the nameless horror

Impactful” is a made-up buzzword, colligated by the modern marketing industry in their endless attempts to decode the innumerable nuances of human behavior into a string of mindless metrics. Seriously, stop saying this.

The two heterosexual marriages I’ve attended in the last six months were shrouded in secrecy, lest the surrounding communities invade the venues with pitchforks.

I am, while I try to finish the rest of it, rereading and editing a partially-finished book. On my phone. Not because I’m an outrageous techie geek or an idiot, but because it’s the best available option, though it shouldn’t be, if Android were everything it’s supposed to bloody be.

There are four options available to me:

• I can print it out, Old Skool, and go at it with a red pen. Good for reading in the front room or at the table, lousy for doing it in the shitter, and impossible for doing it in those 5 minute bursts waiting for Aidan to come out of school.

• I can edit by working with text or scrawling red on a PDF on my computer. It’s a laptop, so it’s fine for the front room and the shitter, but no good in the playground (which isn’t, I insist, a bad time to to do it).

• I can edit by scrawling red on a PDF on my tablet. I have an EeePad Transformer (minus the keyboard dock, so it doesn’t really transform). Android 3.0. This is doable in all environments. A bit ooh-fancypants for the playground, but certainly easy to cart around.

• I can edit on my phone by scrawling red on a PDF on that. It has a small screen, but it’s the most portable option.

The tablet should be the ideal of these - it’s partly why I got it - but the reality is that it’s a fucking slog, and the fault isn’t one of hardware (not directly), but software.

Last night I decided to down tools on the current WIP nearly halfway into the story and about a quarter into the actual word count. (Because I tend to skip bits if they’re awkward/simple and then back-fill later.) This 1:1 ratio of done to skipped is a little higher than usual, and the fact I’ve been working on this for (allowing for Christmas, family death plague, et al.) a month or two and I’m only this far in, count-wise, shows how slow the going’s been for a while.

But why scrub it? For the edification of those who’ve wondered such to me on Twitter, here’s an insight into how it works/I work.

Partly I’m dropping it because it stopped being fun to write weeks ago. That’s good enough reason by itself. Partly, though, because the problems with it, the ones that have made it distinctly unfun, are pretty fundamental and I’m not sure how to resolve them without writing another story anyway. I’m quite used to getting partway into a book and then realising that my plan/direction is badly wrong. It happened with Project 1 (YA one, finished in November), it’s happened in the past. You realise, you adjust, you overcome and then you breeze on knowing that you’ve saved yourself one redraft at the end. Basically.

Last night I made a list of the good and bad from what I’ve got so far.

The Good:

The intro to Jack [MC 1] is good. [Initial elder supporting character] is good too.

Arrival into [the town where Part 1 of the story happens].

[Minor supporting character met in town].

Initial meet with Anya [MC 2] and their banter both here and in final escape.

Some of the conceptual ideas.

Storyline-wise, I’m now ~50% of the way through the much longer Part 2 section, and aside from one (minor setting location) conceptual thing there is nothing good in it. Part 1 is obviously quite a bit stronger, though it’s worth noting that nothing especially germane to the running story in that section features in the list.

Not a great sign.

The Bad:

There’s no interesting moral question for the two main characters (more, in fact, for the Nazi sideline [which I started writing on impulse while stuck; the main story involves tracking A Thing that unbeknownst to anyone was recovered by an Ahnenerbe expedition in the 30s, so I decided to run with some f/b chapters to that expedition and the two men guiding it]).

We sort of have two stories here - one in which an ass-kicking master of languages goes and kicks ass around the world, and one which is a secret world peer-behind-the-curtain thing which should leave a character feeling a little out of their depth and a little awed by it all, not to mention under constant threat, which that ass-kicker character doesn’t by dint of being ass-kicky.

There’s no emotional investment by the characters in what they’re doing, so none for the reader, or writer. They do stuff largely because the bad guys are bad guys.

There’s no conflict in what the character is doing. No sense of having to juggle (at least) two things at once, like if you’re trying to find the MacGuffin while also figuring out a way to free your brother from the Mob. That sort of thing.

