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Andy Graham Author

Author of dark fiction and fantasy, dystopia, horror.

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‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

October 17, 2019 by andygraham Leave a Comment

OK.

At the time of writing (Oct 2019), I’m forty-seven.

Remember that number, OK?

Right, the book: ‘Salem’s Lot.

In no particular order.

It started slowly. Very slowly. It crawled. But, round about 15%

(Yes, I read on a Kindle so talk about % now rather than page numbers…)

of the way in, I realised that the crawling plot had, in fact, been tying loose knots around my imagination. And when the first few people disappeared, those knots started tightening. That didn’t stop until the end of the novel. And that’s the thing – no one and nothing is sacred in this story. From the initial, chilling sacrifice to the Lord of Flies to the final show down. People drop like, well, flies, I guess. They are there and then they’re gone.

The problem is, most of these people come back. After dark. And these are not nice vampires. They don’t sparkle. They don’t come armed with comedy accents and cliches and dress in cloaks. They are unpleasant and, in some cases, tragic. But the nastiness doesn’t stop there. There’s a house – The Marsten House. Its cellar is almost as scary as some of the monsters. As the author says in the foreword: ‘it’s one of the scary ones.’

But, outside of Barlow and his vampires, and the Marsten House and its cellar, and the superb depictions of some very messed up people there were a few things that jarred.

1 – the vast number of peripheral characters was hard to follow. We’re talking about a town’s worth. Many appear and disappear then reappear and I wasn’t always sure who was who. Are you the useless cop? The horny (pervy) dump manager? The wifebeater. And so on…

2 – the ending was over too quickly. The set up to the final moments were chillingly good, but the final resolution? Over too soon. Maybe it’s better that way rather than turning the last pages into a B-movie gore schlock fest?

3 – where are the rats? They exist in the deleted scenes at the end of the book but were culled from the finished version. I’d have preferred they were kept as some of those scenes are terrifying.

All in all, though, this is another one of those books where I found myself wondering why I had never read it before.

So. Back to my age. You remember how old I am, right? Go check it you’ve forgotten. I’ll wait.

Back already?

OK.

I read the bulk of this book whilst staying in a largish flat in London. I was on my own. Reading late in the evening. Suffering from insomnia. One night – I think it was near the end of the book when things had really gone belly up for the inhabitants of the Lot – I couldn’t sleep. Not because of my insomnia, but because a doubt had crept up on me, rat-like, whiskers tickling the toes of my imagination. Who, or what, was in the other rooms in the flat? I was there on my own, right? Of course I was. Just me. No one else. Not a soul. Only little old me…

Yup.

A forty-seven year old man got out of bed to check there were no monsters in the closet, under the bed, in the other rooms or hiding on the landing.

Are you laughing at me?

You should be…

Now go read the book. It’s scarily good.

PS Ben Mears (the protagonist) is an author, a ‘serious-minded person’. At one point he meets a young woman’s parents for dinner. After a few beers he goes home while the evening’s young because he wants to write. The reason he gives the woman’s dad is that he owes his current book some pages. I’m paraphrasing (badly), but I think it’s a great idea: an author owing their book words. Guess where I’m going now.

 

Please note I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon sites.

Filed Under: General, Reviews, Uncategorized, Writing

The big red button of doom.

August 22, 2016 by andygraham Leave a Comment

Hitting the big-red ‘publish’ button is hard.

usb-doomsday-hub-3Picture source

I’m a perfectionist, a planner. I’m not interested in typing up any old tripe and hoping for the best. I don’t want stray, commas, cluttering up my text; repetitive pronouns; superfluous descriptions; or long, winding info-dumps that are being choked to death by adverbs. I want to write good stories that read well, just like the books I enjoy reading.

In other news, experts have concluded that squares have more corners than circles.

This is hardly a revelation, and I know I’m not alone in this mindset. However, this tweaking nature of mine (not twerking, the world’s not ready for that) was once more made apparent this morning. I was re-reading a story I wrote a few months ago. It’s called Switch, a short story from the Lords of Misrule world. The story forms part of a compilation of stories by various authors: Glimpse.

 

Glimpse Final

 

This is the opening of Switch.

A grid of shadows lay across the bed, rigid lines of moonlight that sliced the crumpled sheets into squares. Benn screwed his eyes shut and lay still, listening to his breathing.

Had it worked?

Reaching across with his left hand, he probed at the flesh around his hip. It was tender, but it didn’t hurt.

Maybe it had worked?

He opened his eyes.

