Thursday, January 23, 2014

2014-007 Prompts


Sorry, was away on domestic duties (and away again tonight!)


PROMPTS


Container ship

Please attend, it is my Last Supper

This was how we met, Fuck-Up Number One

Basketball

He might be waving, but I think he's drowning

The second cut is deepest

Pleas turn the light off; I don't mind the dark

Peach Blossom

On re-entry one danger is friction burns

We left - I had to leave - before I could tell you

There is glass between us and no sound

BOLT

The roar of engines, the sadness in the seats

KNIFE

We reached the water and knelt

How the brush dances in the artist's light

OIL

I have been noticing, but keeping my counsel

Washing

The ache can spread until we are only ache

The next time we looked

So I am cleaning the kitchen

Friday, January 17, 2014

2014-004 Flash - What Music Looks Like to the Bird

What Music Looks Like to the Bird

When he seeks peace now he imagines trees at night, smoke drifting, thinks of an older, pullovered man, working his quiet allotment, roots in the earth.

They used to stop for a moment - he never understood that - waiting at the lights, burning, building. They only fought when the car was in motion, and she would begin again: "Which reminds me..."

They were a bad train journey, a train-wreck, but he had needed the journey. He had set out to see what was beautiful in the world but he saw only the dirty yards, the rusting hulks, the decay in things and how neon hid so much.

He saw faces at level-crossings, pale, hoping, but she would sneer at them, and he would look back as the gates rose and wish some strangers well.

He thought often of leaving a note but not closing the door, of just going, but he knew he never would, that he was a coward, that he had to wait - himself to be left or to be awkwardly loved and made of excuses.

He lived with a quiet pain, insidious, fallow, like a bad back, and he knew at least half of his pain was totally his fault and would always be his fault, that the things he had needed were the things that gave him pain.

He ran away from uniform once, from York to Cardiff, went back to courts and punishment, and afterwards he thought that it was no adventure, it was all no more than an interlude and he was pointless.

Once a soldier, he had stood with others beside a filthy landslide where fathers dug and children were choked, and knew this was pointless, too, and he wasn't sure why they were there, only that they were boys themselves and they were wet and black afterwards and threw away their clothes.

Years later he would walk to the game for the laughs, for the hot-dog vans, onions, the walled corners running with piss, and only later that roar that in those days was a man's roar, a small good thing for him, though he did not know it.

Then somewhere, in a slower, darker year after he had passed his own half-time, he began to write some things, of cops and spies and guns, but never the real things. His heroines wore dark glasses and thin smiles, followed men across the world and spoke with Dorothy Parker's cutting wit.

And finally, he was cut free. He failed. He was lonely for a while. But then he began to write about the turning moments in the world, of the seconds, of the dying children, of faces seen through train windows, and hope.



452 Words

2014-005 Prompts (17 Jan)

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2014-005 Prompts (17 Jan)



Their own Brief Encounter

Waterside

How the tree aches before it breaks

London

Your back is turned. I see the sharp spines bristling

Call Waiting

The mud paths on Parliament Hill

Chorizo

How the supermarket breathes

EGG!

Mother, I suspect you cannot hear me

This is me. I am here.

There are groups for this sort of thing.

NAIL

She lights a long cigarette and imagines Garbo

Crocodiles on Crocodiles

GERMOLENE

What can be arranged

POSTPONED

Now that cameras are packed away.

By the Bear if you're late

Thursday, January 16, 2014

2014-004 Prompts



Today's Prompts



Weighing in at the low end of feather-light

BALL

How it gives off a gas

PORK

Don't be afraid. We will go barefoot and see where we finish

SHINE

A row of brown caskets

The Ballad of Alice Mary McLintock

National Instruction Day.

We can wait until it vanishes or simply close our eyes

KNIFE

When the women come out to dance

CHEESE

Cast-off and catch the current

A little love goes a long, long way

Lost Envelopes

Who now is on the list?

