CjEggett

A list of scenes which I omitted while writing the first draft. They’re in no order. I hope it makes the whole things seem appealing though (imagine what I actually put in!).

1• A conversation on willows

2• The King’s speech (page 98)

3• The Bus

4• The Scottish Port

5• Descriptions from dragon feeders

6• More radio news

7• Visiting the orphanage

8• Something about the “Job”

9• Thom and Valarie’s house

10• A shopping list for camping in an abandonded house

11• A list of books owned by a young person 20 years ago

12• The quilt

13• The death of her parents

14• Can you name that band?

1• A conversation on willows

2• The King’s speech (page 98)

3• The Bus

4• The Scottish Port

5• Descriptions from dragon feeders

6• More radio news

7• Visiting the orphanage

8• Something about the “Job”

9• Thom and Valarie’s house

10• A shopping list for camping in an abandonded house

11• A list of books owned by a young person 20 years ago

12• The quilt

13• The death of her parents

14• Can you name that band?

My NaNoWriMo currently stands at 13,155 words, we’re on the 4th day (and I’ve had 3 days of writing). I feel pretty good about it, I’ve not hit a block yet, I’ve not decided that what I’ve written so far is a sloshing fuck-bucket of nonsense, hey I’ve even got time to squeeze a blog post in, I am taking it all in my stride.

Here’s how:

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“Patience is a Virtue”

“Pardon?”

“She’s a Virtue, as well as policeman - woman even.”

“You mean she’s your sister?”

“Yes” said Brevity. “How long has Prose been in there?” she asked the Landlord.

“A long time, I mean, I am not exact-“

Brevity thumped the door thunderously “HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN THERE PROSE?!” she bellowed at the door.

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Everyone talks about their writing space when it comes up to NaNoWriMo time, Whether it is social (turning the phone off, promising nice things to the due-to-be-ignored, etc) or physical space (“I arrange the entire room into a pentagram of writing books, with me at the middle - if I leave, I die” etc).

But what about actual spaces? Here’s my Top 5 Place I Would like to Write My NaNoWriMo from This Year:

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“We’ve got your results back” said the good doctor.

“Yes?” said Prose, unsure what he had actually been tested for.

“It’s good news and bad news.” The doctor attempting another pause for effect.

Prose looked at the doctor blankly. The doctor sighed, finding he couldn’t even produce the least bit of anxiety from the young man in front of him.

“Look,” he said, leaning forward, trying a new tactic, his voice dropping to a low and serious tone: “this is hard for anyone to say, let alone when we’re as close as we are.”

“I’ve only been here for three sessions?”

“Yes, but -“

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Poetry has to grab me these days. I have to instantly interested, a turn of phrase is all that’s needed to draw me in, but once done I can settle with it. I need a hook is all I’m saying.

The Book of Frank’s particular hook was the inclusion of the line:

“Where’s my son’s CUNT?!”

On the first page. Thus hooked I purchased and ploughed on.

A camp tales of abuse, debasement, metamorphosis, fear, sex and psychosis these short sharp poems wander jumps from theme to theme like the poem itself is on a pivot - each side showing you a new facet with its fully developed rollercoaster of nastiness, the degradation of the human soul and the like.

This culmination of 16 years of work (we only read the wheat of course) is actually a display of the roughness of life.

Like all work produced over a number of years - and maybe all long poetry in fact - the author only offers up little slices of the whole at a time. Each poem is a solid representation of the moment but as the moment and the persons are so varied and changing, those around Frank anyway, there is a lot to take in. Only after being given each sordid polaroid we’re able to build our whole Frank-flick-book. Importantly each snap catches change in action - the animation actually only offers us the dimension of time.

“He read the metamorphosis, just for kicks” We’re told. This joke (the sneering quality of the line) makes light the Kafkaesque nature of metamorphosing characters - a fundamental support to the whole collection. We come to expect a kind of “knowing” change quite early on. Frank’s mother grows tentacles as he realises how involved in his life she is. Frank grows crows for hands. In the beginning Frank seems to be at the mercy of these changes, yet, slowly, he begins to take a grip of the rudder and enjoy the changes.

