Monday Morning Miracle

Another tough one this Monday - few things are likely to raise a smile until much later in the day.

I considered offering up a picture of the clown who refereed the Man Utd. - Chelsea "match" on Sunday, Mike Dean. For those of you that care, and those that don't, Dean had an absolte shocker of a game and reinforced three strongly held beliefs in our household - video playback must be introcuded to football as soon as possible, players who dive should be retrospectively red-carded, banned for three games and fined a sum of money that really hurts their wallets and referees should have their own league table and suffer the consequences of their blatant idiocy.

After the game, referee Dean fought through the crowds in his enormouse shoes and baggy chequered trousers, inviting people to smell is flower before spraying them with water. He then jumped into his bright yellow charabang and drove several yards away from Old Trafford before there was a loud bang and all the wheels fell off!

So, with Monday morning clearly a cloudy affair, it was a welcome surprise to open my email and find just the motivation I needed!

Have a nice day y'all!

Show and Tell

By virtue of the fact I’m male, and probably due to some other external influences beyond my wit, I’ve always tended towards the visual. My first attempt at the spoken word was “lookit!” (Followed soon after, by “Gimme!”)

Although my vocabulary has expanded a little since then, the theme has remained consistent. From enchanting women to elaborate deserts; exotic cars to cutting edge gadgets, my response seldom wavers from some variation of “Lookit!, Gimme!”

When in conversation, I’ll often use phrases like “Do you see what I mean?” and “Look, you’re not seeing the big picture.”

So when it comes to reading – and therefore my writing, too – I get turned off by an abundance of telling. I simply stop listening! Many of the writers I’ve worked with in the past - both in giving and receiving critiques - largely agree with the principle of ‘show not tell’ but some seem to confuse ‘show’ with several paragraphs of descriptive prose. For example, (and I’m deliberately exaggerating):

The black satin Oscar de la Renta dress created a decent cleavage from her normally miserly 32A bust. It cinched in at the waist before hugging her thighs to just above the knees. The dress, coupled with her diminutive, perfectly toned five foot two inch frame, obsidian eyes and cascading ebony locks drew both malicious and longing glances from women and men respectively.

Despite the fact the above passage contains the word ‘frame’ in a character’s physical description, one of my pet peeves (and I have so many of them they could almost be considered commercial livestock rather than pets) it doesn’t allow the reader very much latitude. There is some very specific information (telling) whereas I’d much prefer to be given stimulants for my mind’s eye (showing) and be allowed to build a mental image of the character within certain parameters rather than strict specifications.

So, I could rewrite the above passage as:

It was her first real designer dress and fitted so much better than the department store petite ranges she was usually forced to chose from. She felt sexy, thanks in no small part to Oscar de la Renta’s ability to coax a cleavage from even the most miserly bust. Tonight, for the first time, she was the sultry, dark temptress drawing looks from men and women alike.

What I prefer about the second approach is that the reader can decide how small a petite woman is, based upon his or her own perspective.

The reader dictates what constitutes small boobs, taking me out of the firing line!

The character is clearly meant to be a beautiful woman in both passages yet in the second, her eye and hair color, the length of her hair and her body type are also left to the reader to decide. That way, even if the writer and the reader have differing views on what defines beauty, the women in the dress should remain beautiful to both of them. Of course, if her hair length, eye color etc. are crucial to the plot then I’ll introduce those details, but again, I’ll see if I can ‘show’ her hair is long by allowing her to unpin it and let it fall rather than tell the reader she has shoulder length hair.

For every person who likes to be shown, there is another who reads my work and says it’s lacking a few paragraphs of descriptive prose because they simply can’t picture the cottage without knowing the make and model of the fridge or the pattern of the curtains in the living room.

All I know for certain is that I learn better when shown rather than told.

Just ask my wife!

Monday Morning Miracle

Today's miracle comes courtesy of an email I received from my baby brother, back in sunny Bournemouth.

I don't know who actually created these pics., but aside from a lot of time on their hands, they also have considerable photoshop skills!

Here are the best of the "How they'd look, if they weren't famous" collection, leading off with my personal favorite, Tom Cruise!

Now I too can look like Johnny Depp!

I have an aunt who looks a lot like Pam!

The New Royal Family of LA!

Methods of Drafting

When I first started writing with a view to getting published, my methods were quite haphazard. I’d come up with an idea or find a prompt in a literary magazine competition and allow the kernel of a story to roll around in my head like a snowball, gathering weight and girth, until I was ready to start writing.

At some point along that writing path I would go back to the beginning, essentially to refresh myself of the premise, and find myself spending hours – sometimes even days – fine tuning a single scene. I would become so caught up in the detail that the story itself lost momentum. Additionally, I invested so much in the scene that it became a cast in stone element of the story, regardless.

