Vonnegut on Writing Courses

Writing about web page http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/052499vonnegut-writing.html

I quite liked what Vonnegut had to say here about writing courses and how they help.

Madeleine Beresford : 28 Oct 2008 20:33 |  Tags: Icw20089 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Sci–fi C19th gothic novel

Writing about web page http://www.gutenberg.org/files/601/601-h/601-h.htm

Ok, so our task this week was to take a writing style and a genre that doesn't go with it (e.g. sci-fi magic realism or purple prose detective fiction) and write up some of the things we had produced from exercises in class.

In my case, I was reading Lewis' The Monk and so decided that it would be a great idea to do a gothic sci-fi. Only not modern gothic, more 19th century gothic. This was not such a great idea as it seemed, but I like part of what came out of this. So here it is:

“What beauty in those angles!” He continued after a silence of a few minutes. “What sweetness, what stark majesty.” The explorer was waiting on the edge of a dairy-milk ravine while slougs – great, flaccid winged slugs - hovered above. He gazed upon a dead square lying in the undergrowth; crippled into 35º angles, it was a white triangle against the black woods and leaves.

With difficulty he stirred from his delirium. He was sat beneath a great tree. His rich habit and magnificent equipment declared him to be of distinguished rank, but even he could not tell that catastrophe was written in a foreign language on every inch of the great tree’s bark. The tiltbend world had overwhelmed his senses. Its colours and noises: the shed skins of slougs on the ground around him in crackling, crisp oranges.

A sort of mystery had always enveloped the explorer from his early youth because of his habit of sitting alone. Now he sought for others in the same lonely way. This gave to his person an aspect of sadness and suppressed feeling; yet an accident of birth had given him features notable and clear. As he sat, lynchets of the past shuddered in trans-time as the slougs collided in the air. The slougs were guardians of more than time. He was beside their watchtower. It consisted of three rough poles of unequal height and bent in seemingly random shapes. Yet to the knowledgeable it gave the secrets of space-time.

The explorer, however, continued his rapt admiration of one of the squares, a menial creature, that had met its death near the poles. “You have known great suffering,” he spoke. He heaved his breast and thought of his home world. The air above grew dark and thickened with squares. They were black, tarnished and determinedly quadrilateral. They nestled in branches like pinching fists.

Madeleine Beresford : 28 Oct 2008 20:33 |  Tags: Gothic Icw20089 Novel Sci-Fi |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Exercise Week 2

This turned into a bit of a pastiche, partly because I was greatly amused by the thought of this character walking into Varsity on campus.

Although I am by nature a god-doubtin’ sort of a person findin’ that church is more a show of kind than any sort o’ truth I am sometime struck by that about life that ain’t so easy. The world’s more than squares, you see? Those squares they make in church or in the government hall can’t fit all o’ life in them or indeed all o’ people who are mighty surprisin’ for instance once I knew a man who had six fingers on one hand but that wasn’t the most surprisin’ thing about him cos he could play piano real good even tho’ he’d one extra finger. An’ he’d use that sixth finger to play with even tho’ he didn’t use the finger aside it the normal fifth finger on his hand. The point I’m makin’ is that how can you find boxes and rules or commandments in this place when really its all movin’ lines and rivers? For inside a man is more’n just a stay in place thing that doesn’t move or walk anywere or even make waves like the ocean on a day where there’s much wind. Inside o’ him is a movin’ thing a river that makes him talk to other people and find his own way o’ thinkin’.

Well, not long ago I was needin’ some escape from these type o’ person that thinks in squares an’ I was also freely this I will admit o’ needin’ somethin’ to drink. Not that I am by nature a drinker I never was afore I saw that if the way of God was all a bunch of men in black n’ white who know not much of life indeed less than any normal folk might think on. And so I thought on it and came to seeing that if the other rules they have in church not really rules as such then why should I be keepin’ away from the drink? For I saw then and soon after saw more clearly than there isn’t this thing they call the devil in fact I suspect the real devils are up there in the black garments watchin’ us from the front o’ the congregation but that’s just my way o’ thinkin’ for once I knew a man who was a priest an’ also a terrible person for he did always sin with the women o’ the town and onetime a young girl who did have his baby and afterward die with the having o’ it he was tellin’ o’ the wrath o’ God when his baby was left with no person to look for ‘it. Tho after it did go to a relative of this girl in some other town.

