Another Writing Update

As the blog reaches 8000 views since January 2013, I think it's about time I updated on my recent endeavours. Last week I attended the first ever meeting of our university Creative Writing Society. It was very enjoyable with some diverse and interesting pieces written by the founders across multiple genres, from comedy to post-modernism. When participating in these gatherings it really does open your eyes up to many new experiences. For example, given that pretty much every other society member is a student of English or Creative Writing, they of course have a great deal more experience than I do, since they are learning the art of writing through a rigorous system of analysis of classic texts and implementation of such techniques. All is aided I might add by professional texts on the craft, which of course are also available to me via the library, which I guess is where the next step in my professional development as a writer will be. Regardless, we reconvene after Easter over which I am planning a new project! Yes, I have finished a draft 2 of my second novel and -when I return- I'll get some feedback on it. Until then I'm not going to fret over it.

The new project is one I would describe as being a little more ambitious in terms of size and complexity than my previous works. I have been planning it for the past week or so now and I have written a basic outline as well as a mind-map and in addition to these, I felt it appropriate to also write a chapter-by-chapter summary of the story, so that every scene is detailed in some way. The reason for this is because firstly there are four main characters and secondly, because I want the story to be brimming with realism.

The narrative, set in a fairly contemporary England, follows the aftermath of a political fallout. Inspired in part by the riots that erupted across England in 2011, a similar event happens in the story and leaves the country completely destroyed. With hospitals closed, schools destroyed, whole towns razed and soldiers under shoot-to-kill orders, a small group of ordinary citizens wait for a certain doom. Beginning in Wigan, the four strangers become dependent upon one another as they mount a dangerous road to Dover, where a final ship is due to leave for France in 24 hours. In the race against the clock they pass through their former home towns and recount their individual traumas while ordinary problems -such as Type-1 Diabetes- threaten their lives in the dystopia that was once a powerful nation. The story was partly inspired also by the David Mitchell books Cloud Atlas, (which I have reviewed) and number9dream. The influences here surround the secondary narrative set in 1794 during "The Terror" of the French Revolution, where a French Aristocrat attempts to resist the peasants' movement, but learns that they too have a place in society via his loyal Valet.

I hope that this explanation isn't too long-winded, but it is a story I tried to write a few months ago. Sadly I found that it was too ambitious a tale to tell; I simply hadn't read widely enough at that point. But in any case I'm glad to be off for the next three weeks and -once the summer has started- I will write more. Of course I'll hopefully have a year in industry set up by then, so I will accommodate my time to continue reading and writing as much as possible while I am at work.

Thanks for reading guys!

Another Piece of 2nd-Person Flash-Fiction

The piece below was written in about an hour and focuses on an ambiguous story of someone travelling across a tundra landscape in search of something. Hope you like the imagery and please review, comment etc.

Winter's Grip in System 9

Snow whips across the plateau as you run tirelessly. The ill-fitting Elemental-Resistance Unit weighs you down. But you run all the same. You need to catch him. The snow blinds your vision pane before your face, sliding off moments after. You fire a laser into the distance, watching it travel for miles like a marathon runner at light-speed, melting snow as steam erupts in mid-air before re-freezing immediately after; the snow brought back to life.

A thin outline forms some twenty minutes later, your muscles taught as the complex comes into focus. Another five minutes. The gate appears before you, its guards long dead, but the Thief resides within its walls and you must have him!

Your hand touches the metal chain-link fencing as you push the left gate askew. The snow beats with greater ferocity as if trying to scare you away. It pummels your suit’s visor even more, the flakes hitting the screen like a Kamikaze plane, melting with the slightly-greater-but-still-below-zero heat. You make your way across the courtyard, the footsteps you make being filled in again with lightning speed; the imperium of the ice age. The gate blows shut behind you with a clang.

The buildings before you stretch behind a large dome, gunmetal grey amidst the white snow. Outposts sit scattered across the lifeless courtyard, metal Environment Emergency Bunkers. Human cocoons or incubators without inhabitants, the residents of the planet having died 200 years ago. The planet known as 6667 of System 9 was the epitome of a dead world. A planet where no species had adapted evolved or changed and as a result, the surface had no life to grace, only snow, despair and the ruins of a civilisation long left behind. But yet here he was, the Thief. You press onwards through the snow and open the main door to the ‘Centre HUB’, emblazoned upon the dome.

You enter a dark reception, the final chaos of the civilisation’s then-impending collapse frozen with upturned chairs, disabled Anti-Gravity Fields and scattered papers; all frozen like the sheet of ice that was once the Great Ocean. You feel no warmer having ventured in—doors. You press forward and across the marble floor, black and white in swirls like galaxies and nebulae across the visible Systems. Your footsteps thud as you approach a white room, stairs leading towards a basement. The room contains the final experiments of the facility’s biologists, various species now lying dead in incubation cages, their AG Fields having long-since deactivated, the creature’s bodies frozen and un-decomposed, eyes wide and frozen in death like time on the dead world.

