BLINK AND YOU MISS LADY GAGA IN THE SOPRANOS.

Some cultural icons are ripe for explaining to dusty old judges. Lady Gaga makes a fine example.

   “At that point, we contend the defendant illegally downloaded Lady Gaga.”

   “I am sure that members of the jury will join in my expression of astonishment. Could you provide further elucidation? A lady who was gaga…”

   “Lady Gaga is a singer popular with the young persons, m’Lud.”

   “A singer. You mean of recordings, in the hit-parade…”

   “Mm. And dancer. Fashion icon. She has many facets.”

   “Facets. How would you describe her to members of the jury?”

   “I believe you would describe her as a highly personable young lady, m’Lud.”

   “Really. Perhaps I should investigate her oeuvre.”

   “Quite.”

   “And you contend that this filthy swine did what to her?”

   “Downloaded her, m’Lud.”

   “Members of the jury, shield your ears.”

   And so on. I was taken aback, in the manner of a judge, when I heard that Lady Gaga once appeared in The Sopranos. When? In episode nine of the third series. She cheers young Anthony Soprano’s trashing of a swimming pool. Blink and you miss her.

   I thought long and hard about The Sopranos before I took the tour. To the extent that I decided to watch the whole damn thing all over again. I knew that at least one guy from the show went to jail then became an actor. At least one guy from the show did that the other way around.

   If you watched a movie, a TV show, or a play…if you read a rather annoying piece of blurb…if you thumbed through a comic book…

   Someone, somewhere, somewhen, somehow wrote it. David Chase didn’t write the show on his lonesome. He didn’t spring from the ocean as if created a writer the day before penning Mafia scripts. That goes for the actor James Gandolfini, too – he didn’t just spring out of nowhere.

   He was that guy in movies. I’d seen him a few times. He seemed to have a mild Denzel Washington connection going. Maybe Denzel helped out with a film role. Then Gandolfini played Tony Soprano and his world changed.

   As usual, The Sopranos got a mention well in advance before it washed up on Scottish shores. I’d lost track of the times some new show was touted as the most amazing thing. Only for the show to unfurl before me with distinctly unamazing qualities in the writing department. Often, I’d struggle to sit through the first episode – and I’m patient. Really patient.

   I didn’t make it through the first fifteen minutes of Lost.

   What is this?! It’s going to be a crock of shit with no reasonable explanation at the end. Going by reports of how that TV show ended, my crystal ball was firing on all cylinders that day. Yes, my crystal ball has cylinders.

   The Sopranos lived up to the hyperbolae. I watched the show. Hell, I even got sucked into er which was running before it. Catching the last five minutes of a relentlessly-paced medical drama was enough to draw me in. Great to see actors in one show appear in the other.

   That first episode of the Mafia drama was one of the strangest opening episodes of a TV show I’ve ever seen. Someone, somewhere, somewhen, somehow wrote it. (That’s true of Lost. Mm.) Television. Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in.

   The show remained consistent. A world was created. It felt real, on its own terms. Perhaps not in the depiction of the psychiatrist Dr Jennifer Melfi – but drama must be dramatic, else you are simply looking out the window at your own life unfolding in uneventful bursts.

   I applauded the casting of every single actor who played someone in the FBI. They all appeared to have that Federal quality to them. If you’ve ever dealt with Federal people, you’ll know what I mean. (My blog’s banner headline is symbolic. I am NOT actually on the run.)

   To our tale. I was headed, once again, to America. The Big Apple. I landed in Newark, took the train from Noo Joisey to Noo Yawk, and prepared to return to Joisey for the tour. See the shootings. Take a tour of sites and sights featured in The Sopranos.

   This was the first TV-themed tour I’d undertaken. There were echoes of my own private movie-themed tour. In San Francisco, I’d gone around checking out locations featured in the Hitchcock movie Vertigo.

   While in San Francisco, I’d been complimented on my accent. Don’t ever lose it. Well, I’ll see what I can do. Later, I’d scare the hell out of an American while using that self-same accent. And later still, a man would comment on the accent being familiar to him.

   He was a radio-ham. I thought them extinct, but no. He tuned in and listened to Scottish tones from a place called Kearny, over in Jersey. On hearing the man say this, I never for a moment thought I’d end up on the streets of Kearny. But I did. Taking the tour. Before I took the tour, I watched The Sopranos again and noted two things. One, I set down. Here’s the observation…

   I am slowly chewing my way through The Sopranos. Very interesting, watching it from the start. The actor who plays Vito in later years pops up as a character called Gino inside a bakery in an early episode. Just a bit-part. Clearly, the people who made the show felt he could return as a major character. Violent, funny, tragic, weird. Often in a single episode. A great telly show.

