The idea of 'cool'

When it comes to characters, I tend to start with a basic motivation and then tease out their characteristics from there. That includes appearance, personality, family history and background (what their life was like before the story). Usually appearance is the least important, which means I can swap their essentials with other characters or even merge them with existing characters if I have too many floating around.

That being said, some aspects of a character's appearance are important. Like, say one of the characters fights monsters for a living. It's not going to be very practical if their hair is described as "long and worn loose, the split ends dangling down to greet her mid-back" because it will just get in their way when they're working. Possibly also get spattered by monster juices and things. That character would be better off having hair either tied up all the time or very short. Like a buzz cut. Right? Right.

But what about other things, like dress style or miscellaneous appearance details? If it doesn't affect the story, how do you resist making a character who embodies everything you think is cool? I, for example, happen to think that a character doesn't get any cooler than wearing an eyepatch. It probably has something to do with me wanting to be a pirate when I was younger. And yet despite this, I have yet to create a single one-eyed character in any of my writing, be it short story, poem, multi-chapter. It's just too cool for me to seriously consider.

Although, I have been flirting with the idea recently. I'm trying to resurrect a story I wrote when I was twelve about a witch, a vampire and a human (oh my!) but I'm trying to give it a plot with more substance. One of the new characters I've been developing does - funny how this works out - fight monsters for a living and has a shaven head. But I wonder if this couldn't be The One: the character to finally adorn that oh-so-cool eyepatch. It would make sense. She's been fighting monsters for ten years and is bound to have some physical deformities to show for it. That she'll have scars is a given. But an eyepatch? Is that just a step too far?

I don't know. I suppose I will when I get 'round to ironing out the kinks of this reboot, which has only gotten as far as character names and basics. And an idea for the ending. I guess I'll just have to see what fits the story and if it seems like a forced push for coolness, I'll leave the eyepatch off.Even if it is really, really cool.

It won't pay the bills but...

My photography skills aren't that great. Sorry.

Last weekend was the first Short Story Festival in London. I had tickets for a beginning and end talk, but missed the beginning due to a friend's birthday. I made sure I forced myself to make it to the closing, which was on Sunday. It was held in Waterstone's - the big one in Piccadilly Circus. The specific event was titled "In Praise of the Short Story" and it consisted of three writers reading one of their short stories to us and then discussing their technique with the host writer, Alex Preston. I took away a lot - and now I'm going to share it with you.

A.L. Kennedy introduced herself as a "short Scottish person" and "savagely un-commercial" and was immediately likeable. She told us writing is an odd life decision to make because it has so few rewards and the ultimate aim is respect. Her reading was funny, uplifting and I found her stance on love to be greatly imaginative and at times, clinical, which is an interesting take on the concept.

(Around the time Kennedy had finished reading, I noticed a few people crouched behind the bookshelves, trying to listen in without being seen. Which was ridiculous. You were supposed to buy tickets but I applied for a freebie and got one - and then nobody checked my ticket. So anyone could have sat down at the event. Ah well.)

My writing process

After a wonderful introduction by S.E Dee, describing me as "an escaped psychiatric patient from a parallel universe...", I knew there was no backing out from continuing this blog chain. Here it goes...

What am I working on?
It's a science fantasy that started off as a simple fantasy way back in the early autumn of 2013 and after some serious plot re-working, is now heavy with the flying cars, alien species and laboratory experiments. There's a government conspiracy, an underground rebellion group and visions of the future. It's wonderfully experimental on my part. Did I mention it shifts perspective halfway through? I'm sure that will go down well in future pitches. Not.

Six chapters left to write of the first draft...

223/Reflections

Not once had I ever

taken the time

to peer at myself

to see what I'd find.

Gazing deep into wild eyes

I saw:

haunted, tortured, lost.

Nothing but fragments of a jigsaw girl,

so I put the pieces together

and saw beyond hell.

Her skin glowed with hope,

it clung to the hairs on her face;

pink puckered lips, waiting

waiting.

How else to say the decorations were framed

by wolfish, devilish brows?

Fitting the puzzle together

the picture revealed itself:

this baby-faced beaut

this sweet naïve portrait

not a patchwork mock-up of past relatives

(the essence of mother, father, cousins,

dearly departed gran)

but a fully formed singularity

a person within herself,

somebody living

breathing

thinking

over-thinking

doubting.

She can make her own choices, her own mistakes

alive for herself and,

though not always aware,

the propensity for greatness resides in her

a constant constantly there.

Performance proof

An important rule when asking a friend to film you: make sure they know how to use your camera. I am incredibly grateful to my bestie Ema for coming along and filming, but she did manage to miss the first line and a half. So, you know, she's instantly fired for future performances. Soz about that.

The forever-to-be-lost lines are "I am a boy" (said slowly, with a pause afterwards) and "Don't let the two boobs fool you". There may be one or two tiny instances of strong language.

175/I am a boy

Love In Strange Places

The village lived in a constant state of fear. When I moved there, I worried at first how my new neighbours would react to me because I practise white magic. I've lived in some places where that was enough for the locals to throw stones at me and threaten to have me drowned. Once in a particularly nasty village, a dozen of them got together and burned down my house while I was still inside. That fire killed my seventeen year old cat.

I'm not the sort to seek revenge, so all I did to retaliate was move. I was always moving – but then I came here. Nobody accused me of being evil. I was welcomed and people seemed genuinely happy to have me in the village. They all thought I would dispose of the real evil that resided there.

I had been living in the village for almost a month when I first met Melanie. She was trailing behind her mother and two older sisters as they did grocery shopping, the other villagers giving her a wide berth. I could relate and decided to watch them all closer.