Stories from history

I'm writing this to clear my thoughts as I try to get into the head of a character in The Cauldron Bubbles. The story is set in the 1820 uprising in Scotland following the Peterloo affair. It concerns a deaf lad who has escaped threats by running away over the moors of South Lanarkshire. I know the moors and they are a place of sanctuary from life's problems. The deaf lad is from the north, Dornoch and doesn't know the area and it has been pointed out he will be terrified and desperate. I can understand he might be in spasms but the moors are empty and while that might worry some people, I have always found them friendly, places where the curlews cry and the skylarks sang. A place where the wind that sighed through the brown grass was scented by the heather. Maybe what I can do is make the lad be alternately terrified and calm. Be a bit lyrical about the scenery compared to the threat from enemies. The contrast might even created more tension than trying straight terror.
One of the reasons I find this difficult is that I normally write light humour about village life but this story came to me from the last armed uprising in mainland Britain, which played out along a strip between Falkirk and Strathaven, pronounced Straven, in South Lanarkshire. I was brought up in the area and taught about Marie Antoinette and Jane Seymour at school but only learned about it this local confrontation after I retired. That is also true concerning the first Scottish parliament, which was held in Lanark at the time of the battle of Stamford Bridge 1066 and all that. I went to school in Lanark but nobody thought to mention the parliament when talking about the Norman Invasion, nor did they mention Roy of the Ordinance Survey, who had attended the school about the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober

Writing novels is fun at every stage but it's like building yachts, the biggest job is to get the hull laid up but it represents only about a quarter of the cost. The real money is made by the add-ons, the galley, the electronics and the rigging. With novels it's the publicity and advertising and all the personal appearances and talks that are wearing. It's easy to self publish but the rest is a minefield for the unaware. With help from a professional consultant, Lorraine Mace, I have begun rewriting what I self published. While I may give out a few of those to friends and try a market here and there, I am determined to get an agent. If, after the first hundred, no one is interested, then the books won't sell enough to cover their cost of production anyway and I'm not going to rush madly about trying to be a salesman. The annoying thing is that I've been going for several years and have a core readership who are continually asking when the sequel to Welcome to Oakhaven is coming out, or when O'Reilly's Daughter will become a novel. I'm looking forward to the writing but not the energy sapping add-ons. In the meantime I'm trying to earn enough from short stories to pay for advice.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober

Holiday romance flash fiction

The latest brief for a 500 word short story for Writer's Forum is one side of a conversation at the end of a holiday romance. No tears, no deaths, uplifting. I set about gathering ideas -
1. Two teenagers and the one comparing the holiday friend with someone back home.
2. Two middle aged from humdrum backgrounds finding a real interest in living.
3. Two old people who were sweethearts in their youth and have met again by accident in the hotel.
and variations of that.
4. A lesbian who has found out her orientation and must reveal it to her husband/family. Something like that would be more dramatic than the usual romance.

I'll expand on those ideas but as usual, the brief led me into other byways.

Someone who has been sailing and fallen in love with a particular boat is recalling the fun they had.
Someone, maybe a child, who has met and formed a relationship with and animal, a dog or a donkey. They can't take it home and want to say goodbye.
Someone from a city who has discovered the beauty of a landscape and is describing it to remember how it affected them.
Someone from a sleepy village who has discovered theatre, music, art, and their ambition is revived.
Someone in whom ambition had died and has had it revived by a storm and the persistence of a rescue. Bruce and the spider.
Outside the brief there are so many interesting possibilities for short story lines.

picture by Pam Pepper

www.sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober

Loyalty and commitment

In his last days, Joshua called the people together and like a CEO after a merger, warned them about the dangers of clinging to old and contrary cultures - they will become snares and traps for you, he warned. He also insists they choose where their loyalty lay.  These warnings don't just apply to big corporations, however, they apply to sports teams, small groups and even individuals. This is not to say that the door should be closed on new ideas but that we all have a culture, company and personal, that makes us who we are. Trying to imitate someone else only damages our own identity. No business can succeed if it is continually changing its focus, it needs to concentrate on its core business and, most importantly, core values. No team can win if its members are not all focused on the team game plan with half operating to one strategy and the others employing tactics used by a different team. No individual can succeed by trying to be an imitation of someone else instead of making use of their own strengths. What about loyalty? Most problems in business and work come from divided loyalties. The business only exists as long as it makes a profit, if that is not possible within the company culture of customer policy, wage rates, employee conditions, then the company must close. Changing the culture to produce an inferior article makes it a new company and each individual will, and must, decide if they can transfer their loyalty. A star performer in a poor team moving to a better one, must decide if they can accept not being the hero. The person who can't stand the boss has to decide if their loyalty is to their dependants, the job, or the boss before giving up. Loyalty is not a given, of course, and managers and big companies are apt to forget that loyalty must be earned, in the same way, as Joshua points out, that God earned that of the Israelites. 

Inspiration in the coffee shop

I gave up several social activities to concentrate on writing but found I was running short on ideas, decided to get out a bit more, and went along to the local coffee shop. Two well dressed ladies came and sat at the table next to me and began to talk. 'Did Maisie's cousin come to fix your tap?' one asked. 'Yes he did. I was in my underwear when he came but it was from Marks and Spencers, so it was quite respectable.' the other answered. There's more unsaid than said but it's the kind of thing that stirs the imagination and I concluded that I'm one of those who need to have people around to keep my creative wires humming.
One of my favourite inspirational sites is the bus when the WI are on a trip or at the bowls club. That's when you hear about all kinds of human foibles and I get several episodes for another Welcome to Oakhaven or Best in Show's Cairndhu. The big thing about those episodes is that people can identify with them, they've usually happened elsewhere and, in addition, they are important enough in normal life for them to be commented on.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober

Why review?

By the time Joshua was old and full of years, the Israelites had become a large organisation and their struggles reflect the problems faced by that kind of association and we get a list of what has been allocated to whom. Translating that into present day terms it tells us a large organisation, business, sporting, or just community, needs to review and remind itself of what it has accomplished and what its values are.  It applies to teams and even couples and individuals. We need to remind ourselves of the successes we’ve had and the problems we’ve faced and overcome together. We need to remind ourselves why we are doing things and what our ultimate aims are. It applies to careers, university studies and even school, where it is easy to give up over the boring aspects of what we are busy with, when they are necessary steps to a goal. It’s also necessary to remind ourselves of mistakes so that we don’t repeat them. But for future planning, we need to review the present as well as the past. We need to take stock and look at things as they are so that our future plans are based on reality and not illusions.

Setting limits

When Joshua became old and full of years he was relieved of leading the fight against the Sidonites. That teaches us that we should not ask others, or even ourselves to do things beyond our capabilities. That’s not to say we mustn’t try but no matter how hard you flap your arms, you won't fly. What it does say is that, as a boss, when things become too difficult for our people, we need to take over responsibility. No one can do everything. Some lack experience, some lack skill and some just have too much on their plate. For the small business, reaching beyond the business’s means is one of the main reasons for failure. To get a large company example, it is only necessary to recall what happened to the banks in the recent collapse.

On the negative side, how often has a good production official been promoted into an advisory, administrative, or even sales job and proved incompetent. The same applies to admin. people fordced out of their competence. That kind of promotion is unfair to the employee and it is the boss’s responsibility to make sure each promotion is in the employee’s interest as well as the company’s.

These notes are written in the belief that the Bible is not just a history book but something that teaches us how we should live and work.