   If you watched a movie, a TV show, or a play…someone, somewhere, somewhen, somehow acted in it. The other thing I noted became significant on the tour. Very significant. I was drawn to a particular scene. There was nothing in it. That’s what drew me.

   Tony Soprano’s wife Carmela, played by Edie Falco, sits at a table in the Plaza Hotel over in New York. A waiter approaches and wordlessly drops off his delivery. He then leaves. That’s it. I watched, thinking that poor bastard didn’t get any lines.

   There’s an actor. Some bit-part guy. You’ve probably seen him in countless things. He can say he’s worked with Edie Falco on The Sopranos. No one gave him any lines. Realistically, he should at least have said something.

   You really notice bit-part acting in TV comedies. The star utters witticisms to people in a queue and they laugh or shrug or roll their eyes. Oh. That’s bit-part no-line acting. A little exaggerated, to play up the comedy. The only reason for drinking from that cloudy well.

   This scene sticks in my mind. I have no clue why. Though I could pretend my crystal ball was firing on all cylinders. I think about the actor. His glorious scene in the show. The lack of lines. An oversight, I’m sure.

   The tour starts with a button. This is a giant model of a button on a needle, situated at 39^th Street and Seventh Avenue. (Dat’s life in the Big City. Or on 39th, anyways. Hey, if I don’t plug my own work then who will?)

   I meet the tour guide and hop on the bus with a whole bunch of fans, not knowing what to expect. The guide says he’ll give us a few more minutes if anyone wants to meet one of the actors from the show. No takers. Just me. I hop off the bus and head to the back for a rendezvous with…

   Joseph R. Gannascoli. In the show he played Gino, and Vito. At the back of the bus, he’s operating out of his car. There’s a merchandising opporchancity. Joe is in the act of packing up. The queue to talk to him came and went while I was photographing the giant button.

   He spies me. We have a quick chat, as I don’t want to hold the bus up. I mention his Gino appearance. Joe tells me that two or three people on every tour spotted his earlier unrelated role in the bakery scene. I only noticed because I watched the whole show before the tour.

   We talk about episodic TV. I always like to see a minor character suddenly take on a major storyline, as his character did. The twist in the storyline came from Joe himself after he read Murder Machine, a book by Jerry Capeci. Joe’s character of Vito took on a life of his own. He wasn’t just some hit-man in see-through socks.

   Joe signs some merch for me, and I hop back on the bus. What can I tell you? He’s a stand-up guy. Our guide introduces himself. We head for the tunnel Tony Soprano emerges from at the start of every episode. Not to go all Dr Melfi on you, but this is as though Tony is born when he appears on the Jersey side of the tunnel.

   Marc Baron is our guide. How informative is he? David Chase created the show. By the time the tour is over, I wonder if David Chase himself could be more informative. The tour means a lot to fans. I catch a woman taking a photo of the Bada Bing parking lot. The look on her face is ecstatic. Come on. The Bada Bing. Fuggedaboutit.

   I watched the whole show before I took the tour. There’s a quiz. We can win prizes. There’s a pen worth going after. From the Bada Bing itself. All sorts of prizes are up for grabs. These are often themed to the question. Yes, I watched the whole show before I took that tour.

   How did I do at the quiz? No better than anyone else on the bus. Marc Baron failed to hand out the pen. He tried again later with another question. Still no takers. I watched the show! Before the tour! Some questions were beyond arcane.

   You start to wonder how many females were murdered on the screen. Is that the trick to the question? We’re going for body-count and names, now? Just for fun, where was Frank Sinatra born? Loads of people answer questions for fun. The pen finally goes to someone on a serious question. Damn. I wanted that pen.

   Facts. Locations. Quiz torture. Up for grabs – another prize. Oh, I know this one. No one on the bus speaks. This is an obvious one! I claim the prize. Wow. I’m astonished that I paid a lot of attention to a particular type of scene in the show. Maybe because I was looking for something to happen. And it almost went down in one episode.

   That’s a writer’s imagination at work. What if this happens to Tony Soprano? Surely the writers will address that. They did. Marc tells us who he really is. Why, he’s the guy who starred in an unlucky thirteen episodes of the show. Either as a stand-in or as a minor character. A bit-part moment here, there.

