The True History of The Nativity

A couple of absolutely glorious Christmas stories I heartily recommend - please, please check these out, and more, here. A new telling each day until Christmas. Do you get the idea?

The Third Wise Man - N Quention Woolf

Herod - Ross Hopkins

A Christmas Story

Fair dos, the gaffer’s got a sense of humour.
‘Gabriel mate. Got a job for you down Bethlehem way,’ he says. ‘Fancy dress.’

‘What’s the theme?’

‘Well, there’s gonna be a shepherd or two, some wise guys, some animals. I thought you could wear your comedy wings. No-one would bat an eyelid. Just the basic though. Don’t give them no speeches. Turn up, flap your wings a bit, job done.’

So I put on the wings. A bit moth-eaten, and I’ve seen a few dinners since the last time I could really pull off a loop-the-loop in them, but the partygoers will probably be too drunk to notice. So I express this hope to the boss. He tells me the party is dry. There’s even going to be a baby there. So I’m not to arrive with a six pack, acting all lairy. Shame – me and the shepherds had a good session drinking under the stars the other night. I wonder if these ones are the same guys? It’s probably all part of that lost sheep scam.

Now it’s known in certain private circles that the boss has a theory about lost sheep. Reckons that one lost sheep returning to the flock might be more valuable than a whole bunch of them that never leave. So the scam in the hills is this: Shepherd A drives his flock over the hill and parks them with Shepherd B. He then finds an excuse to leave his flock and wander down to the town. Lately these shepherds have been claiming that they’ve seen a star in the east, and it’s some kind of portent. Corny, but the old ones are sometimes the best. So they go down to town, have a night out around the bars while they’re there. Next day they come back, report the sheep are lost, then trot round to Shepherd B to bring them back. Hey presto, Shepherd A’s flock is now worth ten times as much. Usually 50% of the profit goes direct to the farmer, then Shepherd A splits the remainder 60:40 with Shepherd B. Needless to say there are a lot of lost sheep in this neck of the woods now.

The boss seems to be aware of this. He’s always said, if he ever has a son, he’ll make him a farmer. He has a particularly shifty look about him today. Something tells me he has a stake in this open air gig down in Nazareth, as well.

I pitch up a bit short on my way down, meaning to land just beyond the manger where it’s nice and flat and there are no cross winds. Instead I go through the roof. Ruffles a few of my feathers, that does, and no mistake. A young guy with watery eyes and a bum-fluff beard looks at me like I just broke wind.

‘Are you here for, erm...’ he says. The wishy-washy type. His bird is lying down in the manger, in a state of partial undress, and there are all these animals about. Aye aye, I think. Pretty liberated. Then I see something moving, and hear something wailing, and it all makes sense. They’ve only gone and spawned a sprog, haven’t they. A home birth. Obviously they couldn’t make it to Bethlehem General.

I walk over to the baby. I’m not sure what I’m meant to say. Do I call it he, she, or it? And it’s a familiar-looking thing. Come to think of it, it looks like the boss. I’m thinking the old man’s not been spilling his seed on the stony ground. Crafty sod.

The baby shoots out a finger at me.

‘Alright, big man?’ I say.

‘Waaaaah,’ it says.

I flap my wings a bit, and my work here is done. This isn’t my scene. A geezer pitches up next to me in some kind of a crown and bearing all kinds of bling in his hands to offer the baby.

‘You’re not giving him that, are you?’ I say. ‘It’d be quite happy just playing with the wrapping paper you know.’

Well, he goes and gives me such a look for that. So I turn round and see who else I can find. I recognise one of the shepherds. We nod at each other. He gestures an imaginary pint. Good plan. I nod again, and we head down the road.

Miss Writerly Raises Her Hand

HOST: Now would anyone like to ask any questions of our guest tonight? Is that OK, Lucinda? I don't want to impose on you. Just thought everyone would be really interested to have a chance to talk.

LUCINDA: Of course.

HOST: Feel free to talk about your own work, people. No point in hiding your light under a bushel.

LUCINDA: What is a bushel?

HOST: We're asking the questions! Anyone?

