I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Derren Brown for increasing the readership of my blog by, well, quite a lot. Actually, it's not really his doing, to be honest. I wrote a wish on a piece of paper and put it in my pocket. If anyone asks me, I'll say it was a trick...
I'd also like to point out to the new readers of this blog, who may or may not have spotted book launch photos on the right hand side from a few years ago, that I am thinner now.
And, while, I'm here, I'll just announce the next part of Derren's trick before it comes to light by itself. By showing a (bogus) method to the world on Friday suggesting that, if only we get together in groups of 24, do automatic writing and average out the numbers, we too can win the lottery (forgetting the small fact, of course, that he didn't) I'm guessing he may have set something in motion. I'm guessing that enough people will have seen and believed it, or think, what the hell that they'll actually get together in groups of 24 and give it go. There will probably be a significant number of these groups set themselves up and try to win using the wisdom of the crowd.
Of course, one of them will...
PS See this blog here for yet more evidence of misdirection by Derren Brown. Derren Brown fixed the lottery. Yeah, right. His second explanation was just as likely as his first one. ie absolute nonsense. Still, interesting that he showed the studio audience extra footage. I bet he didn't expect them to talk about that on blogs, facebook or to their families and friends, did he? Lmao.
PPS. My husband just won twenty quid on a scratchcard and gave it to me. Bless...
UPDATE: 15th September. Do a search on Facebook for "Derren Brown Lottery" and see the groups beginning to proliferate there along the lines of 'Let's predict the lottery Derren Brown stylie'.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Friday, 11 September 2009
Events of misdirection....
Derren Brown. Manipulator. Misdirector. Liar? I won't say some of the other words I've seen friends and family use about him tonight. They're too rude.
What I will say is this. I think everyone's been focusing the last two days on 'how he did it' when, in fact, what we saw on Channel 4 on Wednesday was a simple illusion that Paul Daniels could have pulled off. Camera trick, spilt screen, LED balls, time delay, who cares? However he did it, it was dead simple. As I said at the time on my Facebook status:
"Derren Brown lmao. He shows us his numbers *after* the BBC and everyone's amazed? That's not a prediction... Interested to see how he did it, except that the whole thing reeks of much simpler illusion than I thought it would be.... Paul Daniels could have pulled off that one."
Now, Brown always said his events would be events of misdirection. I think he's misdirected us entirely here. He's got the entire nation focused on a simple illusion, one that was, frankly, below him, when in fact his real trick was performed tonight. He convinced 24 people in the studio, and countless in homes around the country, that the way he did this was using 'deep maths' and 'the wisdom of the crowd'. He even showed us everything on video to 'prove' it.
For those who didn't see, Brown got a group of 24 people in a room together and got them to predict the lottery numbers. They were rubbish to begin with, getting just one right between them. He went through various iterations of the experiment. Taking the average of each number in the individual predictions - not much better. Then he got them to predict but stay in the room until after the draw so they couldn't profit from their predictions, removing greed from the equation. He sent them team building. He had them guess their numbers and averaged them again. Finally, he had them do automatic writing and, again, calculated the average of the numbers. It seemed the team got better and better. Some goes in, they even got 4 balls correct. Finally, they appeared to predict the numbers for last week's lottery. They were incredibly pleased with themselves and you could see it was genuine. It was almost convincing.
Appeared to predict. Almost convincing. As much as I'd love to believe 24 people in a room could work together and genuinely guess the National Lottery numbers, I'm afraid I can't. I don't have to think very hard to know this isn't true. It's all an illusion.
It was interesting, the way Mr Brown carried out that final prediction. The group did their automatic writing and wrote down their numbers again. This time, Brown calculated the averages. Without showing the group, he wrote them on the balls, sealed them in a tube and went on his way to the Channel Four studio. The rest is history. The group of 24 watched live and celebrated their victory. It was clear they believed.
But they hadn't seen those numbers on Derren's balls (oooer missis, sorry, couldn't help myself) until the show. Until after the actual lottery draw. Just like the rest of us. They had only seen the automatic writing they'd put on their own pieces of paper and would have had no clue what these would have averaged out at...
But how did they manage to get three numbers right, then four? We know this bit is genuine. We see their numbers being collated and averaged, right in front of us and them. On one occasion, a member of the group does the calculations and, on others, independent observers do. What happened with their previous predictions is still pretty unlikely, right? So why not believe they actually did produce the numbers Derren took into the Channel Four studios with him?
Well, yeah, it's quite unlikely they would improve over the weeks. Fairly unlikely they would ever predict four out of six numbers at the end of a number of weeks of trying. But not nearly as unlikely as guessing all six. (Reminder for those who can't remember - 14 million to 1!)
I suspect there were several groups being filmed like the one we saw tonight, going through the same kind of experiment. They did the team building, they did the automatic writing. Derren didn't know which would provide the right footage but he knew chances were that one of them would. The 24 people we saw today were the most successful of the groups and used to try to convince us that there was more to this illusion than we could possibly understand.
The real trick was to get us staring at the screen on Wednesday, finding clips on YouTube in the two days since, submitting to forums with all our theories and ideas. When the truth was, he never predicted a thing.
My favourite twitter through the whole event came from Derren himself.
