The Woodsman - A quick update

It’s been a little while since I posted on this.

I’m still finishing off the structural rewrite. There was not much that could be salvaged from the end other than the very loose skeleton of the story and so it’s taking longer than expected, despite me working on it every day. I’ve also had to add in some crucial extra scenes in order to pace the action better. It’s tricky work but I’m getting there - chapter twenty is nearly in the bag.

It remains to be seen whether it will be of commercial length or indeed more importantly worth.

Once that’s done it’s going in a virtual draw for a couple of weeks while I write some shorter material for the Arvon course I’m attending and then it’s back to it. I have to finish by August as I have the first draft of my second novel, Forever, sitting in a draw demanding to be turned into a second draft.

That’s where I am at the moment.

Review: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

In the 1880’s it was said that Jesse James was the most famous American after Mark Twain. A point noted in the film. On April 3rd, 1882 Jesse James was assassinate in his own home by a man he knew. Jesse is still famous today, as much for how he died as how he lived and a popular subject for filmmakers.

It would be easy, I suppose, to state the film was about Jesse’s death. After all, it’s there in the title and there is indeed a brutal recreation of the murder. Still that would be wrong.

Starting with his last train robbery, the film focuses in on the last few months of Jesse James’ life and his relationship with his eventual killer, Bob Ford. Rather than a grisly examination of his murder what is offered is a gritty drama about hero worship and obsession. The real lead is not Brad Pitt as Jesse but the green, Jesse worshipping, gun hand Bob Ford and his obsession with stepping out of Jesse’s shadow.

The film features an interesting and competent performance by Casey Afleck (as Ford), a casting choice that seemed a touch ironic. There is of course Brad Pitt who, despite moments of nuance, pitched James a bit too close to Tyler Durden for this reviewer. A choice underlined by some of the costume choices. However, for me, it was Sam Rockwell as Bob’s older brother stole the show with a captivating turn as a man hopelessly trapped in a situation that he knows will ultimately destroy him.

The writing is good, and like Brad Pitt’s performance, actually moves into brilliant in places. Handfuls of genuine insight: where Jesse calls on an old friend who is less than pleased to see him, where Bob watches Jesse in the bath and when Jesse gives Bob the gun that will eventually kill him. Yet in other places it just clunks, breaking the spell.

The film’s major let down is the dreadful voice over that seemed superfluous to requirements. Perhaps it was intended to give the film the feel of folk lore but all it did for me was break the narrative structure and take me away from the film’s characters. The film’s premise is also diluted by the bloated runtime.

Overall it’s a gritty, hard drama with a strong cast and solid writing. It could have benefited from a nip and a tuck but, if you like this sort of Western (I do), it’s well worth a look.

Things What I Learned

I’ve been chattering on about my novel for long enough. Obviously some of this has – hopefully – imparted some wisdom along the lines of not doing what I do i.e. setting wildly unrealistic deadlines. However I’ve learned loads through this project, about myself, about writing and about fiction; mainly I’ve learned through mistakes and that’s part of what makes it fun. I thought it might be of use:*

1. There are no rules – The most important lesson, requires constant re-enforcing courtesy of a state education.

2. First drafts should be written as fast as possible – if you can’t write quickly at least separate the creative process from the editing process, for example: write in the morning, edit in the evening; or vice versa; or write in the week and edit at the weekends; you get the idea.

3. World building is not wasted time – if you’re writing other world fantasy or SF you need to generate as much material as possible here to avoid running out…quite literally…of ground around the middle of Act Two.**

4. Leave time between drafts.

5. Don’t leave too long between drafts – a fortnight is probably enough and if you leave it longer then you – like me – will find yourself working on the manuscript years after the first draft and rewriting simply to reflect what you’ve learned in the interim. At some point you have to move on.

6. Plotting by scene cards is really useful.

7. Plotting by scene cards is the devil’s work.

8. Plot happens whether you plan it or not. Go with whatever gets the thing finished.

9. Never try to incorporate a ideas that don’t ring true for you. Even if it’s meant to be a pastiche or tribute to another writer, include what’s true for you – you may even create something new and, even if you don’t, I guarantee your readers will thank you for it.