By nature, I lose interest easily. I’m not quite Homer Simpson - The problem with first person POV is…Oh look, a split infinitive! – but, when the story doesn’t move from my head to the screen at a fair clip, my mind starts leaping ahead to the next idea. That dictated a more structured approach to drafting would be required, if I was going to successfully complete a story.

So I started writing a brief scene-by-scene draft:

1. Danny prepares a birthday surprise to bring to his girlfriend’s apartment and wake her with breakfast in bed and an expensive gift.

2. Danny arrives to find her ex-boyfriend’s car in the drive. Internal struggle = silent retreat or confrontation?

3. etc.

This approach gave me a direction from the outset and immediately improved my ratio of completed to commenced stories but new problems arose; while I was not dropping back into earlier scenes and fine tuning them to death mid flow, I was still writing each scene in full detail before moving to the next. The effect was, by the time I’d reached the end of the draft I had no energy or enthusiasm to go back and improve the areas that needed work. I can see this in some of those earlier stories if I read them back now – they are still not bad, in my humble opinion, but they could be so much better if I’d aggressively edited them after finishing the first draft.

Now I have employed yet another system which, based upon the speed and ease “Mirror Man” is approaching the end of the first draft, is my most suitable yet. I started out by writing a synopsis of the story. I then took a notebook and jotted down brief physical and mental characteristics of the main players, details of anticipated locations and any other pertinent information that needed to be carried throughout the story.

From there I drafted the outline of the story, usually writing a sentence or two for each intended chapter - sometimes a little more if I had some vivid ideas for the scene.

Once that outline was completed, I looked at it globally, to see where foreshadowing and back story might be useful and then set off writing the first draft. While I wrote that first draft, new ideas came to mind, secondary plot threads, enhanced character details etc. but rather than get bogged down, I made notes and moved on.

I expect to finish this first draft in the coming weeks and at that point I’m going to put “Mirror Man” away for at least two weeks before taking out those notes, returning to Chapter One, and enriching the prose.

For example, Chapter 1 begins:

A glass-walled restaurant, slowly revolving 800 feet above the bright city lights of Las Vegas seemed a far from ideal dining experience for a man afraid of heights, confined spaces and crowds.

"Agora-acro-claustrophobia?" Valentine asked, eyebrows raised.

It sounded too ridiculous to be true and, squeezed into a large red Hawaiian shirt and cargo pants, the little man looked as if he should be joking; he was the embodiment of the Pillsbury doughboy on vacation. The expression on his face, however, was as sober as a ‘Mothers Against Drunk Drivers' meeting.

Pillsbury took a handkerchief from his pants-pocket and dabbed at the sweat that ran like a mountain spring from the dome of his bald head. "I'm not sure that's a real word, but yeah, it sums up the condition pretty well."

"So what possessed you to have dinner at the ‘Top of the World' restaurant?" Valentine continued, hoping conversation might distract the man from his impending coronary.

"My psychiatrist said I needed to face my fears," Pillsbury said, unleashing another barrage of finger-prods upon the elevator's call button.

"Sound advice, no doubt, but are you sure he meant you to face them all at once?"

***

My notes, among other things, address the following:

1. Need to establish that the restaurant is also very busy, to satisfy Pillsbury’s fear of crowds.
2. Could ‘Mothers Against Drunk Drivers’ be abbv. to MADD? Is that acronym widely known?
3. Exact location in restaurant is not clear. Need to establish their location as being the lift lobby, much sooner.

Etc.

I can’t say if I’ve reached the final evolutionary development in my writing technique yet, but I’m as comfortable and as excited about writing as I’ve ever been and I haven’t yet lost interest in…Oh look, a dangling preposition.

Monday Morning Miracle

Last week was special! You'd be forgiven for thinking that a work week which began on Tuesday would feel shorter than usual, wouldn't you?

Here's hoping that this week doesn't drag it's ass quite so much.

This clip, gave me quite a giggle last Wednesday, when it popped up in my inbox, despite having spent 8 hours in a pointless meeting that kept me at work until gone 7.00 pm. I hope it brings a smile :)

Happy Monday.

Cancun, Not Just for Drunken Spring Breakers

I have to confess, I was wary of our trip to Cancun. We'd originally planned on St.Lucia but work demands meant I could only take a week off, so we opted for somewhere closer to home, on a direct flight path, so that we didn't spend half the vacation in the air or at airports waiting for connections.

