Poem

Another entry that is from the pen of another person.  This will be the third recently but they have all, for their own reasons, been irresistible.

This one, completely out of character for me, is a poem.

I confess to a liking for certain poems  -  mostly parodies, or spites, for example:

    Ring-a-ring o’geranium

    A pocket full of uranium

    Hiro-Shima

    All fall down

To ‘sillies’ like: 

    I wish I was a little grub with whiskers ‘round my tummy’

    I’d climb into a honeypot and make my tummy gummy.

 (Yes, yes, I know  -  “I wish I WERE a little ....”)

Very old-fashioned sort of poetic tastes.

This is a real poem:

The Gathering

by Chris Hamilton-Emery

You know when the world grinds its iron glove

and the chipped teeth of the town shine along the rivulets

beside those corny mansions you mentioned

and everyone piles into

their minds for a while, behaving.

Where the cats wallop through the buckets

of streets and dogs unfold tongues

into displays of dusk

and you can see thin suns mainly

sinking with decisions over prisons.

It’s where the grey fields of our torn insane are withered

in white. It’s where the trains come

flaming through under the brassieres

of old offices and Jupiter swings through

its rusty ear, bangled, burgled.

We can meet there, you and I, to smoke

our taken thoughts in the cupboards of the evening.

There will be opera and stars.

No one will cough or throw bolts

along the canal. Knives will be wet with meat, alone.

Cuddled in the briars we can mope among plastic sheets

shimmering with hairdos like a canteen.

Everyone will come. The vicar

will shake out gunmetal gowns

beside a small lake of trolleys. You will be missed.

Here’s the odd thing about this.

I absolutely do not understand it.  Not a bit. 

And yet.

I am compelled to read it again.

Why?

I like it.  I don’t know why.  It is like a Picasso.  I have no idea what it is supposed to be and yet there is pleasure in it.  Higgledy–piggledy word pictures.

Just like the last entry it pleases me because it was written properly in a man-like manner by a man.  It is not flowery, it is not delicate and lacey and yet there is a charm to it in a masculine way.

It supports my supposition in a previous ‘Blog’.

I am happy.

Thank you for letting me reproduce it.

Courtesy of Salt Publishing.

            http://saltpublishing.com

            http://embracebooks.co.uk

            http://proximabooks.com

            http://saltpublishing.com/kids/

            http://blog.saltpublishing.com

            http://thecoverfactory.co.uk

Stephan Curry

Here is some work from a young man.  He is American - but we can forgive him that.  It is unedited, still in 'the rough', as it were.  Read it.  See what you think of a new generation of writers.

I'll tell you what I think at the end.

"Love is forgiveness, love is kind, love is the power to be a light in the darkness for those who are blind. Love will never stop loving you because there is no time, and it has no beginning or end.  Thus love is the greatest dividend among all who have the strength and will to let it in. No longer shall we be held down by hatred or fear, this is my goal, my promise, my oath, my everlasting will. Love is who I’ll become. Love is who I AM.

With this I promise I will change the world in a positive direction, with these hands, from this heart, through the temporary body within my infinite soul. Let our minds intertwine into the universal all-knowing source to reveal the highest principal of truth, that all there is, was, and ever will be, is love’s existence.  

Yet, our soul is not limited to our mortal shells as it is made of unlimited boundless energy and cannot be recreated or destroyed. The soul is not simply contained inside the body or mind but extends, therefore our body is truly within our soul not the other way around. Your soul contains your body fills an entire room, a whole floor, a building, and extends both externally and from within. It is as omnipresent as the creator for they are one and the same. Every person in the world every living being no matter what color or form (plant, animal, insect, micro-organisms, planets, and stars) every particle, every fiber of existence is an extension of yourself like a limb.

I will assist in building a nation of people free of hatred and fear, where we will all live as one united race, individualistic without division from social standards, background, color, or place. We must rise and persist towards life, a collation of happiness, and creation. Together we shall build the first civil, civilization.   

