Going Missing

Well, it’s been a very long time indeed since last I posted. Thanks to those who, in dribs and drabs, have continued to call by, from time to time. What excuses can I offer? There have been a multitude of complexities and complications in my life, as usual. I’ve also been immersed in the task of putting together some kind of finished version of my latest work-in-progress (it is, after all, over 165,000 words…). If any of my internet writer acquaintances fancy having a read through the manuscript, I’d be most grateful. And this project will very soon result in a welter of web-based activity, all of which is rather exciting…

In the meantime, here are some images from my travels in France in autumn, which it strikes me, I haven’t yet blogged about. How remiss of me…

All text and images © PSR 2017

Inspirational Holiday Reading

Apparently, we’re supposed to read ‘beach novels’ on our holidays. Well, I went swimming in the North Atlantic and read quite a lot over my summer break. But there the comparison  with such expectations ends, I think.

As a writer, there’s nothing more inspiring, I think, than reading a thoroughly researched and well written biography about one of your literary heroes. A few summers ago, I read David Bellos’s excellent biography of George Perec, ‘A Life in Words’. In Bellos’s book, the writer’s life becomes a fitting addition to his canon, a Rabelaisian tale about a unique individual. This summer, it was the turn of ‘Like a Fiery Elephant’, Jonathan Coe’s biography of another experimental writer, B S Johnson. Reading it, I was fired up again about fiction and its possibilities. Uncharacteristically, I even felt moved to thank the author on Twitter for spending eight years researching and writing the book… These days, the general reading public knows Johnson, if at all, as a writer of ‘difficult’ books who killed himself, in apparent despair, at the age of forty. In Coe’s words, Johnson comes across as a complex man, difficult but much loved by his friends. The insights into his creative processes and artistic aesthetic, and the barriers inherent in following such a path, are instructive for any writer seeking to work outside the mainstream. 

My favourite beach… 

One work mentioned in the biography was a collection of short stories by Johnson and Zulfikar Ghose, ‘Statement Against Corpses’, in which the two writers were supposed to reinvigorate the form. By all accounts, they managed no such thing – not that I can comment as the collection is long out of print and I don’t feel like spending over £100 for an old copy, only to have this view confirmed. Instead, I finished reading ‘Difficult Loves’ and ‘Laughable Loves’, early collections by Italo Calvino and Milan Kundera, respectively, and was reminded of why I love the work of both writers. Calvino was already exploring worlds through minute and apparently mundane details, much as he would in his final, brilliant collection, ‘Mr Palomar’. Kundera’s comic stories expose the absurdities often found at the heart of human relationships. 

Which half-complete track to follow?

Unfortunately, though, since returning from continental Europe, the demands of my day job and other stresses and strains have sapped my creative energies and progress on my fiction has been slow. I’ve arrived at a time-consuming stage in my vast work-in-progress, tying up all of its loose ends and re-arranging sections within its complex architecture. I’ve also been thinking ahead to my next project, of which I’ll write more in a future post. I have to decide between three options that I’ve had kicking around for some years now: a part-finished novella, a half-completed sequel and an epistolary novel of which I’ve planned much but written  little. Whichever one I choose, though, the work of those who’ve gone before – Perec, Johnson, Calvino, Kundera – remains a guide and inspiration. 

All text and images © PSR 2017

Ten Sounds You Miss from Your Homeland, Part Two

In a previous post, I wrote about the exiled narrator of my novel-in-progress and the ten sounds he misses from his homeland, “the chatter of the liitraavn in Rezistanzskvaar, the two-stroke clatter of Noorskii-SEATs…” and so on. My friend and fellow writer, Mari Biella, has very kindly taken the time to share the ten sounds she misses from home. Originally from the UK, Mari lives in Italy. You can find her blog here. Mari is the author of the excellent “Loving Imogen” and “The Quickening” And here are her auditory memories…

Disjointed memories, partial recollections, fragments of stories… when I’m writing I frequently find myself using these things as a starting-point, and then embellishing them until, gradually, they begin to take on shape and substance. Many of those memories, now I come to think about it, are either aural in nature or coupled with sounds, like when you hear a song and are instantly transported back to a particular time or place. For instance, and in no particular chronological order…

One. I once lived in a fleapit in the inner city, in a crumbling old building next to a railway line. The trains rattled past day and night, with surprising punctuality, and the house frequently rattled with them. At first it was annoying. Gradually I got used to it, and over time it became a comforting sound: come what may, the railway timetable remained a constant. On summer nights I used to sit outside in the shoebox-sized garden and watch the lit carriages slip by in the darkness. Who were the people on that train? Where had they been, and where were they going? What were their stories? Did they guess that someone was sitting out there in the shadows watching them?

