THE STORY SO FAR: PART 25

Writing about archery recently made me wonder about the extent to which movies devalue skills; and whether this matters. I suspect it does, both because it raises expectations, and because people get put off when they realize how hard an activity, such as shooting a bow, actually is.

If there is one thing I have learned in life, albeit inadequately and a little late, it is that almost anything worth doing takes substantially longer, and requires more effort, than you would think. This is particularly the case when the professional makes the task look easy. ‘Easy,’ in real life, is ‘hard’ – and often extremely hard.

I well recall the first time I tried to throw a javelin. The weapon was well balanced, and felt comfortable in my hand, so I had no doubt at all I could achieve a reasonable distance. In actuality, I achieved about a third of what I had estimated, and my arm felt as if it had been pulled out of its socket.

I have been pondering the whole issue of media’s tendency to devalue demonstrated expertise - as opposed to the excessive respect we seem to give to paper qualifications. Essentially, the consequence has to be a distortion of of our ability to assess a situation, and that is never a good thing.

Does all of this apply to writing? Answering that one really is easy. Yes, it does. ‘Easy,’ in writing terms, is very hard indeed; and finishing is even harder. If you doubt me, go write a book or a screenplay, or even an entertaining letter. Fortunately, the whole process is not so tough on your shoulder sockets.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 24

I was fascinated with archery when I was a kid, probably because of Robin Hood movies. Actually, I can only recall one – starring Errol Flynn – but I know there were a number of medieval movies made, all of whom featured archers. And on top of that, there were historical novels such as Arthur Conan Doyle’s little known The White Company and Sir Nigel which, once again, featured the mighty prowess of Britain’s bowmen. One of Conan Doyle’s favorite themes in these stories was comparing the merits of the longbow and the cross-bow. He was, in fact, very fair to the cross-bow, but his favorite was undoubtedly the longbow.

Needless to say, when small, I made numerous bows – none of which were much good. Later, in my early teens, I tried the real thing, and was truly staggered at how hard it was to even draw the bow, let alone achieve a high degree of accuracy. It gave me a whole new perspective on the many years of hard work that must have gone into training an English archer. I have read that it took at least ten years to achieve the standard of competence one needed in combat, and I can well believe it. In fact, I think it highly likely that one needed a couple of decades, or more, to become really expert.

Sound like writing to me.

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 23

I have never formally learned editing; and perhaps it shows! I hope not. I like to think that that one doesn’t need to be officially credentialed for everything. And I note that having a qualification in writing does not necessarily mean you can write. True, you may know grammar and punctuation, and even have a large vocabulary, but such knowledge does not necessarily mean that you can construct an entertaining paragraph. A credential does not a writer make.

I hold to the view that all writing, even if formal and written for business purposes, needs to be entertaining. Why so? Well, people tune out if the writing is dull. I had better add that more than a few business people think I am utterly wrong in that regard. They think business is far too important to allow such elements as style and humor to get in the way. The military have much the same view.

The U.S. Army holds to the view that the best way to communicate is by way of Powerpoint; and a not insignificant percentage of the senior fighting strength is dedicated to the task of preparing PowerPoint presentations. Many of these are incomprehensible, but since no senior office wants to admit in public that he doesn’t understand, incomprehensibility doesn’t matter.

You probably thing I am exaggerating. Actually, I’m not. Well, only a little. A retired Army colonel friend of mine, who worked directly for the Amy Chief of Staff, used to comment that that many generals understood only the bullet points; bur rarely the contents. He didn’t mean the issues. He literally meant the enlarged dots themselves.

Maybe we shouldn’t go to war so much.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 22

For some weeks now, I have been working ten or more hours a day polishing three manuscripts to get them to publication standard; and I will tell you frankly, I have reached a state of exhaustion. In fact today, Monday, October 1, I am going to spend in recovery mode – because I seem to have abandoned normal life recently. By that I mean that I haven’t carried out my normal chores – except minimally – because I have been so focused on my three manuscripts. I have been alerted to my negligence by nearly running out of clean shirts; and I have a lot of shirts. Being down to one gets my attention.

“Madness!” you will say say, with considerable justification. “You have got to live a balanced life – and working seventy hours a week, particularly at your age, is insane.” I was 68 on May 23 2012, by the way, so I guess I’m in my sixty-ninth year. Should one slow down at such a stage in life? My general feeling is: Not until you have to.

I believe that writing both requires an extraordinary commitment – and rewards it. It is vastly satisfying; and such a phrase doesn’t come close to describing how I feel. Writing enriches, rewards, empowers, and satisfies to a greater degree than I could ever have imagined. I just feel much blessed that it is my vocation. Did I chose it? I prefer my good friend Vaughn Forrest’s phrase: “Work finds the man.”