This vision of a better tomorrow that we will bring forth into our present is not of my own but the combined will and dreams from the hearts, souls, and minds of the collective consciousness as a whole.

We are the wielders of light in the darkness, the unlimited unsung heroes that have gone through life and death only to perpetuate a cycle that seemingly will never end. It is us the people who have been used time and time again stretching back more than a millennium for the selfish and greedy desires of a select few to no avail. It is us the people of the collective consciousness who are the majority and the meek who shall inherit this New Earth. It is us the people who hereby demand through both the collective subconscious and consciousness of the masses that the world and all of its natural resources, land, and property be rightfully returned to the world’s masses. Never again shall a minority rule or take dominion over and manipulate the majority for their own meaningless endeavors of profit. Let every state, every country, and every continent be self-governed in that governments hand over rights to the individualistic peoples of this planet to govern themselves and act accordingly to their own individualistic ideas and beliefs so that no one shall ever be limited or fall victim to boundaries set upon them by another, except that of self, thus forming a common unity of like-minded individuals undivided throughout. Should these endowed rights ever be provoked in any shape or form, it is the responsibility of the masses, to take action in the preservation of all. We the massively united collective consciousness shall no longer stand for a world filled with hypocrisy, corruption, greed, war, genocide, and the exploitation of all races, genders, social classes, religions, or hereby any and all other divisible factors created by man, in the realization and devotion to the universal truth that we are all equal individuals and we are all one."

By Stephan Curry, New York, USA.

OK? 

It needs the punctuation brushing up and some of the words, and syntax, need sorting out.

But.

Overall?  I am impressed.  From a young man this is art.  Written art.

That is why it is here.  On my ‘Blog’.  Because this is how men should write.  It is beautiful, it is poetic but it is not flowery and ‘twee’.

This is what I have been talking about in my previous ‘Blogs’.

Established and professional authors and writers take careful note.  The standard is being set higher than that to which you are accustomed.  Do not rest on your laurels or they really will be being worn in the wrong place.

Corrigenda and Amendments

Led you astray there, didn't I?  Corrigenda.  Lovely word.  Had to use it.  Compelled, I was, to include it.  It means 'correction of an error  -  especially a typographical error".  Cool.

Amendment, we know, is a change that has come about since the last issue or instruction that needs to be incoprorated into the current set of instructions or thinking.


These words are not interchangeable.


There are lots of words that have similar meanings that are not interchangeable.  I have recently seen 'refute' used when 'deny' would have been more appropriate.


Care.


Care must also be taken in some singular/plural situations.  'Phenomena' and 'phenomenon' spring to mind as does 'dice' and 'die' ("the die is cast').  In this case 'cast' means 'thrown' and not produced from a mould by pouring in a liquid.  That is another thing, words that are the same but have different meanings.  'Spring' is a fine example.


Elephant traps.


The English language is full of them


I am, I will admit to myself, very good with words.  I have studied them all my life.  I wrote 'The Hags of Teeb' as a play on words and could have added many more (but did not wish to overload the story!).
Nevertheless, beside me are well-thumbed copis of the 'Oxford Concise Dictionary' and 'Roget's Thesaurus of Words and Sayings' because even I can fall into the odd elephant trap on occasion.


It is also easy to make errors when thinking of something else while writing.  Recently I responded to a comment on one of 'Facebook' photograph albums.  I wrote "A place where we would all like to live." based on a comment about Pulau (Island) Redang, off the East coast of Malaysia; arose from the computer, thought about it and hurriedly sat down again to change 'would' to 'should'.  Naughty me!!


I have remarked before that we all make errors.  Perfection is beyond even the most scrupulous of editors.  A friend of mine is superb at proof-reading and suggesting changes but, sadly, his interest lies elsewhere than in Science Fiction.  He will also tell you that he will make mistakes from time to time.  Errors of omission rather than fact.


