The first thing Vinka noticed were the trees, (Bula was late…why was she always late?) the ground was dirty too; some places nothing but bare earth or a covering of ragged grass. That couldn’t be healthy, could it? These people!
Vinka watched Bula arrive and park up, clumsy as usual, but at least she didn’t hit one of the trees. He glanced at his watch. Charl and Birdo would be expecting him back. It wasn’t fair to leave them finish the shift without him, he’d had so much time off lately.
“Sorry.” Bula wore the silver outfit she got last winter. She wore it once to a party and hadn’t touched it again, saying it was too good for every day. She was obviously making a special effort – first impressions and all that.
“You’ve left your lights on.” Vinka gestured impatiently, sending his wife back to fluster with the controls in her car. “This is the place, isn’t it?” he asked when she finally made it over to stand beside him, smoothing down her jacket and smiling.
“I think so,” she answered. “It’s not very clean. Look at those trees. That can’t be healthy, can it?”
Vinka was gazing around for signs of activity. “No…” he said absently.
“Oh Vin, we are doing the right thing, aren’t we?” Bula had grown increasingly nervous as this day approached. “Adopting one of the under privileged, I mean.”
“Bula, I told you, it’ll be fine.” Vinka was weary from the reassurances, but Bula could be like this; nervous about something at first then confident and self-assured when it finally happened “How could any right minded person stand by and leave them bring up a child in this squalor? And besides, I showed you all the forms we’d need to fill in if we wanted to adopt back home. Look.” He pointed out past the broken down buildings to where something moved at the edge of the trees. “Someone’s coming.”
“Oh yes, there he is!” Bula caught sight of the figure. “Isn’t he adorable?” she said, leaving Vinka to approach the youngster alone for fear of frightening him. He seemed a little nervous, and curled up on the floor as Vinka drew near. “He’s so cute. I hope the other children don’t tease him because of the colour of his skin.” Bula stood to one side while Vinka lifted the child and put him into the back seat of Bula’s car.
“Now,” he said “I really got to get back to work – Birdo’s going to go mad – can you take the kid home and settle him in?”
Bula was smiling even though there were tears in her eyes as she nodded to her husband. She kissed him on the cheek as he closed the car door. “Thank you, darling.”
“Whatever makes you happy, honey” he said, pulling keys from his pocket and preparing to go.
As Bula’s car broke free of the little blue-green planet’s atmosphere the child on the back seat began to cry.
“There, there,” she comforted, “you won’t have to live in that nasty old place any more.”

First published on www.365tomorrows.com

doorways: gateway to (lexical) knowledge (Photo credit: JonathanCohen)

It’s not funny how busy you can find yourself and how rapidly you can discover a couple of months have flitted past without you even noticing…not funny at all.

But I’m not going to compain, as I have got an awful lot of stuff done.

Quite surprisingly (and because of some odd issues with one of my email accounts, quite unexpectedly) I did get another story published over on 365Tomorrows. The observant may notice that it written under the name of my alter-ego…or in actual fact, one of my alter-egos. That’s actually number 5 on 365Tomorrows…so I must be doing something right with my sci-fi musings…

I have another off-world short in the can too, penned over the course of the last week, but it’s just a little long for the 600-ish word limit of 365, so I reckon it’ll just have to remain in the annals for a while until I find a suitable outlet.

Other than those my writing output has been dominated by an awful lot of work related stuff over the last few months.

I made no less than three false re-starts on The Lexical (a novel idea I’ve been working on for a long time but which has never really gotten any momentum going), and still have a hankering to give it another stab. Hethering Cove still haunts me…I even had thoughts about stripping it back into a series of short stories to see if I could perhaps make headway on it via such an alternative tack…

News did reach me that Cliona O’Connell has made it all the way into print with a fine little book of her work. Very well deserved, I say. In general I find a lot of poetry quite inaccessible (I simply am not clever enough for it) but Cliona has an amazing feel for making things live in her words – even for a poetry dunce like me. I cannot wait to get my hands on it (my copy is in safe hands…or so I am assured…)

I shall try not to neglect these bloggy places so much in future…

Magpie 88

“They’re coming, right?” Ricky Beckenbauer stood next to the crumpled fender of his dad’s Buick and tried not to catch the eye of the other drivers as they edged past the accident on the wrong side of the road.

“I said, didn’t I?” the man in the black suit and crisp white shirt leaned against the hood of his car, his arms folded across his chest and took no particular notice of anything. His car was a hearse.