10. Copy edits are best done by reading the text aloud. That way you are forcing yourself to think as a new reader, if you can’t say it they won’t be able to read it.

And of course never forget the unwritten rule: always check you haven’t inadvertently picked a Kevin Bacon film as your story title.

*Although I’d encourage you to find out for yourself.
** Please believe me on this – you do not want to be doing research and redefining the landscape in the middle of drafts.

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Inter-dimensional San Miguel

Yesterday, at my company, it was our summer party. We all gathered in an underground club in Soho and consumed many, many beers. This morning I feel like my brain has been replaced with an old sock. This is one of the many reasons I rarely drink.

In addition strange things have been happening all morning. In the process of putting on my shirt the buttons switched sides, the floor tilted as I put on my trousers - spilling me on my arse - and the top  BBC headline seemed to be some footballer getting hitched.

Leaving the house it got worse.

The station seems to have moved overnight, turning a fifteen minute walk into twenty-five. No one seemed to be able to see me at the station as evidenced by their attempts to walk through me and, rather more memorably, sit on my lap. A church sign, concerned with the big questions of existence, asked me “What would Jesus say to Alan Sugar?”.

Then I saw the headline on a broadsheet and I realised that my beer must have had some special properties that slipped me into an alternate reality. After all, the legend “Brown wins 42 days vote” couldn’t be true in my world. I mean the collective parliament would have had to be lobotomised and replaced with half-wit reactionary media whores.

If anyone wants me I’ll be under my desk. Tunnelling for home.

Review: Iron Man

Saturday morning got off to a bad start. The car is due for it’s M.O.T and I thought – because the mechanic in the garage told me – that I had booked the car in for the necessary work at 8.30 this morning. Bleary eyed I set off for the garage clutching the fairly simple instructions on how to get to the garage.

Never made it.

Proving once again I can’t navigate my way out of a paper bag I managed to get lost in Erith prompting a phone call to said garage. Only to discover that there was no M.O.T booking. That furthermore I had zero chance of getting an M.O.T this side of 2009.

I eventually found my way home.

All of which is a long-winded way of segueing into the information that I went to see Iron Man this afternoon on the grounds that I needed to go and sit in a darkened room following this morning. I figured I might as well enjoy it.

Iron Man is the film adaptation of the Marvel comic by the same name. Tony Stark is a sickeningly wealthy weapons maker come playboy charming the US army en route to a weapons sale when his convoy is ambushed. Fatally injured in the attack by one of his own weapons and kidnapped by the attackers Stark is saved from death by another captive.

Finding himself amongst a sea of terrorists supplied with his own weapons Stark begins to realise just what his company has been up to. When the terrorists demand he builds his latest weapon – the Jericho missile – or die Stark begins to form a plan…

As with Indiana Jones, I wasn’t really expecting much. Marvel has such a hit and miss ratio with film adaptations. Spiderman and X-men both had strong adaptations but the adaptation of the Hulk was just too disjointed and failed to really make use of Eric Bana.

I was pleasantly surprised.

First off it’s a really good cast. I’ve admired Robert Downey Jr.’s work since Chaplin and if you have any doubts at all about his abilities you should watch Two Girls and a Guy. I digress: the point is the dude’s got chops. And speaking of the dude he’s in Iron Man: a bald Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, Starman) graces the screen as Obadiah Stane. A cast made up of –amongst others – Gwyneth Paltrow and Paul Bettany supports these two heavyweights.

The film’s plot is not hugely complicated, and not dissimilar to other films of this nature. The danger with plot by numbers films is that the story unfolds independently of the characters however Iron Man director Jon Favreau avoids this with a script that plays a great deal of attention to characterisation. The result, as it should be, is a plot that unfolds as a result of the consistent reactions of a well written, well played, central character.

Iron Man is an entertaining treat that you can happily loose yourself in for a couple of hours. I recommend it without reservation and urge you to see it in the cinema, before the obligatory set pieces loose their gravitas in the transition to the small screen.