   For example. Say Carmela Soprano has to visit the Plaza Hotel, and a waiter waltzes through the scene. Marc Baron will step in and be that waiter. I perk up at this, as I’d zoned in on that moment when I watched the show not long before I took the tour. Why? Writerly instinct. I’m an analytical marvel. Just dumb luck. Take your pick.

   Marc treats us to an epic discourse on this scene he shares with Edie Falco. It’s not true to say that half the cast of The Sopranos came from GoodFellas and half came from Cop Land. Though that’s close. I remembered Edie from Cop Land.

   The Plaza Hotel had an arrangement with the makers of The Sopranos. An actor could play the part of a Plaza waiter, but accuracy in presentation had to be preserved. Marc Baron was sent on a course to become the waiter. Method? Eat your heart out, Pacino.

   Edie Falco broke the scene into fragments by asking Marc questions he was obliged to answer. The director was having none of it. Marc Baron had no lines. He wasn’t getting any lines, just because Edie Falco tried to do him an actorly favour.

   For me, that was a great moment on the tour. Something I’d specifically noted was discussed by the man himself. Beyond that, Marc’s knowledge of the production went way past spooky. We toured familiar places. Heard anecdotes. We were treated to continuity glitches pointed out as we drove along.

   The tour was exceptional. I knew from my San Francisco trip that it was strange walking through places that you’ve seen in movies or TV. There I was, suddenly, on the streets of Kearny. Thinking back to San Francisco and the radio-ham who’d noted my accent.

   Okay. Look for a Scottish connection. Anything. You have a few minutes here. Right there. Just along from the Fire Department. A place selling fish and chips. THISTLE. Box ticked. Job done. Off we go.

   Bada Bing. Located in Lodi. Satin Dolls is the real name of the place. I snap an image of a fake rust-stain painted on a wall to make the location seem grimier than it is. There’s a shift-change inside. Some of the scantily-clad women who work at the bar prefer not to tangle with the tourists.

   Marc Baron points out the fact that the show, dealing with the Mafia, is inaccurate in its depiction of the club. In New Jersey, you get the boobs or the booze in clubs like that. It’s illegal to have it all. The TV show depicts a topless bar. Maybe Tony paid to have a few rules removed.

   Tour guide Marc talks to me about atmosphere and memories of certain deals that go down in various episodes. There’s a merchandising opporchancity, which I take. Various women strut the stage when not serving drinks. I’m in the queue to buy a T-shirt, not realising I’m standing against a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

   “Excuse me.”

   A leggy blonde in a red bikini brushes against me on her way to the changing room. She returns in a black baby-doll nightie and nudges a strategically-placed pole. It’s all research, of course. I can put stuff like that in stories. Research. Honest.

   Before more scantily-clad women manage to throw themselves in my direction, I’m at the head of the queue. I spy the pen I didn’t win in the quiz. As I’m buying a T-shirt, the manager throws the pen in free anyway when I ask after the item. I read the inscription. SATIN DOLLS AKA BADA BING. 230 ROUTE 17 S. LODI, NJ.

   The pen still works. Lady Gaga has moved on to other things.

NEXT BLOG: SOCK PUPPETS.

WHERE EAGLES DARE.

After a year of blogging, I decided I’d pull back on the usual level of repetition. Time to repeat other things, instead. Listening to Alistair Cooke for more years than I care to mention, I took note of the level of repetition in his weekly radio shows. And I repeatedly peppered my blog with phrases geared to helping writers. I did so as a matter of policy.

   This, though, is not a blog set down exclusively for writers. I could sculpt in that direction, by curating links to handy articles. Rambling, generating waffle, takes far less time than sifting the internet looking to share crumbs of gold from the digital pan.

   While other bloggers toil at prospecting in the data-stream, I sit by the campfire jawing away. Links to handy articles are golden. My blog posts are 90% hot air. I must think of readers as well as writers. With that in mind, it’s time to state the bleedin’ obvious. If you watched a movie, a TV show, or a play…if you read a rather annoying piece of blurb…if you thumbed through a comic book…

   Someone, somewhere, somewhen, somehow wrote it.

   How we respond to different types of fiction is irrelevant. Provided that we do respond. Even no response is a form of response. It doesn’t matter if you like a movie or dislike it. Plenty of people worked on it. You may be able to point the finger of blame at one person if you hate a movie. And that person may indeed be the writer.

   Occasionally, you’ll find yourself wrapped up in a story. To the extent that you overlook flaws, imperfections, hazy moments…and outright blunders. Sometimes blunders in fiction will set you thinking. If you spot them.

   Here’s one. Wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch. That’s a line from King Richard III, by noted action movie author William Shakespeare. You’ll find the quote in the third scene of the first act. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is making a point about places where eagles dare not perch.

