on the stairs in the showroom (great place, The Bike Factory in Chester) and tells me to park my bum with my knees bent up. I have to sit there for a minimum of a minute for the memory in the gel to get to know my pelvis. He goes off to serve another customer, and a couple of kids stick their spotty faces around a corner at me.

“What ya doing, mister?”

“I’m having a rest.”

“Why?”

“To save my energy.”

“Why?”

“So when I’m ready I can pounce on children and eat them.” I expected them to laugh sarcastically but they panicked and ran out of the shop.

“You can get up now, Sir.” So I did as I was told and lo, there was my bum impression. My eye caught a shapely woman customer and I wondered if the gel also had her bottom impressed, and that would be our two bum memories mingling… Stop it.

He expertly measured the relevant section and informed me my sitbones distance was 140mm. Sorted.

On my way out, I spotted that shapely woman again. She had two boys with her and they both pointed at me. I about turned and marched as fast as my 140mm would take me.

‘You’re in the paper, again,’ said my wife. I couldn’t tell whether it was a good thing, or if I’ve been seen superglueing butchers’ doorlocks, again. Luckily, it was a couple of column inches on my recent visit to the Writing Society. I really like the sound of that organisation, so much I’ll say it again – The Writing Society. They are an inspirational group of aspiring authors at my old teaching school, Queen’s Park Hgih in Chester. I was asked to chat about what led me from teaching Geography to writing science fiction. I threw them a few tips about how to get published, what not to do, and offered to critique their stories. It is inspiring for me to meet with exuberant young people who listen and who appreciate their school life.