Bombs Away

There was a bomb alert today, a few buildings up from my office in central London.

The cordon ran from about a foot from the entrance to my office up to the far end of the street, something like ten buildings long. I arrived to find a number of people milling around taking advantage of the drama to catch some extra UV before the rain takes hold again.

To be honest it wasn’t the alert itself that captured my attention. It was the reaction or lack there of. No one bats an eyelid now, we’ve had so many of alerts the typical reaction is oh there’s another one and (if it’s not close enough for us to be evacuated) the obligatory joke about moving down the far end of the office. In the event of an evacuation you’re more likely to hear people whinging about having to leave the office than worry about shrapnel.

And it just struck me that was a kind of cool thing about London. Maybe it’s true of other places as well, I don’t know. I just like the fact that London’s reaction to this kind of thing (terrorist threats) is a one-fingered salute and a return to discussing the football/apprentice/whatever. I like it because it’s so refreshing in an age when we’re told to be afraid of everything from Diet Coke to men with beards - it’s nice to see we still have some backbone.

Now if we could just get the trains to run on time…

Review: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

WARNING: Contains spoilers.

As hinted at earlier in the week I went to the cinema for the first time in ages last Saturday.

I went to see the new Indiana Jones film. I’m a huge fan of the first two films and retain a lot of affection for The Last Crusade - in the way you might a simple but harmless relative. I’d purposefully avoided as much of the press as was conceivable given the media onslaught that surrounded the premiere and really only had one requirement: entertain me. Doesn’t seem like much to ask does it?

The film begins from the pragmatic premise that quite some time has passed since the previous three films and Dr Jones now has quite a few years under his belt but is still cracking the whip where he can. It’s the 1950s and McCarthyism is rife. Everyone is a suspected enemy of freedom, even Indy, and you’d have to be some kind of hermit not to take the somewhat unsubtle dig at naughties America. [HINT: If you want to make a political point do a film on what’s happening right NOW.]

Anyway, it’s the fifties, Indy is getting on a bit and after a falling out with his university Indy leaves for Europe. Accosted by a brash young biker by the name of Mutt Williams, and enlisted in a search for the crystal skull of the title, our hero proceeds to trek through South America followed by a mad Russian dominatrix.

I’m not going to go into the plot in anymore detail.

Suffice to say it was somewhat wasted on me as I managed to guess it in thirty seconds courtesy of accidentally seen Karen Allen on the red carpet with Harrison Ford for the premiere. Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of my favourite films as a child and as a teenager I never really got over seeing Allen’s bum in Animal House. It was not, therefore, a leap of imagination to work out why she was there.

She’s still hot.

*Coughs* Moving on…

That’s really a problem with this outing. Too many of the film’s big pops appeared on the plethora of “specials” enabling any of the audience with even the most rudimentary knowledge of film narrative to guess what’s going on. There are genuinely enjoyable moments: an attention to continuity that is quite rare in this type of franchise, intentionally funny moments, old school live action stunts and a spattering of myth.

And of course there’s the cast.

It’s quite hard to go wrong with Harrison Ford, John Hurt, Ray Winston, Cate Blanchett and Karen Allen. Even newcomer Shia LaBeouf turns in a well judged, nicely understated performance that bounces agreeably off Ford. Yet go wrongis precisely what Spielberg and Lucas manage to do: they fumble it.

First off the pacing is poor and I mean really poor. The trademark care of Raiders and Temple seems to have gone by the wayside. The script starts a few beats too late with Indy already in trouble, this continues through spluttering segues as the weak plot trundles on, never really offering the depth or texture of the early films.

Yes, Indiana Jones films are about fun, nothing more really than fluff, popcorn films to fill the void left by the death of the Saturday matinee, but that doesn’t mean they have to be bland. Those early Indiana Jones films still had an unusually gritty, flawed, hero whom you actually saw in pain, who you saw bleed, who was quite frankly a genuine everyman. That’s what made them great.