“I mean they said that they’re actually coming?” Ricky went on impatiently. “They’ll tell you all this stuff then stop for donuts on the way if they don’t think it’s urgent.” He paused and glanced along the line of waiting cars that stretched into the distance. “I mean this is actually getting a little urgent here.”

The other man said nothing but sighed heavily through his nose. There was another man – a small bald headed man, sitting in the passenger side of the long black limousine but he made no move to get out.

Ricky stole uncomfortable looks at the black box with its brass handles, half hidden behind red velvet curtains in the back of the other car. “You supposed to be somewhere with that?” he nodded towards the rear of the hearse.

“Nope,” the other man said dryly, “he ain’t in no hurry to go nowhere.”

A car some way back in the line sounded its horn for no particular reason.

“You pulled out way too fast, you know?” Ricky said.

The other man glanced at him for a moment then went back to staring away off down the road. “Yeah,” he said, “speeding. These funeral cars get that all the time.”

“I mean it’s not that you were speeding, it’s just you cut out real quick. I didn’t see you signal.”

“U-huh…”

A car went by at walking pace with the driver’s side window all the way down. A broad shouldered man crammed into a shirt that dug into his neck leaned out. “Get out of the road, you shmuck!” he yelled, glaring at Ricky as he rolled past.

“Sorry…” Ricky mouthed the word and waved a weak apology.

The next car had its windows tightly closed. A couple in the front argued soundlessly and a small girl with red hair stared from the rear window.

“Cops” the man in the suit said.

Ricky jumped and spun around, darting glances this way and that. A few moments later a black and white appeared from around the bend a half mile down the road and edged slowly up along the shoulder.

It had a gold star emblem on the door, five points with letters around the middle that read ‘County Sheriff’s Department’.

A scrawny looking man in a light grey uniform that hung from him like a scarecrow’s coat stepped out onto the asphalt.

“Jeb,” the man in the black suit spoke.

“Al,” the policeman replied.

“Great…” Ricky said under his breath, realising the two men knew each other.

The man from the sheriff’s department stuck his thumbs into his belt and strode around to the front of the cars where they were jammed together. He shook his head then walked around the passenger side of the hearse. The window opened and the short bald man exchanged words with the police officer for a minute of two before a burst of rough laughter ended the conversation and the window rolled closed.

The man in the suit remained propped against the hood of his car.

“I’m going to need to see your license and registration,” the police officer spoke in Ricky’s direction with a half smile that twisted his face into a series of ugly creases.

“Don’t you want to know what happened here?” Ricky asked, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

The police officer looked from one car to the other than back at Ricky. “Son,” he said after a moment, “it looks to me as though you crashed your car into this other here funeral car.” He shrugged, “and I ain’t even been to detective school.” He looked at the man in the black suit but got no reaction to his joke. “Show me your license and registration if you please now son,” he said after a few more moments.

“You picking up or dropping off, Al?” the policeman asked the man in the black suit while Ricky dug for his wallet.

The man in the suit looked at the ground with a strange sort of smile on his face. “It’s a pick up, Jeb, a good one too.”

Ricky held his driver’s license out in the direction of the police officer.

“Yeah?” the policeman said, glancing at the black box in the back of the black car. “Who the hell you got in there, boy?”

Ricky waved his driver’s license in the air.

The man in the black suit stepped away from the hood of his car and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Picked up from the State Pen about an hour ago,” he said proudly.

The man in uniform twisted his face into a confused expression, “the Pen?” he said, “so…” Then the penny dropped and his face lit up. “You didn’t?” he stared at the box in the back of the car. “Joey Stigleone?”

“Fresh out of the chair.”

“You are shitting me!”

“Got the papers inside.” The man in the suit tapped on the window and the small bald man dug in the glove compartment for a moment then waved a crumpled wad of papers in the air. “Joey ‘The Knife’ Stigleone,” he spoke as if reading from the documents, “convicted of seven counts of first degree murder and sentenced to death by electrocution on this the twelfth day of September in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and – “

“You are shitting me?” the police officer said again, his face and hands pressed against the rear windows of the big car.

“I gotta tell you, Jeb,” the man in the suit was saying, “this is the best we’ve had since that Kennedy kid who drove off the freeway – “

“Was that you?” the police officer asked, “I thought that was old Victor Kronkheidt from Woodford –“

The suit guy was shaking his head. “Nope, he did that rock and roll kid who blew his head off in the hot tub.”

“Excuse me,” Ricky was growing even more impatient as cars continued to crawl by the accident on the wrong side of the road.

“Sir, I will have to ask you to remain inside your vehicle with your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them at all time. Al, you gotta let me take a look at this guy.”

