Ch-ch-changes...

All go here. I've created a new blog to put up my shorter writing (short stories, writing about life, etc. - see link on the right) so I can keep this blog totally dedicated to the novel I'm not writing.

Also, chapter 1 is to change. There are two ways to do this, so bear with me while I tell you about it.
Why Change?
I quite like chapter 1, however, it's not doing what it's meant to do as a chapter. I think the bones of a good short story are there, but also the bones of a good chapter. But it can't really be both. As it was conceived as a chapter, what it needs to do is drive the story behind the novel. I'm old school like this. While the writing must be good, I think the story needs to shine. In this case, the story isn't shining (and the writing could do with a bit more of a polish).
There are two ways to make the story shine: language/idea and plot.

An example of language/idea: A guy can't get out of bed. His family and boss all stand outside the door telling him to get up. He doesn't. Fairly mundane, except the reason he can't get up is because he turned into a bug overnight. Nice one, Kafka. You're gripped by the opening line; it makes you want to know a) what's happening, and b) what 's going to happen next. Instant compulsion. Also, Beckett can write fantastically about very little indeed. Although it takes me three reads of anything to really "get it", because I'm so busy looking for things that aren't there. Anyway, hopefully you get the idea; so onwards.

Plot: Plot is a more obvious way to make the story shine, and in some ways harder option. More obvious because by adding more action, you keep people hooked. Harder because the action you add has to hook people in the first place. Also, the actions can't just be plucked from the cosmos. You have to ensure that characters' actions make sense , as well as feed the plot (although, personally, I want to write a book of chaos where this rule just doesn't apply). Of course, most Westerns are plot driven, so the clue may be in the question there. But at the same time, a ponder is called for.

Adding ideas/language would flesh out some ideas, maybe try to get a but of humour in there, and try to make the chapter more compulsive of itself. Maybe a bit more dialogue, possibly some limps, blindness or other physical attribute would be added. A dead horse could fall on the roof of the van - who knows? Adding to the plot would speed up the whole thing. Instead of arriving into the town at the end of the chapter, that would happen at the end of the first paragraph, and we could get a bit of a scan of the town as Tommy McDonagh gets into fights, talks, drinks, etc, pushing us right into Chapter 2.

While I ponder this, I'd appreciate any input you may have. Let me know which approach you'd prefer - do you want to get some action going, or would you prefer to take it easy, sit back on the porch and drink a beer. I'm taking a straw poll, so you can mail me a mail (see link on the right), or leave a comment. All contributions welcome.

Sketches from Chapter 2 #1

Shea pulled up beside the billboard, graffitied to read "The Beautiful Bog - Holes for the Effluent." It was a new estate, designed for the influx of middle managers with the building of the warehouses on the other side of town (graffitied "Whorehouses to Let - Competitive Rides"). He mumbled "Just going in to the Bog to scare out the kids." A static screech implied assent. He took the torch from the backseat, and walked through the rubbled entrance.
****

"What do you want?"
"A pint... and is there a B and B around here?"
"Hmmph. Course there is. I don't want any trouble, hear me?"
"You'll get none from me. Unless I can't get a B and B."
"Comedian, eh?"
"No, a philosopher of sorts. Tommy McDonagh's my name." He looked at the hand, glanced at the rising stout, and went on wiping the counter.

****

When he got back, he saw the locks busted on the shed door. He went round the side to look in a window or something. No joy, so he went back to the big double doors, and carefully pushed them in with his foot. There was a smell and a sound. He walked in, toward the sound, and as it turned out, away from the smell.

I'm no legal expert, but...