Frank searches for a metamorphosed version of his sexual-abusive father in the shape of a transsexual - Frank kneeling for a kind of knowing abuse. He takes this and, eventually passes it on.

And this might be at the centre of it. Frank is in control in many ways - he absorbs all the horrendous parts of the world around him and owns them completely. Frank seems to be the victim for much of the extended poem, yet he manages to become part of the oppressive chaos around him.

To say this is about the degradation of the human soul is, in reality, a little much. Frank is dammed from birth to be mis-labelled, over-labelled, abuse. As much as we like to pretend there is a grace to fall from in reality the soul is something with its snout firmly in the corpse of another.

Mills always manages to make the structure of his world contract around his characters in an impressive way. His characters, often impotent to take control in the squeezing world, tend to play Watson, ask the sensible questions and allowing the thick tightening band of the rubber noose squeeze on the oesophagus.

At the point when the character should expire – at the centre of the gyre, the final turn - we are always faced with one of two things:

[The rest of this post contains spoilers – Please consider yourself warned!]

1. Supplication: As the character is about to expire the character fully accepts the system and becomes part of it - forfeiting free will (not that they ever really displayed previous..) to become part of the world; an exchange of free will for immortality. In doing this, paradoxically, they suddenly gain agency.

2. Collapse: The system falls apart. As glorious as it once was, the system cannot sustain the pressures of everyone within it. The straw breaks the camel’s back. This, or there is too much slack in the system – many required cogs simply not taking all required strain - the chain comes off and the machine grinds to a halt. All involved parties must dissipate back to whence they came, or into the ether.

The first happens in “All Quiet on The Orient Express” (Mill’s masterpiece of mounting tragedy) while the second occurs in “Three to See the King” (an almost perfect comedic exercise in working with negative spaces for the most part).

“The Scheme for Full Employment” is a case of the latter and is probably the one in which Mills plays with “the squeeze,” most honestly; the chassis shows. The story centres the drivers of “UniVans” - slow moving trucks used for deliveries. There is a set of rules in the scheme, set routes, etiquette – and a warning, right from the beginning that it’s all going to come crashing down because it’s taken for granted.

The UniVans only item to deliver is Univan parts. Once this is realised you can see how the madness of the scheme works. The vans ship parts between depots without every having contact with the real world, but in doing so creates commerce of sorts. Another example is the fabrics department making a new and subtly different uniform every year, not because it is needed, but because it gives them something to do.

The scheme allows everyone to take a role, to set an example to the world outside of the clean goodness of a well oiled machine working.

Eventually a schism appears between the “Flat-Dayers” (those who wish to work 8 hours slowly and clock off at 4.30) and the “Early-Swervers” (looking to get everything done as quick as possible and then get signed off for the day).

The first strike in the history of The Scheme follows and it all crashes around the ankles of all involved. Partly because of a certain new strain in management (possibly representing Thatcherism) desiring for privatization and efficiency; the other because the public had lost patience with it - as the life of a UniVan driver is an easy one they thought the strike a liberty.

Mills really bares the bones in this, but because there’s none of that overwhelming pressure - and threat - there’s not so much to get excited about. There’s none of the sympathy required to get your blood boiling or to let the frustration bubble.

However there is majesty to it. It’s like being at the opening of an exhibition with the artist there. In the centre of the room is a  large object, lumpy, covered by a white sheet.

He reveals a contraption, slowly, each little part deceptively simple and it snips your face open into a grin. As it’s revealed it begins to have life and movement. It’s clever, if a little cold - and you can’t help but be impressed. 

Once complete the artist turns to you and says: 

“Now, watch me destroy it.” 

With this he takes a single thin silver pin from its slot in the machine and the machine crashes to earth with increasing speed, not with an explosion but with a million well timed folds and slapping of hinges.