   This text was truncated and became the title of a movie written by Alistair MacLean. Where Eagles Dare. The original meaning was cast aside. WHERE EAGLES DARE NOT. That is by the by. There are many glitches in the movie. I needn’t list them here. Save one.

   I thought I’d pull the story apart, concerning this one point, to see if I could provide a rough date for the secret mission which carries the burden of the plot. There’s a glitch. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched the movie. Hell, I’ve read the book more than once. Is the movie a great adaptation of the book?

   No.

   The book was based on the movie – not the other way round.

   Is the story any good? I am reminded of Treasure Island, in the sense that the story is utter nonsense from start to finish. That’s no fault. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve watched Where Eagles Dare.

   True, I’ve often questioned the inclusion of a helicopter in the story. The German Navy used helicopters, though not the American one featured in the film. MacLean wisely sticks to calling the mechanical beast a helicopter in his book, and just about gets away with it.

   Yes, I regularly bemoan the massive explosions accompanying fragmentation grenades in the movie world. The level of heroism put on display in many a war movie is often enough to earn the participants a fistful of Victoria Crosses, with whistles and bells attached. (That medal is mentioned sarcastically in MacLean’s book.)

   Does any of that matter, if I sit and absorb a mad story? No. Countless times I’ve watched that movie. It had to be pointed out to me that there’s a very peculiar item on the list of things that don’t quite tally. Something rather obvious.

   Now the movie is no historical document – except in the sense that it is a historical document of the movie-making process of the time. Where Eagles Dare was not constructed by Barbara Tuchman, William L. Shirer, or Anthony Beevor.

   I will not give away the deeper layers of plotting which make this mad story of interest. It is worth looking at the war-torn premise. We are in the murky depths of World War Two. The American General Carnaby is on a TOP SECRET mission.

   He’s headed for a rendezvous with his Russian counterparts. The topic under discussion at the meeting is OVERLORD: a complex scheme for the invasion of Normandy. Plans are in need of finalisation. Unfortunately, Carnaby’s aeroplane crashes – he is captured. Shortly thereafter, he is moved to an impregnable castle. The stage is set for a rescue mission. Enter our heroes.

   In reality, no such mission would go ahead. Allied forces would simply alter the invasion plan, and plant disinformation about Carnaby to minimise the damage and misdirect the enemy. (The enemy wouldn’t accept Carnaby at face-value. Why would so senior a planner be allowed to fly by a rather curious route across hotly-contested airspace…unless a double-bluff? They’d tie themselves in knots, thinking it over.)

   A rescue mission incorporating assassination of General Carnaby is the likeliest option. Something similar is proposed in the opening stages of the story – why not just flatten the castle with Carnaby in it?

   Well, that would make for a very short movie.

   When is the story set? Putting a time on the mission is tricky. Though not that tricky. The Americans are involved as allies and General Eisenhower’s name is invoked. In the movie, the phrase Second Front is used. OVERLORD is mentioned by name in the book.

   Critically, the main characters are warned that General Carnaby’s rescue is paramount. His exposure as a keeper of invasion secrets would push back plans for the second front, destroying any hope of an invasion this year.

   Historically, OVERLORD took place in 1944. We’ll be generous, and say that’s when the movie is set. Indicators? There are several. The accidental rehearsal for a Normandy invasion took place in August 1942, with the raid on Dieppe.

   This was no return to the continent, as envisioned at Churchill’s Casablanca summit in January 1943, but the Dieppe Raid was a start. Lessons had to be learned. They were learned the hard way. Heavily-defended ports may be attacked – but (short of neutron bombing) they are almost impossible to seize intact. The use of the target is at an end the moment the target is hit.

   Clearly, it is better to seize a piece of coastline and turn that into a port. By March 1943, the planning process was firming up. Come September 1943, the plans for portable harbours were approved. General Eisenhower was given command of OVERLORD in December 1943.

   Eisenhower took up position in January 1944. In that month, COSSAC – responsible for planning OVERLORD – made way for SHAEF. The SHAEF organisation is mentioned at the start of Where Eagles Dare.

   So the mission couldn’t occur before January 1944.

   OVERLORD went ahead at the start of June that year. Plans for OVERLORD were in flux right until implementation. How late in the day might the story happen? Not too late in the day. The mission occurs in snow.

   Without factoring in phases of the moon, weather, and availability of aircraft, we can be generous and assign a January/February timeline to Where Eagles Dare. The movie makes a point of the drop-zone’s wintry slopes being devoid of humanity from October through to April.