Two. Trains were just one of the many and varied sounds that accompanied my life in that place. Every quarter of an hour, day and night, a clock in the nearby civic centre chimed. When all was well and life was happy it sounded like the reassuring voice of a friend. On long, restless nights when I couldn’t sleep, however, it seemed to take on a mocking air, contrasting the relentless passage of time with the strange feeling of stasis that accompanies sleeplessness. I sometimes wondered how many other insomniacs were out there listening to it and feeling the same.

Three. It was an eccentric, colourful place, that area, inhabited by a rich blend of people. Waking early in the morning, I frequently heard a woman on the street below calling “Lena! Lena!” Peering out between the curtains, I would see her standing on the pavement, staring up at an upper window of the house next door. Sometimes Lena came to the window and whispered something back; sometimes she didn’t. I’ve always wondered about the purpose of these early morning visits. I’ve also wondered why, since mobile phones were ubiquitous by this time, the visitor in question didn’t just call or message the mysterious Lena.

Four. One of the advantages of the inner city is that everything you reasonably need is close by. I lived within a stone’s throw of a major sporting venue, and on Saturday afternoons when there was a match or game I would frequently lean out of my window and listen to the distant roar of the crowd. It was such a joyous sound, so full of excitement and exuberance, that it made me smile just to hear it.

Five. We were fans of silly accents in my family. We’d frequently put on exaggerated Welsh accents, or – when we contemplated life across the Severn river – lapse into a daft West Country drawl. We tried our hands at most British regional accents, as well as RP. References to romantic love were frequently made in an impassioned French accent. We attempted American, Mexican, German, Russian and Swedish accents, with varying levels of success.

Six. There have been many times in my life when I haven’t owned a TV. In addition to an endless stream of letters from the TV licensing authority, this entailed relying on the radio for news. I frequently listened to Radio 4, and was enchanted by the Shipping Forecast. The repetition of the sea areas was almost hypnotic, and produced all kinds of images in my mind: fog, fishing vessels, gale force winds, immense waves crashing against rocks. Carol Ann Duffy commemorated the Shipping Forecast in her poem Prayer, and sometimes it really did sound like a strange liturgy.

Seven. I’m an unabashed landlubber, but the sea fascinates me. In Britain, of course, you’re surrounded by the stuff, and – like many British people – I never lived very far away from the coast. I used to go there quite often, sometimes for no other reason than to listen to the wind and the waves. I particularly loved the cry of the seagulls. Sometimes their call seemed to embody the intoxicating freedom of wild, wide open spaces; at other times, it sounded melancholy, almost heartbroken.

Eight. I miss the sound of the rain and wind lashing against the windowpane on stormy nights. I always thought it was very romantic, very Wuthering Heights-esque. Italian weather has a varied repertoire of its own, of course, but it doesn’t seem to extend to that particular combination of wind and rain – “horizontal rain”, as we used to call it.

Nine. I miss the sound of the English language in general; I particularly miss it as spoken by the natives of the city where I lived. “Dark” was pronounced as “dairk”, “park” as “pairk”. “I live in Cardiff” became “I lives in Cardiff”. Expressions of opinion were often prefaced with “not gonna lie to you” (“Not gonna lie to you, but I don’t like coffee that much”) or softened with “not being funny” (“Not being funny, but you’ve put on some timber since I saw you last.”) It was customary, when getting off a bus, to take your leave with a cheery “Thanks, drive!”

