charles barrow's writing

Writing is hard. I knew that when I set out to tell John Mann's story just over two years ago (after an innocent and inauspicious beginning, recounted elsewhere on this blog), but writing it in the format that I have has made the job much harder than it needed to be I'm sure. I rather liked the idea of writing the story in serial form, it seemed more manageble that way, seemed like something I could commit to and stick with, and it never did Charles Dickens any harm I reasoned. Well, I have been committed and I have stuck but, damn, it's been difficult. I actually think I missed the whole point of serialising. I think I should have published a handful of chapters at a time, maybe on this blog, rather than in short story - verging on novella - format on Smashwords. For one thing it's made the gap between stories appearing much longer but it has also committed me to certain story strands and I hadn't forseen that consequence at all. For example, I create a charact

I saw these mannequin's heads in a fleamarket window in London. I think there is something inherently unsettling about them. They aren't exactly lifelike but obviously they look just human 'enough' to send a chill down my spine. Many, many years ago I watched an Anthony Hopkins film called Magic. He plays a ventriloquist with a scary looking dummy and, if memory serves, the dummy begins to voice Hopkins' thoughts, pursuades him to commit murder. The dummy begins to take on a life of his own. This is the stuff of nightmares, if you ask me. You might also ask me at the same time why, then, I borrowed a Susan Hill novel called Dolly from the library yesterday. The dolly of the title is kept in a shoebox under the bed and can be heard crying at night. The book has a picture of an old, cracked porcelain doll's face on the cover. Horrible. Not the sort of image I want in my head when I close the book and turn the light out in bed at night. Whatever possessed me to cho

I've recently had an intriguing idea for a story. Great. But it's plaguing me, not so great. I'm trying to focus on finishing my current story (editing, editing, always editing) and this new one keeps jumping up and down in front of me like an annoying six year old child on a sugar high. I've made notes on 'new one' as thoughts, arcs, characters occur to me. I jot it all down as it comes to me but it's not enough to keep it quiet. 'New one' is greedy for my time and attention. I really shouldn't moan about inspiration and ideas tumbling out but they are rather distracting when they aren't about the story I'm currently working on. And  I'm loathe to turn my back on 'new one' too completely in case it's no longer there when I turn back to it at a later date. These things can vanish in a blink, as I'm sure you know, they are as ephemeral as a ghost.