What a week for the law. Up in arms are the opposition politicians, to whom exactly the same bad-PR would have come had they been in power. The meedja are really whipping up a fury. I don't even know the difference between tabloids and broadsheets anymore, excepting that tabloids are easier to carry and read on the train. And, considering tabloids wear on their sleeves the fact that they exist to insense, cajole, threaten and generally use shock tactics and breasts to report the news, they suddenly seem much more honest, somehow.
The considered opinion of respected journalists doesn't seem like much when the Indo runs a Comment on how paedophiles from all over the world will be landing on our shores, because we have joined Thailand, Cambodia and Amsertdam as stops on the International "sex-tourism route". For one thing, "sex tourism" is surely a circuit, which includes a lot of Europe, and areas of the States where prostitution is legal, and pornography is nasty.
For another, surely it's time to stop this dangerous, ill-considered commentary when the P word raises its ugly head. No one likes a peadophile, that's established. But when you provide General Ignorance to a nation at large, mothers get terrorised, peadiatricians get threatened, and innocent people get hurt.
Already on Morning Ireland, the daily round up of trite newsbites, intended to be as digestable as a meusli bar and a smoothie, they are talking about the flow of prisoners from Arbour Hill. Which will surely serve to send the incensed up to Arbour Hill to "find out who the bastards are". Which will lead to tabloids and broadsheets sending up their cameras. Which could lead then to visitors who are male, and between 30 and 60 getting done over for being 'paedos that got off'. With no more proof than the fact that they were seen leaving the prison. This can't be right.
The law is there to protect the innocent as much as it is to prosecute the guilty. In fact, before that, the law is there to be used as a measure of guilt. What happened? How did it happen? Who appears to have done it? Can the answers to all of these questions be linked up reasonably?
Protecting the innocent is possibly how we got here today. I'm no legal expert, but a quick think about the facts of the law and the constitution suggests that Statutory Rape was an easy, and almost painless form of prosecution for those forcing themselves on minors. As there was no defence, there was no need to put a child to the trauma of reliving the experience, there was no media spotlight on parents, actions, etc. Simple. Straightforward. Sorted.
But no. It never could be that easy. I almost remember having a drunken conversation at about the age of 17 or 18 with a man who is now a legal expert. He was telling me then that there was no defence for statutory (which, given the age of consent was 17 for women, was a serious issue for us. Given that we were in a kitchen drinking beer and Jack Daniels at three in the morning would suggest we hadn't much of a chance of getting done for it that night, anyway...).
"Surely that's against the constitution?"
"Yes. Unfortunately, something really nasty is going to happen, and it'll all blow up"
This is the more sober translation of the conversation. There were a few curses, slurs and digressions, but you don't need to know about those.
It seems to me that this has been known about. As much as defense lawyers may be called negligent, and government officials have been called useless (which is unfair, given that the law hasn't been in existence since 1935), I think many people have had a similar conversation to the one above. So why not change it? Well, I forgot about the conversation until this story broke. So, I guess constitutional law isn't high up on the moral meter for many people. But also, wasn't it handy to have a tool that could be so executive? Just admit guilt, and away you go. No long process, no jumping through legal hoops, no media circus, no features analysis...
Essentially, as much as our outrage demands it, there is no pariah here. Or, every single one of us is at fault. This is a democracy, and as much as we hand over power to our governments to manage the country, it would be up to each and every one of us to approach a politician when we had this conversation about the law. This has been on the back burner, what seems to me a handy number to deal with the most devastating of cases without having to resort to the raw emotion of victimhood, or the cruel intention fo the villain. It was a law that opened and shut like a bear trap, taking with it the guilty party. And the guilty party are considered the lowest of the low in our society. Who in the name of Christ is going to untie that knot?
The question is not of blame. It is, of course, what do we do now?

A Story for Lunchtime (From Sept 2004)

It's lunchtime, and I ran out for a roll with ham and cheese and ran back in again when it started to rain. Now all I can do is stare at the bizarre Internet, or past the orderly heads at the grey outside that becomes obscured by the rain on the windows. I feel like I'm on a train journey. The 1pm to Wishing I Was Elsewhere.

Working in a Business Park is not what anyone promised. The "handy local shops" are impossible with the queues of employees from 30 large multinationals all waiting to get a roll, sandwich or drink at one o'clock. We bustle through busily, letting the Chinese workers understand that we're all way too important to really spend much time in the confined space of the franchised, big name minimarket where they work. They, in retaliation, quietly take the piss out of our self-satisfied busyness. They've seen us walking around at breaktimes, and they've seen our despondent faces, staring at the grey sky, which meets grey buildings in a depressed unison. They know we don't feel that important at all. If we were gone for a day, few would notice. If they were gone for an hour, hundreds could go hungry with the lunch shortage and the long queue. It takes a degree in English and Philosophy to get this depressed, I'm sure.

The park looks like it was built by ants who just dropped some concrete, hollowed out to make space for desks and computers and telephones and can machines and such. We bustle around being important, despite the fact that we could all be expected to sacrafice ourselves to some form of a colony queen soon enough.

There is nowhere to go on a rainy day, except back into your own building. I wish we could do swaps. The guys from the large American Multinational over there could come and see the building of the large American Multinational that we work for, while we go and check out the building of the large American Multinational at the other side of the park.

I wonder what PCs look like in those buildings, or the Internet, or even middle managers? There's a whole world out there, in this little park. And I've tried to explore it by applying for jobs in all those companies - those large Multinational American companies, so different form the large Multinational American company I work for. They value their employees. They'd miss you if you were gone. Maybe they miss you already - given that you're not there. They could use your abilities, your experience, your qualifications. But after they read another CV from another arts graduate with another X number of years in the workplace of another large Multinational American company, they think you're not quite the right person for them. Or, they tell you their company is not quite the right company for you.

My roll is gone now, so a quick swig of orange juice that I got free from a machine as a perk of my job, and I pop in the Nicotine pill that I now take in lieu of being a smoker. 10 minutes to the end of lunch, so this little break in the day quickly becomes gone, like yesterday. Yesterday I decided I would give it up. Thie cubicle-existence - defined by fun blue curvy dividers that allow everyone to see me looking at whatever I look at on the Internet. Maybe I could go back to college and become a doctor or a lawyer. I could easliy get a good job working for a large Multinational American company as a medical checkup guy or a legal advisor.