“Oh Jesus Christ…” Ricky threw his hands up and walked around to the driver’s side of his car.

“Jeb, you know damned well that I am licensed by the State Attorney’s office to transport the remains of the deceased between registered facilities and I am not permitted to allow people to go looking inside the God-damned caskets for whatever reason they might have.”

The policeman was looking at the mangled front wing of the funeral car. “How fast did you say you were going, Al?” he asked.

Ricky stepped forward, “too damned fast – he pulled right out in – “

“Didn’t I tell you to sit in your car with your hands on the wheel, son?” Those tyres look a little bald there Al, don’t you think?”

The man in the suit had already started walking around to the back of the car. “Jeb, you are some mean ass’d son of a…”

The policeman was rubbing his hands together, “open her up, boy, and slide that sucker on out.”

The small bald man was craning his neck from the passenger seat to see what was happening. People in the cars that crawled by watched too.

The big black door at the back of the hearse swung open wide and the man in the suit grabbed the stainless steel handle that protruded underneath the casket. It slid out smoothly on its casters, one set of folding legs popping out to support the weight of the casket as it emerged.

“Un-fucking believable!” the cop was saying. “Joey the Knife in the back of your wagon, Al. That’s gotta beat the hell out of some Kennedy kid any day?”

“It’s a stiff, Jeb,” the suit guy replied, “they’re all the same when they get in the back of my can.

The police guy laughed, “aw, come on, Al. This is a celebrity. You could sell this guy’s teeth on eBay.” He was dancing from one foot to the other in anticipation. “Come on, come on. Open it, Al.”

“Jeb,” the suit man pleaded,” there are people here.” He gestured to the passing road traffic.

“And your bald tyres are still here too, Al, and maybe my report that says maybe they should take away that license of yours – that’s probably not too far away either.”

“Jeb, you’re an ass-hole.” Al popped open the catches and pushed up the lid of the casket.

“Woo!” the police officer stepped away and wafted the air with his hands. “Shit! That stinks like your old-lady’s meatloaf!” He laughed, a raucous, crow-like sound that seemed to hang in the air for an age.

“He fried, Jeb” the man in the suit said quietly. “He fried until he died.” The smell didn’t seem to bother him as much.

At last the police officer stepped forward and looked nervously over the lip of the casket. “Shit…” he whispered, “look at that son of a bitch.” He stared at the body in silence for some time, then without warning he drew his revolver and shot the corpse once through the head.

“Jesus! What the fuck?” the suit man yelled, clasping both palms to his forehead.

The line of traffic had stopped altogether. Some people were getting out of their cars to look. Ricky sat in the driver’s seat of his car, his knuckles white from gripping the wheel.

“Nothing to see here, folks,” the policeman was saying, stepping out from behind the casket and waving at the line of cars. “Move right along please – sir – please return to your vehicle.”

“Jeb, what did you do?” The suit guy’s eyes were wide as saucers. He was staring into the casket.

“The fucking gun that shot Joey Stigleone, Al. You know how much I could get for this?”

“But he was already dead, Jeb.”

“Yeah, but you think anyone will care?”

“Well I think maybe people would ask whether you were fucking serious when everyone knows the guy went to the chair.”

The police officer looked at the revolver in his hand for a few moments. “You’re right,” he said, “have you got a camera?”

“Jesus Christ…”

“For a picture of the bullet hole.”

The suit guy slammed the lid of the casket and snapped the clasps shut. “Jeb, you are one crazy son of a bitch and I ain’t sticking round here to watch you get no crazier.”

The cop looked confused. “He’s fucking dead already, Al. What’s your problem?”

The big rear door closed with a deep thud, and the guy in the suit yanked open the driver’s side door. “Hey kid,” he yelled at Ricky, “Unwin Catchpin Funeral Directors – look us up. I’ll pay for your damned fender, alright?”

Ricky remained behind the wheel.

“You better get those tyres seen to, Al” the cop shouted down the road after the hearse as it slowly pulled away. He still held the revolver in his hand.

With one car removed the traffic began to flow a little more freely, although they still needed to cross over the line to pass Ricky’s Buick.

“Sir?” Ricky had wound down the window and was calling to the police officer. “Sir, my license and registration?” He reached out with the documents clasped tightly between his fingers.

The police officer looked at him for a few moments.

“Sheriff’s department, son,” he said, holstering his weapon and walking back to his black and white. “I ain’t no fucking highway patrol.”

Magpie 87

The fighting ended when I was a child.

We hardly noticed it at the time, too distant for us to be involved. I heard only the explosions in the night or the scream of another jet above.