But I was sayin’ o’ how I was needin’ some kind of drink havin’ decided that these things the church are tellin’ us are wrong. Didn’t I know Mr. Whitman who is one for tellin’ us that there is truth in all things well why not in drink also? I liked this place, you see had wide, open doors that feel like you’re walkin’ into some kind of open-thinkin’ place. And I’m comin’ in to this place, tho’ straight way I know it’s more than just a place there’s plenty o’ thinkin’ types here for they’re lookin’ at me as I’m enterin’ one young couple aren’t seein’ me for they’re in some kind o’ discussion that I start to listen to the young man he starts up all sayin’ of the world that its all on a loop ‘deed I think that’s what he sayin’ that when it ends it all starts again and there’s no avoidin’ this. But the young lady she is not agreeable to this idea mighty pretty she is with dark hair an’ eyes an’ you can tell she is one of those who has a river o’ sorts inside her tho’ likely he does too tho’ he looks stern she is talkin’ about how she can’t see herself believin’ this thing he has about the world being on a sort of circle in time for why she is askin? Tho he is not thinkin’ on what she is sayin’ being more inclined to believe what he has said.

This is to be less interestin’ tho’ for I am now feelin’ the need for a long draught of beer inside me sending it’s old heat against me an’ I can see hows these two are stuck in somethin’ that won’t be finished sometime soon or maybe not in all o’ their lives.

I callin’ to the barman altho’ in a matter of speakin’ he is younger than me and as such cannot be called a man for my father was always in a matter of speakin’ tellin’ me that you cannot be a man until you have done such a thing to prove yourself for instance once he rode out into the desert an’ came back with seven wild horses which later turned out looked a lot like those horses that old man Barton owned over in Mellisville tho’ we won’t be askin’ questions ‘bout that for my pap’s word was as good as gold most o’ the time anyhow sometime to be a man you got to do somethin’ that’s good enough for a man I doubt this boy has much a chance.

"Hey boy, one beer please and make it quick."

“Just a minute, I’m pouring it now. That’ll be £3.60”

‘Course t’aint his problem boy like that young he is and not so sharp but what do we do with them who cain’t think right. Strange lookin’ lad, all fair hair fluffin’ round his head. But where was I, I’m losin’ myself? I was just thinking how this philosophising isn’t so hard if you’ve got it in your bones like I find in myself. Stagger me how little folks is thinking on it all. When this world’s full of what I’m callin’ the manifold shapes, y’know and more than one thing isn’t all together? Like them two in the corner findin’ that each one o’ their truths don’t quite match up yet still bein’ close together and talkin’ all the time you can see there is a river between them tho’ might be best to call it an ocean yes I remember that boy an’ girl well wonder what they are doin’ now?

“Well, thank you kindly. Have you ever thought on goin’ horse-findin’?”

Madeleine Beresford : 22 Oct 2008 22:54 |  Tags: Icw20089 Kelly Ned Prose Style |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Muliebrity

Writing about web page http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/bosborn/

Today I am suffering from muliebrity, unameliorated by niddering mansuetude. Without wishing to appear oppugnant, I believe that it is apodeictic that mansuetude in the condition of muliebrity is a sign of agrestic caducity.

I was also unaware that fubsy as a word had gone out of fashion. I often use it to describe squat women wearing clothing that offends me aesthetically, as I feel the need to villipend them.

Madeleine Beresford : 17 Oct 2008 16:18 |  Tags: Icw Poetry Words |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

More exciting Eng Lit Soc things

Writing about web page http://www.warwickenglitsoc.tk/

More exciting English Society events are happening all the time! More specifically, tomorrow at 8pm in Kelsey's Bar, Leamington.

We will be drinking (or not, if you don't want to - we are equal opps) and playing weird and wonderful games involving beverages. From Kelsey's we will move on to Evolve and dance the night away.

(N.B. As you may have guessed, I am not using this primarily as a creative writing blog).