[An insignificant YOUNG WOMAN in the corner tentatively raises her hand. LUCINDA looks interested. MAN #1, a self-important older male, stands up to speak though, moving slightly too aggressively, a glass of wine spilling in his hand. LUCINDA can be seen to take a small step back, catching his sharp movement in her peripheral vision.]

MAN #1: Well I've written THREE novels now, drawing on some twenty years experience in headhunting. I was wondering what advice you had for the, ah, more advanced writers out there with a significant body of work? Should I send synopses of all of them?

HOST: And also, what is the plural of synopsis?

LUCINDA: Gosh, plural of synopsis. I'm not sure there should be one. I'm not sure that was ever meant to be, if you get my drift. My advice to you is to choose the one synopsis you think we would be interested in. And if there isn't one, please don't send it on the off chance we'll read it and change our prejudices just for you.

MAN #1: Only one though?

LUCINDA: Well, maybe it's just me. I'm sure there's some kind of literary porn out there in which editors and agents beg for simultaneous submissions from the same author. Not in real life though. I find the thought rather depressing. It's always men that do that, too. I assume your stories are all in a consistent genre, at least?

MAN #1: Fast paced thrillers set in the world of executive recruitment. I've had interest from several people.

LUCINDA [looking deeply sceptical now]: Any agents?

MAN #1: Well, I don't think agents really grasp the potential of this kind of work. I don't think they really see where the market is going to be. I guess they are a stage removed from actual publishing...

HOST: OK, let's move on to the next question...

[The YOUNG WOMAN in the corner tentatively raises her hand again. LUCINDA looks towards her encouragingly. But a self-important OLDER WOMAN interrupts.]

OLDER WOMAN: Yes. Lucinda. I wondered, with respect, what advice you could give me as to my novel set in a retirement home. Given that you are a commissioning editor probably still in your twenties...

LUCINDA: Thank you. I mean, I wish.

OLDER WOMAN: ...it's hard to see how you would quite empathise with that subject matter. And that audience. But there is a great readership among older people, that isn't being properly considered.

LUCINDA: Well I understand what you're saying. Although I generally think that anything that's written with empathy will appeal to anyone who has empathy. I published a novel recently about a group of pigeon breeders in Manchester , wich I'd have to admit is beyond my usual horizons. It was the warmth of the thing that appealed though. You just need to think about what is universal about your work, and make sure it is brought out properly. But not just in your writing - in your covering letter, in your synopsis.

OLDER WOMAN: But most novels still seem to be essentially of the Bridget Jones type.

LUCINDA: Well, that is true enough. In a strange way - and don't hate me for saying this - the struggles of younger women will always be more appealing. Even to older readers. So you will be struggling against that current. Don't hate me for saying that - I'm not saying that's my preference but that's definitely how markets work. Grannies on the bus aren't reading about grannies on the bus.

OLDER WOMAN: As a figure of influence, don't you think you might be in a position to change that though?

LUCINDA: No.

[OLDER WOMAN looks shocked.]

LUCINDA: Let's see now. I'd rather keep my job than be right and unemployed, any day. I have no more of a desire for martyrdom than anyone else. There's a poem, you know. Well, not a poem as such. Here lies the grave of Edward McVeigh, who died maintaining his right of way... he was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he's just as dead as if he were wrong. I know it might seem obscene, but we are in publishing to sell books and at the very least stay afloat. I'm sure there are hundreds of books inspired by Twilight and X-factor doing the rounds now, and the blunt answer is we need those books to publish the ones we personally believe in. The odds are that your beautifully observed metafictional story of life and love in twelfth-century Rome, the one I've been yearning to push on to the bookshelves, is not going to pay its own way. If they did, we'd publish more of them. Simple as that. Does that make me seem like a terrible person?

[Short silence. Then general laughter.]

LUCINDA: Oh god, it went all silent for a moment there. I am a terrible person. But you know what I mean. I'd encourage any writer to remember that publishers are not registered charities. I don't want anyone specifically writing for an audience - in the end, it just appeals to no-one - but maybe just think what would this novel about accounting mean to someone who isn't an accountant?

OLDER WOMAN: Although it's set in a retirement home, if you remember.

