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.

The Hardy Tree can be found in the Old St. Pancras Churchyard in London. It is an Ash tree (Fraxinus Excelsior). It is named for the author Thomas Hardy. Before he gained fame as a novelist he worked as a trainee architect and the task fell to him, in 1865, to relocate the tombs and bodies in this churchyard because the expanding railways needed the land. He re-arranged the headstones around the ash tree as you see them in this photo. Old St. Pancras Churchyard also features in the Charles Dickens novel Tale of Two Cities, written in 1859. Photo is the author's own.

I recently watched singer Adele being interviewed by Graham Norton. She sang some old hits and some tracks from her new album 25. I was struck, watching her sing, how very old fashioned she seemed as a performer. I mean old fashioned in a good way. She's like a chanteuse from another era, like an Edith Piaf. Bette Midler is a more contemporary equivalent. Like them, Adele's song is the story of her life and she lives it in the telling. Some of her freshly minted new songs sound like classics already.

I'm at a loss really to know what to say about this piece of woodcraft. I came across it during a walk through the local forest, a forest famed for its red squirrels. It's obviously meant to be a squirrel but it looks like an alien. I would usually tag a photo with the term 'Writing inspiration' but not this one. This is just weird and I wanted to share the weirdness.  Photo is the author's own

I've been reading short stories recently; micro-fiction, flash fiction. This morning I've been dipping into 'Stories On The Go- 101 Very Short Stories By 101 Authors.' Edited by Andrew Ashling. This book was the culmination of an idea launched by Hugh Howey (author of the Wool trilogy) on 'Kboards', a forum for Kindle readers that has attracted a community of indie authors too, it tells me in the introduction at the front of the book. 'Stories On The Go.' is an anthology of indie writing and each of the 101 stories is of 1,000 words or less and can be read on laptop, tablet or phone in under five minutes, even when you're on the go. I tore through a dozen tales this morning in no time so I know that last fact to be true. As ever, with an anthology, I found I liked some stories more than I did others, and they were of varying quality. Each story is followed by a short author bio and I fancy I could soon tell by the quality of the story writing wheth...