Ford does his best to inject some of this into the older Indy but the fact is that the character was irredeemably softened in Last Crusade and Lucas/Spielberg complete the castration in The Lost Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Seriously, the ending of this one had me reaching for my vomit back. It was just…lame.

I’ll be honest. I don’t think it was Spielberg that fumbled it. Yes he’s the director. Yeah he gets it wrong occasionally, yes he’s not good at every genre he tackles but the man can do action, the man can do classic matinee cinema.

No. The person whose pesky little finger marks are all over this turkey is George Lucas. From the tepid dialogue that some poor bastard has done his best to fix, to the wooden plot, it reeks of the man whose output in recent years has consisted of one script disaster after another. Remember this is the guy who had possibly the most two dimensional actor of recent years (Hayden Christensen) utter the immortal line “His fate shall be the same as ours” in Revenge of the Sith.

Lucas has done a lot of good in the world of film - much of the kit used in modern cinema exists because Lucas companies developed it. He is a solid technical film producer but as screenwriter he sucks like a Hoover. Maybe his people can no longer say no to him. Maybe not but someone should have said no to this one.

The film had heaps of potential that were ultimately wasted. At least for this reviewer. If you’ve never seen the originals then you might get a big kick out of it, you might find some of the plot turns a surprise and not find the last act so jarring. If you do then I’m pleased for you. For me I’d just like George Lucas to stop ruining my childhood films. If I hear anything about a Willow sequel I may have to give him a stern talking to with a baseball bat.

Review: Cronos

Cronos was made in 1993 and still represents one of the most original takes on the vampire genre in recent years.

The film, Guillermo Del Toro’s third film, tells the story of Jesus Gris, an antique seller, who happens upon a golden scarab hidden in the base of a statue of an archangel. When the scarab, an invention of a 15th century alchemist, pierces his hand, Jesus finds himself changing: he has more energy, appears younger and begins to have problems with the brightness of the sun. Also he can’t stop himself allowing the scarab to pierce him.

Throughout he is visited by a non-made up Ron Perlman (Hell Boy). Perlman plays the nephew of a dying millionaire who has managed to track down the scarab and wants it for himself thus beginning a game of cat and mouse that provides much of the film’s tension.

That the film is an earlier example of Del Toro’s work is evident. In 1993 he has yet to win the critical acclaim and independence he fought so hard for after the disaster that was Mimic. Yet you can see his trademark craft in putting Cronos together, the layers of subtext, the idea that humanity is the monster - the real villains in this film are all humans - and the use of mythology to explore human themes of addiction, family and death. For such a short film (only ninety minutes) it really does pack in a whole lot of story.

The visual effects do date the film slightly as does the quality of the film print from which the DVD was mastered but this doesn’t really distract from what’s going on. Del Toro’s skill as a make up designer (his early career was spent doing this) are overall what keeps the effects in the game and more than makes up for the absence of CGI or modern prosthetics.

The cast was and is largely unknown to me. However the performances from the entire cast were very good but two deserve mention in particular. Tamara Shanath, who plays Aurora, turns in a wonderfully nuanced performance for such a young actress and provides the film with it’s heart as the film’s protagonist, Jesus, attempts to hide his addiction from her. The other is that of Perlman who delivers a brilliantly three dimensional performance as the vain, long suffering, nephew of millionaire De la Guardia. A chilling and intelligent performance.

There’s a lot to like here. This is smart horror delivered in a slick movie that’s not afraid to make you laugh, cry or scream. Most likely all three. I recommend it without reservation.

The week that was

Well, that was a tougher week than I was expecting.

It’s funny isn’t it? You get back from holiday and you always expect it to be a bit of a shock to the system but no matter how hard you prepare it’s always a shock in an unexpected way. So it goes I guess.

Monday was our first full day in the UK and we switched on to GMT quite well. I was feeling a little stiff after the flight but nothing out of the ordinary, or so I thought, by Monday night I confess I was struggling to move my head. By Tuesday morning I couldn’t move my head at all, in fact the only way I could get out of bed was to roll onto the floor and then stand through moving just my waist and knees. So that was the first thing, I was stuck like that most of the week. It’s funny how only turning from the waist unnerves people, I felt like a bond villain…albeit one that has gone to seed.