Ten. The last, much-missed sound is not peculiar to Britain, still less South Wales. It is, simply, the sound of a city. I live on the edge of the countryside now and, though I like it here, I do sometimes miss the clamour of the urban environment. I began this post by writing about how many of my stories are born of other, incomplete stories. In a city, surrounded by humanity, you are surrounded by many such fragments, and I sometimes feel the lack of them.

Thanks to Mari for sharing these with me. The first of her auditory memories turns out to be similar to one of my narrator’s.

My bedsitter is right at the top of the building on the third floor, where the rooms are smallest and the rents the lowest.  It’s accessed via a side door, leading to the servant’s staircase…  At night, I’m lulled to sleep by the sound of trains pulling into the central station about a kilometre away from here, their diesels thrumming and brakes screeching.  The din might keep another person awake.  I can’t sleep without it.  I often wonder if one of them might be mine.  And when I’m missing my home country, I burn the pine-scented incense cones to remind me…

There’ll be more from the sound archives of remembrance in a future post… 

Text PSR and Mari Biella 2017, images  PSR 2017

Through the Window

Except when he turns his gaze inward, the writer is always looking through the window, in a literal or metaphorical sense. Certainly, that’s what I’m doing with my current project. I stand in the corridor of a train, looking through the windows of the compartments, examining the lives of the passengers. Or I adopt their perspective, looking out at the world from their seats.

When I’m not working from home, I have a favourite place to sit and write. Fuelled by coffee, I sit upstairs in the bar and type. From time to time, I look out of the window at the street below and observe the dramas being played out there. It’s the writer’s job to take the fragments he sees and imagine them into a whole. 

That theatre comprises a number of elements. The backdrop features a church tower, a Georgian terrace and a car park. On stage are a motorbike stand, a few parking spaces, a dilapidated telephone box and a concrete bench. There’s a wall dividing the car park from the foreground, over which actors may peer. In front of all of this is the performance space. Old men sit on the bench and smoke. People wait on the corner, examining their phones. Motorcyclists come and go. Minor villains arrive in BMWs, their heads shaven and white shirts pristine. The telephone box is the exclusive province of the derelicts and drug-users. 

This is what I saw yesterday. A woman and her two sons entered stage right. They waited on the corner in the shade of the tall tree. After a while, a man and a small girl approached them, hand-in-hand from stage left. The family had divided while its members visited different shops, and now father and daughter were returning. But something wasn’t right. The girl had become inconsolable. The man sought to comfort her. The boys kicked indifferently at the dry earth around the tree, chewing on confectionery. This will be their education. At last, the man turned to go. The child was still crying. He walked off alone. I observed the look on his face as he headed for the wings. Ah, yes. And I remember. I remember exactly how that feels. 

This scene, played out time and again on the contemporary stage, leaves no one fulfilled. I can only tell you what I have learnt. It’s not much. We have to remember to be kind to one another, to set aside our petty grievances, not to put our own desires before all else. We need to think of the small cast with whom we share the stage, to treat them as real people. Our common humanity is all we have. 

I shan’t be looking at that view for much longer. The bar is closing and its future is uncertain. No doubt, I’ll find a new window, new street dramas to observe.  

All text and images © PSR 2017

The Roof Above Us

Well, I’ve just returned from the Writing Den, where I pushed on with my work-in-progress. I exchanged the shelter of one roof for another, a”change of scenery”, to employ the truism, needed all the more in the depths of the English winter. 

It was a good ten degrees warmer than back in England, ideal weather for exploring. Brittany is a spiritual place. You feel it in the landscape around you, in the lakes and forests, the granite hills and fast-flowing streams. You sense the countless generations that have walked there before you, from pre-Christian times onward. And when you lift your eyes skyward there are those magical cloudscapes too. 

A friend and I walked out into the countryside from the hamlet. He was telling me about the distinctly non-Christian principles by which he has conducted his spiritual life. We came across a ruined chapel on the edge of the wood. The real sky was breaking through the holes in the painted one on its ceiling. Organised religion in the West is in retreat, in terminal decline, perhaps. If we’re not careful, we’ll lose those ancient buildings along with it. And we’ll lose something more if our lives focus solely on the material and nothing more besides.  