Then one day it stopped, and the old ones hung their heads in shame at what they’d done.

My father was a prefect in the time that came after. He held the keys to the gate and passed judgement on those who stepped from line – a hand from those who stole – the left if they were lucky.

My sister and I hid most days, deep below the burned out houses, waiting for him to return. She cried a lot and refused to eat. I closed my eyes and tore the thin sinews of crisp meat from the bones.

Some thought things would get worse, but they didn’t. One by one the people thinned away. One by one the wary few retreated to their hermit places, to watch and to wait.

I keep my father’s axe at hand.

I wear my sister’s bracelet.

I will probably get around to redesigning this website properly one day, if and when I get the time, but for now we will all just have to learn to love it…in a way that only a parent can…

But while I’m doing a bit of business related web research and experimentation today I decided to embrace the social side of life and add a few extras.

So I created a Facebook page for the site and also linked it into a Twitter account. So now you simply cannot get away from me…unless you put your mobile phone, your laptop and your tablet all into the microwave and set it to defrost for an hour…that ought to do the trick…

So as I begin typing this post we’re just about done with Ireland for another year. The airport awaits and another lovely eight hour overnight flight is about to begin. I’m bringing a jumper with me this time just in case…

The trip back is a family affair, unlike the way over…and I have to say I actually really prefer to travel alone. Attempting to get through all of the various steps of long haul air travel with a party of three is (I find) like trying to run a three legged race. I’d much rather just plug in my iPod and bimble my way from one end to the other cocooned in my own little world rather than having to shepherd people along. It’s not their fault, it’s mine. I just don’t like it.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table now while my wife stresses about how to fit stuff into cases and bags…my helpful suggestions never go down well at this stage so I’m justing stopping out of it.

I’ll have to make a list of all the people who I didn’t manage to hit up with whilst home this time and send them all a little apologetic email. Not having a car this year was a bind – something that we didn’t really expect to be so much of a hassle, seeing as we were stopping for such a short time – but it’s certainly worth making a note to self for next time. Organise a damned vehicle.

I left Dubai on the 19th of August and it’s now the 1st of September. I’m just getting into a solid writing rhythm that started to kick in perhaps three or four days ago. So there’s another note to self – in order to take a writing holiday, allow at least ten days lead in time for unplugging first…

The last week has actually been extremely unrelaxing, trying to get stuff done and also make sure that my daughter gets as much fun time in with old friends and cousins as possible before she goes back. I think she’s had a ball, but it has meant very little peace and quiet here as a result. I’d like to try some sort of a retreat some time, I think. I think that would work for me, as long as it was in the right sort of environment and as long as there was enough lead in time before to let me detach myself from the real world.

Dry weather would also be nice…

My current attitude towards Shoreditch is quite workmanlike. Progress probably isn’t as rapid as it perhaps could be (or as rapid as perhaps I’d like it to be) but all the same, we’re seeing words on pages, and that can’t be a bad thing. At least now I have a complete and consistent block of text from the beginning to probably around half way through – that actually makes it sound a little daunting…the implication might be that if I’m half way through it will take me as long to write the remainder as it took to write the first half. Thankfully I do not think that is the case (I have my fingers crossed anyway).

I need to be writing at about half the pace of NaNoWriMo to get it done in time for the Irish Writers Centre thing, which is a tall order (that doesn’t give me any time for edits or redrafts), but without goals and deadlines we’d never get anywhere…

My current attitude towards Hethering Cove is quite enthusiastic – certainly a lot more positive than it has been for a while. There’s a lot to do with it, but I’m feeling quite confident about it now. I’m happy to allow the new revelations about it to ferment in my head for the next while, and I’ll jump back into it full time once Shoreditch is out of the way. This story is special and needs its own time to mature properly.

Whilst it’s been hectic and unrelaxed I guess this hasn’t been a bad holiday after all. Maybe the fact that it was so hectic made it easier for me to disconnect from the goings on back in Dubai. I’ve even had a few little moments where I’ve thought I even had ideas for new novels…I don’t want any more right now, but it’s been a while since I last came up with an idea that seemed worthy enough to pursue, so that’s a positive thing too.

Luckily we do not have a weighing scales in this house. I dread to think how much excess baggage I’m taking home with me…we had one of those strange meals this evening that was concocted from all the bits and pieces left in the fridge and freezer…

Tomorrow will be a day of goodbyes and those funny awkward little conversations you have when there really isn’t anything to be said but you have to say something.

I saw a news article this evening on the RTE website that told of how seven level crossing gates have been stolen from various locations ine the northwest of Ireland…

What??

