I CAN’T WRITE ABOUT THIS, SO MUST WRITE ABOUT THIS.

Here’s the bleak matter not under discussion – because I never talked about it. Kacey Vanderkarr and Missy Biozarre, two writers who followed me on Twitter, made me look at the one thing in writing that I never wanted to consider.

   I was editing and reformatting book number three on my backlist of books. It’s a massive book, LYGHTNYNG STRYKES. I took leave of my senses to help assorted authors during this trudge. Still, I felt that I had to. Help of that kind isn’t a one-way street. It can help the one who offers help. And I’ve received a huge dose of perspective, based on Kacey’s fear.

   In the Olden Times®, by quaint eyesight-straining gaslight, if you wanted to contact an author then you wrote a letter to the publisher. Traditionally, the publisher was duty-bound to pass the message on by sending a man with a cleft stick to the scribbler’s door.

   That’s what I did, back in the day. Wrote letters for the messenger to trudge off with.

   Now, we’re all just an e-message or Twitter comment away. A system that feels too immediate. In some cases, I’ve not just discovered authors. I know what cars they drive. Roughly where they live, and work. What they had for breakfast. How they dress their kids. I can read of their heartaches and high hopes. Learn too much personal info that would be of great use to fraudsters. Even discover little movies they made – so I can put an accent to the writing style. I read of triumph and tragedy. Bereavement and birth. The loss of a mobile telephone to the non-mobile toilet.

   Writers have become more like television presenters or newsreaders, in a way. Familiar. Yet, quite clearly, still strangers. I was given a slice of life, a guide to how a writer’s mind worked, in reading an author’s book. If I wanted to indulge in further exploration, I could catch a movie about the writer, read a biography, watch a documentary, or, regarding the living, write a letter to pass on through the publisher.

   With the internet, I can gain access to slices of life that are far more visual than the usual smattering of photos in a biography. There’s a guiding intelligence behind the flag-waving and dancing in Coach Vanderkarr’s Winterguard videos – and the guiding intelligence is hers. She lives in a place with Creek in the title, and posts an image of the water feature to prove it. Links lead to more links. Layers of an onion, peeling away. Facebook. Twitter. Blogger.

   When I worried about seeking a business contact, my business contact shared the same concerns. As the business e-mails shot back and forth, Karen Woodward, author of Until Death (that’s a plug), felt that she was my cyberstalker. Perhaps that’s just the internet’s default setting. The abstract nature of linking things generates a sense of isolation that clashes with the freakish sense of inclusion provided by assorted social networking sites.

   So how do I feel about helping strangers? I was shopping the other day, and a small boy tried valiantly to reach a DVD at the top of the chart. On a high shelf. I handed him the DVD. Helping authors is a bit like that. Covering that last little distance with a spot of assistance. In turn, the week before, I was helped by a shop assistant who had no hands – which I must rewrite as a piece of fiction in some story.

   I have no hard and fast statistics. The big one. I contacted, helped, and received help from more authors in the past half-year than in all the other years combined. On gender lines, the split seems to be around fifty-fifty. Being the internet, sometimes it’s hard to tell.

   There is a slight bias in favour of the ladies, who are keener readers and, therefore, more likely to follow an author on Twitter. The gents are too busy clubbing and spearing wild boar for the cave feast. Ug!

   In terms of nationality, I’ve encountered mostly Americans and Canadians. Proving a form of English is still used in those parts of the world. The same may be said of Scotland.

   Age is also difficult to tell. Almost without exception, the age-range seems to start at 30+. (I can think of a couple of young scamps who sneaked in without being carded.) There’s no real way of putting a figure on the age-range, as help on Kindle Forums is almost wholly anonymous. I expect a load of twenty-urm types were in there without my even noticing. It’s impolite to venture a guess as to the upper age-limit. Though it is HIGH.

   Type of advice sought/gained varies. Tax. Banking. Formatting files. Blogging. Twitter. Kindle-based stuff. Marketing. Thoughts on writing. Approach. Plans. Pretty much everything connected to e-publishing, with some avenues stepping outwith writing into general business.