Do not feel guilty about not getting it quite right.  It has been said that it is the errors in a painted masterpiece that make it what it is.  If a painting desired to be perfect they would have taken a photograph instead.


Treat your writing the same way.  Fiction is fiction.  You do not require to maintain factual precision.  It is the odd small error that give your work texture, feel.  Add that to your descriptions, and the imagery that you conjure up using words, and be content.


Now.  What was it I wanted to say at the start?


Oh, yes.


Amendment.


Recently I said, in another 'Blog', that 'A Cross-Stitch in Time' was available to read free on:
www.davidleyman.com


The publisher has removed all the science fiction stories, except 'Silicon Ballet' from the web site.  This includes 'A Cross-Stitch in Time'.  Only the 'humour' stories remain on the page for free reading.
The promotion, I am told, is over.


Sorry.


Everyone has a boss somewhere!

Words and Linguistic Communication Devices.

How do you write “No Entry:  This is a Prohibited Area Within the Meaning of the Official Secrets Act and is Defended with Lethal Force” in Ant.

No.  Seriously.  We have tried the sprays.  Useless.  We are now resorting to feeding them with succulent repasts that contain elements that are inimically pernicious, hopefully fatal, to these diasporas of their multivoltine species.  Their tropism towards the food in our domestic habitat across the taut cables from which our accoutrements, when wet, are disported is creating a paradigm shift in our considerations towards annihilating whole families of Formicidae.

Whole families.  Now I feel bad.  Guilty, even.

You may have observed that I have taken a swerve away from my usual style in favour of linguistic diarrhoea.

Just making a point.

Shakespeare, however he spelt his name, kept his language simple.  Possibly it seems not to be the case now but, in his day, he was speaking to the common (uneducated) man.  For this reason he kept his words to a level that would be easily understood by most, if not all, of his audience.

All sorts of people like books.  Many have English as a second language.  There are those, in very poor countries, who may well have picked up a book from the rubbish dump, taken it home to read in order to learn something, and then passed it on.  Even those for whom English is a first language do not, very likely, wish to resort to a dictionary every so often to ‘translate’ the words into something that they are able to easily understand.

There are, of course, technical journals in which there languish flowery phrases, often written in concise and necessary jargon.  Such journals are written by, and for, a specific group who may be understood to follow such texts.

Books for everyone, fiction specifically, do not require the use of multisyllabic (sic) words.  Perhaps it is the author’s view that the public must be so impressed and in awe of their knowledge and intellectual prowess that intense cerebration must be required to read their prose.

Am I being mordacious?  I think not.  See?  Now they’ve got me at it!  Catching isn’t it?  So tempting to wander off the beaten track of popular comprehension.

Examine, if you will, within the confines of your own head the purpose of language.  Is it to confound and confuse?  Is it to flaunt your scholarly education?  No.  None of these.  It is to convey an idea, an image, into the mind of another person.

In terms of fiction a precise image is not normally necessary.  “Broad shoulders” on the hero is adequate; descriptions of his precise musculature and skin tones are, generally speaking, overstating the case.

I have usually stayed clear of describing surroundings in intimate detail in my stories.  Just painted a general background to set the tone and scene so that the readers, who have ample imagination of their own, are able to fill in the gaps and details to their own satisfaction.

How do I know that readers have imagination?  Two reasons, really.

1.            I am a reader.  I love stories written by other people.  As well.

2.            They are readers.  If they were not they would watch Films, TV and DVD’s instead of choosing to spend their hard-earned pecuniary rewards—oops!  Sorry.  ‘Pay’ on books.

Writing does not have to be oversimplified.  It does not require to be monosyllabic.  A book is the same as a mediaeval tapestry, full of colour and images that tell a story.

Just keep the stitches simple.

A Thousand and One Chores....