Benn twitched the thin sheet to one side and pulled his knee up to his chest. He was gritting his teeth, biting back the pain that was always there. Only today, with his bare legs bathed in the bright moonlight, his hip didn’t hurt. There was a red dot on his hip where they’d injected him with this miracle compound of theirs, but otherwise he was unmarked. He took a deep breath, and, before he could change his mind, pushed himself to his feet. A momentary stumble, and he was standing: cane free, no pain. He stood still, reveling in the feeling. Blah blah woof woof.

Now. . .

There are several things that I’d change. They’re not wrong as such (though my BrE eyes struggle with the spelling of ‘reveling’ that seems to have slipped in there), the story’s just not as I would have written it now.

After that realisation, my thought process ran along these lines:

  • As an author contributing to a compilation, my asking for changes at such a late stage is not going to go down well.
  • If I changed it, would I be tempted to go back to it again at a later date and request more changes?
  • At what point would I be happy?
  • Do I have time? (Says the man writing a blog and trying to make it pitch-perfect, the hypocrisy of life 😉 )
  • This story could be important.
  • Should I just leave Switch as it is and put it down to experience?

Is this normal?

I think yes.

I’m going to say this indecision is normal behaviour and a sign that I’m progressing as a writer. The more I write, and more importantly, the more I read, the better I understand how this process of writing a story works. I still have a long way to go, but the quicksand I’ve been wading through is a little more like a quagmire now, at least in places.

The ‘process of progress’, as with any profession/ job/ sport or skill, primarily depends on two things:

  • putting the hours in,
  • putting the product of those hours on the line.

In medicine/ therapy it may mean treating someone instead of just talking about what the studies say (this is a theme that crops up in the Lords of Misrule). In sport it may mean competing. In writing it means publishing. It opens you up to potential criticism, but helps you to hone your skills. Again, this is not exactly groundbreaking news, but for me there was a big difference between writing a book, admitting I’m writing a book, and actually publishing it.

Joanna Penn, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Neil Gaiman have also written on and around this topic.

But, but, but . . .

You’re only as good as your last gig/ story/ deal/ game, right?

Right.

A poor story, with dodgy editing (and I’ve read a few recently that have made me want to drown my kindle), may put a reader off your work for life. However, the beauty (and curse) of self-publishing means you have many more chances to keep getting that last event ‘right’. There are also a lot of readers on the planet (some still learning to read or yet to be born), and for every ‘hater’ there will be a ‘liker’ somewhere.

Publishing is important for progress.

Courses can help. ‘How to’ manuals and articles are great. Professional editing is invaluable, but reading, writing, and self-reflection on that process is the best way to improve. At least that’s the best way I’ll improve, and part of that process includes me hitting that big-red button.

The decision?

The story remains the same.

Switch stands.

So . . .

Drop me a line and let me know what you would change in the opening paragraphs. I’d be interested to see if we agree. (I promise I don’t bite.)

And on that note a huge thanks to all the authors who have contributed to Glimpse, and especially to those who worked behind the scenes to put it together: Hayley Lawson, Michelle Lowery, Debbie Cassidy, Sarah Dalton, Christine Royce Niles & apologies to anyone I’ve forgotten!

As always, thank you for reading.



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Filed Under: English, General, Uncategorized, Writing

Start here.

January 15, 2015 by andygraham Leave a Comment

Does the world need another blog with an opening post about whether the world needs yet another blog? Possibly not. Is this going to add anything new, exciting or necessary to the world? Maybe not, but I have my reasons for wanting to do this so here goes anyway.

I have done various things over the years and am hoping there is plenty more to come, despite being past the half-way point and so on my way out, as I was helpfully told recently. To add impetus to insult, moving to Central Europe has apparently decreased my life expectancy even further. I guess that’s something else for the rabid nationalists in the UK and the rest of the EU to complain about; all those foreigners coming over here and nicking our birthdays.

Goals? Wishes? Dreams? Plenty. The main two are trying to finish the day with the same number of children I started out with and preferably still married to the same woman; who I’m not sure any poet, author or song-writer could do justice, let alone a hack just cutting his teeth.

As for the posts, they will mainly cover three various themes;
– Therapy related (exercise, osteopathy, massage etc)
– Random thoughts (a catch all if ever there was one)
– Writing (it’s called Franklin at the moment)

Bear with me while I make a go of fulfilling this long-hidden ambition and you can watch me dance around the common trap of thinking that owning a keyboard and a kindle means you can write.



Filed Under: English, General

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