You descend the staircase, taking your time: CLANG. . . CLANG. . . CLANG. . . CLANG; your footsteps hit the green metal with an echo. You walk for ten minutes before arriving at a white corridor at the basement; a single automatic door set at its end some fifteen metres away. You run towards it, radiating energy and warmth-so-rare as you sense your target behind a simple sheet of metal. You enter.

The room is white, circular and small. Uninspiring. The Thief lies at its centre. You smile beneath your suit as you approach. His short brown hair is hard; stiff; and cold, frozen. His eyes are wide open, their light blue shade the same colour as 6667’s sky. His lips are white, as is his skin. Deathly white. The silver case sits patiently away from his outstretched hand, calling for you, asking if we can go yet. You wipe water from your visor, as if wiping your eyes because you can’t believe what you’re seeing. He's really dead, which makes you sad in a way.

You take the case and run to leave, yearning for its contents as you leave the body behind. . . A dead man, a dead complex and a dead planet save for one exceptional life-form.     

A Second-Person, Flash Fiction Piece

I began writing this a while ago, but never got around to finishing it. It had some major problems with the narrating voice and its use of imperatives directing the story, providing a demanding voice whom the character obeys. It took me at least an hour to rewrite almost from scratch, the general story/ plot format unchanged. In any case I hope you enjoy the piece and any comments, critiques etc. are most welcome.

MALICE IN WONDERLAND

Salty sweat runs down your neck. You can’t wait around much longer. Move! You crawl along the floor like a pathetic child to the white cabinet. Your hangover intensifies as sunlight punches you in the eyes. You see double. The gunfire grows louder as screams echo out from other rooms. Around the corner, the bathroom, quick! Your hands touch the metal strip below the white doorframe. You slip forward when half in half out of the room, your hands wet and cold. You look down to see urine yellow against the perfect white tiles. A woman lies dead in the shower, her eyes gouged out with a stream of blood below each socket. Don’t be sick! Crawl into the bathroom and wait.

   You kick the door shut, struggling to your feet, using the sink as support. Don’t breathe so loud! You try to keep your eyes away from the corpse; it isn’t easy. Footsteps: *Thud* *Thud* *Thud* *Thud* Each grows louder, congruent with your heartbeat, the sweat tastes disgusting as it enters your lips, like salt mixed with the grease from your skin. You can’t hold it back, don’t! You spin around as a final glance at the corpse tips you over the edge: You’re sick. Your head in the clean white bowl, dirtying it with an off-white-golden mix of bile and not-yet-fully-digested concoction of whatever you drank last night. Sounds become muffled as your hearing strains against the noises of your regurgitation. Weakness strikes your limbs, your arms aching, your legs like jelly as your grip tightens on the sink. You creep out of the bathroom fatigued.

   Upon exiting, it comes from the door behind you: *Knock* *Knock* The window, go! You creep with speed past the floral pattern duvet on the king-size bed. A glimmer of sunlight breaks into the room from a small crack in the curtains. You pull them apart, a gateway to safety. You open it. Just before you walk onto the outside windowsill, a foot penetrates your door, the black boot kicking the wooden white thing off its hinges. Dressed in black like a secret agent he stands 20 feet away from you, brandishing a black, hi-tech shotgun across his chest like a bouquet of flowers. Teeth bared, barrel turning. You drop backwards.

   You see the shot fire out of the window, the sound deafening as some of the glass cracks, a vaporised potted plant falls with you, the dirt showering over you. Debris hits you in the face as you travel, some entering your mouth. Don’t be sick here, please! You count the floors as you go, other windows smashed and damaged. The floors disappear: Fifteen… Fourteen… Thirteen… Eventually, you hit the pool, the water rising up around you: It stings you as if you’d been bitch-slapped all over. Panting, you swim frantically to the edge and rise from the water. Gasping for breath, your lungs are aflame as if you’d just run a marathon. Get up! Rising slowly, gaining balance; you look towards the hotel, then turn around to see the deep blue sea and coastline, the sun glinting on the surface of the Caribbean water. 

   Behind the hotel, an explosion. It deafens you. You cower like a frightened animal as the light blinds you, missing your sunglasses since they’re no doubt destroyed. The explosion clears away, bloody parts of corpses, furniture, some of the guys in black who killed everyone, left in its wake: Just in front of you lies the man from your room and next to him, his shotgun. A splintered piece of wood impales his left leg, his black sunglasses broken. You remove the glasses. Pick up the shotgun. Ready the aim. Ignore the cries for mercy. And fire!

   And like the potted plant, his head lies vaporised, before a once 5-star hotel.