   What have I gained? A lot. To the extent that I am now considering a PROFOUND stumbling-block connected to discussing my work. I took a step in that direction when I started blogging. Didn’t want to blog. Decided, if I did, that I had to go into it with the same joy of writing that I get from writing. Because it is writing – albeit writing ABOUT writing.

   I keep a load of material down in the vault. My very own Pandora’s Box, Mark II. That I can open alone without risk, check, then seal again. No harm to others. In writing two vast e-mails, I thought I was helping writers. When asked to interact a bit more with these bloggers, I found myself confronting so many different issues at once that I knew I’d have to think about helping myself.

   Kacey followed me on Twitter. She stated she was a writer, so I checked her blog. When I read Kacey’s blog, it was clear that she could tell a tale. The fear scattered throughout her blog was overwhelming. She was scared of completing manuscripts, thinking they’d never be good enough for publication. NEVER.

   I stepped away from editing and spent an evening composing a message to Kacey, asking what she had to fear. She responded in her blog by thanking me for sitting her down and giving her the biggest lecture of her life. Which she admitted she needed to hear.

   That embarrassed me, but it helped her.

   I noticed that Kacey had a writing partner in Missy. But I was wary of checking Missy’s blog – it was highly likely that Missy was infected by Kacey’s fear. Was infectious fear lurking there? I had low hopes for Missy when I got around to checking the material. Leading me to put off checking the material.

   So I returned to editing. Put more pages under my belt. Missy followed me on Twitter, and shouted hello, so I went along to scope out her blog. I was surprised to see that Kacey’s fears were not Missy’s fears. Let’s hope Kacey’s fears are no longer Kacey’s fears either.

   Well, I had my own fear to face. These two authors cast a mirror over my approach to dealing with talking about writing, and talking about my writing. There’s this anecdote concerning my work. That I knew I could never write down. Because I didn’t write about my writing anyway. So it was never going to come up.

   When I started blogging about my writing, I took my lantern down the thousand onyx steps to my audience-proof bunker. There I opened the vault and looked at this anecdote. It could stay hidden. And the mighty clang of the door was the clang of Finality.

   Everything about the anecdote was encapsulated in a phrase. And it seemed too stark and empty of feeling to share with anyone. To those who didn’t know me, it was COLD. That was that. Except, I helped Kacey see that she had dumped fear into her writing. Could I afford to remain fearful of this thing connected to my material?

   This is costing me a lot to let go, and I’m not sure why. Because it was ever thus, perhaps. Opening the vault, and exposing this anecdote to the light of a thousand suns, is HEAVY. I am reluctant to mention a story I never wrote down. And I feel a sense of dread, even mentioning the notion that those two authors prompted me into considering this. Just as author Karen Woodward prompted me to blog. Well, I got over that stumble-stone.

   I feel bleak just thinking it through. And I’m wondering how to write it in a blog post that lets me cut loose of the thing. It isn’t a problem, and I can leave it in the vault. But I wonder, now, at this distance, if I can give it to the world to mull over.

   How do I do it? Just blog. If I just blog, then the two ladies who instigated the act will face it raw along with anyone else who reads. Which is the only way to face the thing down in the vault. It can stay there – it isn’t damaging anyone. I don’t feel poisoned by it, or concerned. Nothing is festering. There don’t appear to be any consequences to leaving well alone.

   Except – having Kacey and Missy hold a mirror to my thoughts on writing…prompted all these thoughts. Do I just note the act of thinking, and shut the vault door again? It would look as though nothing has changed. But we know something has. So. Blog about it? Give up the anecdote? Leave it be. Bury it.

   I’ve moved far, in admitting that there’s an anecdote. That may be enough for me. I suspect there will be a clamour, from strangers, to take action. The other consideration is that I might not be up to telling the tale. I’m going to feel awkward and clunky writing it out. Okay, I was laughing as I typed that.

   Of all the things down in the vault, I picked one that is actually secret. Not much is. There you go. I’ve admitted that there’s something I’ve kept to myself. One person in the world knows it, and he’s typing this message.

   (Editorial note. I wrote this blog before the Red Queen intervened. I told her, to see how I felt in letting go of the burden. So two people know it as I type this editorial stuff in brackets.)

   I can hear a pair of Americans, shouting and waving. Inform the world. Release the bleak phrase to the internet. In the background, an American President is telling me I have nothing to fear. Except the cold. And this story-related image is as cold as cold gets.