I am polite when looking at photographs

Once, for a week, I had my head beaded. I liked him.

Poached Eggs

A new me is fine, but what if I prefer the older?

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

2014-003 Flash What Music Looks Like to the Bird

What Music Looks Like to the Bird

When he seeks peace now he imagines trees at night, smoke drifting, thinks of an older, pullovered man, working his quiet allotment, roots in the earth.

They used to stop for a moment - he never understood that - waiting at the lights, burning, building. They only fought when the car was in motion, and she would begin again: "Which reminds me..."

They were a bad train journey, a train-wreck, but he had needed the journey. He had set out to see what was beautiful in the world but he saw only the dirty yards, the rusting hulks, the decay in things and how neon hid so much.

He saw faces at level-crossings, pale, hoping, but she would sneer at them, and he would look back as the gates rose and wish some strangers well.

He thought often of leaving a note but not closing the door, of just going, but he knew he never would, that he was a coward, that he had to wait - himself to be left or to be awkwardly loved and made of excuses.

He lived with a quiet pain, insidious, fallow, like a bad back, and he knew at least half of his pain was totally his fault and would always be his fault, that the things he had needed were the things that gave him pain.

He ran away from uniform once, from York to Cardiff, went back to courts and punishment, and afterwards he thought that it was no adventure, it was all no more than an interlude and he was pointless.

Once a soldier, he had stood with others beside a filthy landslide where fathers dug and children were choked, and knew this was pointless, too, and he wasn't sure why they were there, only that they were boys themselves and they were wet and black afterwards and threw away their clothes.

Years later he would walk to the game for the laughs, for the hot-dog vans, onions, the walled corners running with piss, and only later that roar that in those days was a man's roar, a small good thing for him, though he did not know it.

Then somewhere, in a slower, darker year after he had passed his own half-time, he began to write some things, of cops and spies and guns, but never the real things. His heroines wore dark glasses and thin smiles, followed men across the world and spoke with Dorothy Parker's cutting wit.

And finally, he was cut free. He failed. He was lonely for a while. But then he began to write about the turning moments in the world, of the seconds, of the dying children, of faces seen through train windows, and hope.


452 Words





2014-002 (Flash) SAND

Sand

He wakes to the he sound of the bath filling, honey-smoked bacon below. He hears her, just hears her, faint, humming, soft on the air like a phone purring beneath a pillow.

It hits him - thwack - he is in love.

He is many things, mostly things he does not like, but she has told him, when he telephones, he is her gentle caller. She says it with a kind of love, a tiny air of loss in her voice and he wishes he could always be so soft.

He could wonder, as his second wife fades away, if he could sift through the parts of him he doesn't like, leave behind those parts that in the mirror do not frighten him. He so wants to love and be loved but he knows he walks with ghosts.

He wants to say, we live here, angels, in the space between our breaths, we fly, we sail, we are clouds that touch, we are light.

But he is afraid that as his mouth opens he will talk about the wrong things, the distraction of wives, of the darker things, not of what is possible, only of what has always happened.

He has known her, known her in the tightness of the moment, that incredible shudder, the six-beat oh-oh-oh of her when he could cry with giving; the beat of the unsaid, the incredible little death, how they hover, hoping, yet are practical in their touching, afraid to only love.

He thinks, we could be driving home from a stale party, or dying together, walking in the camps, or floating towards the falls not knowing if the drop will be worth it. He thinks, this is important, her quiet voice matters, the smell of bacon is like love on the air.

He would say, if he could, "I guess now we have to get rid of her things," but to even think of all those things reminds him of the two dozen years where he slowly became invisible, and how the invisible him was angry, and never gentle on the phone.

Instead he wants to just hold her, let her know him only through feel, through his words. Together they can imagine moments, locations, coincidences, and, some day, some day, they will be alone, them, together in the room.

He has always been just outside the School of Love, just another dog in the rain, fallow, bedraggled, yet convinced there was love in him, love that did not go sour, love that made people real and not transparent.