"#derrenbrown is/was at the top of Twitter trends. This is very new to me. I'm not really dressed for it. Thank you, very kind. Xx" 5:57 PM Sep 10th TwitterFon
Really Mr Brown? So you can predict the Lottery numbers on live TV but not that you're going to be the biggest trend on Twitter the next day? Man, I could have told you that!
And the best Facebook update came from my mate Dex.
"Well I thought I'd give it a go. Did 10 minutes of automatic writing but all I could get was a stream of profanity and "Kill smug twat" over and over."
Derren Brown says that next week he will glue us to our sofas using hypnosis. Come on Derren, don't make me laugh. To be fair, you did that already this week. But never again....
What I will say is this. I think everyone's been focusing the last two days on 'how he did it' when, in fact, what we saw on Channel 4 on Wednesday was a simple illusion that Paul Daniels could have pulled off. Camera trick, spilt screen, LED balls, time delay, who cares? However he did it, it was dead simple. As I said at the time on my Facebook status:
"Derren Brown lmao. He shows us his numbers *after* the BBC and everyone's amazed? That's not a prediction... Interested to see how he did it, except that the whole thing reeks of much simpler illusion than I thought it would be.... Paul Daniels could have pulled off that one."
Now, Brown always said his events would be events of misdirection. I think he's misdirected us entirely here. He's got the entire nation focused on a simple illusion, one that was, frankly, below him, when in fact his real trick was performed tonight. He convinced 24 people in the studio, and countless in homes around the country, that the way he did this was using 'deep maths' and 'the wisdom of the crowd'. He even showed us everything on video to 'prove' it.
For those who didn't see, Brown got a group of 24 people in a room together and got them to predict the lottery numbers. They were rubbish to begin with, getting just one right between them. He went through various iterations of the experiment. Taking the average of each number in the individual predictions - not much better. Then he got them to predict but stay in the room until after the draw so they couldn't profit from their predictions, removing greed from the equation. He sent them team building. He had them guess their numbers and averaged them again. Finally, he had them do automatic writing and, again, calculated the average of the numbers. It seemed the team got better and better. Some goes in, they even got 4 balls correct. Finally, they appeared to predict the numbers for last week's lottery. They were incredibly pleased with themselves and you could see it was genuine. It was almost convincing.
Appeared to predict. Almost convincing. As much as I'd love to believe 24 people in a room could work together and genuinely guess the National Lottery numbers, I'm afraid I can't. I don't have to think very hard to know this isn't true. It's all an illusion.
It was interesting, the way Mr Brown carried out that final prediction. The group did their automatic writing and wrote down their numbers again. This time, Brown calculated the averages. Without showing the group, he wrote them on the balls, sealed them in a tube and went on his way to the Channel Four studio. The rest is history. The group of 24 watched live and celebrated their victory. It was clear they believed.
But they hadn't seen those numbers on Derren's balls (oooer missis, sorry, couldn't help myself) until the show. Until after the actual lottery draw. Just like the rest of us. They had only seen the automatic writing they'd put on their own pieces of paper and would have had no clue what these would have averaged out at...
But how did they manage to get three numbers right, then four? We know this bit is genuine. We see their numbers being collated and averaged, right in front of us and them. On one occasion, a member of the group does the calculations and, on others, independent observers do. What happened with their previous predictions is still pretty unlikely, right? So why not believe they actually did produce the numbers Derren took into the Channel Four studios with him?
Well, yeah, it's quite unlikely they would improve over the weeks. Fairly unlikely they would ever predict four out of six numbers at the end of a number of weeks of trying. But not nearly as unlikely as guessing all six. (Reminder for those who can't remember - 14 million to 1!)
I suspect there were several groups being filmed like the one we saw tonight, going through the same kind of experiment. They did the team building, they did the automatic writing. Derren didn't know which would provide the right footage but he knew chances were that one of them would. The 24 people we saw today were the most successful of the groups and used to try to convince us that there was more to this illusion than we could possibly understand.
The real trick was to get us staring at the screen on Wednesday, finding clips on YouTube in the two days since, submitting to forums with all our theories and ideas. When the truth was, he never predicted a thing.
My favourite twitter through the whole event came from Derren himself.
"#derrenbrown is/was at the top of Twitter trends. This is very new to me. I'm not really dressed for it. Thank you, very kind. Xx" 5:57 PM Sep 10th TwitterFon
Really Mr Brown? So you can predict the Lottery numbers on live TV but not that you're going to be the biggest trend on Twitter the next day? Man, I could have told you that!
And the best Facebook update came from my mate Dex.
"Well I thought I'd give it a go. Did 10 minutes of automatic writing but all I could get was a stream of profanity and "Kill smug twat" over and over."
Derren Brown says that next week he will glue us to our sofas using hypnosis. Come on Derren, don't make me laugh. To be fair, you did that already this week. But never again....
Thursday, 10 September 2009
How did he do it?
If you don't know what I'm talking about then I can only assume that you A. have been gravely ill or asleep for more than 48 hours, B. took a trip to another solar system last night or C. are not from the UK and no one else is bothered. But that's okay, because you can watch the footage of Derren Brown 'predicting' the UK National Lottery numbers live on Channel Four here and catch yourself up.