   Keeping stories in my head, then writing them down, seems natural to me. Are all stories told? Not all. Some don’t make it to the page. They are recycled in fragments, assigned elsewhere in chunks, or left abandoned by the roadside.

   In blogging about a story-related piece of information, I’ve told you little. Except to say – I didn’t talk about my work. Now I’m blogging, I talk about my work. Oh, but not about THAT. It’s too cold to discuss. Even at this distance. With all that’s gone on since.

NEXT BLOG: I FINALLY MENTION THE DAMNED THING.

THE RED QUEEN CALLS.

Blogging about mortality, and the need to leave instructions on contacting business associates if I’m hit by a large white van, I stare at the blankness ahead of me. The blog entry needs a little more. Recently, I tried one…

   The rest of the sentence fails to materialise. I am interrupted by the telephone at my hip. Who is calling me? I think it’s an inspirational artist, who wants a word about my publishing ventures. In the same thought, I am right and wrong. The label fits, but it applies to another inspirational artist.

   For this is the Red Queen, fabled monarch of a lost kingdom. Or the woman who provided inspiration for the creation of that character. In that interrupted blog, I stated that the highlight of my week was catching sight of a magpie. An unusually large specimen.

   Well, that was true when I wrote it. Not long after writing it, I was interrupted at my desk by the Red Queen’s message of support for my writing. From someone who was there close to the start of my quest to become a half-decent author, someone who always believed in me as a writer no matter the ups and downs, that meant more than I could put into words. And that was the real highlight of my week. Though we both agreed that the magpie was pretty cool.

   She had not put pen to paper to say anything concerning my publishing endeavours. I jokingly placed her in the category of women who mean to write letters but don’t send them. They visualise what they want to say, and believe telepathy does the rest. We laugh, as telepathy occurs between us. I am about to eat a cream-filled scone. She was just thinking about a cream-filled scone before she phoned, but couldn’t lay her hands on one.

   I offer to go mmm-mmm as I eat some of the scone. This I do. Laughter.

   We talk of many things, as Walruses and Carpenters are apt to. I speak of the days of writerly isolation, of rarely scribbling to other authors in the era of pen and paper, and of my new venture in e-publishing. Part of my job now involves chatting to authors across the time-zones. Taking advice, giving advice, and constantly learning about the business.

   This is all good stuff, she declares. It isn’t. With her Scottish accent, it’s guid stuff. Aye, guid. She hasn’t changed. Well, she’s changed her socks in all that time. I speak of giving major advice to the young American author Kacey Vanderkarr, who followed me on Twitter. (This makes me feel as though I’m Ben Kenobi. You must learn the ways of the Force if you’re to come with me to Amazon.)

   Guid.

   The Red Queen instantly comprehends that sharing hints, tips, rumours, speculation, ideas, and waffle will make the writing community a better place if we so choose. I confess that the two young Americans I’ve chatted to (Missy Biozarre being the other) make me face something grim from my own writing.

   How grim? The Red Queen declares that it’s important to acknowledge anything that’s held back. If you give advice to a writer, on facing fear in writing, and this makes you recognise fear in your own work, then it’s a positive step to cut loose of a problem. Otherwise, giving advice itself would be hollow.

   If I’m Kenobi, the Red Queen is having a Yoda moment.

   She is caught in some Celtic, or possibly Cymric, Twilight. The Lady of the Fountain is learning Welsh, prompting the agonising memory that I once decided to learn that language just to write a twelve-page Welsh folk tale. My own personal Mabinogion. What was I thinking?!

   If I had written it, she’d be able to read it now. We laugh at that. She thanks me for thinking of her and letting her know, with each book’s publication, that my work is out there. That means a great deal to her. She wasn’t there right at the start, but close to the start.

   I kept my writerly ambition secret at the true beginning of things. When I first started to discuss the desire, she was there to hear the discussion. I then stopped discussing writing for many years. Well, I blog now.

   Anyway, I’m thankful that one of the inspirational women behind my fiction thinks to call me up and tell me she always believed in me. We are old, and laugh at how young we once were. Did we really do some of those strange things? They’d be just as strange now. Why does she not feel old, as I do? I make a comment about age and she laughs, without malice, understanding why this is the state of affairs we’ve come to.