You used to see elegant ruins in rural East Anglia. Not now. A derelict garden shed will be re-categorised as a “development opportunity” and priced at £100,000. But that chapel was a reminder for me. Above all else, the roof of a building must be maintained. On a practical level, I shall need to pay to have the roof of the Writing Den fully repaired over the coming year. Otherwise it’ll end up looking like the buildings in the photographs below. For me, spirituality extends to contemplating the birds in the birch trees in the garden (or the sparrows in the quince bush, since I’m back in England). I must remember to look upwards from time to time and reflect. If we neglect the interior life we leave ourselves exposed to the elements, metaphysically speaking.  

Clearly, that roof has been troubling me at some subliminal level. It seems that I’ve been writing about it in my work-in-progress.

It all begins with the roof.  Take a four-storey suburban villa, for example.  No one lives there any more.  Once the tiles slip and start to let in water, its structural integrity comes under threat.  Unless the holes are quickly patched, the damage soon spreads.  Filthy streaks line the walls.  Wallpaper begins to peel.  Pools of standing water gather on the floors and damp stains the ceilings below.  Section by section, the plaster blows and comes crashing down.  One after another, the windows are smashed and let the rain in.  It’s surprising how quickly the floorboards and ceiling joists become saturated then turn paper-like before collapsing under their own weight, taking any remaining items of furniture with them.  The house is already beyond repair.  The garden around it has become a dark and forbidding place.  Ivy claws its way toward the gutters.  Buddleia blossoms between the bricks, the memory of Himalayan crags clinging on inside its roots.  Roof timbers rot and fall inward.  Staircases fold in on themselves like broken accordions.  Denuded of its roof and floors, the house becomes an empty box.  Its former personality is no longer recognisable.  The basement and bathrooms, the scullery and servants’ rooms, the nursery and drawing room, they exist only in memory.  Even the ghosts have moved out.  The walls themselves are in danger of collapse.  The chimneys have already fallen.  With the front door broken off its hinges and its rotten windows hanging open, the house presents the world with a hollow, senile stare. 

All text and images © PSR 2017

Nothing of Note

Lost and found, lost and found…

What’s the worst thing that could happen to a writer? Well, he could be killed by fascists, of course, like Lorca or die in a plane crash like Ibargüengoitia. He could go blind as Borges did or mad in the manner of Clare. Okay, so I’m still alive, physically and mentally intact. Otherwise, losing a notebook is just about as bad as it gets. And that’s exactly what’s happened to me. Twice. 

Old notebook showing an outline timeline of the events in my work-in-progress

When considering what to call this post, I noticed that I already had one called ‘The Lost Notebook’ in my drafts. A year or so ago, I left my previous notebook in the bar I used to go to for a cooked breakfast and coffee. That was the first time. And I got away with it. The wonderful staff of The Golden Lion Inn (closed now, sadly) found it and put it to one side for me.  

The second time, I left my notebook at the gate in Madrid-Barajas Airport when juggling with too much baggage. We were somewhere over the Bay of Biscay when I realised it was missing, compounding the sense of loss I was already feeling (the journey was taking me away from my beloved). The flight attendant apart, British Airways proved singularly unhelpful, providing me with a series of telephone numbers that didn’t work, that were never answered, that were answered but supplied an unintelligible response… Needless to say, I didn’t get my notebook back.

Notebooks – useful for storing railway maps when travelling and writing

I once considered using the discovery of a lost notebook as a narrative device. The location was to be a train rather than an airport. Lost in transit. Oh, the irony… It seems unlikely that my notebook will follow that trajectory. I’m pretty sure that someone pocketed the pleasingly weighty pen (bought for me as a leaving gift by former colleagues) and threw the notebook in the nearest bin. 

So what did I lose? A year’s worth of notes on my work-in-progress, the notes for my next projected novel, the diaries of my travels in Mexico and Colombia, my list of fragments of overheard dialogue… oh, nothing of note, then. To be frank, I feel rather bereft. I’m hoping that this loss will push my imagination in unexpected directions. Well, you have to finish on an optimistic note. 