LUCINDA: Er, yes.

HOST: OK very good, any more questions?

[The YOUNG WOMAN in the corner raises her hand yet again. LUCINDA points to her this time.]

YOUNG WOMAN: I -

[Self important older MAN #2 rises to his feet instead.]

MAN #2: Just how long should a synopsis be?

LUCINDA [instantly]: 512 words.

[Small titters from the audience, some of whom are not 100% sure whether this is actually untrue.]

LUCINDA: Exactly. Not a word more, not a word less.

MAN #2: But how long should a synopsis for a trilogy of novels be? I have quite a lot of ground to cover in them...

LUCINDA: 512 words.

MAN #2: But seriously now.

LUCINDA: Sorry. Sorry. The trick is to read the submissions guidelines. They're kept on web sites, to keep them secret from the public.

MAN #2: Should it be a plot synopsis though, or more like the blurb on the dust jacket?

LUCINDA: I think that very much depends on the editor. Or the agent. I like an indication of style, myself - you never really work out much of the character of a book from a plot synopsis, but I imagine a publisher at the popular end of the market - I should say, non-literary, perhaps - would want to see fairly strong evidence that you know how to structure the story. To be honest I do too, but in literary novels it's not so easy to judge in formulaic terms. I mean, I'd love it if John Banville jumped ship and came to me with a plot synopsis like a Brazilian soap opera. But it's only ever happened the once.

HOST: Really? John Banville?

LUCINDA: And then I woke up. I was most annoyed with my husband at that moment, I can tell you.

HOST [laughing]: I just hate being woken up in the middle of a promising approach.

LUCINDA: You know, the scary thing is that someone over there is actually writing that last bit down. Anyone else, now?

[YOUNG WOMAN raises her hand again. No-one interrupts this time.]

YOUNG WOMAN [surprised]. Oh! Shit. Um.

More things to do when you should be at your writing group

Tony Bell reads Sebastian Aston's very fine 'She Doesn't Know How Tough It's Been' at Liar's League, Tuesday 9th November.

Tony : There's a really good writing group I go to. It's in a bookshop on Brick Lane.
Blogger : Oh, you too? When do you go then?
Tony : Tuesday evenings.
Blogger : (Thinks to himself) Like this one?

Man vs Nanny State

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A little story I read out recently at Storytails.

Fortunately I managed to finish this disturbing tale before the Hassidic Jewish family arrived for their family photograph session. Here's to comic double-bookings of upstairs pub rooms...

Compare and contrast

No pirates.
This, then, is my challenge. A story from one of the following:
-Thriller set in an airport. No words longer than 'marmalade' required.
-Teenage romance (with/without vampires)
-Pynchon-esque description of a recent political event
All I can say is this: there is a reason why right-thinking people dress up as pirates at Halloween.

Figure 1: Rubbish vampire kid

Figure 2: Brave, fearless pirate

The Theme

It's taken nearly a hundred years of debate (or it seems like it, at least). By now you'd have thought we'd all have jet cars and be wearing space-age leisure suits, and possibly the Omega point would have been reached before this: the theme for the next Brick Lane Wednesday writing group anthology has been set. And it is

part Secret Santa, part sadism. Each person in the group has been given the name of another person in the group for whom the first person must concoct three titles or ideas for a short story. These ideas should be designed to take the recipient well out of their comfort zone. For instance, if the person whose name you've been given likes nothing better than to write a soppy romance, what better subject to give them than a high octane thriller? If your nominated person always writes from a female perspective, it's time to get them thinking like a man. You get the picture...

...which you might think a rather complicated elevator pitch. Since I chose to attend a puppet show(!) rather than attend the final decision on the theme, I was sadly not privy to the decision making process. Rather wish I had been there now. I should think it was very much like the World Cup draw. Possibly without Charlize Theron. Almost certainly without David Beckham.

Personally, I'm hoping to be asked to write something about pirates. I can promise I've never written about pirates before.