   Of course, why should she feel old? She’s the Red Queen, and in my fiction she is a timeless character. It all ties in. She wonders if the Red Queen looked after pigs in my tales. I suspect, adding details to stories-yet-unwritten, that the Red Queen had people deal with that side of things for her.

   This woman on the other end of the phone must go and hunt down a pig, in some far-off field. Or else she’ll have friendly neighbours turn into a raging mob. The torch-lit procession to her humble abode will mutter and mumble in Welsh – and she will understand the muttering and mumbling.

   At some point in the conversation I talk about the unspeakable thing from my writing. I’ll tell you, because you’re YOU. And I do. I used to tell her about my writing. Maybe I haven’t changed. (Well, the socks and other items of apparel.) So I mention this problem, that I’m wavering over. She gets it. There’s no caution in her, warning me that it would be bad to go ahead with this. No. It’s all guid.

   Well that’s settled. I decided that if I did talk about this thing, I’d do it in two stages. If I didn’t publish the first blog post, I wouldn’t go near the second. Trepidation. The microscope comes out. I glare at the results. Everything should be okay.

   Yes, I’ve been inspired, once again, by a woman who inspired my writing in that land of long-ago and far-away. I’ve written short stories older than some audience members. How did I get here, from there? I marched across the minutes of the hours in the days, the same way as everyone else.

   Flickering. I see the whole thing as a movie. It’s about us, now. With a flashback to the young writer and the young artist, colluding in our secret HQ. The actors playing our younger selves have been chosen for their lack of believability. For who would believe a word of the writer scribbling in the here and now?

   We sit in a cupboard, and she tells me about her tarantula. The story turns spookier by the second, and ends on a flourish. She has children-yet-unborn. I harbour novels-yet-unwritten. Any talent she has as an artist is right there for all to see. All the talent I can muster as a writer is rawer than an unformed oyster.

   Yet she sees that I’ve got the bug, at that ridiculous age. I had the bug at an even more ridiculous age before that. For a short period, I actually talk about my fiction. Before I build my own private Berlin Wall around the fiction factory, and get on with the toil of not writing crap.

   It’s a mixed day, for weather. A mini-storm rolls in. The girl in the cupboard in Scotland becomes the woman planning to chase Scratchy the Pig around a field in Wales. No one knows what happened to the guy in the cupboard. He disappeared, and was replaced by someone like me.

   Did we really sit in that cupboard?

   Hard to believe, isn’t it.

   The guy who became the guy in the cupboard was approached in those far-off schooldays, on that one strange day, by THEM. Contemplating writing. Just me, and the blank page. Knocking. Visitors. Unexpected. Teachers were at the door. This was unheard-of.

   Fuck, they’ve sent a hit-squad.

   That young idiot couldn’t find the key. Had to use the window. Could the young gent perhaps open the window a bit wider? The blinds would not permit this. Paranoia was stoked. They just wanted to know if this lad had decided on that subject of theirs. And tracked him all the way to his home.

   Were too many people after the subject? No. With one pupil, there was no official class. Upshot? With two pupils, the class could convene in a cupboard. Er…right. That’s how things went. The would-be author was officially signed up. That taboo remained – no teacher ever entered his place of residence. (But wait a bit, that’s untrue.)

   The Red Queen had a mild mischievous streak to her. Very mild. We were handed the key to the cupboard. A temperamental key it was, too. The failure of the key later resulted in my being locked in the cupboard with a brunette and a blonde.

   Oh hush, audience. It wasn’t deliberate.

   What was? The Red Queen’s mischievous comment. As this was our new home, I had to carry her across the threshold. I’d like to say that I had the presence of mind to agree to this nonsense on the off-chance that I’d later rehash the tale in my writing.

   Ridiculous. Carry this young artist across the threshold of our own personal stationery cupboard, and settle down? Discussing her art, my fiction, in our own little world. Ridiculous. I can laugh about it now. These things seemed very serious at the time. When we were young.

NEXT BLOG: I TELL THE TRUTH TO SOME OFFICIALS.

MORBID THOUGHTS, DOOM, GLOOM, AND THE END OF ALL THINGS.