There’s no specific motive for the bad guys, no reason for them to (a) get anything quickly or (b) to get it at all beyond “having all the cool toys”. There’s also no reason for them to be after either main character beyond stopping them from interfering.

Basically, the whole story has as much depth and interest as a puddle of watery shit.

I can see ways to fix some of these, but only by completely changing the story and characters. I can do Mr Ass-Kick Kicks Ass by having a very early reveal of all the mysterious crap and then having him punch Nazi zombies for 300 pages. That’s all fine and fun, sure.

I can do There Is A World Hidden Behind The One You Know and a creeping run of mystery and conspiracy, but not with a Mr Ass-Kick main character and not with 90% of the going-places-to-do-stuff as currently exists. That’s also all fine and fun.

The first has more action, and if I forget mystery I can throw in some broader drag-by-the-gut motivational core to it and rock on. The second has a lot less and more horror, and more conflicted and vulnerable characters slot nicely into it. Great. I still have no fix for the motivations of anyone else, nor the complications needed to give depth, but I could come up with such appropriate to each.

Both of them, though, are different books. Wholly new, start-from-zero books. And wholly different to the original pitch to my agents that the go-ahead was given on. This last might seem a bit strange - you write what you want, no? - but having the career record I do I’d like to give them something they can shop around with reasonable confidence. (Explanation for the actual process behind this, and the reasons for it, would be a post in itself.)

So. Either way we’d be looking at a new book. I’m going to let it linger for a while, see if I can come up with some miraculous way of fixing things without changing wholesale, and do some other stuff - reopen the 3/4-finished MURDER PARK, brush off the plans file, start throwing a couple of things together - that I actually want to do in the meantime.

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It’s book season in reception and I wrote a story to read to Aidan’s class last week. Some of the rhythm is iffy and the rhyme pattern shifts all over the place, but thirty 4-5 year olds loved it. They played the part of the Squeaks (there’s a line naming three of them and their teacher; amend to suit) and got to roar all together at every RARGH! in the text. And no small child doesn’t find a poo monster hilarious (or, it seems, a clockwork old woman piloted by a goblin), and I got to do a bunch of silly voices.

How I’d love to be/to know an illustrator and try for publication, but I’m not/I don’t, and so here it is for your own reading pleasure.

BILLY MCPUGH & THE MONSTERS’ BALL

There once was a boy called Billy McPugh.
He wasn’t an ogre, wasn’t big, wasn’t blue.

He didn’t have fur, or spikes down his back,
or a beak like an eagle, or teeth coloured black.

But Billy’s best friend was a beast just like that.
She had feathers, and horns, and claws like a cat.

Her voice was an earsplitting, terrible yell,
but she was loving and kind and her name it was Nell.

Now every year the monsters
hold a great big monsters’ ball.
There’s lots of food and lots of drink
and dancing in the hall.

But when his best friend Nell went off
to join the monster crowd,
she said to Billy, “I’m so sorry!
Normal people aren’t allowed.”

When Billy tried to follow her,
a massive giant blocked the door.
“What’s this?” he said. “Not scary,
not a monster, I am sure.

You can’t come in,
Get out, we’re through.
No people at the monsters’ ball,
no party time for you.”

But Billy wouldn’t listen
and he made a clever plan
to make himself appear to be
a monster, not a man.

He made himself a wooden club,
His skin he painted green.
He gave himself a warty nose
Like a witch from Halloween.

Billy walked back to the giant,
and said, “Get out of my way,
for I am a troll, ferocious and fierce,
and I’ve had a very bad day!”

“A troll?” said the giant. “Now don’t make me laugh.
I’ve been more scared of the soap when taking a bath.

That’s not your nose,
and your eyes are too blue.
No people at the monsters’ ball
and no party time for you!”

Next Billy tried a pair of wings,
and covered his body in scales.
He made a big snout to cover his mouth,
and claws to go over his nails.

“I am a dragon, you must let me through, else I’ll burn you all up,” said Billy.
“A dragon? Not so, you’re more like a boy. Don’t think that I’m stupid or silly.”