Madeleine Beresford : 15 Oct 2008 22:43 |  Tags: Drinking English Literature News Party Poetry Social |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Crock of shit (or the piece where I pretend to be a floor in love with a ceiling, badly)

This week's task I had a lot of trouble with, partly because I did it the night before (my computer was broken when I wanted to write it, and I HATE handwriting second drafts), and also because it was, well, difficult and I read too much Mina Loy that day. 

So this is a bit of it. To be completely redrafted, watch this space.

It ended with three drops of blood.

As everything ends.

I was not meant to think. I was not meant to observe. I felt ovals circle me; lights leave and return; incessant animals pass over.

A face. That is what they call it. A long oval, two flashes of intensity.

Something else – a soul, a spirit, a distraught emotion – in the flashes.

Red viscous liquid plashed thrice.

Then I was alive. On my surface lay an arc of silver. In its reflection I saw you. I loved you as I loved myself. I wanted to share all I had with you – I wanted to share these lights, these colours, these incessant emotions. The knife was cleansed, bloodied with the red.

Two ovals moved above me. I felt fear in the soles of the feet; I heard a declaration, a loss. Two hundred vague ovals passed over me and away. Two left behind.

Three drops of blood.

The ceiling eludes me. The walls plot against me. They convert the benches and the chairs and the tables and the heavy leaden pillars.

The walls know that my happiness means their demise. They know I long for the one above. They know I worship the three drops of red.

The two ovals entered here close together. I was not then alive. I saw nothing but their cores of phosphorescent feeling; I felt their bodies ebb and flow; I felt how they wanted each other. I felt a tie full of time winding them closer and closer, feathering a gentle slope.

The others watched. The others saw what I could not see. The others watched one lose; discussed another’s father; lost faith in each other and looked at the ceiling, at the one above. The one above who is the answer to everything. The one above I long to touch, to meet, surface to surface.

Madeleine Beresford : 15 Oct 2008 19:48 |  Tags: Icw20089 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Exercises Week 3

Writing about web page http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/sarahcuming

This is the fragments from a couple of exercises we did this week straight off the page. I thought I'd pop them up to fill in some space and just for amusement's sake.

Handbag (from a rewrite of Sarah's story "accessory") thinks in style of Ned Kelly's letter:

Mistress had a handbag called me my name it was as a matter of speaking i'm made of italian leather very expensive that got to thinking over that evening in my mind tho' 'course it's not a mind as such. That evening's all time echoing through my thoughts tho' 'course they aren't thoughts as such and it invades any time I think of rest any time I have for rest considerably.

Handbag in "futile" style from Queneau's "Exercises in Style":

How can an object describe the feeling of rape, of desecration? How can one express the imprint made by a chavvy individual with stubby fingers upon the consciousness of italian leather? How can one explain unwarranted passivity at the violation of buttery, creamy leather? How can one convery how thought permeates the inanimate with memories, viewpoints, voice? What does one become having left a living thing (a cow, to be precise) and continuing with being? How can one exist - move, lose, be with and not with - without finding structure? How can be a victim of a crime against another, much loved, and remain silent, not from choice but from very substance? How can one recall the inobtrusive, relaxed body and shut mouth of sitting in wait, in the cosmic sense for a slut of girl to come and disturb this stance?

How can one formulate the impression when the slut doesn't turn on the light, or announce her presence, but yanks an object so close that there is no chance of slipping away?

How can one extrapolate the unlikelihood of anyone outside the room being able to see one through the shield of her body? How can one translate the expression of violation? How can one describe the impression of stealing an image that isn't given back? How can one convey the person of a common little whore, rummaging around in a mistress' private things and suggest that she was taking what she fancied?

Madeleine Beresford : 15 Oct 2008 19:33 |  Tags: Funstuff Icw20089 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Rewrite I should have done earlier

Inside Michael Davenant’s brain his synapses fizzed and clicked. Cells formed and reformed and sashayed to the edges to dissolve into a tributary artery. The 500,000 cells that contained his knowledge of the secret buzzed deafeningly.

Michael was uneasy. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t see; every once in a while the synapses from mind to eyes misfired, catapulting him into a world of acidic blues, greens and fluorescent reflections of dying retina platelets. This was different.