All text and images © PSR 2017

World Building

“World Building” is a term often used in relation to imaginative fiction. It’s been employed especially with regard to science fiction and fantasy, genres within which entire universes are sometimes created. That’s precisely the enterprise I’ve been engaged in these last several years. I really have no idea how you’d characterise my work-in-progress. I eschew genre with all of its commercial implications. But there’s a heavy element of alternative history involved, posing the “what if?” question. How might the world look if some key event had turned out differently? And I’m forced to acknowledge, there are facets of sci-fi and the fantastic in there too. 

Part of the creative process for me involves taking world building literally. A child playing by himself in the attic of a villa is an important strand in the narrative. He’s making an imaginary world of his own out of Lego-like plastic bricks. One of the items we see him build is an ambulance. Since “the instructions” for its construction are included in a footnote, I had first to make that model vehicle for myself. And so a raid on my children’s toy boxes proved necessary, with the results seen below…  

“You will need fourteen 2×8 and three 2×2 blocks for the base, roof and grille; two 1×4, twelve 1×3 and four 1×2 blocks for the sides; one 2×4 and one 2×2 block for the windscreen; one 2×4 and two 1×2 slopes for the roof front; one 1×4 door.  Detail may be added using two blue 1×1 blocks for the roof-mounted flashing lights, two yellow 1×1 ones for the headlamps and two red for the rear light cluster.”

A key aspect of this imaginary world, then, is the suburban villa and its roof-space. First I had to draw it, to crystallise for myself what it was that I’d imagined then to convey this believably to the reader. It’s inspired by the attic of a former workplace, but I still needed to perform a graphic walk-through to give the description credence. 

A mythical country and its cities also form part of the context of the book, necessitating my immersion into the craft of mythocartography (is that a word? – oh, well, I suppose it is now). I’m as yet undecided whether to include versions of the maps in the finished artefact. Opinion among those who’ve seen the manuscript under development remains divided. One thing’s certain, though – I couldn’t possibly have navigated my way around that imaginary space without having sketched it out physically first. And how could it appear real to the reader if I hadn’t done so? 

Mythocartography – a sneak preview

Working with other fiction writers, I’ve found that the worlds they’re building are at their least believable when they haven’t fully imagined them for themselves. For me, then, the lengthy processes indicated comprise one way of achieving greater authenticity. After all, if you haven’t fully imagined the world that you’re describing, how can you expect the reader to? A short extract follows, combining the child’s world with that of an imaginary city.

Those who’ve left the city-in-transit are not permitted to return.  The same held true for the capital during the era of the People’s Semi-autonomous Republic.  For all that, you could still exit and re-enter the city by means of a secret labyrinth.  At least, you could imagine doing so if you happened to be a small child.  Starting out from the top of the stairwell, you might enter the large storage cupboard occupied by various items of janitorial equipment – vacuum cleaners, mops and buckets, carpet sweepers, step ladders – and make your way to the back where a hatch opened on to the dumb waiter mechanism.  Crawling through this restricted space, you emerged into the attic above the tower.  You crossed the floor to the other side of the attic then squeezed through the door into the roof void above the extension, dragging yourself along the rafters to a further door that opened into another cupboard on the west-facing wall of the north wing.  It smelt of brick dust and rodents.  From there, you could re-emerge, slightly to the south of the city, covered in dust, soot and cobwebs, displaying scuffs on your shoes and trousers.  You’d have some explaining to do. 

All text and images © PSR 2016

Automatic Writing

I’ve chanced upon a new way of generating stories. My primitive smartphone has apparently developed the ability to send text messages all by itself. It’s a new form of automatic writing. As I was walking into town, I pulled the device out of my jacket pocket to find out what time it was and discovered the following message, addressed to no one:

I was sitting on the bus going home when I saw O’Donnell. Missed your Carlson 😦 

Clearly, it’s the beginning of a story of some kind. But who are O’Donnell and Carlson? And to whom is the first-person narrator addressing himself, this person who somehow lays claim to Carlson? It’s a little disconcerting to reflect that one of the main characters in my last work was called O’Connell and my current one contains several characters whose  surname is Kaarelssens… Has my phone begun to pick up on my subconscious, then? Maybe it’s not so dumb after all.