I know what I want from a summer holiday destination; deserted beaches, cobalt blue water, rich and vibrant local culture, new foods and a distinct shortage of loud tourists in even louder shirts. Since arriving in the U.S. several years ago, all I have ever seen or heard about Cancun involved drunken American teens and spring break debauchery - definitely not my idea of paradise.

But needs must when the paymaster wants you back by Monday, so Cancun it was! We selected a hotel that wasn't 'All inclusive' - I prefer not to give all my money to the giant corporations and let some trickle down to the small businesses - and looked forward to a family vacation that didn't involve theme parks, cartoon characters and overpriced crappy merchandise.

A week before our departure, Hurricane Dean threatened to spoil everything but fortunately (for Cancun as well as my own selfish agenda) Dean went south and zipped through some very lightly populated areas. The effects of Hurricane Wilma, 2 years earlier, are still very evident in the swathes of dead trees and vegetation in the areas outside the city and the still derelict buildings dotted around the booming hotel zone, so I'm sure the residents of Cancun let out a collective sigh of relief when they were bypassed this time.

On arrival at our hotel, I asked the receptionist if we could have our two rooms side by side or at the very least, close together. With a smile he advised that we could have an entire floor, if we wanted! Because of the threat of Hurricane Dean, coupled with the end of the U.S. vacation season, Cancun was everything I look for and nothing like I'd feared.

Of course, the first day was a beach day - everybody was the color of polished mahogany except the three of us - so we selected a spot by the infinity pool, made friends with a waiter and settled in for some reading, rays and rum punch. I finished "American Gods" just as the sun melted the glue and half the book blew out to sea.

Thanks to the earlier weather conditions, the waves were quite frisky and as the girls were still engrossed in their own books, I went for a session of body surfing and was pleased to find I've still got it!

There are many options for dining out in Cancun, from gourmet to Mickey D's and everything in between. I was interested to see that in Mexico, what restaurants in Texas call 'Mexican' food, is called 'Texan' food in Mexico.

I'd be hard pressed to chose a favorite eatery; "Lorenzillo's" (right) is beautifully located, though I'm not a seafood eater so the girls enjoyed it more than I.

"Blue Bayou", conveniently located in our hotel was a gourmet treat of award winning Cajun cuisine and I heartily recommend the duck.

The restaurant which managed to please all three of us was "Saluté" where the food, drinks and service were all impeccable.

Our first excursion was to the incredible Mayan city Chichen Itza. The journey from Cancun takes several hours but it's well worth it! Ours was broken up by a stop at a Cenote - a sinkhole in the limestone.

A picture from inside the Cenote. The 'strings' trailing down from the top are roots, stretching to reach the water.

Chichen Itza, once the political and economic centre of the Mayan Civilization, has been named one of the new seven wonders of the World - due in part to the incredible understanding of astronomy, mathematics and acoustics demonstrated in the construction. Words and pictures can't adequately describe this awesome site!

The trip to the city also involved a bathroom break, where I didn't meet any politicians or aging pop stars loitering in the cubicles, but I did see this equally unwanted occupant!

The next excursion took us to Coba for a day combining adrenaline rushes with cultural education where, in addition to a more 'hands on' Mayan Ruin, we rappelled 60 feet down into a cenote, did a bit of cave diving, flew across a croc-filled lake on a zip line, ate iguana, received a blessing from a Mayan priest, explored the jungle and generally felt like Indiana Jones!

Ariel view of the temple at Coba, (no, I can't fly - I scanned a postcard!).

The same temple from the base, 120 steps from the top!

A Mayan Ball Court - perhaps the precursor to basketball.
The game, called “pok ta pok,” involved keeping the ball off the ground and putting it through the ring on the wall using, primarily, the hips and thighs! In 'special' games, during times of need, the captain of the winning team was beheaded as a sacrifice to the gods. Winning truly wasn't everything in Mayan culture!

Inside the Cenote

Rappelling into the (bloody cold) water. In addition to the temperature, the water is also very fresh and salt free, making it incredibly easy so swim like a brick!

Lastly, a few pictures of the other jungle natives!

Other trips involved a Jungle tour by speed boat and snorkeling on the reef, both fantastic experiences but without a waterproof camera, the memories are confined to my head.

Though I started out this post by deriding the intoxicated teens of Cancun, we imbibed our fair share (and then some) of the local spirit, and brought home some souvenirs that I'm enjoying on a nightly basis rather than go cold turkey.

For those of you that haven't seen one, here's the beautiful view of a Tequila farm!


After a week in Cancun I can honestly say, chose the time of year that appeals most to you (on or off season) and get down there. Just make sure you set aside at least two days of sobriety and see the other wild side!

Back from vacation and all I need now is a rest.