Something here had already spooned its way into his memories, coupling vicariously in archaic shapes. It juiced pain. It didn’t want to stay forgotten.

She was here.

The bulbous group of cells that knew he had to lose to save his life were drowned in a wave of adrenalin.

Michael opened his eyes to see the greasy, incessant floor. He peered up. Behind a glimpse of her inert, Flemish face were rows of watchers – and rows of silent air. There wasn’t a large turn-out for their meeting. Good. Less people to hear whatever was said, even if it was something he didn’t want anyone to hear.

He fixed his eyes on her face.

“Aphra,” he gasped. “I didn’t see you there – you know, my eyes…”

He was lying; she knew but he didn’t care.

“I understand. Unfortunate.” She expelled the words as if dissecting specimens on the bio-lab table. He’d watched her do it so many times that her precise speech seemed a necessary extension of her scientific career.

Not that she needed a career – everyone knew who her father was. She was practically royal. She was the child of privilege. For someone like him, she was untouchable.

For a moment, Michael’s heart drummed out three extra beats and his pupils dilated.

Impulses juiced memories, popping open the stitches keeping wounds together. Cells span, unleashed, in well-trodden arcs. Their relationship venn-diagrammed his hippocampus and for an unnamed unit of time she was close to him again; her body imprinted on his very atoms.

He stopped thinking about how her eyelids caught the light like a weeping Flemish Madonna. Her chin and lips were stumpily sculpted; in relief, they resembled a velocerapter’s insouciance. He stared at her lips. It wasn’t helping.

“I think you know what I’m expecting the outcome to be,” she intoned. He understood that he would have to let her win. Migraine ricocheted across his forehead.

The hand begging release from his knife shuddered as delicate currents pirouetted down his arteries. He leapt back. The bell tolled 12pm. The crowd observed half-heartedly – speaking of the day’s news, the sunlight as it left, their selves and the tiny revisions in self that they make each day.

Aphra retreated twelve paces of clipped steps. The bell chimed an indolent 12:01pm. It began with an ungainly arc of her knife, shelving Michael’s face. It caught at the temple – a scratch – and blood fountained. He stayed unmoving, awaiting his punishment.

The fibrous stumplings circling his heart contracted. His brain cells floated freely through the red.

He heaved to the floor, and lay down, arms outstretched. The knife shuddered from his hand. The skylight opalled luminescent above. He wasn’t going to fight. He didn’t care anymore.

Aphra gazed down at him.

“What used to be worth a shekel of silver is worth a shekel of gold,” shouted the voices his atoms were constructing inside his brain. The light from the ceiling grew yellow and began to be streaked with tart, acid colours.

His memories tsunamied his senses in random order. Serotonin was shuffling out of its hiding place and surging excitedly along veins. He couldn’t care anymore. It wasn’t even a possibility.

Aphra’s pupils contracted. She grasped her blade tighter and loomed over Michael’s face. There, she daintily etched a grid in blood across his left cheek, opposite his wounded temple. She chequered it, filling in half of the squares with raw flesh.

Then she stopped. The handle of her weapon had pressed the initials M.D. and a pattern of diamonds into her palm.

People were hustling out of the stadium. This wasn’t in the rule book. The bell clanged and the match was over.

And a moment later she was kissing his wounds – or was she sucking at them, vampirific, he couldn’t tell – and he was out of sight of the crowd.

The clump of cells carrying the secret started to turn tubular and harden. The phantoms in the human brain fricasseed the memories in sombre rebellion.

Madeleine Beresford : 14 Oct 2008 21:07 |  Tags: Icw20089 Rewriting Secret Story |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Intro to Creative Writing Week 1

Inside Michael Davenant’s brain his synapses fizzed and bubbled. Cells formed and reformed and drifted to the edges to form part of a chain dissolving into a tributary artery. The 500,000 cells that contained his knowledge of the secret buzzed deafeningly.

Michael was worried. It wasn’t just that he couldn’t see; every once in a while the synapses from mind to eyes misfired, catapulting him into a world of acidic blues, greens and fluorescent reflections of dying retina platelets. This was different.

Something in the air felt life-threateningly familiar.