Of course, the entire world wide web is buzzing this morning with theories and ideas about how he might have pulled this off. The one that seems to have convinced most people is this idea. It fits with what Derren said, that this illusion took a year of his time to set up. He only ever promised to get five numbers right so that massively cuts down the permutations of numbers he'd have to film, right? And it fits with the footage if you watch it carefully. Derren switches off the TV when he's written the numbers down, he pauses and stands still. There's even a gap in his speech at this moment.
There's just one problem with this theory. In the second, supposedly spliced on, pre-recorded TV clip, Derren would have to carry in his hand a card with the actual lottery numbers on it. He's supposedly just written them down from the TV a moment ago, so they have to be right. His prediction can be one number out, but the writing on the card can't be. This takes us right back to our 14 million little recordings, though, doesn't it?
Whatever the explanation is on Friday, it is even cleverer than that. And most of the nation will watch with bated breath to find out how he did it. I'm going to watch it, that's for sure.
Which brings me to the actual subject of my post. Because I wasn't really talking about his trick with the numbers. Derren Brown is a master illusionist and I've seen him do stranger things. They always end up being viable, explanable illusions and, sometimes, he reveals his methods to us. Bringing us in on the secret makes us feels as clever as him, and we like him all the more. We don't feel cheated because his methods are so intelligent and novel, so that we can only admire him.
I think he pulled off a much bigger trick than predicting the lottery numbers last night. I'm the kind of person who doesn't buy in properly to popular culture. I've never watched Big Brother, for example, and couldn't give a toss what the current status is between Peter and Barbie (although, admittedly, I do know there is something going on there despite my total lack of interest...) But last night I was hooked. I was completely fascinated with how he was going to pull it off. Then I was completely obsessed by how he might have done it. I even dreamed about it.
He had us. All of us, completely hypnotised and transfixed. How did he do that?
This one I can have a go at explaining. For a start, he chose the lottery. How many people can honestly say they've never bought a lottery ticket or at least dreamed of winning it? It could be you. Probably the most successful marketing gimmick of the last two millennia. Yes, of course it could be you, but the actual chances that it will be are around 14 million to one per line of numbers, so it's not very likely. What always puts this in perspective for me is the plain old laws of probability that say the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are just as a likely to come out as any others. Last week's numbers are just as likely to be drawn again as the ones on your ticket. I remember back in the 80s some cynical comedian flushed a pound coin down the loo and said 'You're just as likely to see that back as win the lottery' and that's about right. (All of this, of course, ignores the fact there are other prizes to win, some of them well worth having, and these are much more likely to happen to you.)
The National Lottery (or Lotto, I suppose I should say) is something that has already captured our imaginations. We are already hypnotised by its power, the possibility that our lives could be completely transformed. Derren Brown was already compellingly famous but we would have tuned in to pretty well any old Joe Bloggs saying he could predict the lottery numbers and convincing Channel Four to give him a time slot to prove it.
And then this is the thing. Not only does Brown not predict the numbers in time for us to get rich (of course, that wouldn't be allowed, Channel Four have even banned him from buying himself a ticket pffftttt!) he doesn't 'predict' the numbers at all. He shows us a set of balls and reveals the correct numbers are indeed stuck to them after the lottery's been drawn. The whole thing felt a bit Paul Daniels, for me. 'I put the card you are going to choose in this box.' Basic Magic Circle stuff.
Is the world ablast with 'what a crock?' this morning, then? It turns out not. Wherever you look on the web there are hoards of people saying how brilliant Brown is. Most people talking about this agree he's a genius, and the best illusionist we've ever seen. There are others who seem to genuinely believe he has some kind of psychic power. Even the cynical ones who are saying 'prediction my ass' are convinced he's going to blow us away with his denouement in the show on Friday and are looking forward to finding out what he did.
And, by some remarkable coincidence, Brown's new TV series started last night. I wonder what the viewing figures were like for that? Tickets went on sale for his latest tour. I bet them there phone lines were quite busy. I don't want to but I have to say it - the man is a genius!
There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he has the nation well and truly hypnotised. Truth be told, I'm not really sure how he did that either. I'd kill to know.
Look into the eyes, in the eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, you're under. Buy my books. Buy my books. Buy my books....
Of course, the entire world wide web is buzzing this morning with theories and ideas about how he might have pulled this off. The one that seems to have convinced most people is this idea. It fits with what Derren said, that this illusion took a year of his time to set up. He only ever promised to get five numbers right so that massively cuts down the permutations of numbers he'd have to film, right? And it fits with the footage if you watch it carefully. Derren switches off the TV when he's written the numbers down, he pauses and stands still. There's even a gap in his speech at this moment.
There's just one problem with this theory. In the second, supposedly spliced on, pre-recorded TV clip, Derren would have to carry in his hand a card with the actual lottery numbers on it. He's supposedly just written them down from the TV a moment ago, so they have to be right. His prediction can be one number out, but the writing on the card can't be. This takes us right back to our 14 million little recordings, though, doesn't it?
Whatever the explanation is on Friday, it is even cleverer than that. And most of the nation will watch with bated breath to find out how he did it. I'm going to watch it, that's for sure.
Which brings me to the actual subject of my post. Because I wasn't really talking about his trick with the numbers. Derren Brown is a master illusionist and I've seen him do stranger things. They always end up being viable, explanable illusions and, sometimes, he reveals his methods to us. Bringing us in on the secret makes us feels as clever as him, and we like him all the more. We don't feel cheated because his methods are so intelligent and novel, so that we can only admire him.