He thinks, yes, this has become love, but as he thinks, this has become love, he thinks with his darkness, how does it become love, what becomes? What was "it" in the moment before it was love?

He wants to build her a house; a house with four ovens, ten beds, a balcony that looks down on a beach. He wants to walk with her in sand but be able to watch her walking, too, walking away, and not be frightened.

He wants not to be afraid of when love becomes material and the heart begins to blur.




526 Words

2014:003 Prompts

Imagine trees at night, smoke drifting

A quiet allotment

What music looks like to the bird

We wait at the lights, only fighting when moving

Which reminds me...

Level Crossings, dirty yards

Leaving a note but not closing the door

BOMBER

A quiet pain, insidious

From York to Cardiff

White Hart Lane for the laughs

A Small Good Thing

She follows, wearing dark glasses and a thin knowing smile

OYSTER

The hot-dog vans, the corners running with piss

Boys, blackened with dust

How would it be if we new our half-time day?

Walking through Winchester

Brush Fire

The Complex Politics of the Omelette

Mrs McKenzie

Why I Walk to the P.O.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

2014-002 Prompts

Prompts for a Flash or Story

Use one, two, many or all, exactly, inexactly or merely to prompt

Let the unconscious loose!








Prompts

The sound of the bath filling

BACON

Softly, like a phone in bed

BOLT

He is many things but a gentle caller

SIEVE

The space between our breaths

CLOUD

A Distraction of Wives

The tightness in the moment, the beat of the unsaid

We could be driving home, or dying

I guess we have to get rid of her things

Moments, locations, coincidences

School of Love

Just another dog in the rain

How does it become love, what becomes?

In a house with four ovens, ten beds, a balcony

A beach

A Letter From Canoe 178

When love is material and the heart begins to blur

A road climbs past the W I.

Monday, January 13, 2014

2014-001 Walker Brothers Cowboy

Walker Brothers Cowboy

13 Opening
14 Character
15 Dialogue-Voice
14 Plot
14 Theme
14 Seduction
13 Language
15 Pace
14 Ending

126 TOTAL

Summary

To my eye and ear (treating the story as stand-alone) the whole is slightly "bitty" (especially the first third.) For example, the story would probably improve without the boy who seems (to me at least to be superfluous or peripheral.)

It's tough looking at the very early work of someone who I was championing for years "Should get a Nobel" but this story doesn't blow me away like some of Munro's later works.

I recognise, too, that AM writes one huge novel and that characters come and go in her stories, but it would be unfair of me to judge this short story (the first in her first book, in that way. I simply would not have know that would become Alice Munro's "way". I judge this story as I would any one-off arriving at my desk. I may well have over-marked because I know who the author is.

There's a phrase I picked up years ago from the screen-writer Stephen May at Bath Spa University. He talked about stories and scripts being Too Much About What It's About (TMAWIA). Sometimes I feel AM's work is not quite enough about what it's about. I could do with a tiny bit more "direction" I love subtle, but I don't want waste, and if I have to work hard to "get" a story that should be because the digging makes it worth it. I don't like subtlety (or obtuseness) for its own sake

Opening 13

Solid, direct, clean, "feels like a real writer" and I'm tempted to go 14 which is the classic "professional" mark. Interestingly, the top, top writers rarely blow the reader away with a stunning opener. They tend to start low-key with extreme confidence and it's unusual to read and go OMG in a few lines.

But this particular story (maybe it's more a woman's story?) doesn't make me sit up and take a breath and expect greatness, not even (at this point) "special". I just know or presume I'm in the company of a good, solid writer. When I check and see the collection was copyrighted 1968, a mere 45 years ago, well, yeah, maybe Alice M has improved over the last 4-5 DECADES, and perhaps my mark isn't too far out.
Character 14

Tricky this. Mother is barely sketched, younger brother is fairly stock. In some ways the father could, arguably, also be called stock, but the avoidance of the direct adds something to him, and especially the "other woman".