The author and his neanderthal-phone.  Disturbingly, The Encyclopedia of Psychotherapy lies just behind his right shoulder…

The things our devices do for themselves – and mine’s not even an Android. The third sentence was absolute gibberish, mind you.

Could okloplooooojn meet two-inchoooa?

I’ve previously considered using predictive text to generate surreal, nonsense pieces in the manner of the Oulipo’s ‘S Plus 7’ technique, replacing the nouns in a piece with the ones that follow at seven alphabetical removes (let’s face it, it’s still preferable to the ‘S Club 7’ technique which replaces all meaning with inanities). So far I’ve resisted. It would appear that my phone has taken matters into its own hands. If you should happen to receive a nonsensical message from me in the near future, blame my phone.  

Maybe you can infer more about O’Donnell, Carlson and that third man than me or my phone. If so, feel free to complete the paragraph for us both in the comment box below. 

All text and images © PSR 2016

Iivo-Jaan

Daj att mij liisnuu luugu.

‘Iivo-Jaan.’

Lopp Jij tagsi vi ett glaaz.  Diir flaat aat pikali mett ett meer i makk vi yokut va niirikk Plekksiiglaas vo Prspekks.  Aat ett ventsrr haamakk vi ett sama matriejaal.  Iirr aat niirikk okks.  Jij haaprovv, uusk Jij.  Niim Jij een lopp dajsi i siir verr vu ett lottiliit skript iim ett bunn rikktrruuka jorn va ett glaaz.  ‘Tsal-Konoki’, ett lovoo saag i nekkt tii dij, ‘Ĉïmor Dnílap’, fabrikkhaar i plaaz va fabrikk, tinkk Jij.  Aat dii een piirskpegg, va soort.  Aat dvo nii rask flaatr iim ett kommpaatshuut, nii skaap krastr.  Ett meerr kruuv iimtii ett luvo.  Aat ett luva mukk i sett vu rijdr.  Zelv ett uvi aat mukk, kladdt iim een fett iinsulatt matriejaal.  I dii aat zaatt. 

‘I kvoden aat ett rekuuprant?’

Zom viis juu, fiint Jij mij vaj tagsi tii ett velikshuus.  Dij timm, miinst, huskkr Jij kvoden Jij fot daj.  Ett koppmaal maasgot fot.  Haajavst Jij hammrtinkk.  Aalskrivv Jij ett pappverkk i oppniim reziidnet.  Doktorr kom i doktorr gaa.  Doktor Kviizmijstr, Doktor Kvestjaana, Doktor Laurii… 

‘Denkk juu vu ett kindra,’ saag svii. 

‘Maa haa Jij een kindra ik,’ vatsa Jij. 

‘Aat dvo een kindra iimett va vii alv, Olav.’

R aat va regressnes terapij, dan, va aaltrikkt i verrfinnt huskknes, reiinkarnjnes…  Alv va dijr lovoteknikk kaast Doktor Laurii, vu een timm vo tojnen.  Nokk va dii julp?  Aat Jij uulvorvijsst ik. 

Oppsiir Jij.  Niim Iir mij ogg. 

‘Tarrin.’

Ett doktor latok verr. 

‘Uusk Jij nii een lovo va dii,’ saag iir.

‘Maa aat daat ett vaj huskkr Jij dii,’ vatsa Jij. 

‘Oppmakk juu alv dii, komaraad.’

Kva maats Jij iir taal, dan? 

Liitsr Jij een knakk.  Opplokk Jij mij timmlogg vi ett luvanekktboord.  Dii aat trii iim ett davn.  Eenyokut aat knakkikk vu ett duur.  Dii vilavvrikk diir raam voor laanj.  Iim ett halla ujtti mij hijrt zaal een haar i een fruu staar.  Iijrr skiinoorii-bluu uniformaa siir tuuta.  Iirr nodikk iirr iim, taal Jij tii fo een liit koffr. 

‘Vii vilgaaa huus naj?’ kvitsa Jij. 

‘I kvo aat daat, ekkzaktt?’ vatsa ett fruu. 

Jij kaan nii huskkr.

Sett Jij mij frokk. 