Part 2 of writing this post finds me in Departures at Dublin airport. I’m not a particularly big fan of Dublin airport, having trudged my way back and forth to the old “Area D” in the good old days more times than I’d care to remember. I’ve also stood for hours in that damned baggage hall waiting for luggage that the great state carrier had managed to leave on the runway back at Heathrow. I even remember one time during the “reign” of Mary Robinson, sitting on a very delayed aircraft for an extra hour while they rolled out her red carpet in front of the plane next door to mine, and set up the whole “guard of honour” thing, only for her to come dashing up in one of those state Mercs, run on board the plane and disappear away down the runway in front of me, with ner a wave, an inspection of the guard or a kiss my presidential arse.

Suffice it to say, I’ve had my times at Dublin airport. So it came as something of a shock (surprise would be too light a word) to go through parking, check-in, security and duty free in record time and with absolutely no hassle whatsoever. I honestly can’t remember ever having got through in so short a time before, and good old Etihad didn’t even make me pay for my excess baggage (maybe they read about my lovely experience on the way over and decided they needed to make up for it…), although I doubt that they managed to arrange for the terminal to be empty…

In some ways I think it’s a little worrying that the new terminal is so empty, but even Dubai International Terminal 3 was empty when it first opened, so who am I to complain? Actually, why should I even worry? I should just be enjoying it!

I suppose this goes a part of my life-long “inappropriate levels of concern” syndrome. I worry about things when really it makes no difference, and I fail to worry (or complain) about things where it could actually do some good…oh well…

Part 3 of my post is written a day later at home in Dubai in a state of somewhat extreme tiredness. I needn’t worry about the Terminal at Dublin or the state of Etihad – the plane was jammed full on the way over, with even more pre-school kids than I’d normally expect on board. I was just a couple of seats away from one delightful little chap who threw an epic tantrum for about 2 hours – and I mean an EPIC. Of course, the cause of the tantrum occurred long before the child got on the flight…she sat between me and the tantrum monster. I’d have liked to tranq the pair of ‘em.

The flight was very warm instead of being very cold, and I had a seven year old asleep on me for a lot of the journey. Three films watched, no sleep had.

A shuttle bus and a taxi later and we’re home again…and warm. That same seven year old is still out in the pool. She’s been there nearly all day with her friends tearing around the place and making noise. Oh yes, we’re home. There was a barbecue out there too this afternoon but I really wasn’t up for all that and just wandered out for a short nibble.

My bed is beckoning now.

The summer is over.

Who was that on the telly the other night? I can never remember which is which…was it Tommy Tiernan or Jason Byrne? What a talentless, unfunny excuse for a standup comic. Every time I see a TV I remember why I don’t own one. On the night I arrived home I dropped into my local for a brief reminder of what Guinness is supposed to taste like, and had the “pleasure” of seeing The Rose of Tralee show…oh joy…
So despite all that we’re still going back to Dubai…
How did I manage to get through a whole holiday without buying any books? That’s odd…maybe it’s the baggage allowance…maybe it’s tha fact that I’ve hardly been in a bookshop. You can put that second thing down to the fact that I’ve hardly been outside the door, and you can put that one down to the blizzards…(ok…slight exaggeration…but I feel entitled!).
But I haven’t read anything either…that’s bad. I brought a book with me, but it was one of these management type things that I find myself reading from time to time and I didn’t even take it out of my bag the whole trip. Somewhere in the back of my head I was thinking I’d pick something interesting up along the way…but…