There was the classic "lives of quiet desperation" thing "throughout" and that was finely done (but the early pages felt more like warm-up to me.) Perhaps a visiting professor of literature could (retrospectively) "prove" to me that the early pages were "vital" but I think they seem relatively unimportant and could be cut. I am still working out what purpose the younger brother serves.

Dialogue-Voice 15

I stumbled occasionally with a turn of phrase and the overall voice is "unassuming". That is it just is and doesn't in itself add to the story's pleasure-giving (unlike, say Bellow's "A Silver Dish" which is plain delicious.)

And there's a problem, too, in delivering the everyday and ordinary without being too flat and ordinary on the page, but I liked the dad, who grew through the story, and liked very much the other woman (if that's what she was.) There was some subtlety in the dialogue and actions (eg T-O-W changes into nicer shoes and dress when he turns up unexpectedly)...

An aside.. So she's an ex? Probably, but is the story advantaged by being deliberately "loose" or obscure?

Plot 15

SPOILER

Don't read on if you're going to read this.

Ma is "always tired" and maybe they don't have a sex life. They are certainly "just surviving." The going to town stuff, while done well and "works", is almost off-theme. Yes, I know AM messes around with standard expectations, but my reading of all these shorts is not about praising or nay-saying over the great and the good, but arguing how beginners, intermediates, advanced writers (but NOT Nobel Winners) might avoid errors and produce, clearer, better fiction.

I have no doubt in my head that either the mother's promenading should be dropped or more organically inter-connected with the rest (treating the story as singular), ditto the boy. The father-daughter-"other-woman" as a single organism would IMO have produced, or could have produced a story scoring 175 rather than 125.

Theme 14

I'm not here going to explain what I mean by Theme or how we treat theme in Boot Camp. But "War" is not a theme. "Adultery" is not a theme.
Theme, for me, is the story's MEANING, what is left when the plot fades, what the story says about the world.  The story is a statement and its own "proof" at least in anecdotal-evidence terms.

If the theme is working well we are left with a lingering feeling. The story resonates with us and refuses to disappear.

In this story, a daughter meets someone (vague) who is probably the other woman, or once was the other woman, or may become (again) the other woman, enough so the daughter intuitively knows not to mention it to the mother (but, then, what about the superfluous boy?) so there's a reasonably-strong feeling but, for me it's good but not great, makes me think, but not for long. It flickers with promise rather than swells and resonates. So for me not great.


Seduction 14

Throughout this story is highly competent, or "professional" but at no point do I gasp in awe or ache that "I could never write that".

The seduction therefore works well throughout but I'm never "lost in the story" like with A Silver Dish or The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber (Hemingway) or Englander's The 27th Man, or the absolutely devastating "The Ledge" by Lawrence Sargeant Hall


13 Language

Solid and competent. A few brief extras, but again, there is nothing here language-wise that makes me ooze with pleasure for the language itself.

A note on that. We have (in BC) the idea of "invisible excellence". A story doesn't "have to" be obviously lyrical, beautiful on the page, poetic, euphonic, to be good, and it's also true to say that sometimes the language can get in the way.

But sometimes sentences just feel wonderful, you want to re-read them. They are just so nice. You want to quote lines, and you never feel that the language interferes. Instead it enhances the read, it interacts. Language and meaning feed off each other. I didn't get that here. It was more solid professional "invisible excellence".

Pace 15

Could hardly fault the pace. I would cut some of the first third but that's already been penalised.





Ending 14

Tricky. The story builds very well and the second half is, IMO twice as good as the first half. I loved the stoicism, the sadness, the quiet desperation, the characters just getting on with living, but I was left with a faint dissatisfaction of unfinished business.

Perhaps I should rewrite that and say the closure was just not quite there. That may be subjective, of course, and I know it's partly a style thing, but I honestly feel that the story could be cleaner, crisper and with a closure that resonated.