I think he pulled off a much bigger trick than predicting the lottery numbers last night. I'm the kind of person who doesn't buy in properly to popular culture. I've never watched Big Brother, for example, and couldn't give a toss what the current status is between Peter and Barbie (although, admittedly, I do know there is something going on there despite my total lack of interest...) But last night I was hooked. I was completely fascinated with how he was going to pull it off. Then I was completely obsessed by how he might have done it. I even dreamed about it.
He had us. All of us, completely hypnotised and transfixed. How did he do that?
This one I can have a go at explaining. For a start, he chose the lottery. How many people can honestly say they've never bought a lottery ticket or at least dreamed of winning it? It could be you. Probably the most successful marketing gimmick of the last two millennia. Yes, of course it could be you, but the actual chances that it will be are around 14 million to one per line of numbers, so it's not very likely. What always puts this in perspective for me is the plain old laws of probability that say the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are just as a likely to come out as any others. Last week's numbers are just as likely to be drawn again as the ones on your ticket. I remember back in the 80s some cynical comedian flushed a pound coin down the loo and said 'You're just as likely to see that back as win the lottery' and that's about right. (All of this, of course, ignores the fact there are other prizes to win, some of them well worth having, and these are much more likely to happen to you.)
The National Lottery (or Lotto, I suppose I should say) is something that has already captured our imaginations. We are already hypnotised by its power, the possibility that our lives could be completely transformed. Derren Brown was already compellingly famous but we would have tuned in to pretty well any old Joe Bloggs saying he could predict the lottery numbers and convincing Channel Four to give him a time slot to prove it.
And then this is the thing. Not only does Brown not predict the numbers in time for us to get rich (of course, that wouldn't be allowed, Channel Four have even banned him from buying himself a ticket pffftttt!) he doesn't 'predict' the numbers at all. He shows us a set of balls and reveals the correct numbers are indeed stuck to them after the lottery's been drawn. The whole thing felt a bit Paul Daniels, for me. 'I put the card you are going to choose in this box.' Basic Magic Circle stuff.
Is the world ablast with 'what a crock?' this morning, then? It turns out not. Wherever you look on the web there are hoards of people saying how brilliant Brown is. Most people talking about this agree he's a genius, and the best illusionist we've ever seen. There are others who seem to genuinely believe he has some kind of psychic power. Even the cynical ones who are saying 'prediction my ass' are convinced he's going to blow us away with his denouement in the show on Friday and are looking forward to finding out what he did.
And, by some remarkable coincidence, Brown's new TV series started last night. I wonder what the viewing figures were like for that? Tickets went on sale for his latest tour. I bet them there phone lines were quite busy. I don't want to but I have to say it - the man is a genius!
There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that he has the nation well and truly hypnotised. Truth be told, I'm not really sure how he did that either. I'd kill to know.
Look into the eyes, in the eyes, not around the eyes, into the eyes, you're under. Buy my books. Buy my books. Buy my books....
Monday, 24 August 2009
Structure in movies and Inglourious Basterds.
I went to see a brilliant movie this week, Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (I hope I've spelled that suitably incorrectly...) I don't want to say too much about it for fear of spoilers but I will say that (no surprises) it was brutal, inappropriately funny and had a spectacular ending that left my jaw hanging for about three entire minutes (which is actually a long time to keep your mouth open like that...) The soundtrack (as ever) was amazing and I was particularly struck by a version of Fur Elise that meandered into Western-style classical guitar at each main chord. Brilliant. The acting was brilliant too. Best ever Brad Pitt (except for perhaps his performance in 12 Monkeys) and a particularly compelling performance by Christoph Waltz as Colonel Hans Landa. (Sorry for all the brackets. Not quite sure why...)
It also, like Pulp Fiction, had an unusual structure. Pulp Fiction is told through various 'stories', each having its own clear narrative structure like a mini film, but over lapping. Chronology is all over the place so that characters dead in one scene are suddenly back in another. You can only truly understand the opening when you've seen the end of the film. I adore this movie.
Basterds is also set in chapters, although the characters, rather than the action, overlap, and the action is shown more or less in the order that it happens. It's still an unorthodox way of writing a script, but it works really well for this story.
I've been working on The Killing Jar treatment for months, trying to turn it into one smooth, straight A to Z story like I was taught in screenwriting class, succeeding on some limited scale. Then I saw this and felt like I'd been struck by lightning. Immediately it was obvious. I'd already sketched out TKJ as three part TV, but also knew it was too extreme for British telly. But just because it's a film, it doesn't mean it can't have three parts, does it? Well, not according to the Tarantino school of script writing, and he's my man when it comes to the movies.
I've put it down in a skeletal way and it works. I think I hang onto much more of the spirit of the book this way and I genuinely believe this isn't just the author of the novel in me trying to hang onto too much. I just have to see if I can persuade the world this is a good idea. For me, three chapters really fits with the story The Killing Jar tells but also, its major themes. They could almost be the caterpillar, pupa and emerging insect of the story. Bang on.
I just hope the world can see that and doesn't think you have to be Tarantino to get away with it. Answers on a postcard please...