It was here.

The bulbous group of cells that knew he had to lose to save his life were drowned in a wave of adrenalin.

Michael opened his eyes to see the white, slippery floor. He looked up. Behind her flat, Flemish face were tows of spectators – and rows of empty benches. There wasn’t a large turn-out for their meeting. Good. Less people to hear whatever was said, even if it was something he didn’t want anyone to hear. Less people to see him lose.

He brought his eyes sharply back to her face.

“Aphra, “ he said. “I didn’t see you there – you know, my eyes…”

He was lying; she knew but he didn’t care.

“I understand. Unfortunate.” She expelled the words as if dissecting specimens on the bio-lab table. He’d seen her do it so many times that her precise speech seemed a necessary extension of her scientific career.

Not that she needed a career – everyone knew who her father was. She was practically royal. She was the child of privilege. For someone like him, she was untouchable.

For a moment, Michael’s heart drummed out three extra beats and his pupils dilated. He suppressed the memory of her skin against his, of sweat and death. He stopped thinking about how her eyelids caught the light like a weeping Flemish Madonna. Her chin and lips were stumpily sculpted; in the half-light velocerapterish. He stared at her lips. It wasn’t helping.

“I think you know what I’m expecting the outcome to be,” she said. He understood that she thought he would have to let her win. Migraine ricocheted across his forehead.

The hand clasping his knife twinged sympathetically. He stepped back. The bell chimed 12pm. The crowd waited – bored, tired, expectant.

Aphra stepped back twelve spaces. The bell chimed 12:01pm. It began clumsily, as she drew her knife across his face in an ungainly arc. It caught at the temple – a scratch – and blood spurted dramatically. He didn’t duck, but stayed in the same place, awaiting his punishment.

The fibrous stumplings circling his heart contracted. His brain cells floated freely through the red.

He lowered himself slowly to the floor, and lay down, arms outstretched. He let go of his knife and started at the skylight above. He wasn’t going to fight. He didn’t care anymore.

She looked down at him, puzzled.  

“What used to be worth a shekel of silver is worth a shekel of gold,” shouted the voices his atoms were creating inside his brain. The light from the ceiling grew yellower and began to be streaked with tart, acid colours.

His memories were flooding his senses in random order. Serotonin was shuffling out of its hiding place and bubbling excitedly along veins. He couldn’t care anymore. It wasn’t even a possibility.

Aphra’s eyes narrowed. She grasped her knife tighter and leant over his face. There, she slowly etched a grid in blood across his left cheek, opposite his wounded temple. She chequered it, filling in half of the squares with raw flesh. Then she stopped.

People were rushing out of the stadium. This wasn’t in the rule book. The bell clanged and the match was over.

And a moment later she was kissing his wounds – or was she sucking at them, vampirific, he couldn’t tell – and he was being carried out of sight of the crowd and the contest was over.

The clump of cells carrying the secret started to turn tubular and harden. There was nothing to be afraid of anymore.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about medical terms. I'm making them all up.

Madeleine Beresford : 08 Oct 2008 17:34 |  Tags: Blood Death Icw Icw20089 Sex |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Writers on fridge people

Writing about web page http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/apr/24/booksforchildrenandteenagers

I'm quoting a Guardian article here:

According to fantasy fiction writer China Miéville, the world can be divided into two camps.

"When I was moving into my new house a few years ago we were having all our kitchen stuff delivered and my then-partner got off the phone, turned to me and said 'the fridge men are coming,'" explains Miéville. "Now, it seems to me that there are two kinds of people: those that hear that sentence and think 'oh good, delivery of the white goods', and then there's those people who imagine a kind of enormous cyborg thing..." Miéville trails off. There's absolutely no doubting which camp he falls into.

This is a bit like what happened to me in my ITCW seminar this week, because when George Ttoouli said: "You can write in third person, either inside or outside their head," I immediately had a vision of the atoms and brain cells inside someone's head bubbling around in lots of blood.

I know this isn't exactly a cyborg fridge monster, but it entertained me. So I wrote my piece from inside the character's head.

Madeleine Beresford : 05 Oct 2008 22:49 |  Tags: Icw20089 Imagination Writers |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem