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Monthly Archives: June 2011

Second Novel Blues

21 Tuesday Jun 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in All Things Writing

≈ 3 Comments


Having spent the past few weeks working on my second novel, I decided at the weekend to expand its range and depth of story. I spend the guts of the past few days working on a detailed synopsis of the plot from start to finish. I prefer to map it all out so I know where I’m headed.

However, I realised that very similar in structure and plot to my first novel.  I’m off a mind to scrap it and start over but I am wrecking my brain to think of a credible and complex crime plot but my brain is pickled. I can think of basic linear plots but when it come to labrynthine plots and strands all weaved together, forget it.

Am I being thick/stupid?

Why am I writing crime fiction even? What’s my spur to write it or wanting to write it?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I like the idea of twisted fate but modern crime novels  have more complexity than the typical user-guide of a nuclear powerstation.

Is such compexity absolutely necessary however?

How many of us, when reading crime fiction, follow every strand, every plot twist and nuance? How many of us even read them to work out who-dunnit? I certainly dont. I find it quite difficult to follow such plots without investing in   multicoloured post-it notes and notebooks but I dont want to be so celebrally challenged like that. It sounds too much like homework or doing the Times crypic crossword times 20.

I read fiction for the general story and for the texture. I rarely remember a thing about what I read once done but I know I’ve enjoyed it and that’s ok to a point but it doesn’t make for terribly good conversation. Not for me are discussions about main characters and what they got up on page 122 when in fact, they said that on page 80 and said this on page 232 etc. Details aint for me or perhaps that’s a lazy way of thinking. I dont know.

Perhaps I’m having a bad day of writer’s bloc and writer’s repetition.

Advice on a postcard please  🙂

The Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction

21 Tuesday Jun 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in All Things Writing

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Fiction, Frankson, Martin J Frankson, Noir, writing


I came across interesting if not antiquated literary relic. Here is Fr. Ronald Knox’s famous Ten Commandment list for Detective Novelists (copyright © 1929 Ronald Knox and Pope Somebody):

  1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.
  2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
  3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
  4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
  5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
  6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
  7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
  8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
  9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
  10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

You will note, of course, that every one of these commandments has been violated at one time or another in a classic mystery novel.

PS: Here is the oath, composed by G. K. Chesterton, of membership in the famous British Detection Club: “Do you promise that your detectives shall well and truly detect the crimes presented to them using those wits which it may please you to bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery, Coincidence, or Act of God?”

The Gingerlight/Jeremy Reed at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, May 2011

06 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in My Favourite Poets, Review

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Frankson, Gingerlight, Jeremy Reed, Marc Almond, poetry


The Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (I’m sure there’s an oxymoron in there somewhere) is in the throes of celebrating its 20th anniversary. One of the events that grabbed my attention was the performance of The Gingerlight. The Gingerlight are the fusion of London poet Jeremy Reed and his electronic soundscape collaborative partner The Itchy Ear. Together, they form The Gingerlight

I first encountered The Gingerlight when they supported Marc Almond in Wilton’s Music Hall in London (I refer honourable members to an earlier blog posting) and was extremely impressed by the tripartite configuration of a poetry, so dripping in visual imagery that you feel the words fall from Mr Reed’s mouth like diamonds to the floor ; the sophisticated and unnervingly clever electronic arrangements and of course, the filmic over head projections depicting amongst other elements, smartly spliced excerpts from  the seminal Armenian movie, The Colour of Pomegranates.

Jeremy read mostly from his latest work,  Picadilly Bongo. Jeremy was born in the Channel Islands but Soho, London was his poetic blooding as an early adult. He has written many works of poetry, narrative fiction and biography and I will explore these works in more depth at a later date.

The performance space was like a temple, a cathedral, a synagogue, mosque or any other Kasbah of praise, secular or spiritual. Jeremy, at the front, at the altar, giving himself in an act of sacrifice, each recitation, each reading of his kabalesque curlesque, image-quantic poetry, an exposition, a revelation, an exposure of himself.

Reading one’s work is like stripping in a room of the blind. They only hear the words and may not understand them but the poet leaves him or herself vulnerable to the possibility that there may be that  one pair of unknown, invisible eyes lurking somewhere behind the curtains, behind the crack in the wall.

There lies the vulnerability of the poet in performance.

Striking, resplendent in his black beret on a good head of Bowie/Bon Jovi-esque hair, eyeliner and diamonte  stone studded crucifix broach on lapels of a suit jacket commandeered to accompany dark rock-star jeans, the congregation was a strange brew of the dyed in the wool types who  sat at the front, squatting, seeing Jeremy as we figuratively see him, above us, far from us like an angel who stands on a blue  and orange cloud that may have flown in from an alien world, is only inches from our grasp but how we didn’t want to grasp in case touching the Magi kills the magic itself.

Nifty Jim was the first track, one I’m very familiar with from the wonders of Youtube. The Thin Thief of Hearts continued with Closer. The other parts of the audience, the ones who were tentative were drawn in. This was their America, their discovery, the one I made in London last March. One’s ship can  first set upon the shore but only once. There were others who had access all area tickets who didn’t know what they were coming to see never mind whom. They responded warmly and appreciatively yet I wonder how they first reacted in their close encounter with this silver cigar shaped flying saucer of a poet. In the end, no matter the shape, we climb aboard if we feel the urge to fly.

Poetry, to me, is the like freezing a vision of the world or a feeling, scraping it and moulding it into a different shape but still retaining the essence of the original. Poetry may be oblique or obvious but its inner truth cannot be made disappear completely. The poet may smelt the plate into liquid ore and cool it with fresh words and hammer it into a different shape, a bowl, an ear-ring, a spear or a necklace even but the innate immutable truth of the metal remains forever the same.

Jeremy shared his truth with us, with all our truths, like all poets do. Each brushing of a truth against another enhances both, never diminishes. The deeper we dive into the sea of meaning, the more we find it around us for there is never a shipwreck of glittering meanings. The depth is meaning in itself. It’s a rueful day when you touch that ocean floor for where else is there to venture but sideways. There is no floor but only the one you have laid down to greet you before you leap off that diving board of faith.

Sugar and Spice by Saffina Desforges

06 Monday Jun 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in Review

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Amazon, Crime, Frankson, kindle, novel, Saffina, sugar and spice


 This is the first novel by one of the most  recent heroines of crime fiction and self publishing, Saffina Desforges who hails from England.

Set in England, the backdrop is the disappearance and murder of young girls. A hue and cry goes out. The tabloids bay for blood, the police are under pressure. The usual suspects, literally, are rounded and hounded. One in particular, a convicted paedophile with insight into his condition, gives help, understanding  and succour to the mother of one of the victims, to the chagrin of her partner.

There are several strands of narrative which are expertly and seamlessly sewn and woven together which coalesce with aplomb at the end – which I shan’t give away.  One of the strands is a family man who seeks private treatment from a leftfield private clinic for his burgeoning feelings he has towards children.

I’ve personally never read this subject before in any work of fiction and this does break a dark but new ground and one well worth exploring. I shuddered while reading this strand. I admit to being shocked at first and I wondered where on earth it would lead.

It led me to the very end of the book which I read inside three days flat – a fast feat for this blog. Sugar and Spice is not just a piece of well written, well paced, heart stopping crime fiction but has been built on a bedrock of detailed and in-depth research.

 This research, which I understand was years in the doing, has resulted in dressing the characters, plot and storyline in robes of depth and credibility. Empathy even. Empathy is a much bandied about word but to ascribe empathy to a character who, according to popular culture, is a monster, takes great skill and literary dexterity in negotiating some very precarious literary paths.

Do it too well, one would suspect the novel of having its own questionable agenda. Do it badly and the novel becomes a populist one dimensional foghorn from which one would learn nothing.

This novel is neither for the reasons I’ve given above. Given the subject matter, this is no mean feat. Considering how well Saffina has pulled this off, one can only imagine what her other and future works would be like assuming she tackles less controversial subjects.

But I dont want her to retreat into the warm beds of literary safety. In this largely post-taboo world, whatever taboos that remain happen to be uber-taboos, taboos that dare not speak even their names. That is not to say that piercing the membranes of ignorance with the spears of literature equates to giving sympathy to them or being the thin end of the wedge.

Empathy and understanding is the spirit of awareness and education and exposition. Considering the de facto heavy moral responsibility the novelist has when venturing into the Terra Incognitas of unexplored taboo-laden subject matter, Saffina has understandably, written more exposition that would be needed or required in other crime novels but for this venture into a highly controversial area, it is very much needed for imparting of cold fact and information without equivocation or ambiguity.,

This book has no doubt, ruffled a few feathers  and made a few people uncomfortable but it’s been done in an bold, gracious and extremely well written and responsible manner with no forays in salaciousness or sensationalism.

Dare I say this is a ground breaking novel which I believe will be spoken off in many years to come? How many books can I say that off in recent times?

I commend this book and have given it 5/5 on Amazon.

Available for Kindle and Nook.

Marc Almond and Jeremy Reed at Wilton’s Music Hall, London : March 12th 2011

01 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by patrickmartinthewriter in My Favourite Poets, Review

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Jeremy Reed, Marc Almond, Martin J Frankson, review, Wilton's Music Hall


We snaked our way in the dark and dim, winding and wet laneways and alleys from Tower Hill tube station, up past St Katherine’s Dock and down the infamous Cable Street and then down Grace’s Alley to reach our destination. The streets were desolate except for a couple of guys who shouted across the road

‘Are you from round here’?

Well I wasn’t but I wished I was so I said something like ‘No but can I help?’

“Do you know where Wilton’s is?”

I smiled and replied ‘Marc Almond?”

Icebreaker or what!

That warm feeling of finding fellow traveller rushed back to all of us and the four of us all walked together to Wilton’s, floating on our verbal exchanges of mutual fandom and admiration for, who is, Britain’s and even arguably, the world’s greatest living torch singer.

We reached Wilton’s Music Hall. Have you ever seen the movie the Queen of the Damned, the movie that a hybrid of the Anne Rice novels The Vampire Lestat and Queen of the Damned itself? Remember the vampire bar, the Admiral’s Arms that was set in a very lonely derelict corner of the decaying docklands? Well, that’s exactly the setting and mood of Wilton’s Music Hall (http://www.wiltons.org.uk). It really is in the arse of nowhere but like all gems, best found and never forgotten when found in the junkyard and not the jewellers. The music hall is on the site of a Victorian sailor’s pub and the interior put me in mind of a derelict church – with a bar.
Supporting Marc Almond was the wonderful poet Jeremy Reed (http://www.jeremyreed.co.uk) who performed with his trip-hop accompaniment/partner The Ginger Light. I had never seen or heard such an imaginative manner of the performance and portrayal of poetry – and I have been to quite a few poetry evenings let me tell you but for some reason, I can’t actually remember any of them. This is something I doubt I’d ever say about Jeremy Reed however. Born in Jersey and formerly an acolyte and under the patronage of Francis Bacon no less than, he has been described as the David Bowie of the poetry world. A former winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize for Poetry, he has written over 40 books of poetry and literary criticism. He cut a dash on stage, black beret, and red scarf and every so often would scatter silver glitter over his head like confetti. The music would not have been out of place in a Future Sound of London CD. It was atmospheric and sending and was set to the wonderful Soho poem Nifty Jim.

A treasure of a cultural find and Jeremy Reed is certainly a seam of culture I will be mining and seeking out for a long time to come.

And then the main act, Marc Almond himself. The audience, a veritable mixture of Gutterhearts and Cellmates (a true fan-gang never dies, we merely lie in wait for the next gig), trendies, Goths, untrendies and ultrafashionable peacocks gave Mr Almond a rapturous reception. The set was an acoustic affair, piano, guitar, harp (played by the wonderful Baby D, ex Anthony and the Johnsons ) of Marc’s solo work plus a few well chosen covers too. Very few if any of the songs on the set list would be that well known but only to aficionados but aficionados we all were. No Tainted Love in sight but we didn’t mind. I won’t bore you with song titles of songs that you may not know. Sometimes the fourth wall was broken by Marc coming down from the stage and performing up and down the aisles. He did say that he felt overwhelmed by the acute reverence he was getting from the audience hence the assuaging of heavy vibes by being physically present in the midst of said worshippers.

God, if you are reading my blog, take note. It worked wonders for Marc Almond.

What really electrified the audience was Marc’s acappellas of self penned Soho songs that sounded almost like folk songs. In fact, I did think they were folk songs but the lyrics belied that illusion. Lyrics of ‘Billy Fury’ and ‘Jukeboxes’ are not the stuff of Fairport Convention. I later found out that these were written and recorded only recently and are only available on CD as part of Jeremy Reed’s poetry anthology Piccadilly Bongo. Songs such as Eros and Eye, Soho so Long brought shivers to many a timber in the audience’s spines.

The evening ended with a standing ovation and an encore of the seminal Marc Bolan classic Hot Love which went down like a firestorm.

An amazing, enigmatic, beautiful, imagination-firing evening of delight and discovery. The whole evening lasted over 3 hours and I wanted every second to flow like frozen treacle. I was sorry that it ended but the art, in combination with the venue was a potent fusion ; an alloy of art itself.

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