In my country, I’m classed as an optimist.

   WRITER? MADE A WILL? IT ISN’T ENOUGH. Once more I run over the concept in my head. On the internet, typing in block capitals is considered SHOUTING. Leading me to conclude that using italic type is leaning into the wind, and underlining a word means I’m walking on a tightrope. ^Superscript denotes the use of uppers, _subscript the ingestion of downers. Bold writing…I’m unsure. Perhaps the paint is just thicker there.

   I felt like a SHOUT. Of gloomy intent. I’ve become interconnected, and leaving important documents inside a fireproof safe is no longer enough. Images of actresses adorn the wallpaper on my computer’s desktop, reminding me that I take an interest in things beyond typing stories. I go off and watch stories, too.

   There is a rectangular black hole on that desktop where a photograph of an actress once resided. A flash of yellow invades the darkness. My gloomy beacon, my lighthouse of mortality. It signifies the end of all things.

   The canary colour belongs to a folder icon. In blogging it’s best to avoid using white type against a dark background for the main body text, though this design element works well in limited form – for titles and headers. I use white on black for titles and headers, not the main show. For I am human, have limits, and can only read white-on-black text for so long.

   This large black patch on the desktop is meant to be noticed. The yellow folder, with its white title, is also meant to be noticed – by anyone else. Some random person. Not by me. The great danger in life lies in being more organised than anyone else in your life.

   I am disorganised. With the best will in the world, I hope to avoid criticism of those close to me. Bless them, faults and all. Those faults make those people worth knowing. I am the most organised person out of the whole bunch. And must leave a signpost for chance.

   Chance is a fine and unfine thing. In the week that I published my third e-book, LYGHTNYNG STRYKES, I avoided becoming roadkill. Chance, infrequency of traffic, plays its part in that. I continue to avoid becoming roadkill, as that sounds like the best policy to me. Highlight of that week?

   I had a few highlights. The top spot goes to chance. I leave my office and head for the kitchen. Plan. Dump some rubbish. Go! Time spent on the act is short. I face the window for a few seconds. In that thin slice of my life, a massive magpie lands on a post. It gives a shake of the old wings, sorts itself out, then launches into the cold wet day.

   Not an earth-shattering event. I see this by chance. And it makes my whole week. I have that writerly mind, lodging the incident in the rusty memory banks. Might come in handy, one day. I return to the office, with its computer, computer display, desktop, desktop icons, and. My lighthouse of mortality.

   At the time of writing, in the year of the Maya calendar’s last gasp, my published work carries © protection lasting seventy years beyond my demise. Something I must prepare for. We pretend existence goes on for all time, but no one gets out alive.

   If I am killed unexpectedly by some drunk or undrunk driver, my blog will cease. Unless it’s been set to automatically publish while I’m on a holiday that results in my death. If I suddenly stop blogging unannounced, have I gone to join the Choir Invisible? Perhaps.

   Internet contacts will tentatively e-mail, noting that I’ve been quiet of late. How am I doing? Have I given any thought to the latest publishing news? Afraid to open the box, and discover whether or not this particular cat is still alive. Leading to the old joke.

   Is he dead?

   I hope so – they buried him.

   Though in my case, instead of burial, my ashes should be scattered where deranged and non-deranged devotees cannot find me. I long-ago concluded that my fate was to become a cult figure’s cult figure. Not guilty of crimes, war or otherwise, I’ll still be lumped in with those whose last known rest remains determinedly unknown. Barring accident, presumably somewhere in Sunny Scotland.

   (I’ve noted that writing on the internet cleanses my work of irony and filters sarcasm from the end-product. Using Twitter to describe LYGHTNYNG STRYKES as epic porn robbed the statement of all humour, and made the declaration seem as though brought down from a mountain on stone tablets. Which made the whole thing so much funnier – to me, if no one else.)

   If I am the most organised person out of the whole bunch, it falls to me to arrange a trail of breadcrumbs for distraught persons to follow. Dealing with death is not pleasant. Unknown contacts must be located.

   I speak, in general terms, of helping an author on the internet. What does that actually mean, to those I leave behind? Nothing much. That fellow-scribbler could have engaged in minor contact with me. Who to contact, with bad news?

