Andrew McEwan's Blog: Words Are the Gravy On the Mashed Potato of Life - Posts Tagged "fridge"

When it comes to fiction there are two ways of going about it. Either you plot everything out beforehand and slavishly follow the dots, meticulously constructing a scenario and engineering characters you hope and believe will be both engaging and convincing, or you just make it up as you go along. No points for guessing which approach I take. The seed of this post was in fact the title, which landed a minute ago in my head. I'm big on titles, sections and chapter headings etc., although I don't always include them in the text. I have a bits of paper I make notes on; names, a sentence, lines of poetry...okay forget those. Titles! Yes. Largely orphans, bits of jigsaw looking for a home, a few words that encapsulate an image or idea. Sometimes these open doors, other times they get forgotten about. I write them down without necessarily thinking too much about what they mean and where they might lead. Right now I'm stuck at the beginning of chapter 19 of my new book. I'm not sure where to go next, the bulk of the action being split between two time streams. I'm not concerned, as I know it will come. I'll open a beer later and something will pop into my head, wave its beard and deposit a line or two before disappearing. I'll pick something up, flick through and...here we go. I'll read something online. I'll open the file with its flashing cursor and blank space beyond. All of which is to say I won't really try at all.

I have a pile of local history books I've collected over the past couple of years. They've proved a great resource, but I haven't actually read any of them. Not properly. I have a file on my desktop full of pages saved from Wikipedia. The book I'm writing is set for the most part in the 1820/30s and the 1930/40s. I have no idea of the correct number of buttons on a frockcoat or the exact hue of khaki of a British miltary uniform. I don't care. It isn't important. I'm not a historian and I don't pretend to be. Admittedly it is important to remember nobody had a mobile phone in the 19th Century, but such things aside it is a lot more fun to make details up (how many petticoats?) than to bore a reader with your exhaustive knowledge of shoes, buckles and hats.

And that's all I have to say on the matter. Off to the fridge...

Cause and effect. Everything has consequences. The stars are alive and so are you.

I'm about finished a novel called Spare Parts For Spaceships, which is about a man who might be a robot, or vice versa. Two thirds of it is in fact Thump, the second volume of which never met its resolution and thenceforth (after much delay, a visit from the cancer fairy etc.) decided it was going no farther. The new title is in fact the original one, dating back to 2000, when I was living in Birmingham and doing the first year of an English degree. That ended early, too! Whole other story. Ergo: I now have a MS of around 129k. Probably it will shrink a little, but hopefully not too much. What I'd like is for someone with a shred of nous, an open mind and a love of sci-fi to read it and let me know what they think. If this is you let me know.

My sink is blocked. I'm rapping a piece of wood off the pipe behind the fridge. So far physics isn't helping.

Onward.