“Those wings are just made from paper,
Your snout it’s been stuck on with glue.
No people at the monsters’ ball
and no party time for you!”

So Billy took a bedroom sheet,
and cut two holes for eyes.
Some spooky moans and eerie groans
would make a ghostly surprise.

“Wooooooh! I’m a ghost, let me pass, I insist!
I’ll give you a fright if you shan’t.”
“Oh no I won’t,” said the giant. “Stop kidding, desist.
And give me a fright? You just can’t.

Get out, go home, I’ve said before,
You’re never getting through.
No people at the monsters’ ball
and no party time for you!”

Poor Billy trudged away so sad,
he’d miss Nell’s party, all the fun.
But what he didn’t know was that
some things had seen him feeling glum.

In trees and bushes lurked the Squeaks,
tiny creatures all cheeky and dirty.
Squeak-Aidan, Squeak-Eden, Squeak-Oliver too,
Squeak-Pickersgill the worst of all thirty.

The first of the Squeaks jumped out of the bush,
said, “Wait, we can help you tonight.
That giant is nothing to get past, we know,
so long as you tackle him right.

No need to be monstrous to frighten that bully,
all you need is to trust in your friends.
With us on your side you’ll go to the ball,
and believe us the fun never ends.”

“But I’m not scary,” said Billy.
“The trick is your roar.”
“My roar’s just too weak
to get through the door.”

“What we do,” said the Squeak,
“is we all roar in song.
Our voices are meek,
but together we’re strong.

One Squeak joins another Squeak,
then those Squeaks join one more.
Before you know it, thirty Squeaks
are walking through that door.

So give us once more your warbling roar,
but this time we’ll all join in.
And I think what you’ll find,
when we all roar as one,
is the most incredible din.”

1… 2… 3… RARGH!

“That’s brilliant!” said Billy. “That’s a roar and a half!
It’s totally horribly frightening!
We’ll make that giant jump up so high
you’d think he was just struck by lightning!”

Once more to the door of the monsters he went,
ran with the speed of a rocket.
Squeaks in his hair and Squeaks in his shoes,
and most of them hid in his pocket.

The giant shook his head. “What’s this?
I’ve told you once before,
no people at the monster’s ball…”
Then Billy roared his roar!

RARGH!

The giant jumped. “Aaaargh no! Help! Run!
Won’t someone please save me?
I’m so scared I think I might, just might,
have done a little wee.

Go through, go through, go on, go through,”
the giant showed them after.
The Squeaks and Billy passed the door
into monster songs and laughter.

The other monsters gathered there
saw Billy searching round for Nell
but how this boy had gotten in
they really couldn’t tell.

“Excuse me,” he asked a shambling mound,
“I’m trying to find my best friend.
She’s here at the party, I’ve looked all around,
but the crowd seems to be without end.”

“A friend? Have I seen?” said the mound, turning round.
“If I have then what’s it to you?”
The glistening blob loomed above, smelling bad,
for this monster was made out of poo!

Before it could cover young Bill and the Squeaks,
(They wouldn’t have liked it; the stink lasts for weeks!)
Once more,
like before
Billy roared!

RARGH!

The poo monster fled,
squealing loudly in fear,
for the roar, like before,
was most scary to hear.

After him was a witch,
then a zombie, a spider,
a clockwork old woman
with a goblin inside her.

They all ran from young Billy
and his pockets of Squeaks
till at last they saw Nell
who delightedly shrieked:

“Oh Billy, you made it,
I thought that you couldn’t!”
“Miss a party, like this one
with monsters? I wouldn’t!”

And so they went dancing,
played games, and ate cake.
They raced, and they chased,
until it was late.

And when Billy told her
how he’d come to be there,
of the giant, the Squeaks,
how they’d helped him to scare

Nell laughed and ruffled a claw through his hair.
“Oh Billy, you’re silly, oh Billy McPugh.
Seems we’re all little monsters…
especially YOU!”

Encore, applause, exit, pursued by a bear. Or have two children try to eat your jacket to prove what good monsters they’d be. Whichever, y’know.