Anyway, with five minutes to go, this train of thought must stop - toot toot. And the only passenger (my consciousness) must alight, and get onto the 2pm to Ennui. Hope you enjoyed the journey. Most of all I hope you read about it during work. In a big grey building, inhabited by the employees of a large multinational American copmany. If you did, you might see if there are any jobs going for me?

I was gonna post a story

...but i got high.

Short skirts, long evenings, no western...

Well, two days of sun in a row means it's summer, and I've done nothing since the bleak midwinter that was March. Or was it April? I'm not sure. I've been thinking much about this effort. From wondering whether it's really worth it to deciding to set up a small time religion based around it. Anyway, Chapter two is being thought about at the moment, but prior to that there's a great deal of reassessment to be done. Possibly, Chapter 1 will be getting a rewrite. I'm not sure.

To keep the baying dogs at bay (you know who you are!) I'm going to go ahead and try to write a short story in one sitting. I'm rarely creative, not very smart, and not great with having to write it all down in one. But it could be a lesson: don't do it again.

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

They had been walking for a while. She on the road, and her son on the insideby the hedge. The boy trod on dried mud, his soles overprinting the larger tractor tyre treads.
"Will you stop that? You'll ruin your shoes"
She heard a clattering and grumbling of a diesel. She turned around, but there was no sign of it, save for the sound. She held on for a minute, the boy carrying on along the raised dirt. There it came: a large, white, rusting van. She stuck out her thumb, and it stopped. Behind a hat on the dashboard, there was a dark haired man at the wheel. He lunged accross to push the door open.
"Howya. Where to?"
"Just into town there"
"What town is it?"
"Muck - where the road goes... Aren't you going there yourself?"
"Well, if that's where the road goes, that's where I'll go. There's no use fighting it. There's not much room to turn on this shit of a road. Hop in."
"Zack." the boy came back and followed her into the cab. The cab was large and smelled of dry cigarette smoke and the green cardboard tree hanging from the rearview mirror. Aside from dust and dried mud and packets of cigarettes, it was empty.
"Are you waiting there long?" She looked ahead, at the road, as he pointed to the windscreen and said, "Oh, just in time, eh?" The wipers screeched across dry glass, but slapped back, pushing the water drops from the glass. They'd only just got there, and they were obviously not welcome, but more of their kind came along anyway.
"Zack; there's a name you don't hear often. Howya, my name's Tommy. Tommy McDonagh." He held out a hand.
"It's short for Zachary. That means 'Remembered by God'. Say hello, Zack" The boy looked at him, and he at the boy, then at her. Then, he looked back to the winding road and the van shook them as it moved off.
"Like driving an earthquake" he said and smiled, looking at her. The van veered from one direction to the other, his hands pulling the wheel this way and that, the frequent bends taken by not reigning in the errant steering wheel.

He was there in the road as they turned around yet another random turn. He was standing beside a car crumpled into the ditch. Water dripped from his cap, over his coat and joined a pool at his boots. He had his pen to his notebook, but was facing the van as it came round the bend. He raised his hand, and Tommy stopped.
"How can I help you Gard?" The Gard looked straight across the cab to the girl.
"Mary."
"Shea"
"Mary, what in God's name are you doing?" I'd've thought you'd have more sense..." he looked at Mary, the boy, the driver and back to Mary. She looked at the dashboard, and when she looked back at him, she saw his head down, his face blushed. He looked up at the driver and said "Well, what about you?"
"Tommy McDonagh" he said cheerily enough. He held up the pink license, and the Gard waved it away. "I'm just looking for maybe some casual work. But, I'm a philosopher really. I'm travelling the land, seeking truths." The Gard gave him a look.
"And how's that going?"
"Not great. It’s kind of nihilistic out there"
"God bless. Lookit, what are you doing here" No one replied. No one knew if he was talking to her or him. Not even the boy. "Sweet Jesus, it's unusual to find a traveller with nothing to say." The Gard hung his head, then lifted it again, wiping away his last words with a thick, wet hand. "Lookit, I shouldn't have said that. I'm a reasonable man, but... but... Lookit, what is it you're looking for?"
"Nothing in particular Gard."
"And, are there more of ye coming?"
"No sir. I'm on me lonesome" The Gard looked at him for a moment, then spoke across him.
"Right: Mary, anyway, you and the boy come with me. I'll drop you home."
Looking through the windshield at the road, she said "There's no need. Tommy here is bringing us."
"Mary." She didn't move her head. "Alright. Well, look here. This is a small town. We don't need any casual traders, let alone fucking philosophers. You make sure she gets home alright. Mary, I'll be phoning you at home in twenty minutes. Now, you may be out with me, but if you don't answer I'll be looking for Plato here." He looked at Tommy, even as he spoke to Mary.
The Gard walked back to the wreck punched into the ditch, and glanced back to them. Once again, they all shuddered as the pile moved off swerving along the road.
He picked up a cigarette box, opened the lid and looked in. He threw it over his shoulder into the back of the van, and picked up another. This he also threw into the back of the van. All the time, the van wavered around the road. As he picked up the third, the boy leaned across and handed him a box, the lid opened, one cigarette left.
"Thanks Zack." He looked over; the boy was looking through the windscreen, the van going from side to side as he overcorrected the steering. "As long as she stays on the tarmac, we'll be alright." He said it in a tone of voice, and looked sideways to them; they both looking out the windscreen, not even hinting at laughing. He groped around his shirt, and pants (the van taking more violent swerves as he searched his pants). He pulled out a lighter, got a flame, and waved the lighter around the base of the cigarette, waved the base of the cigarette around the lighter. He got it lit, and hastilly wound down the window. "Hope ye don't mind..." They didn't respond.