Tangents.  We all think in tangents.  Before we can complete a thought on one thing we get an idea that leads us off to the side and hisses in our ear.

“Oy!  You!”  It hisses.

“What?  Me?”  You say, all innocent.

“Yerss, you!”  The idea says, compelling you to not finish your original thought train.

“OK.  What is it?  I can come back to this one later!”

Now it giggles.  It knows that ‘later’ you will have forgotten.  You will have a vague notion in your head that there was something you wanted to think about but it has all gone.  All.  All that remain are just odd, irritating little tendrils of hints and suggestions.

You are being lined up for yet another tangent.

I had a tangent during the last ‘Blog’ but I fought it.  Manfully, you might say.

This is that tangent.  Because, just to spite the ‘idea’ sprite in my head, I made a short note.

Short notes are always better than long memories and ‘idea’ sprites.

There have been, as there always are, articles in the more flamboyant newspapers about men being led astray by deliciously curvaceous young(ish) ladies.

Some men seem to be led more willingly astray than those others who decry their innocence and plead with their wives to stand by them.  This is particularly true, it seems to me, of politicians who are greasily guileful and desire nothing more than to stay in the position that they have, somehow, acquired.

These are what are known as ‘Fencepost Tortoises’.  When you see a tortoise perched on top of a fence post you are looking at a creature that has no idea how it got there, what it is to do, how to get down and, even more importantly, why it is there.  It has been put there by someone who has no understanding of the needs of either fence posts or tortoises and to whom the purpose of both is a complete mystery.

Politicians.

The ‘idea’ sprite is trying to insert a tangent!

Back to the point.

These adulterous liaisons are often ascribed to the lust of the male partner.  He is a deviant.  He cannot keep his demands in his trousers and zipped up.  He is a shameful example of the woeful deceit that is encapsulated in the male mind.

Footballers often spring to mind in this context.

But wait.

Let’s just stop and think about this before we get ultra-emotional and hurl blame to all corners of the page.

Many years ago, when time was young and people lived in small villages separated by hills and forests, the Chief of the tribe was a hardy, tough individual who led his people through life safely.  He, it was, who enforced such laws as they had; he distributed justice along with food; he provided safety and security by the strength of his arm and the wit in his head.  Perhaps some ancient crone huddling over her pot of boiling herbs advised him.  (‘The Hags of Teeb’ at www.davidleyman.com qv)

It is he who is able to provide the safety and security necessary for the raising of a young child to grow successfully into manhood and become, maybe, the next Chieftain.  Genes, they say, will out.

Thus it is that the young women of the village will cast their eyes towards him.  They will actively hunt him as it is that he hunts for food for the tribe.  They know, the wise ones, that he has no time for seeking out a partner.  They must be pro-active.  Sitting in the corner fluttering their eyelashes will not suffice.

At last there is a successful candidate.  She becomes his partner and bears him a child—hopefully a male, but...

Now comes the tricky part.  For her.

She is looking after the baby.  She is cooking, cleaning the hut, repairing his clothes, chewing new skins ready to make into clothes and a thousand and one other chores while he goes about his business of bringing home the.... er....well, if not bacon, the venison, perhaps.

He arrives home.  Has dinner.  Goes out for a chat with the rest of the lads to plan the next day’s hunt and “is there enough laid by for a village holiday?” type of meeting.  He may consult the crone for any omens of portent that he should be aware of for the good of all.

Then he goes home and says “Get ‘em off, you’re on next.” To his beloved.

Reply?  “I’m tired.  Tomorrow.  Maybe.”

Tricky.  She needs to keep him.  There is competition out there.  They, the other girls, hover at the edges of the Chief’s domestic life ready to insinuate themselves into that position of power.

Imagine.  His wife is tired, she has worked relentlessly all day to keep him looking nice and to feed him.  She has cared for and cosseted their baby.  She looks like more like the old crone than the old crone does.