I did listen to a radio programme about Tolkien the other day…that must count for something. Actually a get a little irate about these Tolk-umentaries (there are enough of them that I think they should have their own collective noun). The way I see it, the guy just liked writing stories from his imagination. He was an academic working in the fields of linguistics and mythology, so not unsurprisingly he was educated enough to be able to string a sentence together and he included a lot of his work in his literary output. Any further analysis without the presence of the author to confirm or deny his motivations or intentions is purely hypothetical; especially all this allegorical nonsense. At one point it came into my head that Shoreditch was actually a tale about the fundamental battle between good and evil…well, maybe it is, but really it’s just a story that I’m enjoying writing. Are other authors motivated by more complex intentions? Well, maybe they are…but does it really matter if you read what they write and just see a great story?
By the same argument I think sometimes we read terrible stories but feel obliged to wade through the dictatorial prose because we’ve been told that the writer was actually tormented with the desire to communicate some higher meaning to us…whether we like it or not…
Chatting to my friend Barry Brown (some day award winning novelist Barry Brown, that is), we were discussing movies and he explained that as long as it contained some sword fighting in the first twenty minutes or so, it was a good flick in his books.
My “thumbs-up” factor spreads to a few additional inclusions, but in general I’d basically agree with him. My disbelief is so easily suspended when I go to the cinema that I enjoy most things, and actually the main thing that lets me down is that sometimes my expectation level is set much higher than the movie producers were aiming for…I must have a word with them about that…
I’m a whole lot more difficult to please when it comes to books. I actually think it’s more to do with the language the author uses. Trawling back through my memory to recall the last novel I actually read to the end…it’s hard to remember…(apart from all the bedtime story kids books we ge through here. Just finished The BFG a few nights ago…). I’ve been reading a few collections of short stories off and on for some time. Been try to finish T.C.Boyle’s Water Music but am finding it hard going.
Maybe I should be reading more stuff that’s similar to wha I’m writing, but I find most fantasy novels dreary and derivative these days, and I’m not too sure what Hethering Cove is actually “like”…
I discovered my copy of Ross Raisin’s book God’s Own Country in a drawer here the other day. I was given it as a gift shortly before leaving for Dubai by a friend who thought it reminiscent of Heth, but apart from it being set in Northern England and featuring a somewhat disgruntled farm lad, I actually found few similarities, and didn’t really enjoy the book.
Maybe I should be reading more Bronte…I dunno.
Anyway. My holiday blog posts are probably looking patchy and nonlinear now, given that I only have sporadic access to the internet and am typing them up in isolation – and in batches – for posting. As I’m typing this one I’m taking a short break from scribbling more Shoreditch in a house that is quiet and peaceful for the first time in days. One more day in sire and then back to the heat…and the work!
I spent nearly all day yesterday out in my garden “whacking” weeds. I guess that might keep them down for another year…but i do somehow think I’ll be back here this time next year doing exactly the same thing all over again (not that this is the first time either). I wonder what my Dubai garden looks like now…one of our neighbours is throwing a little water on it each day, but when I left it was in severe need of a haircut. Ah well…it’ll be grand so…