   Multiple e-mail accounts and social networking appearances are phantom shapes in the misty terrain of my life. I must determine a list of business contacts worth bludgeoning with the grim knowledge. And I must place that list inside the fireproof safe.

   The list is of no immediate use there. It is useful to the one who has instructions to retrieve the fireproof safe from my abode, on being informed of my departure. So, for reasons of immediacy, the list of contacts must go inside an envelope left sitting prominently on an actual desktop.

   That information is repeated inside the electronic file folder glowering in the black space where an actress used to linger on my computer’s digital desktop. And the folder is marked IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH. Same as the envelope, sitting on the black desk behind me.

   E-mail addresses, and what to say to those who should be informed. Not precisely. Loosely. I can’t very well be asked to note the nature of my own passing in advance. Not without ploughing a very deep furrow of morbid humour.

   Here lies RLL, telling lies about a demise that happened before or after sunrise. It was quick/slow, quick, quick, slow. Painless. Sudden. Agonising. Drawn-out. Delete as inapplicable. Died a hero. Wasn’t missed. Endured death by a thousand (and three point five) cuts. Didn’t feel a thing. Victim of a tragic sequence of outré events, considered funny under other circumstances.

   The legacy? Championed the words arcane, outré, #unhashtagging, and whom. Will be remembered for writing EPIC porn. Had no sense of internet humour, though was marginally funny in unreal life. Believed the best villains had a V or K lurking in their names. Remained hostile to the Net Book Agreement. Like Nelle Lee, praised the repeal of the Corn Laws. Until the last, held an irrational fear of irrational fear.

   The reality is that my death will be late in getting to those who should be told. It’ll run perfunctorily, with a slot in the subject line taken up by SAD NEWS. You were one of RLL’s business contacts, and it falls to me to note…

   Wisely, unwisely, I hold an empty view of my literary legacy. I consider my writing disposable. It is supposed to earn money to pay bills. If someone somewhere in the world gains a degree of entertainment from my writing, I’d say that’s good. Well, I would. Wouldn’t I?

   Will my writing change the world? No. Inspire other authors? Too soon to tell. I hold stern views on SOURCES OF INSPIRATION. If I inspire other authors, it’ll be nice of me to take the blame. I don’t think in terms of literary legacy. All writing is experiment, to me. I haven’t the time to plan a monument to myself. You’ll find me in the lab, not in a studio carving narcissism in marble.

   In the meantime, I’ll continue to dodge large white vans that appear from virtually nowhere. Recently, I tried one

Tried one what? I have no idea. The Man from Porlock haunts this blog. I speak of Sam Coleridge, composing poetry. (The blog entry on FREEFALL opened with a reference to Coleridge. Must be something in the air.)

   In Xanadu did Coleridge write. Until his epic poem was interrupted by a knock at the door. Enter Porlock Man, who engaged Coleridge in banter that has gone missing from the history books. The poem Kubla Khan ends with the milk of Paradise because Porlock Man broke Coleridge’s chain of thought.

   My blogging was interrupted by a telephone call from the Red Queen. She almost appears in Neon Gods Brought Down by Swords. If I’m not hit by a white van, she’ll feature in other stories. Though SOURCES OF INSPIRATION ARE MEANINGLESS, that particular source of inspiration is meaningful. I’m unexpectedly forced to blog about the Red Queen.

   Next time. For now, I am left wondering what I recently tried. I know I tried one. Something tells me I didn’t try two. Maybe I did. Who knows? Damn the Man from Porlock. Robbing us of the rest of that poem. Damn the Red Queen? Never. My writing has no lasting literary worth, and whatever I was about to say is lost, shot to hell, without a scrap of thought for its importance.

   The Red Queen works her magic, and all is right with the world. For the first time in my life, I speak about the unspeakable topic that I consider unleashing on my blog. She thinks everything will be fine. It’s a vote of confidence that tips the balance in favour of open discussion. Stay tuned.

   To end, I’d just like to add this. Recently, I tried one. Good job I wasn’t killed after writing that, as I haven’t left instructions for dealing with the rest of the sentence. I wonder what it was I tried. Can’t have been important. Unless it was.

NEXT BLOG: WON’T BE ABOUT TRYING ONE.