Compare this picture with the seductively nubile young thing with the prominent, er, architecture and the pouting lips.

She, that delightful young thing, for her part, is hard-wired biologically, as was the wife, to go for the power base, the success, and the protection.  He, on the other hand, is also hard-wired to go for the ‘spreading the seed around as much as possible to secure the lineage’ software.

Has anything changed?  No.  We have advanced technologically but socially?  We are, in essence, just as we were then.

It is too easy to blame the fellow and pity the wife.  Sometimes, though, perhaps we should look at things a little closer than we do—or, at least, than the newspapers do.

What does this have to do with writing?

I knew that one was coming.  I could see it lurking under your eyebrows.

Well.  Whatever it is that we write we must remember that people, human beings, are all the product of a long history of social development.  Or lack of development in this case.  We can write all sorts of fiction with all sorts of outlandish ideas (get back, sprite!) but we have to stay within the reasonable framework of what is acceptable and what is not.

Might I draw (sic) an analogy?  Cartoonists of all types make outrageous representations of humans and I, admittedly, am among them.  But the basic shapes and proportions have to be there.  Somehow a duck still has to look a bit like a duck, even if it talks, and a person still has to look somewhat ‘humanesque’ or it will not be recognised.  Aliens have a similar slant.  If they are intelligent and, even, enemies they must be recognisable as such.

The same must be true of writing.  Deviate too far and the story becomes ridiculous.

Recognising humanity and its weaknesses is a must from a writer’s perspective; second-hand observations give rise to second-hand writing.

Which gives me an idea.....

Frillies For Men

I was having an innocent meander, as one does, through some book samples the other day.  It was late at night, I admit, tiredness was creeping over me, when I was jolted awake.

The passage was from a young-ish author being put in print by a well-known publisher.  It started, the excerpt that I saw, with beautifully flowing prose using words that blossomed from a well-honed intellect.

And then it said:

“....his adoring tumescence.”

Oh, no.  Please, no.

He has, indubitably, the right to use such words as he sees fit and I, for one, would not argue against the exclusion of coarse and vulgar words and phrases, I am, possibly, old and old-fashioned enough to find the use of foul language uncomfortable in mixed company and with youth.  Yes, yes, I am aware that youths know these words and they use them amongst themselves on the grand scale but that does not preclude my personal embarrassment at using them in such company.

But.

There’s always a ’but’.

‘Waxing lyrical’, ‘poetic license’, ‘descriptive allegories’, are one thing but ‘adoring tumescence’?  Too much.

Let me make myself just a shade clearer.

I am ‘knocking’ neither his writing nor his style.  Beautiful.  No argument.  The man is obviously well educated and of great cerebral capacity.

No.  The problem I have is that men are men.  Women, as has often been noted, are different.  They are, well, women.

You ask any single woman and she will tell you that she is looking for someone warm, compassionate, caring.  Someone who has a sense of humour with whom she can chat away the wee hours in a stimulating and intelligent manner.  And who has broad shoulders and strength.

It always comes down to that in the end.  Women want a strong, decisive man.  [I shall write more on this in my next ‘Blog’]

Often you will see—and you know someone like this for certain, women who are beaten by their husbands.

“Leave him!”  People, friends, will say.

“Oh, I can’t, can I?  I loves ‘im, Ducks.  What would he do wiv aat me?  ‘E’d be lawst, wudden ‘e?”

Before I am deluged with comments about how well you treat your wife or girlfriend; how well your husband or boyfriend treats you, let me just say that I am well aware that there are a host of women out there who are perfectly happy with their lot—divorce figures notwithstanding, and that, equally, there are lots of husbands who are brutalised by their wives.

The point is that even (especially?) women authors have heroes who are strong and decisive.  They are men.

Now.

Men, real men, get lust-filled ‘rocko’s’, ‘hard-ons’, ‘woody’s’.  Erections, at least.  Men talk about six inches of mutton rivet, the pork sword, todgers, they do not get twee about it.  Even in front of women they don’t.  Never.  Ever.