He turned the radio knob, but no one could hear anything over the engine, the seats, the doors, the frame of the shopping trolley automobile. He left it on anyway. At last, they came round a bend to see upturned earth, steel and concrete behind a wire fence. “Bit of work going on here then!” Tommy said, the boy and the woman looking through the windscreen. Suddenly the boy sang in a haunted voice, as if his eyes were wide open in a thousand yard stare*:
“I was living in a Devil Town
Didn’t know it was a Devil Town
Oh Lord it really brings me down
About the Devil Town…”
Over a small bridge just past the building works, they were in the town; on the main street. They passed a church on the right. It was the biggest building in the town, but its position at the end of the main road left plenty of scope for a knot of newsagents, pubs, bookies and draperies. It was a small road, a small town. “Where to now?” he asked. He pulled the van over. The woman looked at him, as if she was about to speak, but instead fell backward, and another voice, a man’s voice spoke instead: “Mary, what the hell are you doing? Have you finally lost your fuckin’ marbles? Why would you get a lift from a fucking tinker? Why?”
Tommy stepped out of the van, walked around the front and faced them. The man was not long since a boy, and he held Mary’s arm as she pushed herself up off the road. The boy stood by, singing his song:
“All my friends were vampires
Didn’t know they were vampires
Turns out I was a vampire myself
In the Devil Town…”
“Will you shut the fuck up, you little….”
“Hey, hey! That’s enough now. What’s the problem?”
“Look, we don’t want your kind round here. Why don’t you fuck off back to where you came from?” The manboy’s voice was tight, there was no conviction, and less courage.
“I’m only passing through. I’ll be gone in a day or two. I don’t turn round, anyway, always go forward, never back. You can never go back.” His voice was conversational. Then, he moved forward and said “Now, will you let the girl go?” He wasn’t really asking. He lifted a huge arm, and put a huge hand around the manboy’s neck. For his part, the manboy let go of her to put both his hands to the task of removing Tommy McDonagh’s grip. She and the boy got back in the van. “That’s enough now.” His voice, again conversational, left the manboy with nothing to do but give him a look, mouth open. Tommy pushed and released, and the manboy ended up on his backside, looking up, not moving. Tommy got back in the van, and it shook alive again.
“So, that’s twice now I’ve helped you out, and the only time you’ve talked to me is to tell me where you were going. Do you want to do that again?”
“Home.” She said. “I’ll show you.”

*The lyrics here are to the song "Devil Town", by Daniel Johnston

Shaping up: Chapter 1

Hopefully will have a first draft of Chapter 1 soon. For the meantime, I have this much, which shows the definite shape of the thing. Hope you enjoy it. If not, let me know what you don't like, and I'll do one of the three things stipulated in the "Welcome to My Western" post. Cheers.

They had been walking for a while. She was on the road, the boy by the hedge, on the inside. The boy trod on dried mud, his soles overprinting the larger tractor tyre treads.
"Will you stop that? You'll ruin your shoes"
She heard the choking judder of a diesel. She turned around, but there was no sign of it, save for the sound. She held on for a minute, the boy carrying on along the raised dirt. There it came, a large, white, rusting van. She stuck out her thumb, and it stopped. Behind a hat on the dashboard, there was a dark haired man at the wheel. He lunged accross to push the door open.
"Howya. Where to?"
"Just into town there"
"What town?"
"Muck - where the road goes... Aren't you going there yourself?"
"Well, if that's where the road goes, that's where I'll go. There's no use fighting it. There's not much room to turn on this shit of a road. Hop in."
"Zack." the boy came back to as she climbed into the cab. The cab was large and smelled of dry cigarette smoke and the green cardboard tree hanging from the rearview mirror. Aside from dust and dried mud and packets of cigarettes, it was empty.
"Are you waiting there long?" She looked ahead, at the road, as he pointed to the windscrreen and said, "Oh, just in time, eh?" The wipers screeched accross dry glass, but slapped back, pushing the water drops from the glass. They'd only just got there, and they were obviously not welcome, but more of their kind came along anyway.
"Zack; there's a name you don't hear often. Howya, my name's Tommy. Tommy McDonagh." He held out a hand.
"It's short for Zachary. That means 'Rememebered by God'. Say hello, Zack" The boy looked at him, and he at the boy, then at her. Then, he looked back to the winding road and shook the van into life.
"Like driving an earthquake" he said and smiled, looking her. The van veered from one direction to the other, his hands pulling the wheel this way and that, the frequent bends taken by not reigning in the errant steering wheel.