It also, like Pulp Fiction, had an unusual structure. Pulp Fiction is told through various 'stories', each having its own clear narrative structure like a mini film, but over lapping. Chronology is all over the place so that characters dead in one scene are suddenly back in another. You can only truly understand the opening when you've seen the end of the film. I adore this movie.
Basterds is also set in chapters, although the characters, rather than the action, overlap, and the action is shown more or less in the order that it happens. It's still an unorthodox way of writing a script, but it works really well for this story.
I've been working on The Killing Jar treatment for months, trying to turn it into one smooth, straight A to Z story like I was taught in screenwriting class, succeeding on some limited scale. Then I saw this and felt like I'd been struck by lightning. Immediately it was obvious. I'd already sketched out TKJ as three part TV, but also knew it was too extreme for British telly. But just because it's a film, it doesn't mean it can't have three parts, does it? Well, not according to the Tarantino school of script writing, and he's my man when it comes to the movies.
I've put it down in a skeletal way and it works. I think I hang onto much more of the spirit of the book this way and I genuinely believe this isn't just the author of the novel in me trying to hang onto too much. I just have to see if I can persuade the world this is a good idea. For me, three chapters really fits with the story The Killing Jar tells but also, its major themes. They could almost be the caterpillar, pupa and emerging insect of the story. Bang on.
I just hope the world can see that and doesn't think you have to be Tarantino to get away with it. Answers on a postcard please...
Saturday, 1 August 2009
The Big Question
I decided today that I'm going to blog about 'The Big Question'. No, I'm not about to go all Hitchhikers on you and talk about life, the universe and everything, and come up with a random two digit number as the surprisingly simple answer. In fact, it's almost the opposite. The question is much less ultimate, and the answer an entire novel, rather than anything as elegant as 42.
The Big Question I refer to is the one that all writers dread and all writers are asked, over and over again at events and readings. In terms of writers' talks, it really is the ultimate question, the one that everyone seems to want the answer to. Where do you get your ideas from?
There's a reason writers hate this question. It's the one question guaranteed to make a writer's face fall, and cause he or she to mumble something incoherent about life, the universe and everything, or claim an almost spiritual kind of inspiration guiding their hands over keyboard or dragging the pen along the page. The more sarcastic amongst these creatures may comment 'I buy them all from the ideas shop', and the more honest 'I really don't know.' The latter is about the truth of it and it's near impossible to describe the creative process in any quick, simple way.
But, now, I've come up with the perfect answer. Write about it! Create a character who is an artist of some kind, put her in a settling and write a novel. Spend the entire two hundred odd pages exploring the creative process, as well as moving the plot forward, setting scenes, adding complications and eventually resolving everything. When people ask refer them to said book. Not only does it mean one won't have to answer 'The Big Question', but also may result in further sales of said book. Win, win, win!
There's only one problem with that. One whole novel later and I'm not sure that it might not have been easier to say '27' and leave everyone to go away and work out what 'The Big Question' actually is, after all.
Empathy, I've decided, is important, and an ability to switch off and tune into the subconscious mind, hence the garbled explanations that seem to point to some weird, psychic automatic writing that even Yuri Gellar would find dubious. Mostly it comes from the actual writing itself. That sounds very chicken egg but it's true. The more I write, the more ideas I have. When I first sat down to write I had none; now I have folders and documents full of the things, sitting there peskily calling to me, telling me I'll never have time to write them all. Not that I'm really complaining. In a sense, ideas are like friendships. You can never really have too many of them, but if you try to focus on them all at once they will probably come to nothing.
If that doesn't help then, well, you're just gonna have to read the book.
The Big Question I refer to is the one that all writers dread and all writers are asked, over and over again at events and readings. In terms of writers' talks, it really is the ultimate question, the one that everyone seems to want the answer to. Where do you get your ideas from?
There's a reason writers hate this question. It's the one question guaranteed to make a writer's face fall, and cause he or she to mumble something incoherent about life, the universe and everything, or claim an almost spiritual kind of inspiration guiding their hands over keyboard or dragging the pen along the page. The more sarcastic amongst these creatures may comment 'I buy them all from the ideas shop', and the more honest 'I really don't know.' The latter is about the truth of it and it's near impossible to describe the creative process in any quick, simple way.
But, now, I've come up with the perfect answer. Write about it! Create a character who is an artist of some kind, put her in a settling and write a novel. Spend the entire two hundred odd pages exploring the creative process, as well as moving the plot forward, setting scenes, adding complications and eventually resolving everything. When people ask refer them to said book. Not only does it mean one won't have to answer 'The Big Question', but also may result in further sales of said book. Win, win, win!
There's only one problem with that. One whole novel later and I'm not sure that it might not have been easier to say '27' and leave everyone to go away and work out what 'The Big Question' actually is, after all.
Empathy, I've decided, is important, and an ability to switch off and tune into the subconscious mind, hence the garbled explanations that seem to point to some weird, psychic automatic writing that even Yuri Gellar would find dubious. Mostly it comes from the actual writing itself. That sounds very chicken egg but it's true. The more I write, the more ideas I have. When I first sat down to write I had none; now I have folders and documents full of the things, sitting there peskily calling to me, telling me I'll never have time to write them all. Not that I'm really complaining. In a sense, ideas are like friendships. You can never really have too many of them, but if you try to focus on them all at once they will probably come to nothing.