   Smith is the man of action. He leads his men from the drop-zone to the objective. With many a detour. Much of the action is implausible, though this is no fault in fiction. Book readers and movie viewers can get all they want of real life simply by wandering around not doing very much. Entertainment should be more entertaining than that.

   Countless times I’ve seen the film, and read the book. A major criticism of the movie is that radio messages are transmitted in clear speech. There is no encryption of messages. That’s done purely for the movies, to save time. There are concessions to encryption and encoding in the book.

   Insecure exposition concerning General Carnaby is also included in the story for convenience. “Why is this man so damned important?” A question asked at the briefing must go unanswered in real life. It’s poor security to explain General Carnaby’s importance to anyone in a position to be captured and interrogated on the mission to rescue him. However, the movie’s viewers must have the plot explained to them.

   So-called blunders like that are there to prod the story along. They are common. Consider the structural weirdness of having everyone in a multilingual movie speak one language. We know Smith suddenly speaks German as he enters into casual conversation when crossing a bridge, even though the only language moviegoers hear is English. Solution? We just put up with this movie convention. The movie must undergo dubbing and/or subtitling for foreign markets.

   Blunders. Movie conventions. Outright anachronisms. I haven’t mentioned the one that had to be pointed out to me. General Carnaby’s rendezvous with the Russians is set for the island of Crete. Bear in mind that the story can’t occur before January 1944.

   Crete was seized by German paratroop forces in 1941. That set me thinking. This is an Alistair MacLean story. Suppose Carnaby’s mission went ahead. He’d have conducted a covert landing on Crete, met resistance operatives, and made for the Russian rendezvous. All under the hateful gaze of enemy forces. Blunder? Hell no. What an Alistair MacLean story that would have made.

NEXT BLOG: BLINK AND YOU MISS LADY GAGA IN THE SOPRANOS.

REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

At the very last moment, I decided to continue blogging. That is a lie – even this last-minute post is written ahead of the game. Time travel at work, once again. The eighteen-blog cycle ends, and starts afresh. That, too, is a lie.

   Somewhere along the way, I was forced to write an emergency blog post – with those words in the title. Meaning I’ve blogged nineteen times over this eighteen-post stint. Let’s blame someone. Kacey Vanderkarr. She dragged me into an internet writing game. I released unpublished fiction on the blog.

   Another post told my audience that I’d turned my back on nonsense like that. This caused a disturbance in the realms of space and time. Now I’m left unsure. I prefer not to release snippets of fiction on my blog…

   Been there. Done that. My personal carer, Dr Anton Phibes, is employed to prevent this foolishness. There’s me, and there’s the blank page. Then there are the readers who tackle my work in e-book form. I don’t feel an overwhelming desire to share fiction at an intermediate stage.

   True, my blog opened with a short story on a stormy Hallowe’en. I had to put something on there. True, I believe a fiction author’s blog should contain fiction. But not too much. Admittedly, you can read an entire novel on this blog…

   Yes, I’m in two or three minds about placing fiction on the blog. Dr Phibes holds to one view. None of that nonsense, now. I participated in a novel that ran from blog to blog. How I managed that without seeing my carer run amok, I’ll never know.

   He’s there to ensure that I don’t go wild with the concept of social networking. I’m permitted to go mild with social networking now and again. That’s it. Blogging is pretty much my limit. And I almost quit blogging today. Dr Phibes would approve if I crashed my blog into the sea. My 0.75 readers may object. I can see my in-box being flooded by a complaint.

   What’s next? More blogging. Thoughts on publishing, from an author on the run. The same thoughts. Don’t stop writing. Keep going. I almost stopped blogging so that I could tackle more writing. And I may yet abandon blogging, if Dr Phibes gets his abominable say. So what happened to that intergalactic space cockroach porno I was working on? Knew that would raise a smile.

Yet another disruption to a blog post. I spent an evening wavering. Not contemplatively. I just didn’t feel well. My choice was to shut down and recover. See if I could recharge anything. Overnight, dreams told me that I was placing things in order. Symbolically.

   Quite how I came to that conclusion after being stalked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, travelling on the London Underground, I’ll never know. There were many lost socks scattered in those subterranean passages. Women dressed as knights assisted.

   Imagination at work. Even lying down in a dark room last night, my mind was sparking with ideas. Ill, the imagination rattles on. I feel better today. Feeling better hasn’t suppressed the imagination, fortunately.

   There is something about feeling down or out-of-sorts that propels fiction. With my strict publishing timetable consigned to the dim and distant, I entered the loose planning phase. All part of my scheme. I took ups and downs and converted them into words.