He was there in the road as they turned around yet another random bend in the road. He was standing beside a car crumpled into the ditch. Water dripped from his cap, over his coat and joined a pool at his boots. He had his pen to his notebook, but was facing the van as it came round the bend. He raised his hand, and Tommy stopped.
"How can I help you Gard?" The Gard looked straight accross the cab to the girl.
"Mary."
"Shea"
"Mary, what in God's name are you doing?" I'd've thought you'd have more sense..." his words drifted off as he looked at Mary, the boy, teh driver and back to Mary. She looked at the dashboard, and when she looked back at him, she saw his head down, his face blushed. He looked up at the driver and said "Well, what about you?"
"Tommy McDonagh" he said cheerily enough. He held up the pink license, and the Gard waved it away. "I'm just looking for maybe some casual work. But, I'm a philosopher really. I'm travelling the land, seeking higher truths." The Gard gave him a look.
"And how's that going?"
"Not great. Kind of nihilistic"
"God bless. Lookit, what are you doing here" No one replied. No one knew if he was talking to her or him. Not even the boy. "Sweet Jesus, it's unusual to find a traveller with nothing to say." The Gard hung his head, then lifted it again, wiping away his last words with a thick, wet hand. "Lookit, that wasn't fair and I shouldn't have said it. I'm usually a reasonable man, but... but... Lookit, what is it you're looking for?"
"Nothing in particular Gard."
"And, are there more of ye coming?"
"No sir. I'm on me lonesome" The Gard looked at him for a moment, then spoke accross his chest.
"Right Mary, anyway, you and the boy come with me. I'll drop you home."
Looking through the windshield at the road, she said "There's no need. Tommy here is bringing us."
"Mary." She didn't move her head. "Alright. Well, look here. This is a small town. We don't need any casual traders, let alone fucking philosophers. You make sure she gets home alright. Mary, I'll be phoning you at home in twenty minutes. Now, you may be out with me, but if you don't answer I'll be looking for Plato here." He looked at Tommy, even as he spoke to Mary.
The Gard walked back to the wreck punched into the ditch, and glanced back to them. The van shook into life, and it went again juddering along the road.
He picked up a cigarette box, opened the lid and looked in. He threw it over his shoulder into the back of the van, and picked up another. This he also threw into the back of the van. All the time, the van wavered with the turns in the road, and across the road. As he picked up the third, the boy leaned across and handed him a box, the lid opened, one cigarette left.
"Thanks Jack."
"Zack", she corrected him.
"Right, yeah. Thanks Zack." He looked over; the boy was looking through the windscreen as the van went first left, then right, overcorrected each time. For his part, he was driving the clapped out piece of shit like a shopping trolley, avoiding the ditches. "As long as she stays on the tarmac, we'll be alright." He used a tone of voice, and looked sideways to them; they both looking out the windscreen, not even hinting at laughing. He groped around his shirt, and pants (the van taking more violent turns as he searched his pants). He pulled out a lighter, got a flame, and waved the lighter around the base of the cigarette, as he was thrown hin and yon by the road's turns, the van's suspension and his own attempts to compensate for both. He got it lit, and hastilly wound down the window. "Hope ye don't mind..." They didn't respond. He kept on driving, first this way, then that.

Monday's Not for Bloggin

I'm in no mood to be doing anything on a Monday evening. Except moan. Which is why the lovely J has christened in Moanday. She hasn't really, but is just goes to show that despite being tired, fed up and just not with it mentally, you can still pull some form of fiction out of your ass. Anyway, I have little to say on the Western today. Hopefully tomorrow. In the meantime, see what you think of the following as opening lines for short stories and/ or chapters. I quite like them.

She brings flowers when she visits. That's what you see when you line your eye up to the spyglass in the door. Flowers. Again.

The van trundles along; clunking, diesel, steering like a shopping trolly. He says "Shit!" just before he jerks the steering wheel right, and "Fuckit! Fuckit! Fuckit!" as he pulls it left. She doesn't think he's aware of it, but the words and the actions go together everytime.

The best thing about Billy is the craic. Sweet Jesus, you'd never meet a man like Billy for the craic. Red eyed, wide, smoking cigarettes and taking snifters in between each sentence. Mad craic.

They looked to me. Would I? Would I fuck. But how do I tell them?

Empty mugs, cups, plates, pots. Jesus, infested with what was food and cigarette butts. Not a-fucking one of them smokeable. Back to bed until someone resolves this situation... Up then as I hear her come through the door, the shopping bag down, the box pulled from it, and yes - yes - YES! the cellaphane ripped off the smokes. Not too fast now - can't have her thinking you were up and back to bed. You'd never get a smoke that way. Follow that sweet scent of the new through the pungent odour of last nights.

No odds really. In, out and away you go.

She wakes me and then I feel guilty because I told her to fuck off when my eyes were closed but when I opened them I could see her make up had all run, I could see her eye was cut. I could see she didn't mean to stay out all night.

Hmm. Maybe some more another time. All very tired today. Anyway, I shall leave you with some pretty powerful words from Mr Ernest Hemmingway (one of my Lit. heroes). This is what's known as "Flash Fiction". Writing small style. The description from Wikipedia is "There is no 'official' or exact word limit, but flash fiction stories are generally less than 2,000 words long, and tend to cluster in the 250 to 1,000 word range."
Anyway, here it is:
For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.

Sketches...

I was about to post this with the title "Sketches from my Novel, the Drunk". But stopped myself, as the title is derivative of Jeff Buckley's posthumously released album "Sketches from My Sweetheart the Drunk". I love that title, and wish I'd come up with it myself. But I didn't, so shan't use it. Anyway, onto some sketches.

These are some passages from Chapter 1. Not the restaurant now. You foodies, always with the eating places. No, these are from the proposed novel. My thinking is I'll post sketches in 'regular' posts. However, I think once a chapter has been completed (or, roughly completed), I'll copy it into a post of its own, titled "Chapter X" ('X' being the chapter number). This way, I can stick proper links to each chapter on the side of the blog (see to your right). This'll make it easier for me to organise and find each part, but it will also be easier for you to read. So, there you go.
Here are the sketches:

1: She's Walking, Waiting On A Lift
She was walking along the road a while. She was on the road, the boy by the hedge, on the inside. The boy trod on dried mud, his soles overprinting tractor tyre treads.
"Will you stop that? You'll ruin your shoes"
She heard a diesel clunking van. She turned around, but there was no sign of it, save for the sound of course. She held on for a minute, the boy carrying on along the raised dirt. There it came, a large, white, rusting van. She stuck out her thumb, and it pulled over. Behind a hat on the dashboard, there was a dark haired man at the wheel. No one else. He lunged accross to push the door open.
"Howya. Where are you going?"
"Just into town there"
"What town?"
"Muck - where the road goes... Aren't you going there yourself?"
"Well, if that's where the road goes, that's where I'll go. There's no use fighting it. There's not much room to turn on this shit of a road. Hop in."
... (ellipsis (three dots) indicate there will be more here. There's a gap at the moment, which I want to fill)

The cab was large and* smelled of dry cigarette air and the green cardboard tree hanging from the rearview mirror. Aside from dust and mud and packets of cigarettes, it was empty.
"Are you waiting there long?" Before she could turn her head to him he pointed to the windscrreen and said*, "Oh, just in time, eh?" The wipers screached accross dry glass, but slapped back, pushing the water drops from the glass. They'd only just got there, and they were obviously not welcome, but more of their kind came along anyway.

************ (Asterisks (the little stars) indicate that we're looking at a different part of the chapter altogether. The new part may end up coming directly after the previous part, or there may be more in between.)
*CHANGES:
1. I added the following blue text to the above paragraph:
"Are you waiting there long?" Before she could turn her head to him he pointed to the windscrreen and said, "Oh, just in time eh?"
I wanted to have just the two questions, but looking again, I don't think it works. I added in that she hasn't replied before he mentions the rain. I think it provides a kind of flow that was missing in the paragraph. Strange to think you're writing something that doesn't happen.
2. I added "was large and" to the description of the cab.

2. They Meet the Law on Their Way into Town
They came upon him* as they turned around yet another random bend in the road. He was standing beside a car crumpled into the ditch. Water dripped from his cap, over his smock and joined a pool at his boots. He had his pen to his notebook, but was facing the van as it came round the bend. He raised his hand, and Tommy pulled over.
"How can I help you Gard?" The Gard looked straight accross the cab to the girl.
"Mary."
"Shea"
"Mary, what in God's name are you doing?" I'd've thought you'd have more sense..." his words drifted off as he looked at Mary, the boy, Tommy and back to Mary. She looked at the dashboard, and when she went to look back, she saw his head down, his face blushed. He looked up at Tommy and said "Well, what about you?"
...