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 21

When I first visited Seattle for a reasonable length of time – about three weeks, as I recall – it lived down to its reputation of having weather similar to Ireland. The sky was heavily overcast and gray every day, and it seemed to rain an ungodly amount. However, to be fair, it was winter; so why I expected anything better is a good question – except that I was supposed to be on vacation, as well as scouting out the area. Why did I pick that time of year? I have no idea, but I was probably between projects.

That soggy visit was some years back, and now I regard Seattle’s weather with equanimity. Firstly, with Global Warming frying most of this nation ever summer, I am increasingly cognizant of the merits of rain; and secondly, I have learned to appreciate the general mildness of the climate, and the fact the weather in the summer can be extremely pleasant, with clear clue skies being vastly more common than in Ireland – and that country’s notorious damp chill being agreeably absent. In fact, I have had all my sliding doors open around the clock since May (possible because I live on the sixth floor of a fairly secure building); and haven’t gone down with pneumonia as yet – which would certainly be the case if I was back in Dublin.

These days, as I strip away as much as possible unless it relates to writing, I find my mood is much more influenced by how my writing is going than whether there are clouds in the sky. Nonetheless, it is hard not to appreciate our recent run of near cloudless days, leavened by a tinge of autumn, and capped by some truly spectacular sunsets.

Indeed, today is yet another such day.

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 20

As those of you who have read my second novel, Rules Of The Hunt,  may know, the airship operated by the Tokyo police features significantly in the denouement. I did not invent the idea of an airship floating above Tokyo every day. There really is one, or at least there was when I was last in Japan in the Nineties.

At first, I found the sight of this lighter-than-air aircraft rather ominous, but soon I took it for granted, and no longer really noticed it.

Today, I might give it a second look because surveillance equipment has improved so much in the last couple of decades that it is now realistic to assume that an airship hovering a couple of thousand of feet above you can practically read the numbers off your iPhone. If that is a slight exaggeration today, I suspect it won’t be for long.

I mention airships because they are a keen interest of mine, and because I was discussing them the other day with a close friend who is the nearest thing I know to a human encyclopedia of aviation. In fact, he actually helped to moor an airship on one unique occasion – so he has had genuine hands-on experience. I am mildly jealous!

My interest is not just academic. I have a story in mind, based in, and around an airship, which will be set some time in the future.

I tend to think about stories years before I actually write them; and to assemble them piece by piece. Normally, I start with one or two elements, and then build from there. Oddly enough, my characters do not necessarily come first even though they always end up as the most important elements. But, as it happens, Games Of The Hangman started with a castle – and it took some years before Hugo Fitzduane had matured in my mind.

Now, he is virtually real to me; and, as I know from many thousands of fan e-mails, many of my readers feel much the same way.

It is quite an honor.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 19

One of the great mysteries of this great country is why we are so

unwilling to learn from the successes of other nations – even if supported by absolutely masses of data. My example, in this case comes from Norway (and the above is its flag).

We are the global champions of ‘NIH – Not Invented Here’ - the notion that if something is developed elsewhere, it is inherently suspect. It is a pervasive corporate flaw – and is an important reason why hitherto great corporations decline – but we have elevated it to a national principle. The American Way has to be the best. We are also, whatever our politicians like to argue, in a state of measurable decline.

Is it reversible? Theoretically, yes; however we are so politically divided and wedded to our prejudices, that our recovery is far from certain.

Our greatest national impediment is ignorance. Despite a tradition of education in the first half of the twentieth century, we have lost much of that ground in the second half – and subsequently – to the point where we are no longer internationally competitive under many headings.

One factor which contributes to our educational decline is the simple fact that Americans don’t read enough (and don’t learn enough when they do read).

This is all part of our rather extraordinary reluctance to support the arts – despite global evidence that such subsidies contribute enormously to the economic and cultural wellbeing of a nation.

But let me focus more narrowly, and show what can be done in relation to encouraging both authors and reading by quoting what Norway does.

Norway buys 1000 copies of every book a Norwegian author publishes. It provides a $19,000 annual subsidy to every author who is a member of the Authors’ Union. The Association of Bookstores is allowed to have a monopoly on the sale of books—but is prohibited by law from engaging in price competition. It requires, by law, that bookstores keep books in stock for two years regardless of sales. And it exempts books from its very steep sales tax. Not surprisingly, Griswold finds, “Norwegians everywhere read, and they read a lot; Norway has one of the world’s highest reading rates.”

This example was drawn from Regionalism and the Reading Class, a sociology book by Wendy Griswold.

The answers are out there; yet we chose to ignore them.