If that doesn't help then, well, you're just gonna have to read the book.
Sunday, 12 July 2009
Epidurals and Carol Ann Duffy
Yes, these are not subjects that appear to be connected on first pass so please bear with me. After all, this is my second blog post in one day, and you gotta hand it to me for that.
Yesterday, I accidentally clicked something on my iGoogle home page and downloaded some gadgets to my desktop. It could have been a disaster but it turned out to be pretty cool. I now have a little clock, a slideshow of pictures randomly selected from my hard drive and a stream of news that I can personalise if I want to. I've not done that yet. I've left it random to see what comes up.
What came up today was a link to the Daily Mail (a paper that winds me up so much I would never usually read it) about a local (male) midwife and his opinions on epidurals. As I said when I posted this to Facebook and Twitter; only a man could come up with this one.
"maternity units should abandon routine pain relief" Hmm... As a blogging friend of mine so eloquantly put it, he 'should really have a go at shitting a bowling ball' and see if he feels the same way after that.
"Dr Walsh said the NHS was too quick to give in to requests for pain killing injections." Not the experience of anyone I've ever spoken to on this topic. In fact, certainly concerning epidurals, the opposite appears to be the case, the doctors and midwives working hard to be as discouraging as possible, right up to the point where they say 'Oh well, it's too late now. Might as well just get on with it now he/she will be here in a minute'. A friend of mine was even told 'you'll still have to push, you know' when she requested an epi, as if her unreasonable insistence on pain relief was all down to being a bit of a lazy cow who couldn't be bothered to try harder to get her baby out.
His final pearl of wisdom was that 'A large number of women want to avoid pain. More should be prepared to withstand it. Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby.'
A large number of women want to avoid pain. No shit Sherlock. An aversion to pain is inbuilt in the human psyche. Jesus H C that's the entire point of pain, to be something we want to avoid! Human beings made a good decision, in general, to stand up and free our hands for other things and we've evolved well on that, the only problem is that it's meant childbirth for our species is painful and dangerous. Left completely to nature, a large number of women and children would die in the process of childbirth. I don't imagine for a second that this man believes intervention to ensure the safety of patients is a bad thing. Why does he feel that women should go through all the unnecessary pain? This kind of outdated thinking is what holds our society back from progress. It makes my flesh crawl to think that this man is involved with women at such a vulnerable time in their lives and I think it's no coincidence at all that most of the women I know have chosen to give birth at the other hospital in my city for their second baby onwards.
I also can't help wondering that, if we need this pain to prepare us, what is it that readies the male of our species for the responsibility of nurturing their children? Should we all give the men in our lives a nice big kick in the balls while they hold their new baby just to make sure they understand what nurturing their child is about? What a pile of steaming hogwash. Seriously. Does this sadist really believe the best start in life for a baby is to make sure their mother is totally stressed and in agony as he or she comes into the world to make sure they understand the implications of looking after their bundle of joy? On what scientific basis is he suggesting this to be the case?
Now, I'm not anti men. In fact, I rather like the creatures. However, on this one topic I really cannot be anything but Millie Tant and say that the first man to deliver a baby through his own vagina can also be the first to comment whether or not pain relief is necessary. Yes, there are risks associated with epidurals but, as my mum pointed out years ago, if men were the ones who gave birth there'd be pain relief developed by now that was much more effective and safe than what is currently available to women giving birth. They'd have damn well made sure of it.
It did remind me of a Carol Ann Duffy poem. It's from her collection The World's Wife, my favourite poetry book and one I was lucky enough to hear her read from on Friday. I was double favoured, as I booked the tickets on the spur of the moment and only found out on the night that it was her first official reading as Poet Laureate. I was thrilled. I've heard differing reviews of how well she reads and connects with an audience but on Friday she was fabulous.
Ms Duffy wrote a poem called 'from Mrs Tiresias'. For those who don't know the story of Mr Tiresias, he was a greek mortal who was transformed by the gods into a woman for seven years, as a punishment (!) for killing a pair of copulating snakes he'd been offended by. I think the idea is that he was disgusted by their copulation, rather than that one of them had called him a name, but really, none of that is so vital to my point. The thing you need to know is that he was a man and Hera, a goddess, turned him into woman. There were lots of laughs during Carol Ann's readings from The Worlds Wife, but this line, from 'from Mrs Tiresias' possibly was the most well received.
Then he started his period (dramatic pause and knowing look into the audience by Ms Duffy)
One week in bed.
Two doctors in.
Three painkillers four times a day.
And later
a letter
to the powers-that-be
demanding full paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per
year.
Personally, I'm going to have a word with Hera myself. See if she can turn that trick for me just one more time. I have a target in mind. A certain member of the medical profession who works down the road from where I live. I'd like him, live on TV, legs in stirrups, shitting out said bowling ball to repeat the wise words from his latest report. Or admit that he was wrong. If he did the latter then, maybe then, I'd give him his epidural. Though I might make him beg first. That, after all, is what he is suggesting NHS doctors and midwives do to the women in their care.
