Aridi Writes

Today marks the release of I Shall Wear Midnight, Terry Pratchett’s 38th Discworld novel.

I could fill this entire post with how much I love the man’s writing. It would be easy for me to spend hours genuflecting to his vision, his character, his sense of humour.

But I must focus my gushing : this man has inspired me to write.

I can’t get away from it; a lot of the humour in my books may be slyly referred to as Pratchettesque. Not due to the quality – I can’t hold a candle to the master – but because of the tone. He gave me a way to bring light into my work without bad toilet humour or Saturday morning cartoon jokes.

The other important thing Sir Terry Pratchett did for me was show me that humour and “drama” – by which I mean actual plot, serious character development, so on – can exist together. Quite close, so close you can barely see the space between. And neither one nor the other will suffer for it. If you are careful.

If it wasn’t for the legend himself I wouldn’t be writing today.

Thank you, Sir.

So, recently, I’ve been all over the place creatively speaking.

A bit of poetry here, a spam of worldcrafting there, finishing a novel in the middle there somewhere. Just all over the shop. I’ve popped a few poems up on my DeviantArt page. I’ve worked on a couple of projects that are fairly private, and I’ve listened to a whole shedload of music.

I’ve also demolished my back, but that’s getting better.

So I’m going to lay down some ideas I’ve had, hither and yon.

1) A contemporary litfic set entirely at a music festival. Central to it are four characters that come into contact with each other in various strange ways. Focus of the story is the modern condition that is humanity, our social lives, anxiety, isolation, and the all-conquering power of music.

2) An artist is chosen by a newly birthed god – the god of surveillance and omniscience – to be his prophet. It’s about the world ending, underground art, the division between those that know and those that don’t, the clash between science and religion, and control.

3) One story told through a long series of correspondence between many different characters, not all of which know each other. Perfect for NaNoWriMo, if each letter is 1,000 words long precisely, and there are fifty letters. Themes include subjectivity, social connections in an unfriendly world, the elusive nature of the truth.

4) Your average scifi dictator/revolution story. Lots of guns, lots of tech, lots of drama, lots of philosophy.

…diaspora, no?

To most people on the island, VentnorBlog is well known. To those who DON’T live on the island – VentnorBlog is probably THE news site that deserves to be checked. It’s run out of sunny Ventnor. Hence the name.

Well, they’ve got me writing for them now. And Tim.

Go check them out HERE. And my first bit for them is HERE.

I’d like to thank the folks at VentnorBlog for giving us a chance. It was cool of you, very cool indeed.

…it is done.

Now I need to edit this thing. Oh good lord.

The first book is mere pages away from complete. God I’m pleased.

It’s been a hell of a long time since I posted here; for that, I apologise. The writing has been fairly slow as of late, but I hope that will accelerate.

To that end I’m taking part in a monthly prop writing exercise, nicknamed A Quiet Word. General order is maintained by my good friend David Hughes, a very talented writer himself. More talented than me, I think. He must be removed…

You can catch up on it here: A Quiet Word.

Minute Silence progresses. The decision to remove a plot – a plot somewhat too big to act as a secondary arc – has…shaken things up. I’m taking it in a different direction. If I can work out how to finish the first book, the second should flow a lot easier, hopefully leading to the third.

I need to ramp up the political unease. Easy enough I suppose. Mark catches the headline of a newspaper, or Cory has a phone call with the Mayor, or those NOT watching security tape at Cory’s see the news. Maybe when they find Bass…that’d be an interesting phone call. And from there, we have the police case at the beginning of the second book; but how to actually BEGIN the second book is eluding me, since Portent doesn’t exist anymore.

On top of that, planning a new Diabolic vid with my resident film-maker extraordinaire TJC Martin. You can catch his original here on vimeo. It’s a tasty piece of reel.

Stay tuned, cats.

What does depression do for an artist?