"And, are there more of ye coming?"
"No sir. I'm on me lonesome" The Gard looked at him for a moment, then spoke accross his chest.
"Right Mary, anyway, you and the boy come with me. I'll drop you home."
Looking through the windshield at the road, she said "There's no need. Tommy here is bringing us."
"Mary." She didn't move her head. "Alright. Well, look here. This is a small town. We don't need any casual traders, let alone fucking philosophers. You make sure she gets home alright. Mary, I'll be phoning you at home in twenty minutes. Now, you may be out with me, but if you don't answer I'll be looking for Plato here." He looked at Tommy, even as he spoke to Mary.
...
*******
******* (Two rows of asterisks will mean the end of the sketches)

*CHANGES: I've changed "They came up to him" to "They came upon him". I originally wanted to use this phrase, but the unintended double entendre stopped me. I may yet change it again. The only real point here is that the Gard is there, waiting as they come around the corner.

So that's that for now. Comments will be appreciated. I guess there's loads of holes here, but trust me, I'll be filling them in as I try to complete the chapter.

Critical Thinking...

Problems abound already. I am sitting, thinking about my characters, wondering what I shall have them do (if only they could make coffee, roll cigarettes and get loans from the bank). It occurs to me that I'm shooting everything down as I come up with it. This has been going on a while now, so I have a council session, dedicated to further thinking on the subject. The council (luckily, with multiple personalities, calling a council meeting can be done in the car, and requires no triangular sangwidges, although tea in excess is always welcome...) has come up with the following issue, which is delaying the timely execution of the project: "Critical Thinking" This is my problem - thinking as a critic, and not a writer.
What happens is you automatically take to pieces everything that comes into your head. Something as simple as a guy getting into a car becomes "Why a guy?", "Why 'getting' - why not already in it?" "Why not getting out?" "Why a car?" - investigation that I would do in college in a vain attempt to pick up hidden messages, symbols, etc. in the books I studied.
Many say this is the death of true literature, because you reduce everything to some kind of linguistic game. I disagree, I think critics are almost as much a part of art as the artists themselves. Of course, this is not the critics in the papers, who generally tell you somehting is 'crap' or 'written by the left leg of Jesus himself'. Paper critics never tell you why something is good or bad - yet this is the original job of the Critic.
The critic allows punters like you and me to gain a better insight into a work by explaining its background, symbols, metaphors, etc. If you never saw a film in your life, you might think a lot of the stuff about now is shite. Why can't they do more? The fact is, by having a background in watching films, even as a passtime, you understand many of the limitations of the genre. When someone comes along with a new way of doing things, or an improvement in technology, there's a huge "WOW" by the audience, because on a reasoned level, we understand they are doing something that up until now was considered 'impossible'.
In writing, there's a similar issue, except innovation isn't a speedy as with film. Now, I'm definitely trying to break new boundaries here, but the problem I have is that I don't want to knock around old hackneyed phrases or ideas either. I remember reading the first 'minimalist' story, and deciding I didn't like it because it was too easy (for the writer). God damn, but I was wrong. I think now 'minimalism' (a term I don't relish) creates some of the most powerful writing. It is humane, simple, and allows the reader to delve as deep or as shallow as they wish into a story or its characters. But writing in the no-nonsense approach creates its own difficulties. Essentially, it's like your trying to write a prose poem. You need to get the most from each word, each phrase and each moment of the story. And then, you have to make it look effortless. All who know me understand I prefer the wheezy, t-shirt soaked approach to work. NEVER make it look easy - they'll buy you a pint for it then.
Anyway, back to the original problem. Writing as a critic doesn't work, because you stop yourself too often to actually create anything. 'This is a cliche' or 'that is ridiculous', or 'using so many words is a waste'. Worse, there have been three days this week that I've had a great idea, then sat down with paper and pen, and stared at the empty page, thinking 'what were the words'? 'what was the idea'? and (absolute worst - bottom of the barrell worst) 'it has to be meaningful!'
This thinking, and this activity has beaten my creative impulse into near submission. However, the Council have called out the BEG (Bodliy Emotional Guard), and hopefully the writing process will now contain less critique-ing, and more actual writing. However, this will mean that more that gets put down here will be crap.
Live with it, because as bad as it may be to you, it'll be far, far worse for me.

From Meeting Dad to Rabid Dogs...

Dear o dear. On account of a visit this evening, I won't actually be able to put much up today. I'm writing this just to show that if I could, I would put something up here, but sometimes you just can't.
Possible theme: Ineluctability of loyalty-obligations to family/ friends. Once they got you, you can't back out on nothing. Not even if it is a nice meal with some wine and maybe a pint!