   Instead of dealing relentlessly with the back catalogue of ideas, I found myself conjuring a lot of new material. My approach to writing is changing. Gradually. And it is the electronic publishing of my work to a strict timetable that set up all the changes.

   For the better, I hope.

   What advice is there, for writers thinking of following in my digital footsteps? It’s still the same advice. Read. Write. Experience the good and bad in writing. Find out as much as you can. It’s all there, on the internet.

   Read copyright law.

   Be prepared to act alone. For the sharp end of writing is done alone. Be prepared to publish as part of a writerly community. I’ve had conversations with countless authors. Sometimes you are just shooting the breeze. Occasionally, you become mired in technical discovery.

   For the most part, contact with other authors is limited. You say hello and ask a question or point something out, then you are off on your way again. Clicking links. Or setting them up. Try to avoid becoming lost in the maddening swirl of the internet. Though try to become lost in the maddening swirl of the internet at least once.

   The one place you should be lost is in the maddening swirl of your own writing. Just get through it. That advice applies whether you write fiction or non-fiction. It applies whether you plan to publish or not.

   I feel it is important to champion writing, no matter the purpose of that writing. You may be reading this thinking that you’ll write a novel and that novel will go out to the world. There are plenty of people who have no desire to publish. They write stories for themselves. Nothing wrong in that.

   Yes, I feel there is something wrong with people who want to publish yet declare loudly that they can’t bring themselves to. These cries for help are easily-silenced by the command – PUBLISH. What are you scared of? Shadows. Misty nothingness. Failure?

   Never be scared of that. Failure is important. Writing a story that draws to a clunk rather than a conclusion IS IMPORTANT. You’ll do better next time. Experimenting with the second person narrative, in which you describe everything using the word you, and failing in that experiment…

   IMPORTANT.

   Learning how to handle flashbacks within flashbacks, failing every single time, will be frustrating. Until you finally get there. I know the hardest advice to follow is the advice to keep going. Keep failing until success comes to you.

   I bang on about this, knowing I was going to end my blog. Ending a blog doesn’t end the writing. The Fiction Factory is still slowly grinding out material amidst a cascade of sparks. My doubt doesn’t diminish the advice to have doubt. Use your fear.

   Perhaps you are ill. Tragic events surround you. Life takes a sponge to your plans, and wipes them off the board. Declare yourself a writer and you must write. Never mind if the writing is crap. At least you are writing.

   Feeling low? Climb. Or sink, if sinking leads you to another route. Use whatever works. Even if something appears dreadfully negative, it may carry you to the place you find most useful. Lamenting the near-crash of my blog should be gloomier than it is.

   If I had ended my blog in these closing paragraphs, I’d still have encouraged people to write. Maybe blogging isn’t for you. I recommend it. Doesn’t make blogging the law. There’s a real feel of winding down, but I’ll still blog. Stay tuned.

   Perhaps it’s a sense of perspective that I’m seeing, as I cast this blog post adrift on the vast ocean that is the internet. After a year of blogging, I can see where I’ve been. I took a trip on a twisty road with many alternative routes. If I managed to get one person writing in all that time, I’ve done okay.

   About now, I should end on some fantastic upbeat message of hope and pastel-shaded sentiment. But that’s not my thing. I’m a grumpy curmudgeonly figure, fending off sentiment with a cauldron of near-boiling cynicism. Cynically, I couldn’t quite see my way to stoking the flames for the full effect.

   Over this year, I helped other authors. Often in minor ways. The minor ways are important. If you are stuck in a gremlin-packed avenue, you’ll appreciate the tiny piece of technical advice that comes your way and unblocks the traffic-jam.

   Occasionally, I helped out in a major way. Something I never thought it wise to do – until now. Publishing my own work was anti-climactic. I pressed a button. Job done. I’m going to be far more interested in seeing other authors publish. After the help I gave, I want to be sure that I didn’t ruin anyone as a writer.

   The internet has this unfortunate effect of destroying tone and concealing meaning. Often, I’ve seen advice handed out by writers as though the law. I know that these writers aren’t dictating. The internet is stripping warmth from their words.

   So I’ll repeat myself, at the risk of being crude. There must be 50 ways to…whoops. Paul Simon reference. I’ll repeat myself. Advice freely given is free to be ignored. My advice is to read and to write. Read crap stuff. Learn from the crap. Write. Just get it down. Worry about how crap it is later. Stop worrying about how crap it is. But do worry.