Once he’s done you clap and think to yourself how worth it was, even if it didn’t move you in the way his work has before.

I’ve recently spent the week in Berlin, mostly by myself. I had intended to meet a few people out there - but being the exciting people they are they had to be whisked away to work in Dusseldorf of all places. Bloody set designers.

This aside, I have had a chance to do some reading. I like reading - I spent 3 years doing little but at university, yet most of the time I find myself having to sneak it in, squeeze it in around work, life and other more social activities. Having your nose in a book feels a bit a bit of a luxury when you remember that there are real people around you who are literally creeping closer to death every second - every molecule of their body is, in a series of explosions, expiring in an effort to keep the whole moving.

This is to say I enjoyed a few days of endless reading very much. I focused on short, sharp things - partly because I wasn’t interested in gambling all my time on something chunky, and partly because the weight restrictions on a Ryanair cabin-baggage only ticket left me with only a few hundred grams.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be dropping in mini-essay/reviews titled “Notes On: …” into this very web-funnel. This includes, amongst others: Magnus Mills’ “The Scheme For Full Employment”, H.D.’s “Kora Ka”, C A Conrad’s “The Book of Frank”, and Murikami’s “After The Quake”.

In other news, I will be uploading a batch of photographs for http://myhighmeadows.co.uk to trickle out of my twitter-hole on a daily or weekly, popping a few interesting nuggets up on http://pixelgush.co.uk, and wading through a irregular selection of musical slurry on http://counterfeitculture.co.uk (SPOLIER: My first positive review will crown shortly!).

I hope this hasn’t ruined your day too much.

1. Hang it round your neck as a handy alternative to an albatross.

2. Kill things with it. Depending on the thickness of the MS you can use it to kill things. Beetles, cockroaches spiders - if you’ve got a particular thick murder mystery which refuses to take off you could always actually kill someone with it. Going to prison helps book sales, look at Jeffery Archer.

3. Carry it everywhere with you under the pretence of working on it anywhere. Some people go to the gym, some people wear those funny weights under their clothes so they’re always doing a micro work-out. Most would-be writers spend a great deal of time lugging half a dead tree about under the pretence that editing it on the night bus home would be a great idea. If you’re still waiting for inspiration to get editing then you might as well leave the lump at home.

4. Hide it. The guilt of a heavy thing watching your every wasted moment is compounded by it’s heaviness. Hide it somewhere where it can’t see you. It also makes for an interesting version of hide-and-seek against yourself, in the past.

5. Make detailed written edits which you will entirely ignore when it comes to actually editing the electonic “master” copy. I did this. It was good to have read the thing - and pretty important I’d say. But all those edits and chicken-scratch marks I’ve made are pretty much ignored in the MS as I can spot them as well in the electronic copy. However, if you’ve got a couple of pens you need to run out (so you can spend more time buying pens) this is a great way to achieve this goal.

I’m still editing the novel. It does still happen from time to time. I manage to sit down with Scrivener to beat out a few kinks.

But there are other things too. 

For example there is a review of a concept album about Receiving a blow-job from Kate Middleton (or something like that anyway) on counterfeitculture.co.uk - personally I think it is the best yet.

I’ve also added a little to the Ezra Pound blog (News That Stays News) - a very old essay covering a basic concept of modernist poetry: ”Direct Treatment of The Thing.” I hope to get my old flame worked up for Ezra Pound once again. I want to preserve some old thought and maybe, one day, work through The Cantos, little by little providing digestible breadcrumbly mini-essays.

I am also working on a illustrated children’s novel. I am currently putting together a kind of frame-by-frame breakdown ready for my illustrator to begin working on.

And, on top of this, I’ve been back out on the bike - and I have some cracking tan-lines and lost a little weight which is always welcome!

I’ve been using scrivener to edit my Novel for a week or so now (or maybe it has been longer). It has proved itself useful because it presents a simple and easily understood system for understanding the structure of your novel.