I admit there are words in my novels that are less than polite but these stories are aimed at an adult audience.  I write in a ‘manly’ manner (I hope).  I do not use frilly sentences and pretty phrasing.  Perhaps I should, but I cannot.

Men are men and write like men—or should.  Women are women and write like women—or should.

“Adoring tumescence”?

Good grief!

Polarised Discussions

Over the last few days I have been having random thoughts about several issues.

Consider, first, the reviews and opinions that abound on self-publishing versus commercial publishing.

The latest view that I read concerned the quality of writing.  It was a blog from an established, and successful writer, whose ideas can be suitably summarised by saying that those who self-publish do so because they cannot get a commercial publisher to show an interest in their work.  Their work is, therefore, rubbish.

It is interesting to note that among the many responses on that blog are those who point out that some novels sold by commercial publishers are short on quality both in terms of story and prose.

Nevertheless he does have a point but he does miss one important aspect.

Within the blog and its responses there are frequent references to ‘The Gatekeepers’ (shades of ‘Ghostbusters’?).  These are the persons whose task it is to identify the stories that the publisher would wish to follow up with the potential for print.  These Gatekeepers have their own tastes and ideas that may not quite gel with the author or, indeed, the public and it’s requirements.

Furthermore, the Gatekeeper has a personal need to fulfill in the way that the MS is delivered to them—and be sure that publishers vary in their demands, and so the author has to be on their toes to ensure that the format is correct for that publisher.

If the cover letter is not right, if the blurb isn’t right, if the summary isn’t right the Gatekeeper will never even read the book.  This is glossing over the ‘white paper, black print, courier new font, twenty five lines per page....’.

Getting past the Gatekeeper is a work of art on its own.  Little wonder that many authors choose to self-publish.

In short, the argument that self-published work is bad and commercially published work is good is a tenuous argument at best and specious at worst.  It is certainly a fuzzy and very grey argument.

Just, briefly, go back to the ‘white paper, black print, courier new font, twenty five lines per page....’ issue.  Not physically—in our heads will be adequate.

Formatting documents for publishers should now be easier.  In the old days, and I mean really, really, old days before computers, when Chaucer and Bacon not only had to hand-write their MS but also had no ‘Gatekeepers!  The writers would go to the printers with various marks, still internationally recognized, to denote certain actions required.  It is for this reason that there is, even now, a need for wide margins so that the ‘printer’s marks’ can be entered without disturbing the script that will already be covered in amendments and notations.

Then editors and publishers got in on the act and more revisions needed to be made.  We are now heading away from the writer’s ideas into the realm of what the publishers regard as ‘commercially required’.  And yet, very often, publishers are playing a guessing game because they do not, really, know what is going to sell and what is not.

But.  Back to the formatting.

We moved from hand-written MSS to typed ones.  And now?  Computers.  Software like Adobe and Word take care of everything.  If you know how to use it!

Ah!  But there are elephant traps out there.  For example:

Some very bright people have assisted self-publishers by allowing them to format their work and putting it on to the web for e-readers.  This means that the Word or Adobe file must be converted by modern electronic means into the appropriate software for the e-readers to use.

But this conversion is not, necessarily, easy for those of us who are less than expert with electronic gadgetry.  That means, in essence, those of us who are not the youngest kids on the block!  For some of us just getting the hang of Word is hard enough.  To get those twenty five lines per page there needs to be some sort of process involving 'widows and orphans'--for whom I have the greatest sympathy but no ability to address on the computer!  Just obtaining the line numbers puts my brain in a vice-like grip.

All these things take research and/or professional assistance.  I have said before and, very likely, will say again, that the job of the writer is to write.  Let us get on with it.  If you write well and have a good story then self-publish.  If you do not write well and do not have a good story the market will find you out.

Let the people decide.