Cancun was fantastic and absolutely nothing like I expected. I think the heavy rains and wind that accompanied the outside edge of Hurricane Dean swept the streets clean of drunk American teens and their stomach contents, leaving us with a truly beautiful, and extraordinarily quiet Caribbean setting.

We have several hundred photographs of climbs up Mayan temples, abseiling down sinkholes, cave diving and of course tequila-fuelled adventures, but I need to organize these into coherent thoughts before attempting to convey them.

I did come back home to a rather intriguing request to re-write a short story I'd submitted a long time ago to a literary magazine. They suggested a re-write with a change in POV to third person.

I've spent the best part of today turning it around because I really had planned to focus on finishing Mirror Man before the end of the year and leaving the short stories alone until then.

So, here is the re-write. If anybody sees something I missed, there's a Chunky Caramel Kit Kat in the mail with your name on it.

I'm also open to title suggestions because I think this one sucks.

*****

Growing Old with Grace
By
Mike Davis

Exhaust fumes drift on the still air and the scent of gasoline and burning rubber fuels his adrenaline. It’s been a long time since he last experienced this pre-race thrill but he’s confident the nerves will calm just as soon as his gloved hands grip the steering wheel and the lights flash from red to green.

That was how it used to be, but the years and the pounds have piled on since his last race and reaction speeds, like hairlines, deteriorate with time. He’s starting from the back of the grid, so at least he won’t get shunted from behind by one of the new breed of impatient, impetuous drivers.

The mechanics make their final checks and adjustments while he walks the track. Back in the day, he would follow this same routine almost religiously. There’s much to learn from the tire tracks of previous racers - those who chose a good racing line and those who pushed their machines just a little too hard and paid the price. The barriers bear the telltale dents of miscalculated cornering speeds.

The young pretenders watch his every move from the pit lane, nudging each other and discretely pointing. Their giggles are not borne out of confidence though. They seem a little unnerved, as well they should; they are in the presence of a master.

The mechanic gives him the thumbs up. “You’re good to go.”

Slipping the white cotton balaclava over his head, he climbs in to the idling machine. It’s time for more pre-race routines: safety harness buckled; crash helmet on; chin strap fastened; visor down. He revs the engine hard; three short roars from the beast signaling that he’s ready to roll.
Taking his place at the back of the starting grid, he notes with pride that the nerves have indeed faded.

The ‘Ice Man’ is back!

The lights flash from red to green and it’s obvious his reaction speeds have suffered very little; he makes up one place right from the go. The first few corners are a blur and as they come around for the long straightaway he’s right up on the next car. They touch wheels briefly bringing an annoyed twitch from the other driver.
Watch and learn, kid!
It’s all part of his race strategy - stick on their tails like glue and harass them into making a mistake. Before long the plan begins to pay dividends. Number eighteen gets out of shape going into the chicane and he screams up on the inside, taking the racing line and another place closer to the leader.

This is too easy, he thinks, the helmet concealing his maniacal grin. The young guns with their loud-mouthed bravado and cocky swaggers have nothing that comes close to countering the experience of a cool-headed tactician.

Five laps in and he’s made it up to second place. The lead car, number Seven, is driving well, holding the racing line and remaining unflustered by his ever-looming presence. They’re locked in battle, turn after turn, circuit after circuit, until the marshals indicate the start of the last lap.
It’s now or never, he thinks, steeling himself. Time to make my move.

As they streak toward the last hard right before the final straightaway, he doesn’t ease up on the gas. Car number seven slows and they make contact. Still he doesn't let up, forcing his rival out wide. Number Seven’s brakes lock and puffs of rubber smoke waft up from the wheel-wells.
Screaming past on the inside, the old master takes the checkered flag, fist pumping the air in a triumphant salute that echoes his glorious past!

In the pit lane, he climbs from the car, removing his helmet and bracing himself for the inevitable recriminations. Losing a race can bring out the worst in a driver - so he’s been told!

“Dad! You Suck!”
“Yeah Uncle Danny, you made me crash into the wall!”
“Welcome to the real world, Kids. This is Go-Karting, not Playstation. And I am still undefeated. I am the Champion!”

He makes a ‘Loser’ sign on his forehead with a thumb and forefinger and runs towards the podium, taking his place on the winners stand. His wife, sitting in the spectator’s gallery, shakes her head in despair.

“What?” he asks, his voice raising an octave. “They laughed at me!”
“They’re 13 year old girls!”
“They said I was too heavy and my cart wouldn’t be able to keep up but I think they learned a valuable lesson here today!”
“Yes. I think they did,” she says, leading his daughter and nieces to the ice-cream kiosk.
“Hey, maybe tomorrow we can go Paint balling!” he calls out, chasing after them.

THE END