The next thing I can’t really tell you, suffice to say it’s a four letter word beginning with W and a source of ongoing stress. I’m told this is normal.

Finally today the third thing happened. You know how bad luck always goes in threes? Well that’s what I’m hoping anyway as it means I’ll be due some good luck. Anyhow: this morning I’m talking to my mum, who’s visiting at the moment, and all of a sudden we can hear a very loud dripping. Now after the last plumbing related debacle I have a pretty fine ear for any potentially unplanned water feature and so I leapt into action…pausing briefly to yelp for my neck. On pulling back the curtains I discover that our bay window is leaking water from about four or five different places across the frame.

I had a brief moment.

So that was the third thing. I hope. And I now fully expect all three recently submitted pieces to come back with acceptances as a means of redressing the balance…what do you mean it doesn’t work like that?

In writing related news I finally sent off a short story I’ve been working on for ages. Good for the soul that. And I’ve been slowly building the segue between Golgotha and the forest for The Woodsman in preparation for the major surgery required to bring the end rather closer to what I would like to say with the story than the way it is now. I think I’ll still hit my deadline of the 15th June but it will be touch and go.

But hit it I shall. Why? Because yesterday I started laying down notes for what I’m pretty sure will be my next novel length project and I’m keen to get going. I’m very excited.

Now back to the forest. I have Tream to kill and gods to pick fights with.*

* For the newer readers: no I haven’t been taking hard drugs, I am referring to my story The Woodsman.

Imagine

Imagine

Imagine, if you will, that one day you wake up and there’s a strange sensation in your hand. You’re not sure what it is until you go to lift up a pen and you realise your thumb is twitching, almost like your leaning on a nerve. Only you’re not. In fact, now that you’ve noticed it, you can think of a number of times it’s done that in the last few weeks and perhaps you should get it checked out.

But you don’t.

A few weeks later, maybe a few months, maybe longer, you notice your legs seem to get very tired very quickly, they feel like lead a lot of the time and so you’ve started walking slower. You trip occasionally. You can’t drive as far as you used to. You’re out for the day with a friend, a family member, your partner, whomever and they notice after waiting for you to catch up for the fifteenth time that you’re shuffling. They ask you what’s wrong. You tell them you don’t feel right.

At the Doctor’s appointment that follows you get told you have a disease that will mean your arms and legs will become twitching alien limbs over which you will no longer be allowed to assert control. That one day – not too far in the future - you may find it hard to talk, may need help dressing yourself, maybe even help getting to and from the bathroom. That one day this disease may stop you twitching altogether.

Or:

Imagine you find it hard to breath because it feels like your lungs are constantly half full of water, you get terrible coughs on a regular basis and you’ve had pneumonia a couple of times. You could cope with all this if it wasn’t for the fact your stomach was a turgid alien world that churned and bubbled all the time. If going to the bathroom wasn’t an exercise in self-control in stopping yourself retching from the vile smells emanating from your body. But you’re not worried; the doctor says it’ll all be over soon.

Or:

Imagine you’re five years old. You don’t know much about anything but you know that walking is something that should be easy and isn’t, you know that other kids don’t get calf pain all the time, in fact most five year olds don’t know what their calf is.

But you do.

Imagine you struggle to play football or rugby or whatever because breathing is hard and you fall over all the time because the world is a gyroscope winding to a halt.

Just like you.

Now, no matter which of the above you chose, imagine there was someone who thought they could help you, who wanted to help you, only they’re not allowed.

They’re not allowed because another person says they can’t.

Not because it’s dangerous, not because it’s going to hurt anyone, not because it’s going to cause pain of any kind, not because it’s going to bring down governments and not because it’s going to allow the slaughter of whole populations.

No, they’re not allowed because someone says it’s immoral.

Imagine. Please.