Well, a lot of the time it is a crippling barrier. A sense of “why bother” can sink even the best intentions, and even the most virtuous attempts at increasing a word count. The quality of the work can likewise suffer. When you can’t objectively analyse what you’ve written or where it is going, how can you maintain direction? In short, it can be a nightmare to write when in a depressive episode.

But likewise, it can bring subtle advantages. Insight into more introspective behaviours and characters. The ability to inspire pathos – especially through dramatic scenes involving negative emotion. Despair is often hard to write if one isn’t already despairing, in keeping with the old adage, Write What You Know.

Is it worth it? Honestly, I wouldn’t know. I’m too subjective in this regard – I’ve never written a word without depression having some sway in it. It’s made me who I am, and as happy or unhappy as I may be about that, it is as it is. How can I guess who I would be if I wasn’t myself?

All we can do is keep walking, regardless of how much our feet hurt.

As of right now I’m listening to a Spotify playlist made up for my current book project, Minute Silence. (Specifically book one, subtitled The Death Of Stars.) It’s got me thinking about how I pick songs for playlists, how they affect what I write and inform my choice of scene and character.

This has basically led me to pick out each song on that playlist and put it into context – where am I going to use it? What scenes, what characters does it apply to? One or many? Why is it thematic? If Minute Silence ever makes it to a movie, will this song be used in it for this scene?

Here’s a smattering…

30 Seconds To Mars – Kings And Queens

Aside from having a deep personal love for this song, it applies to the world of the Enhanced in a very poignant fashion. Singing about the cast-off slice of society, a group that nobody quite knows how to handle, Jared Leto probably didn’t have my motley collection of super-powered people in mind when he wrote it; but talking about those who were the “kings and queens of promise” and the “victims of ourselves”, it puts me firmly in the Enhanced frame of mind – simply as a collective of outsiders. Also I get chills when I hear about the age of man being over; truly, the point of view of more than one Enhanced. Perhaps, in the movie, this would make an ideal End Credits song.

Alter Bridge – One Day Remains

Perhaps a no brainer. One Day Remains is about living as if it was your last day on earth; leave the fear and the ennui behind and do something. Don’t give up, don’t stop, just go, go, go. Fast-paced and powerful. There’s a scene that goes with this song, a running battle on the highway of Steel Mountain between Cory “Trailblazer” Mallory (who can run at 300mph) and Mark “Juggler” Jugg (fast, strong, flies), against two or three other Enhanced – Renegades, bad guys – who are abducting a comatose man from a hospital. The fight is fast, and the two good guys need to be both strong AND fearless to win. The song is perfect.

Down – On March The Saints

As well as being as heavy as a panzer column driving through a steel mill, the song is about gritting your teeth, digging in your boots and rising above the tragedies and frustrations that litter life. The connection between the song and Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans is up for debate, but the chorus – “We have been through change, by the season of storms” – implies the steadfast refusal to buckle under great duress. A real mark of a hero. No scene in particular exists for this song, yet, but I’m sure one will come about.

Five Finger Death Punch – Bad Company

Aggression, a somewhat mournful realisation that one is a violent outcast, but an unrepentant reliance on the gun and the fist to get the job done. The original song – by the band Bad Company, on the album Bad Company – is good enough; but the Five Finger Death Punch cover is awesome; and when one William McMillan and his squad of mercenary asskickers get their hands on several suits of powered armour, well…let’s just say them mounting up and moving out would be best served by this playing in the background. McMillan (played by Ray Winstone in an ideal world) used to be a Royal Navy Commando. He knows he’s a badass. And he hates the Enhanced because they don’t need to try to be better than everyone else – so when the opportunity comes along to get even…he’ll happily crack the skull of any that get in his way.

I have to say, immediately after I hit the halfway point (notably at work), I felt relieved. I didn’t know if I’d reach this point at all, let alone at about the right kind of time in the month; because we’re about halfway through November, right? I think it can work.

It’s going places, this book.