Yesterday, I accidentally clicked something on my iGoogle home page and downloaded some gadgets to my desktop. It could have been a disaster but it turned out to be pretty cool. I now have a little clock, a slideshow of pictures randomly selected from my hard drive and a stream of news that I can personalise if I want to. I've not done that yet. I've left it random to see what comes up.
What came up today was a link to the Daily Mail (a paper that winds me up so much I would never usually read it) about a local (male) midwife and his opinions on epidurals. As I said when I posted this to Facebook and Twitter; only a man could come up with this one.
"maternity units should abandon routine pain relief" Hmm... As a blogging friend of mine so eloquantly put it, he 'should really have a go at shitting a bowling ball' and see if he feels the same way after that.
"Dr Walsh said the NHS was too quick to give in to requests for pain killing injections." Not the experience of anyone I've ever spoken to on this topic. In fact, certainly concerning epidurals, the opposite appears to be the case, the doctors and midwives working hard to be as discouraging as possible, right up to the point where they say 'Oh well, it's too late now. Might as well just get on with it now he/she will be here in a minute'. A friend of mine was even told 'you'll still have to push, you know' when she requested an epi, as if her unreasonable insistence on pain relief was all down to being a bit of a lazy cow who couldn't be bothered to try harder to get her baby out.
His final pearl of wisdom was that 'A large number of women want to avoid pain. More should be prepared to withstand it. Pain in labour is a purposeful, useful thing, which has a number of benefits, such as preparing a mother for the responsibility of nurturing a newborn baby.'
A large number of women want to avoid pain. No shit Sherlock. An aversion to pain is inbuilt in the human psyche. Jesus H C that's the entire point of pain, to be something we want to avoid! Human beings made a good decision, in general, to stand up and free our hands for other things and we've evolved well on that, the only problem is that it's meant childbirth for our species is painful and dangerous. Left completely to nature, a large number of women and children would die in the process of childbirth. I don't imagine for a second that this man believes intervention to ensure the safety of patients is a bad thing. Why does he feel that women should go through all the unnecessary pain? This kind of outdated thinking is what holds our society back from progress. It makes my flesh crawl to think that this man is involved with women at such a vulnerable time in their lives and I think it's no coincidence at all that most of the women I know have chosen to give birth at the other hospital in my city for their second baby onwards.
I also can't help wondering that, if we need this pain to prepare us, what is it that readies the male of our species for the responsibility of nurturing their children? Should we all give the men in our lives a nice big kick in the balls while they hold their new baby just to make sure they understand what nurturing their child is about? What a pile of steaming hogwash. Seriously. Does this sadist really believe the best start in life for a baby is to make sure their mother is totally stressed and in agony as he or she comes into the world to make sure they understand the implications of looking after their bundle of joy? On what scientific basis is he suggesting this to be the case?
Now, I'm not anti men. In fact, I rather like the creatures. However, on this one topic I really cannot be anything but Millie Tant and say that the first man to deliver a baby through his own vagina can also be the first to comment whether or not pain relief is necessary. Yes, there are risks associated with epidurals but, as my mum pointed out years ago, if men were the ones who gave birth there'd be pain relief developed by now that was much more effective and safe than what is currently available to women giving birth. They'd have damn well made sure of it.
It did remind me of a Carol Ann Duffy poem. It's from her collection The World's Wife, my favourite poetry book and one I was lucky enough to hear her read from on Friday. I was double favoured, as I booked the tickets on the spur of the moment and only found out on the night that it was her first official reading as Poet Laureate. I was thrilled. I've heard differing reviews of how well she reads and connects with an audience but on Friday she was fabulous.
Ms Duffy wrote a poem called 'from Mrs Tiresias'. For those who don't know the story of Mr Tiresias, he was a greek mortal who was transformed by the gods into a woman for seven years, as a punishment (!) for killing a pair of copulating snakes he'd been offended by. I think the idea is that he was disgusted by their copulation, rather than that one of them had called him a name, but really, none of that is so vital to my point. The thing you need to know is that he was a man and Hera, a goddess, turned him into woman. There were lots of laughs during Carol Ann's readings from The Worlds Wife, but this line, from 'from Mrs Tiresias' possibly was the most well received.
Then he started his period (dramatic pause and knowing look into the audience by Ms Duffy)
One week in bed.
Two doctors in.
Three painkillers four times a day.
And later
a letter
to the powers-that-be
demanding full paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per
year.
Personally, I'm going to have a word with Hera myself. See if she can turn that trick for me just one more time. I have a target in mind. A certain member of the medical profession who works down the road from where I live. I'd like him, live on TV, legs in stirrups, shitting out said bowling ball to repeat the wise words from his latest report. Or admit that he was wrong. If he did the latter then, maybe then, I'd give him his epidural. Though I might make him beg first. That, after all, is what he is suggesting NHS doctors and midwives do to the women in their care.
Strange dreams
I've had some very unusual and vivid dreams recently.
In the first, someone bought me a bag of 'bushtucker trials' for a present. Now, I don't watch that jungle celebrity show, but I am aware of the concept, clearly. I remember Germaine Greer on some morning breakfast show and her credibility slipping out the window behind her as she complained about cruelty to insects and the crowding of the poor things in the dessert dishes they used on this show. Maybe Germain has never seen a hive of bees or nest of ants, bless her bleeding heart. She makes some good points in this article, but it wasn't how she came across on the telly. Anyway... I digress.