I’m afraid that I’m going to have to go back over old ground in this post for a moment or two. Namely the subject in question is Scrivener. I chose not to bring my laptop with me this time when I came home. I considered it, but I couldn’t really see the point when I could do just about everything I needed on my iPad (look…I’m on my iPad now and don’t need no silly old laptop…)
It was my plan to do a little work on Shoreditch while I was home, and I brought along the current draft of Hethering Cove too…just in case. I’d imported Shoreditch into Scrivener (as mentioned in a previous post), so I did a “compile” (that’s what they call it when you generate a manuscript formatted document including all the chapters and stuff, and save the complete document as an MS-Word compatible file.
Once I had my compiled document I pushed it over onto my iPad via Dropbox (as is my preference), then pulled it into Pages, which is Apple’s vision of MS-Word. Great. All good.
Then yesterday when I was thinking about what I might read at Yvonne’s workshop, I did a little impromptu editing of a couple of sections – nothing major, but I spotted a couple of typos in one section and also changed a bit of wording to improve the rhythm of one passage.
Then it struck me – how the hell would I be able to synchronise this edited compiled document with the old Scrivener document stored back on my laptop? The answer is simple – I cannot. Not without disassembling the whole thing into it’s component chapters and re-inserting them into the master document. I can’t remember the changes I made and I don’t really want to go back and do the editing all over again.
So Scrivener instantly bit the literary dust. Am I being fickle with my decision to drop this software as a writing tool? No, I was being fickle picking it up in the first place. I know what I want and this is not it, so trying to shoehorn it into my way of working is just more than just a compromise, it’s actually kidding myself. And I’m not going to be it.
But I still feel I need something…watch this space.
I’ve managed to continue to strive ahead with Shoreditch while I’ve been home. Nothing monumental really, but I expect we’ll have at least another 10,000 words in the can by the time I get back to Dubai. It’s nice when pieces you suspected were supposed to fall together finally do actually fall together. This seems to be the summer of “connecting dots”. Hethering Cove has actually bothered me for quite a while, in a funny sort of way.
A long time ago (not long after starting to write the thing) I visualised the closing scene of the story. It came as a slight surprise to me at the time, but it also seemed to make perfect sense to me. The problem was that I couldnt quite see exactly how the arc of the story could manage to arrive at that point given the trajectory it was already on. Not letting that deter me, I soldiered on, but that problem was always there are at the back of my mind. I’d almost convinced myself that the best thing to do was just to keep going in the same direction then veer over to the other side at the end and just hope nobody noticed…but of course, I would notice…
Another thing that happened early on in the writing of Hethering Cove was that I discovered a couple of other stories that also happened in the same “world” as the main story but that weren’t directly connected to it. My assumption was that these would make the second and third books in the Hethering Cove Trilogy – and maybe they will – but the main event in one of these two stories has always existed as a sort of sub-plot to the main theme. A month or so ago whilst doing something mundane and un-writerly, like having a shower or watering the garden (although I do suppose that most writers do actually wash and garden from time to time) I suddenly discovered the real relevance of this sub-plot, and along with it the bridge from where the main story had been aiming and where my visualised end point actually took it.
At first I felt like perhaps that was a waste of a good sub-plot, and how maybe I was doing myself out of a sequel, but in actual fact the potential is still there. You see, the events in Hethering Cove are only a component of the overall story. The characters and places and culture of the place are really what make the place live. When I originally pushed the little door open behind which this sub-plot was hidden, a mass of other information leaked out – enough information to convince me that there was in fact another book in it. Taking out the one central event that links the main plot to the subplot doesn’t alter the fac that there is a whole other story there to be told. It’s as though the two stories just overlap at one point, both influencing each other but both separate and different.
(By the way, the third book is still there too…so The Hethering Trilogy could one day still find it’s way out of the end of my pen and onto the page.)
This was something of a revelation, I can tell you, and with that psychological barrier removed there’s nothing really to stop me from getting the thing over the finishing line.
Except that I’m really trying awfully hard to get as much Shoreditch out onto paper as possible right now.
It always seems like it ought to be fairly straightforward to get 1,000 words written every day. It’s nothing. About eight and a half pages of my notebook on average (A5 Nightingale…200 sides of quite heavy lined paper, magnetic locking wraparound cover…just for the notebook anoraks…). But when you’ve got life poking you in the back every five minutes and telling you to get moving, 1,000 words a day can be a challenge.
Over the course of our little trip to the UK and Ireland I’m going to get probably around 10,000 words of Shoreditch done, plus I wrote my most recent Magpie. In the month prior to that I got maybe another 5,000 words of Shoreditch written plus a fair bit of editing and re-writing. I’d have to say I’m quite pleased with that, but I have a feeling it’s going to be hard to keep that pace going one back in Dubai. Can I get Shoreditch done in time for the Irish Writers Centre novel fair thingy? Don’t know.
At one point I had the totally mad idea that maybe I could get both Shoreditch and Hethering done in time…totally mad…
Anyway. Time has suddenly somehow managed to run out without me quite understanding where it went. I guess that’s the nature of holidays. I’ve managed to meet only a few of the peole I wanted to meet while home, which is a real pity. But my gutters are clean, and a few of the other apparently essential pieces of household maintenance are done for another year.
With just a w short days left until we’re back on the plane it seems we’re in full swing doing the rounds of “goodbyes” again. It doesn’t seem like any time at all since we did this last time…even though I wasn’t actually here at all for over eighteen months, and so haven’t had to do it at all for ages.
Wrenching my daughter away from her cousins is likely to be the worst part of it all.
Wrenching me away from the weather and gloom is likely to be the easiest part, as usual.