First it offers you the ability to take the 200+ pages of brain-gush and chop and slice it into something approaching “scenes”. Film is one of the most readily available examples of modular content in popular culture, and as such Scivener allows you to break a novel into these easily understood parts. These tasty snippets of goodness allow you to look at your wretched creation as not just a month long #NaNoWriMo finger-spasm (although it is) but as a series of pieces in a game, like chess for example:

When we play Chess we don’t think about how the pieces look or what the board looks like - we also don’t look at the board as a linear set of actions taken on a whim. Instead we see every piece as having a phantom future in front of it, and we see it all at once. Invisible lines cast by the shadow of the bishop mix with the 4 spots where “The Horsey” (as I believe it is known) can make it’s seemingly erratic movements. This sense of setting up certain space for the enemy to fall into to be trapped, or to act as deterrent fits well with editing a novel.

I can now see all my pieces on the board (except, it isn’t a chess board, it is a map of Northern Europe and I’ve got a long stick to move all the pieces about. Also: I probably have a cool Kitchener moustache) and I am ready to gather parts together, make  changes to the structure of the novel. Scrivener allows you to organize your modules (nuggets, slices, snippets) into Hierarchies in exactly the same way you organise a web-page or your documents on your computer. This mind model is so familiar to us it becomes a breeze to move labeled parts of your narrative about and see - like you can looking at the chess board - how all the movements fall into place, which pieces offer protection to others and which are at risk. 

In short Scrivener has made me feel in control of my novel for the first time in a month! And surely that can’t be a bad thing?

So I took the novel out last night and flicked through a few pages, found all the breaks I’d pencilled in and broken the novel up into these pieces in Scrivener.

The main selling point of scrivener for me as far as I can tell is the introduction of a file system not unlike the one used on computers. It is interesting that is is the most comfortable form of organization to me now - file and folders within each and a snippet of text at the core. It helps me see meaning in the novel as it stands, I could now happily write a short essay on the themes featured in my novel - I knew them before, but I didn’t know where their weight was.

A few thing occurred to me while chopping this novel up:

• It’s pretty short
• But some of those chapters are pretty long
• I’ve still got a lot of work to do.

So night my plan is to flick through the MS again and take on the first chapter. I think Scrivener has a panel for adding “themes” to it, I might even plot a theme chart to see what I can lose (if indeed, I do need to lose something) - I’m sure some of the ideas should be dropped, it feels messy at the moment.

I’ll take on the first chapter, buff out the crassness, break it to my will and maybe even add a little worthy flourish.

I’ve just finished my first read-through-and-scribble-on of last year’s #NaNoWriMo novel. I was excited.

I’ve cleaned it up a bit, chopped huge pointless chucks out. I’ve added bevelled edges and embroided a little.

I realised that yes, I had built this book upside down, the foundations sat on the top, ugly, heavy, and badly supported from below.

I realised I lacked friction - so I added some. I rubbed gravel in it it’s face, the book said to me, through sobbing tears: “I never knew that friction would be so gritty”.

I repatriated a snippet here, a chapter there to new homelands where they add tension and respite from the main drag of the story (and yes, it did feel like a draaag to read).

Actually, I’ve yet to move anything about, but I’ve put the signposts in. I plan to use Scrivener to do these edits - after all, it is highly praised.

And I must offer my thanks. To all of you who have let me, until this point, remain precious with this work. I’ve not let you read it once (for bloody good reason mind, why not read these instead) and even when you’ve made impassioned pleas I say “no, it is not ready”.

But now the tables will be turned and you’ll get what you wanted - I’ll be asking you to read it. If you’ve got the copy of the book you will be harassed into reading it. I will ring you, every day, to ask “Hey, what did you think?”

You’d better have a good answer.

4 Things I Have Learnt About Editing

1. I was smarter when I was writing. When I edit I seem to always be scolding myself  for foolish ideas that I threw on to the page at the time. Often i cross these out, smugly, because I know better than That idiot who wrote this shit, right? Wrong. Apparently the “pantser” who wrote this magnificent garbage is actually quite good at setting up punchlines well in advance - he is a serial foreshadower.