In the dream, my bushtucker present was wrapped in a big, brown sack, made of that fine but itchy woven material I believe is called sackcloth or hessian, though that's not important. It claimed on the label that there was some for 'now' and some for 'later'. I opened the sack to have a peep inside. Immediately insects swarmed out; electric blue flying creatures that darted as they flew, like hornets or small dragonflies. They were followed by tiny birds, also bright blue. I was with someone in my dream, one of those undisclosed people you get in dreams who have no face and body, or even an identity, but are a presence, watching or doing something with you. We both balked at the idea that anyone might try to eat these creatures and laughed at the idea that whoever had bought me this present thought that I might. In the centre of the sack there were a load of maggots and caterpillars, wriggling against each other and looking full of life. I'm not at all surprised that I dreamed about insects and larvae. My fiction is full of them, and I have a complete fascination with their lifecycle that I wasn't fully aware of until I started writing and it all came out.
My second dream was about a friend. A real friend, not a faceless presence, but one I won't name here for reasons that will become obvious. In this dream, the friend was having an affair and me and a bunch of mutual acquaintances were standing outside his flat talking loudly about it. We hadn't even considered the consequences of this until a friend of his partner popped her head out of the window and asked us to explain. I was straight in there, covering for him. 'Oh it's all past tense. It's the affairs she already knows about.'
The bloke concerned isn't, as far as I am aware, having an affair. In fact, there were some in his past but he did fess up and he and partner patched their life back together. I'm fairly sure he's been good since. I have no idea why any of this came into my dreams.
I like dreams. I have vivid ones, and lucid dreams too sometimes. I can often control what happens next and often replay a dream I didn't like and change the ending. I used to do this with fiction, when I was younger. If I didn't like the way a story finished, I would sit back and close my eyes and imagine something else, rewrite it for myself to something more satisfactory. I guess this was an early sign of the path my life would take.
I am dreaming loads at the moment, and also getting down the words. I'm working on a rewrite, so it's not all new material, but on good days I'm managing to get through ten thousand words or more. I think the two things are connected but I have no idea which drives the process.
It reminds me of a question I'm asked a lot at author events, a famous one that all writers hate only because it's so hard to answer. 'Where do you get your ideas from?' For me, they come from the writing. That probably sounds strange as, if the ideas come from the writing, how do you do any writing to begin with? I don't have an answer to this question. It's all a bit chicken versus egg.
In the first, someone bought me a bag of 'bushtucker trials' for a present. Now, I don't watch that jungle celebrity show, but I am aware of the concept, clearly. I remember Germaine Greer on some morning breakfast show and her credibility slipping out the window behind her as she complained about cruelty to insects and the crowding of the poor things in the dessert dishes they used on this show. Maybe Germain has never seen a hive of bees or nest of ants, bless her bleeding heart. She makes some good points in this article, but it wasn't how she came across on the telly. Anyway... I digress.
In the dream, my bushtucker present was wrapped in a big, brown sack, made of that fine but itchy woven material I believe is called sackcloth or hessian, though that's not important. It claimed on the label that there was some for 'now' and some for 'later'. I opened the sack to have a peep inside. Immediately insects swarmed out; electric blue flying creatures that darted as they flew, like hornets or small dragonflies. They were followed by tiny birds, also bright blue. I was with someone in my dream, one of those undisclosed people you get in dreams who have no face and body, or even an identity, but are a presence, watching or doing something with you. We both balked at the idea that anyone might try to eat these creatures and laughed at the idea that whoever had bought me this present thought that I might. In the centre of the sack there were a load of maggots and caterpillars, wriggling against each other and looking full of life. I'm not at all surprised that I dreamed about insects and larvae. My fiction is full of them, and I have a complete fascination with their lifecycle that I wasn't fully aware of until I started writing and it all came out.
My second dream was about a friend. A real friend, not a faceless presence, but one I won't name here for reasons that will become obvious. In this dream, the friend was having an affair and me and a bunch of mutual acquaintances were standing outside his flat talking loudly about it. We hadn't even considered the consequences of this until a friend of his partner popped her head out of the window and asked us to explain. I was straight in there, covering for him. 'Oh it's all past tense. It's the affairs she already knows about.'
The bloke concerned isn't, as far as I am aware, having an affair. In fact, there were some in his past but he did fess up and he and partner patched their life back together. I'm fairly sure he's been good since. I have no idea why any of this came into my dreams.
I like dreams. I have vivid ones, and lucid dreams too sometimes. I can often control what happens next and often replay a dream I didn't like and change the ending. I used to do this with fiction, when I was younger. If I didn't like the way a story finished, I would sit back and close my eyes and imagine something else, rewrite it for myself to something more satisfactory. I guess this was an early sign of the path my life would take.
I am dreaming loads at the moment, and also getting down the words. I'm working on a rewrite, so it's not all new material, but on good days I'm managing to get through ten thousand words or more. I think the two things are connected but I have no idea which drives the process.
It reminds me of a question I'm asked a lot at author events, a famous one that all writers hate only because it's so hard to answer. 'Where do you get your ideas from?' For me, they come from the writing. That probably sounds strange as, if the ideas come from the writing, how do you do any writing to begin with? I don't have an answer to this question. It's all a bit chicken versus egg.
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