I have recently moved house and was going through
all my various bits of writing from long forgotten folders when I found the
novel I wrote at the tender age of 13. I’m not going to say how old I am, but
let’s just say I wrote this novel more
than a decade ago. What was it about?
Ha. Well it was about a master thief on some fantasy world who slowly becomes
more when he discovers a magic sword and is tasked with defeating an evil
sorcerer. He meets and befriends companions along the way, etc... etc. Yes not
entirely original, but what is? Also the writing style isn’t that bad for a 13
year old, in fact it’s not that different from my writing style now.
Excerpt from The Crystal Sword – 19??, by teenager
who had read a few books.
‘Elborn with his free hand found a pouch and he
eagerly opened it to reveal the seeing stone. With it he saw his brother and
the somewhat battered troops that followed him. The storm he had created to
stop them had done more than good. Then Elderon seemed to face him and grinned,
Elborn was baffled completely, how did Elderon know he was being watched? Then
the picture on the stone flickered and then ceased’
It’s not that bad, is it? I am surprised at the age
of 13, I could master ‘baffled’ and ‘reveal’, oh I was good.
At the time I wrote this escapism was definitely the
order of the day, escapism and emulation. I was writing like someone who had
read too much Dragonlance, David Eddiings and Raymond E. Feist. I was having a
ball just trying to figure out what the hell I was doing, and what the rules
were.
It was all about the plot then, creating and moving
characters around with only the slightest impression of their inner workings.
As time moved on, I read more out there books. On my book shelf now I can see
such diverse books as ‘Generation X’, ‘Ender’s Game’ and ‘Spares’, books which
are very different, following their own separate rules, their own formulas.
Over time I came to the conclusion that my
characters were just as important as my plots, in fact they were my plots.
First it was their suffering. All my characters suffered, they still suffer,
they still chafe under the weight of their own mistakes. But that suffering
slowly changed from self indulgent teenage angst to something with dimensions.
Suffering could also be overcome, characters triumph over their circumstances,
they look for hope.
What is important? You can read a million books,
live a million lives vicariously, but in the end you have to figure out what is
important to you. What rules are you going to follow? No-one should be afraid
to find their own way, because what we are taught and what we learn are not
necessarily the same thing.
I know what I like, and it is pulpy adventure,
conflicted characters and hard decisions. I’m not the best writer on the
Planet, not even close, and maybe only my mother loves what I write, but I like
to think I’m getting somewhere.
I’ll end with something I wrote a few years later,
I’m not saying when, but it may have been at the beginning of this century: On
purpose I have left it unedited just to show you just how bad my editing skills
were. (Still are...)
Take
The Risk
‘Old man!’ My Grand-daughter shouted down the
stairs at me. I was standing in the hallway ready, my shoes on, my shirt tucked
in to my beige trousers, and my cap covering hairless head. I was ready, which
wasn’t bad considering I was pushing sixty-seven. Kara wasn’t, which was just
awful considering she was just twenty-two.
‘Kara,’
I said loudly, not shouting, in response. “We’re going to be late.”
‘I
can’t find my... Oh! Why did you put my keys in the wrong handbag?’
Of
course I hadn’t.
A
few moments later she came bounding down the stairs, casual jeans and pink top
matching the pink highlights in what should have been long auburn hair.
‘Old
man,’ she smiled.
‘Not
for much longer... I hope.’
She
took my arm, and we left the terraced house we had shared since Kara’s parents
had died. I remember clearly this tear stricken toddler in her black dresses,
always sinking into dark corners. She had changed so much, bright, alive, and
she had worked hard, so very hard, to earn the money to buy me the treatment.
We
waited at the bus stop, and I did wonder what would happen if the bus didn’t
show, was I leaving too much to chance. The street was quiet, but it was an old
street, populated by old people I had known for decades. Some of them had
returned from the treatment, some had not. But still, that was the chance the
seekers of youth always took.
The
bus came, of course, I had ignored Kara’s request for a taxi. Why should we
spend more money when there was a perfectly good bus service? We arrived after
a few changes at the clinic. Jumping off on what appeared to be an old country
road, more grass and trees than concrete. We walked up the path, and there it
was, like an amphitheatre to the Gods, a white marble temple, round and
panelled, gleaming with promise, offering the proverbial manna from heaven. The
Sandman Corporation had become rich beyond imagination because they owned and
built this fantastic structure on a natural spring that could turn back the
years themselves.
We
walked into the spectacular ovoid reception, Kara clutching my arm more tightly
than she had done at her parents’ funeral.
‘We
can still go home Grandad,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
I
stared deeply into her begging green eyes. She had wanted this because of the
cancer, but even with that terrible disease I still had a month or two. By
taking the treatment I could be dead a lot sooner.
I
hugged her close. “I love you little Kara, and I want to be around. To see you
get married, have children, the whole kit and keboodle.”
She
kissed me on the forehead one last time and then we turned to face the waiting
Doctors.
The end