Bookmarks I would rescue first from a burning building

It's good to have a sense of entitlement

Penguin 75

Two mighty foes, I have faced and conquered this month; I have read The Lord of The Rings, and I have navigated the Great Labyrinth of Foyles to its topmost floor (alas, I failed in my quest to find the toilets). Still, I grow in confidence day by day. Come! Rest a little, and hear of my adventures.

'Penguin Day' was the imaginatively-titled celebration of Penguin's 75th birthday at Foyles on Saturday 25th September. Featuring a variety of discussions and presentations, it kicked off with the recent Great Idea series that you and I have probably both softly pawed over in some bookshop or another, whether seriously interested in the content of the book or not. An impressively fluid discussion on the role of non-fiction then followed, which lives on my mind for the description of particularly florid biography as 'a higher drivel', a pejorative of rare beauty and distinction. I definitely had one celebrated biographer in mind when I heard that phrase, but the will to fairness in me reminds me that fiction is at least as much a perpetrator as non-fiction. In the afternoon, Rebecca Hunt talked with enthusiasm of her journey towards the publication of Mr Chartwell, a discussion that for some reason hinged as much on the cover design as the content. I mean, it's OK, I suppose...

David Vann's strangely self-deprecatory sense of wonder (am I really here? who are all these lovely people? Is this microphone for me?) was balanced by an amusing and oftentimes cynical Colm Toibin. With the exception of the sadly inevitable question 'do you think creative writing can be taught?' - to my mind, not a great step up from 'what's your favourite colour then?' - I came away from this day of nicely ambling literary conversation with a warm glow. Never mind that almost everyone there was probably in the industry anyway - the love and enthusiasm of all of those involved for their work was salutory. I tried to hold on to a little of that spirit on my way home, even while the tube was in a sulk and I was squeezed upside down into the 25 bus. I've kept a piece of it in a small tin in the kitchen. Could be useful for those grey days in winter.

Lit crit of the week, #2

"Oh, fuck, not another elf!"
(J.R.R. Tolkein's friend Hugo Dyson, while Tolkein was reading him the final instalment of The Lord of The Rings)

An Apology

It's no life for a book, sitting under the legs of my table to bring it to an ergonomic height. Apologies to Nick Hornby, John O'Farrell, Michael Bracewell,Wang Shuo, Bernhard Schlink, and several others. I actually enjoyed several of these books, notwithstanding the humiliating position I placed them in afterwards. I am not a barbarian. In general, I care for books. I carefully protect them from the other contents in my bag. I was brought up to abhor people who put books down spread open at the page with the spine upwards.

I have a proper desk now. These books have been released from their burden. Some have already reached the charity shop in Spitalfields, where they will now begin new lives, and find appreciative owners with well-dusted bookshelves.

Fringe benefits

Once in a while, this makes a nice change. Someone else writes the story; I merely perform it, and drink in the wild applause slight tittering from the second row. As usual, my palsied hands shake the script in front of me, visually undermining the confidence I think I'm projecting via the microphone. The London Short Fiction Award took place recently, culminating in rather enjoyable readings of all the shortlisted entries in the West End last Wednesday, and some kind of ceremony for the winners of this and other London Fringe events to come on the 26th. I was proud to take part, if only as a stand in reader for my friend Sarah, and her short story The Biscuit Man - by the time I was performing it, I'd more or less forgotten I hadn't written it myself. I guess this is what happens when I'm in a competitive frame of mind.

But, there is a lesson in this somewhere. The first rule of story competitions should be, you do not discuss the judging mechanism. Somehow it doesn't reassure me know that the ultimate winner was decided on a whim in the interval of the event, after only the shortlisted readers from the first half of the alphabet had read their work; nor that the published scores before the event reveal the judges to be of remarkably dissimilar mind to each other; nor that two judges pointed out that fiction wasn't really their area as such, but they did read it (oh good!); nor that the other judge cheerfully pointed out he'd had four drinks with his agent before he'd even arrived. Maybe it would be better just to keep the whole process mysterious?

But god it was worth it, to see how alarmed the judges looked, when a microphone was thrust in front of them...

The Illustrated Frigg

I should hastily add that despite your natural fears, there is no content here that would offend Victorian sensibilities. As will become clear. This then, is my novel Darlington Frigg. With pictures.