Aat mij zaal vu ett topp latt va ett konsrukkt.  Klopp vii dol ett tiin tagsi trepp.  Aat dii enna tmokk ujtti iim ett straad.  Ett kombii aat een amvulanz – vi ett ujtti, miinst.  Niim iirr Jij iim, vorklaar iirr, va obsrvnes i ekksammr.  Haauulviis iirr Jij va yokut timm naj, skijnvr.  Klatt Jij iimtii ett tagsi va ett kombii i dan aat Jij iimstaapt.  Ett motro skrijk zom vii lopp vito drokk ett straadr va statt, huul vij klakkzon. 

♦

Setrasr kom i setrasr gaa.  Setras Jovaa, Setras Niiko, Setras Tiia…  Taar iirr mij jadluu.  Gavn iirr Jij tablettr i kom dan ett drommr.  Timmsyokut, dromm Jij Doktor Laurii haaligg nekkt tii Jij zom slevn Jij, i klokkvo Jij vakkn iim ett davn, vilfinn Jij een laanj krevn flett vu mij paad (kaanskii dromm Jij dij okks).  Va danjar vu een timm, ligg Jij vu mij tagsi vu ett luva i siir vu ett luvo.  Dvo aat ikknes ellr tii makk.  Kvillr i penaa vorbuut aat tii Jij.  Haa Jij oppmakkr mijegg luduur.  Aat Jij naj ujtti niitilaat.  Dii aat varaa, aat Jij taalt.  Ekktat zelv ett vrald ujtti?  Savn Jij ik. 

Setras Tiia triik ett naal iimtii ett skruuk va mij rankkruuv. 

‘Jij vilgaa huus naj?’ kvitsa Jij. 

Inkkr va dij aat ekkt.

Alv skript i foto © PSR tvuzikk-zekkstun

Bainbridge Syndrome

Beryl Bainbridge was a real character. She was short-listed five times for the Booker Prize and highly regarded by many. The Times included her in its list of the fifty best British writers since WW2 (it’s an odd litany, mixing populist choices with genuine contenders). I’ve only read two of her novels and don’t feel greatly inclined to read another. Part of the reason I haven’t read any more is that I find them under-written. Yes, they’re intelligent and have great premises but they feel like they need at least another two drafts. Maybe I’ve read the wrong ones. Nevertheless, she provides a useful piece of shorthand for the sin of insufficient revision, Bainbridge Syndrome.

I’ve witnessed it in writers I’ve known. A member of a writing group I belonged to claimed that he never revised his work and could knock out a novel in a matter of months. It didn’t show in his writing, of course… I definitely suffer from it. And my writing suffers too. I never give my manuscripts as many drafts as they need. Bainbridge was pretty prolific. Perhaps this was the cause of the malady in her case. For me, the cause is simple. I don’t have sufficient time to see my projects through to true fulfilment. I’m not a full-time writer and have never enjoyed that luxury. The bills have to be paid. I don’t have a private income. I haven’t ever received a bequest. And thus that extra draft or two that my fiction requires doesn’t materialise.

I’ve recently been reminded of this deficiency in my writing. A reading group, some of the members of which I know, is about to read my novella, Norwegian Rock. So I felt I ought to re-read it myself. If I’m honest, I was quite pleased with how well it stood up. But one thought kept occurring to me – if only I’d given it another draft. Yesterday, I met up with a good friend of mine, who is also a writer, though he has little time for it at present. We hadn’t seen each other for ages and although he’d read my war novel “Mayflies” quite some time before, he hadn’t given me his reaction to it. Although he’d enjoyed it, he found parts of it under-written. It’s a long and complex novel that took me six years to write. I probably could have spent another six on it to get it where I wanted it. Ho hum…

Of course, there’s a danger here. A writer can be plagued by the opposite of Bainbridge Syndrome, becoming unable to let go of a novel, endlessly revisiting it and reworking it. It’s a syndrome by which another good friend of mine is afflicted. It’s not a condition I would wish to endure. Maybe in another life, I’ll be born idle rich and have a bijou apartment gifted to me where I’ll write the fully realised novels that I envisage. And I’ll have the time to make my blog posts perfect too…

All text and images © PSR 2016