2. That guy wants to tell you everything. There is, of course, an information overload. Every little trick or turn which came into my brain while writing clearly went onto the page. As someone who likes to draft things because that means putting off the real work until later I understand why I did it. However, I was a cunt to do it to myself.

3. Chapters are important. Turns out a whole novel as a lump of text doesn’t necessarily work for me while editing. Sticking  a nice “Chapter Two - The Delightful Buggery” (or similar)  helps give weight and space - it also adds an artificial sense of motion. Every time something “ends” I can stick a new chapter heading in and feel that I’ve “won” that chapter to a greater or lesser degree. One of the most important edits I have made has been to carve the work into narrative chunks which huddle together narratively.

4. I missed out all the important stuff.This links to point #2 really. Why didn’t I include those important flashback, but did include those stupid in-jokes about tea-bagging for my friends? One answer is, of course, I was just trying to write the thing and any little pick-me-up on the way was welcomed (albeit stupid or puerile).

What have you learnt editing, that I need to know about before it hits me in the face during the next session? Leave me a comment, or just foreshadow what will befall me… or you could always ask me a question: http://cjeggett.co.uk/ask

6. Be A Slave To Your Muse
 
Did you just squeeze out a novel of appropriate size and length, get it bound and now - as it sits there in front of you in all it’s brick-like glory - Like a brick - A paper-weight - A weight of paper - do you find yourself unable to stop thinking of new ideas? Excellent! Now you’re ready to be gripped by the fear that if you don’t start putting your new ideas they’ll float away into the ether never to be seen again, and that, if you do start drafting that you wrote “the old novel” for nothing.
 



5. Decide to be a Renaissance man (OR jack-of-all-trades)
 
Decide that you are, beyond all else, so capable of being the finest pivot of knowledge in human history that you cannot tie yourself down to one occupation and focus. You should worry intensely about all the things you’re not doing when you’re doing one of them. “So I am editing my novel - but this means I’m not painting a picture” - “Now that I am painting this, what is surely a master-piece in a yet unknown genre, I feel I am certainly neglecting those ideas about putting together an a post-rock concept album about the early work of Verner Hertzog,” - “I guess now I’m really putting the finishing touches to these expansive yet brutal fuzz-scapes I feel I’m neglecting my important study of Anglo Saxon mythology…” and so on. Until you die.
 



4. Talk about it.
 
Talk about and talk about it all the time. Do so much talking about it that you never actually DO anything - in fact if you can set up some meeting with similarly aspiring friends it will be entirely beneficial - you can all talk about being writers and never actually write. There are side effect to this, like regret, but as most of you - like myself are angling for a deathbed conversion you’ll probably live (or die) with it.
 



3. Read advice.
 
Advice is great and great to read - it make your feel armoured and safe. You are now prepared to meet any criticism coming at you - you’re ready to sell and you’re ready to edit. It’s like a pep talk - and who doesn’t like talking pep? The problem is that if you’re reading advice instead of ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING you’ve failed. Just stop. and. edit. the. bloody. novel.


 
2. Write Blog posts
 
Especially knowing ones about procrastination.


1. Play Minecraft.
 
Minecraft is the finest tool for destroying your life. You play as what is ostensibly a LEGO man in a world of mining LEGO. Then, at night, you have to hide from the zombies and skeletons - which means you need to build a base. But you need to go underground sometimes to get the cool material to make a really sweet base. And there are Zombie down there too. Then you play online and see that there are people who are talented within the game who make insane and wonderful contraptions. Suddenly, added to the madness and the joy is the random element of other human beings creating thing  in a world between your play sessions giving the whole thing the appearance of a mad, but living, LEGO world.
 
 

 
PROTIP(S): All these issues are solved by one of the following options:
 
1. Have a beer in the bath - don’t worry about it, everything will work out.
2. Write & Edit. Then repeat.