I thought about including this in my regular series 'Things to do when you should be writing'. But I'm only human, and I hope you will understand how in the grip of inspiration it might seem more important to create an illustrated online version of your novel than to, y'know, submit a manuscript to a publisher or agent. Damned or be published, so to speak...

"I think Jamie wrote it." "Me too." "Yes, I agree. Jamie, definitely."

I saw Bob squint at his charts, like he meant to make something out. Bob was a weatherman's weatherman. The kind who knows a gathering storm when he sees one, and he’d been seeing one for years. 'What's it like out?' he said. He didn't look up.

I looked out the window. Shrugged.

'Mainly war,' I said. 'Patches of smoke.' I could hear something in the distance. A vehicle. The mailman. They don't give up.

'Like I said,' Bob said. It wasn’t though. Clear spells, he’d said. 'I told you,' he said.
'The hell you did,' I said.

I went to the door. Bob watched me. I hawked and spat out onto the grass. It veered left. Fifteen knots wind, maybe twenty.

'Spitting,' Bob said. He was a man of few words. Liked to say there wasn't time for speeches. When he was working with Dick Martin on the TV news, he had twenty-three seconds to cover the Eastern seaboard. Twenty-three more than it deserved. Some days, he could do it in twenty-one flat. Then one day, he took twenty-seven. Five seconds to indicate big government in DC, with a broad sweep of his hand. Two seconds to indicate smug liberals in New York. The network let him go.

I sucked on a cigarette. Screwed up my eyes, stared down the sky. Blew a cloud of my own.

'Chance of rain,' I said.
'The hell there is,' Bob said.

The noise of the truck had stopped. I picked up the rifle that was leaning in the hallway. Plugged the postal worker as he passed by, one-eighty pounds maybe. Sometimes it takes two shots to take one down that size. From forty yards you can see the blood almost straight away. Later on we’d spread sand over. I looked back. Bob was in his chair, staring a hole in the wall.

'Reckon this front is set to stay,' he said. ‘They’ll send another tomorrow.’

I liked Bob. Bob was a weatherman's weatherman. Hadn't paid taxes since the network stopped his paycheck. Hadn’t received any demands, and he wasn’t going to start now.

'Reckon so,' I said.

Things to do when you should be writing, #3

Write some software to help you write your novel

Respect to Jack Calverley for this.

An Admission

What do you say when someone asks you about your influences? Thankfully it doesn't happen very often. But I envy people who can confidently and sincerely say 'Steinbeck', 'Woolf', 'Carver', 'Rowling' - it's all good, if you mean it - I just can't match them.

I've had a revelation. I am not as blazingly original as I'd liked to think. The other day I happened to pull from my bookshelf a collection of articles and letters pages from the early days of football fanzines (I know, it should be the collected letters of TS Eliot, or something...) Truthfully, I don't even follow football any more, but it's all come flooding back. The following I recall from memory, maybe incompletely, maybe inaccurately, as others might recall song lyrics or passages from holy books:

'You Are The Ref: The US invades Libya. Do you a) award an indirect free kick... b) ...'

'You Are The Ref: Alex McLeish machetes to death Ally McCoist and buries him in a shallow grave by the touchline. Do you a) book McCoist for leaving the field of play without permission... b) ...'

(of a very traditional Middlesborough line up) 'Every one of them with a name that sounded like the Anglo-Saxon for an act of gross indecency'

'Bladder like a blast furnace'

'Sir - I wonder whether any of your readers have noticed the striking resemblance between Terry Fenwick and a waste of space. Are they by any chance related?'

(of a Newcastle United fan) 'Dad, what's a cup final?'

It's scary how many of these I must have recycled and repainted. Terry Hurlock, I turn into a blackbird. 'One man went past Mo, went past Maurice Malpas', I turn into a doggerel rhyme about cake crumbs.

There's nothing new under the sun. Not from me anyway.

Overobservedose, or, The Emperor's New Clothes

I feel there should be a word - something along the lines of religiose - to describe something that affects to be well observed, but isn't. Somehow well-observedose doesn't quite cut it.