   Worry about being unpublished when that van hits you. You might fall into a river laden with terminal levels of shopping. Two lorries, heading for a motorway collision, risk ending your literary career in a way that a poisonous review never could.

   Write your way through hell and back. Learn as much as you can on the trip through fire and brimstone. Perhaps most important of all – know when your story is finished. Let it go. I let my first few books go to a timetable. Deadlines are important for self-publishers. Stick to them.

   Learn from failing to stick to a deadline. See what went right and what went wrong. You are always going to be too close to your own writing – so damn well accept that. What is it you want to achieve? Ask yourself every time you write a story.

   The comic book writer/artist Howard Chaykin tackled western stories almost solely to embarrass himself into learning how to draw horses. He could have concocted a western without a single nag in the tale. But he went for it. To hell with the criticism he’d face. He could draw people. Why not horses?

   Ask yourself what you want to achieve, in writing a type of story you haven’t tackled before. You should ask yourself what you want to achieve in writing a type of story you’ve tackled many times. If you have to dredge the internet for advice, do so.

   Remember what I said about advice freely given.

   Time to end this blog post, though not time to end the blog. I struggled to hit 1,500 words this time out. Then, true to form, I managed to ramble across the finish line with words to spare. Keep writing. Don’t give up. Learn. Not just in an educational way. In a visceral way – by learning from mistakes. Enjoy writing. I do.

NEXT EVENT: REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE (VOLUME 2) IS PUBLISHED.

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Update. I scrapped the collected blog posts. The blogs exist on the internet, but not as collected volumes. HERE'S A BLOG POST ABOUT THAT.

YEAR’S END.

Though we haven’t quite settled exactly on the first anniversary of the blog’s opening as this entry is published, I have ended a year of blogging. I made a business contact who told me to blog and to embrace Twitter. Karen Woodward thought this would be good for me. Within weeks of commencing blogging, I published, published, and published again.
   Phase one of my mad science experiment was done. I went into phase two. Revising publishing plans. Loosening up, and moving away from the regular six-week publishing cycle. Continuing to learn. Well, I embraced blogging. Twitter, I kicked in the ankle.

   Through Twitter, I was turned into a business contact by others. You are helped by authors, and help in your turn. In that time, I’ve sworn at computers, walked in pouring rain, sworn at the people who set up computers, walked in pouring rain, experienced three earthquakes, walked in pouring rain…

   I helped a bunch of authors by popping up and mentioning a thing. Then I was gone, Zorro-like, into the night. I made mistakes over Amazon product descriptions that I could only correct once I’d seen them go live. Could I tell you how many officials I contacted? No. Some had a sense of humour. Others worked in bunkers.

   At times, I sat laughing my head off. Some things made me sad. Occasionally, I’d blow my top. Ah well, back to it. And back to it I would go. You have to keep a lid on detail. Don’t let detail run amok. If you think it’s hard self-publishing, you think right.

   But if you think self-publishing is harder than living in a war-zone or in a country lacking freedom of speech, think again. Exception – you may be in a war-zone or in a country lacking freedom of speech AS you self-publish.

   How did I get here from wherever the hell I started? I walked an unlit road filled with my ideas and little else. It’s the road all writers walk. If you are reading this and you are scared to self-publish your work, or unwilling to complete a short story, ditch the fear.

   I’m not here to tell you that I ditched the fear. No. I made someone else ditch the fear. Good. I can’t perform blog-to-blog resuscitation, helping hesitant authors, on a case-by-Kacey basis. Much as I might like to. There have been times when I wanted to go in there and grab some writer by the scruff and say…

   Ah. No. I can’t do that, not blog by blog. On my blog, yes. If you’ve stumbled on this site and want a snapshot of a year’s journey in self-publishing, go to the start and devour every word. For the full effect, rig up a garden hose outside your window, to simulate the torrential onslaught of Hallowe’en 2011. The rain was queuing up to fall down that night.

   Nothing worked. I wrestled gremlins to the floor. Gradually, the words came together. I published a short story. The rain booked a one-way ticket to the swollen gutter. I went home with a sense of achievement.

   Each step on the blog was a shaky one. I learned about every gremlin out there. A few of the hardier specimens cross-bred into new threats. I fought them all. My, that was a rainy October night. Shiny streets. Sodium flaring in the night. Orange glare of electric organisation.

   Much, or little, can happen in a year. From the time I first encountered Kacey Vanderkarr, I gave her a year, and the fairy tale day, in which to become published. If she failed, I’d chop her head off. Whether she published in that time, or signed a deal, didn’t matter. I’d take either as proof of her intention to ditch the fear.