I’m really not all that good at holidays. Unless I have set aside time to do very specific things I generally either do nothing at all or lapse into work mode and forget that I’m supposed to be taking a break altogether.
Last year I accidentally skipped the summer break altogether and worked right through to Christmas. Very conscientious, but pretty stupid too. I lost a whole year of holiday entitlement, never to be regained.
Nearly everyone tries to get out of the Middle East for at least part of the summer time – especially at the moment, with the holy month of Ramadan falling in the height of the heat.
I probably ought to explain for those who do not already know, the Muslim calendar is driven by the lunar cycle, and hence the months are shorter than what we’re used to in the Gregorian world. Ramadan happens once every year of the lunar calandar and begins at the beginning of a lunar cycle and lasts for one whole lunar month. As a result of this, it appears to us Gregorian types that Ramadan moves earlier by about a week each year. This year Ramadan runs from 1st August to around 28th August, but next year it will begin in July. As time moves on Ramadan is going to get closer and closer to Christmas until eventually we won’t be allowed our turkey dinner…I may have retired and/or moved elsewhere by then, I think…
For now and the next while, Ramadan is just one more thing to make summer in the Middle East a little less bearable, and a prime reason for the Western expat population to disappear back to their home countries each year.
So that’s why the timing has me in Ireland for a couple of weeks this summer, skipping the last half of Ramadan.
Ireland is very cold and wet. This is not what I was looking forward to when I envisaged coming home but Ireland is it’s own boss these days and simply doesn’t listen to what I might want any more.
But however cold Ireland might be, it is not yet as cold here as I was on the flight home. Etihad, what are you doing to me? It was a night flight, and one of the cabin crew did manage to squirt half a carton of orange juice all over me, but I was seriously cold all the way home – cold to the point that I actually had a head cold for the first three or four days after the flight.
So Dublin has a new terminal…ok. Well baggage comes through very quickly…
I was also quite taken aback by the blasé attitude to passport control here. I’d forgotten what it was like to get through passport control with no more than a cursory glance after living in the land of the five minute scrutinization each time I enter or leave the country.
Actually, my most irritating experience in an airport on this trip was the security check at Liverpool airport. Liverpool has always been a bit tight letting people through. I think it’s one of the very few places where I’ve been physically frisked (thoroughly and vigorously) even after stripping down to my socks.
On this occasion I’d separated my “fluids” into a little ziplock bag ready to go through security, but was stopped and sent back to a special vending machine to purchase a different but astonishingly similar ziplock bag into which I placed the first ziplock bag. The only explanation for this that I can muster (and this is coming from someone who works in the airline security industry) is that they really need all those extra 50p purchases from the vending machine to pay for something…maybe the staff christmas party or something…
“But how did you end up in Liverpool airport in a journey from Dubai to Dublin?” I hear you ask in a voice heavy with a mix of confusion and utter disinterest. Well I hopped straight on a plane to the UK when I arrived to go visit more family over there.
It was strange visiting my father at home for the first time since my mother was taken into care…and a little upsetting. We visited my mum too, but I’m not sure I really understand how I feel about that well enough to be able to write about it yet.
We visited my Aubt in New Brighton which was really nice. There’s a lot of New Brighton in Hethering Cove, and a little of my Auntie Brenda too.
We spent a few days with my dad and my sister’s family down in Snowdonia where my niece lives and where my sister runs a bunch of holiday chalets. The “Snow” in Snowdonia is a clue to the temperature, but it’s a wonderful place for a retreat. Check out my sister’s cabins and stuff at Cadair View Lodge.
I think I’d quite like to be there on my own for a while (well, alone but for my notebook, large packet of pens, laptop, Internet connection, camera, a few bottles of something pleasant, extremely thick jumper, socks and large duvet). I get the feeling I could get things done there…for maybe a week.
Leaving was uncomfortable as usual, but I think as a family we’re a little long in the tooth to all go into counselling at this stage.
And so to Dublin, and home, and cold dreary rain.
After living in Dubai where nothing stays the same from one week to the next it’s strange (and rather frustrating really) to return to Ireland and find nothing has changed in the last couple of years. Perhaps I just like change, but to me it always seems like Ireland is so self absorbed. It feels stagnant to me. But that’s maybe just me…and I have to say that a lot of the places we went near my home outsiðe Liverpool have also hardly changed since I lived there, and that goes back nearly thirty years now.
Trying to catch up with all of the people who need to be caught up with is a challenge in the time available, particularly since this time I have no car at home. I managed to get in to Dublin last night to drop in with Yvonne Cullen’s Writing Train Thursday night crew. It was their last evening of the term so much jolity ensued along with a fair bit of pizza and pasta afterwards. I am very pleased to report that the quality of participants and the submitted material at Yvonne’s remains of the very highest order.
It’s almost like I hadn’t been away really. With several of the other participants reading novel extracts I read my recent Magpie “Spaghetti Hoops” and had it expertly pulled to pieces by the group. You just don’t get that from online commenting. The quality of the critique from Yvonne is always spot on and there’s something about the atmosphere she manages to develop in her workshops that encourages others to be their best and comment honestly and usefully. It was a little nerve wracking reading aloud in front of a group of people I didn’t know for the first time in a few years, but i felt great for having done it.
I was reminded of when I first went along to one of Yvonne’s workshops back in the Irish Writers Centre on Parnell Square, and how difficult it was to read out loud the things I’d written with a bunch of people I’d never met sitting there listening – and there were a couple of people in that boat last night, who hadn’t quite made it over the hurdle of reading to the group. It can be hard to bare your soul, but it’s worth it.
The range of activities Yvonne has in her portfolio continues to broaden too, with the Writing Salon and the Jaunts, as well as the various weekly and monthly workshop sessions she runs. If I were still here permanently I’m sure I’d still be a permanent member of the crew.
So that’s it for now with my holiday blogging. Spaghetti Hoops needs some rewrite, but at least I managed to write something. Next time I’ll talk a little about how things are in Hethering Cove and also what’s going on in Shoreditch.