I've been tinkering with a story called Go Home, Mr Frigg. It's actually a kind of mash-up of elements from the last and of course unpublished novel I wrote, Darlington Frigg - which some may consider cheating - but for me the more interesting aspect is a couple of lines that I've never changed:

Seconds after each round of explosions, the water in their hole rose a little, then dropped back. Curious. Five times he saw his own face in silver ripples, winking and pulling faces back at him.

Now, over time I've stolen this past a great number of critics - verbally, and on paper - it's 'startlingly real', advertises Storytails - and no-one yet has complained that this particular natural phenomenon doesn't, wouldn't, couldn't happen. Could it? It's like a historical account of the mobilisation for the first world war, referencing an eye-witness account of the troops leaving from platform 9 3/4.

Actually, maybe I'd read that.

Things to do when you should be at your writing group on Wednesday

See previous entry...

Things to do when you should at your writing class on Thursday

Look, I forgot, OK? Can we leave it at that?

Things to do when you should be writing, #2

Don't ever accuse me of being topical. But I'm sured I've bored a number of people in the pub over the years with my thoughts on this, and I thought I'd do the experiment for real. How to explain? I shan't. Just follow me:

A dice game.

Take six recent-ish Booker Prize winners employing a certain modish and overused formula that will one day look so, like, dated:

Pool 1:

Inheritance
Line
Life
History
God
Remains

Pool 2:

Loss
Beauty
Pi
Kelly Gang
Small Things
The Day

You can guess the rest, and indeed the point I'm trying to make.

Early results from the Booker Prize Winning Title generator:

The God of Small Things (Yeah, I vaguely recall this one...)
The History of Loss
The Line of The Day
The Inheritance of The Day
The Life of Loss
The Life of Pi (x 4 - maybe not as original as it seemed?)
The Remains of Pi
The History of Pi
The Line of Pi

Then that was quite enough pi for me. I had a go at swapping pools 1 & 2 (just to see whether it makes any difference which order the nouns are placed...)

The Loss of Life (x 2)
The Day of The Line
The Day of History
The Pi of Beauty
The Day of Remains
The Beauty of Remains
The Loss of Inheritance
The Kelly Gang of Line (ok, this may be the exception that proves the rule)

Now I don't expect this to become a craze (whatever happened to D & D?) but any thoughts/improvements to this little game would be welcome...

Lit crit of the week

"When you die, you will realise reality has punctuation." (Thanks to John for that one...)

Things to do when you should be writing, #1

Create an illustrated edition of your previous novel in the style of The Strand magazine

DARLINGTON FRIGG

“TOM WISHED SOMEONE WOULD PUT BLINKERS ON HIM, SO HE DIDN’T HAVE TO FEEL SO SPOOKED STANDING HERE AMONG ALL THESE BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE. AND FOR SOMEONE TO FEED HIM LUMPS OF SUGAR – HE MISSED MRS LUDD’S CAKE HORRIBLY. AND HE WISHED SOMEONE WOULD LAY A FRIENDLY HAND ON HIS FLANK TO REASSURE HIM. AND HE WISHED HE HAD A TAIL.”

67

Combatting Dust

... is an experiment of a novel I'm trying to write, in blog form. I know - I can hear you groaning. When I read a version of this out recently, including medium strength language that has now been stripped out, it was my uttering of the cursed word bl*g that seemed to upset people the most. But I promise there is sound artistic reason for it, even though I can't explain it without giving away the premise of the piece.

If you're interested, have a peek at the blog link on the right - or even the link here - and see what you think. I'd be interested in your comments (only, if you comment in the blog itself, I may be forced to take moderating steps, otherwise the story could get a little too metafictional and silly....)

To begin at the beginning...

I'm not the real Bruce Banner. Or his alter egos, David Banner and T.I. Hulk. By day, and by night, weekdays and weekends, I am mild mannered Jamie Mitchinson. And I don't think there's going to be any poetry here, either. Just so we're clear about that.

I have no idea what this blog will become when it's older, but it's mainly interested in writing, books, daydreaming, that sort of thing. I just hope it pays no attention to the careers advisor, and doesn't worry unduly about what will happen if it messes up its A-levels.