Interestingly, loyalty and obligation is a major theme in Westerns. Although, most usually, it is played out as loyalty-obligation to family/tight peer group as against doing the social/legal/community 'right thing'. If Old Yeller was a true Western, the boy wouldn't have shot the dog. He would have gone in there with the shotgun and said "OK, Yeller. Let's get them bastards who's annoyin' you so much". Look how loyal Yeller was to that family. But instead of showing the "Nature" response of loyalty to kin, they showed the "Nurture" response of civilised types, no matter how hard it was (which is all the more civilised, no?).
Maybe the boys in that family had been civilised due to a lack of paternal influence - wasn't Daddy dead or something (long time since I saw it)? So, theoretically, maybe the boys were beyond the 'natural state' and already civilised. It doesn't really matter. I just wanted to see Yeller roaming the countryside, young fella on his back taking pot shots at teh targets too far away for the dog to tear apart with his foaming, bloody jaws.
Lesson for today: Bren's morality kinda sucks. It sure does.

Welcome to My Western

Howdy. If yer here, it's probably on account of me sendin you the URL. But, every horse's gotta drink his own water. For that reason, I've created this introductory Never Asked Questions Register, or naqr for short.
Question the first: What is this crap?
This 'crap' is an attempt to get myself to write regularly. The idea is that I've sent the URL to friends, family, persecutors and at least one prosecutor. Y'all will hopefully visit, ask me how things are and write comments, letting me know what you think about what I've done. Please restrict all comments to the content of this blog. Comments about driving, bathroom-cleaning-ability, geographical understanding of the sheets in my apartment, whether I phone or don't phone, etc will be either ignored or deleted. You've been warned!
Question the second: So how's this 'great idea' meant to work?
Well, I'm going to write on two levels here.
The first will be 'about the Western'. This is a (roughly speaking) literary effort. So, I want to reflect how I see the times and the country I live in. Sometimes my opinions will be abstract, sometimes fairly straightforward. Anyway, the idea is to bash these thoughts into shape, and maybe introduce them in the story. It may work, it may not.
The second level will be parts of the Western. I guess it will be from this that most comments will be generated. I will be publishing little pieces - from sentences to whole chapters. The method of my publication remains in my subconcious, so I can't even advise you how it will work. However, your input will be much appreciated. You may not like the way something is written, you may feel there's a better way to do something, you may feel that something just doesn't quite work. It's all good. I will thank you graciously for your comment, and then
a) Amend the text accordingly, leaving a note to say what changed and who suggested the change.
b) Curse you under my breath, and ignore the comment, wholesale
c) pick up a chair, weighing scales, etc. and destroy it by thrusting it at a terminal velocity toward a wall. I will then cower on the floor, sobbing "Why doesn't anyone understand?" over and over and over again.
Question the Third: Why a Western?
Why a western indeed. Much by accident, really. Well, primarily it appealed to me for no better reason than whim. However, to go about, yet again talking about the book I was going to write would only piss off me (somewhat) and others (moreso). So, this is a western as much by chance as anything else. I was in Donegal at a wedding (Ardara to be exact), and felt the rolling countryside would be a perfect setting for a Western. Anyway, A few weeks later, we had the revelations about actions of Gardai in Co Donegal. I want to note here this is in no way a political story. Rather, it just hit me that Donegal (and many parts of the country) truly are wilderness areas, frontierland if you will. Of course, this is after Nick Cave's Western set in the outback was released, so the level of originality here is below the average ravings of a beligerant Irish Republican drinking cider under the statue of O'Connell. However, take also into account:

• The popularity of the Western with Irish people.
• In fact, the American-ness of contemporary Irishness. We love being Irish almost as much as the yanks, and in a similar way.
• The Western-ness of lots of small, sleepy towns. Once in Buncrana, I saw a guy get out of an electric blue Golf GTi, souped up to the nines. He was wearing all black clothes, with the 'country' swiggle/ floral pattern down the front. He had cowboy boots, with the relief pattern in leather and all. All in all, it was Johnny Cash with a kid's car and spilled Tip-X.
  

Anyway, add it all up, and you have a Western. There was more, but I've to go get my train. Laptop will be home with me most other nights, but this is Monday, so go to hell with ye. That's what I say every Monday.

Question the Fourth: What do you Mean 'Western'?
This is the most intelligent question no one has asked yet.
The Western Genre can be characterised by the following themes/ ideas (I will be following these in this story process. Please note, I know this isn't "all of it", I'm just going to use these for sure):
1> Stranger rolls into town
2> A drunken/outsider preacher tries to pass on wisdom but fails due to perceptions of him
3> A virginal girl/lady needs protection from uncivilised classes. Also, she may 'civilise' a barbaric character
4> Civilization/ Society vs individuality/ humanity is played out as a kind of war or battle.
5> Violence is everywhere (possibly as result of number 4 there)
Not all of this is set in stone, so if you have any suggestions that could further the theme, let me know.
This is essentially the 'high-level' model for the story. So, here we go.

Note: Westerns are, by their nature, bloody-minded things. I would appreciate if y'all took this into account when reviewing/ commenting. There is going to be some pretty harsh stuff written. Of course, I collect butterflies, so my idea of harsh is getting stuck with a taxidermist's needle.