   Mrs Vanderkarr signed the deal and received a publication date for November 2012. This blog post would have announced the impending release of her first book. The event was put back to 2013. No, I won’t be chopping her head off. She signed on the line.

   Kacey was that baby seal on the ice-floe, struggling with the whiteness of the blank page, looking up at me as I went about the grisly business of bludgeoning her. I wrote a blog post with BABY SEAL in the title. There was a blog post with PORN getting a mention. EROTICA.

   As a writer, I’ve place the word BOOK in a blog post and thought nothing of it. Upshot? In looking at blog traffic, to see what sort of phrases led people to me, I found someone was directed to my site after searching for an erotic book on baby seals.

   Hi if you’re reading.

   No, I haven’t run a search for an erotic book on baby seals just to see what’s on offer. Some things, it’s best not to know. Gerbil porn? LYGHTNYNG STRYKES. To say more may be to give away plot details.

   Where next? What now? I struggled to keep this blog alive. During that time, Missy Biozarre shut her blog down to concentrate on fiction. I ended up using my blog to fuel fiction. These posts are gathered in collected editions with paid-for stories.

   I must be careful. Fatigue is taking a stab at me. Hazard of typing late. In July, I updated a blog post by replacing the text with an older file. For 24 hours, the upgraded blog post was accidentally downgraded. Fatigue takes the blame for that. Well…fatigue, and this author.

   My mighty struggle to keep the blog rolling along…continues. I decided, more than once, that a year of blogging would be enough for me. There’s no one to betray. I have no vast readership. People stumble in here and stumble out again.

   I am surprised that people follow this blog officially. You’ll see from the lack of evidence around you that I don’t officially follow any blogs. Sporadic time-starved internet access results in that policy. Instead, I hop around from blog to blog without official announcement.

   This entry has a strange end-of-term feel. FINISHED WITH ENGINES. It’s hard to convey a sense of nostalgia over a blog that’s been running from one Hallowe’en to the next. I’m not exactly Alistair Cooke. He blogged longer than even he would have thought possible. Though he chatted weekly on radio, his talking amounted to a prototype form of blogging.

   I am saying goodbye, but not with a sense of finality. This is merely the closing phase of another eighteen-blog cycle, after all. The blog must continue. I do my best to ensure that, back in the real world. Recent glitches?

   The daftest move. Trying to avoid slipping on a riverbank, to escape plunging into the icy depths fully-laden with shopping, I made my position even more precarious. If I’d stopped being cautious, I’d have fared better.

   Beyond my control, as a passenger in a car belting down a rainy motorway, I watched in slow-motion as a lorry pulled out to sideswipe another lorry. The gap shrank to six feet, five, four. I took in the data. Speed in rain. Distance. Braking distance. Two different commodities. Ways out. None. Pile-up. Almost certain.

   The swerve looked dangerous. It was. The lorries were almost identical, and may have been travelling in a convoy. Movement was misinterpreted. The best option, had the worst come to the worst, would’ve been to mount the central reservation and take our chances with seatbelts, airbags, and crumple-zones.

   Vehicles went through treacle. I saw individual raindrops. The offender sliced back out to the left in slow-motion and that crisis faded. It resurfaced here, on my blog. Another way of saying…if my blog ceases suddenly, that means the automated posts have run out. That I probably died several weeks before.

   Not entirely true. There might be technical reasons for blog-disruption.

   So. A promise. And I don’t make those unless I can fulfil them. Your legs snap if you break a promise. Didn’t you know that? Unless you promised to snap your own legs. Breaking that promise would fulfil that promise.

   I promise if I end my blog, that I will announce the end of my blog in a post. And I’ll state the likelihood of the blog’s return as plainly as I can, should things come to that. If I needed time away from regular blogging, I’d say.

   At that point, weekly blogging doth stop. Readers would be left with sporadic blogs to announce important events. Am I going to halt my blog next week? No, I don’t believe I will. There’s still time in which to have a severe struggle with the concept and hit the eject button. But I think I will hang in there.

   I should thank people for their support, overt and covert, across 2011 into 2012 and beyond. They know who they are. That saved listing names and deeds. You may think it strange that I’d thank a woman who interrupted my blogging by telephone, for example. Well, I gained more writing out of that interruption.

   Always take advantage of mistakes, calamities, and failures. This isn’t the sort of blog that capitalises on every single success. Being Scottish, I am permitted three days of optimism a year. I make money on the side by selling my quota on. ;)

NEXT BLOG: REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.