Lost Gardens of Heligan

Went to the Lost Gardens of Heligan at the weekend, see www.heligan.com for further details. It was great to walk around there, hearing the birds and the sound of running water. This was really an occasion where we were lucky. The weather was great and there were less people around then you would expect. This is where the photos on this page come from.

I think that the reason that the gardens appealed to me and my lover so much, is that it did seem so much like we had travelled into a hidden wilderness, which is the basic back-story of Heligan. It is also the theme of so many stories, the discovery of the hidden world or landscape.

This is an aspect of Cornwall, which I tend to forget. It is easier to get to or to see spaces of greenery or woodland, then it is in London or Derby for example.

Great idea, but the research might be tricky and the cat isn't helping.

Finally found an idea to turn into a story to submit to a steampunk anthology. It can be set in Victorian times and does have the appeal of pitting a group of stiff-upper lipped English people against something completely different, in shape of a catastrophe and changed environment.

The disadvantage is that I need to research what Victorian London was like in 1885 in addition to working out the principle of the science that causes this destruction.

As well as that, there is the idea of the no-future societies. You know which ones I mean. The ones that emerge post-bomb and seem to have a lot of leather and fast vehicles. So what would Victorian post-end-of-the-world groups be like?

The only drawback is that the deadline for this only leaves me with 25 days to write it.

Feeling tried today because my cat,(shown above) brought in a mouse at 4am. Had to rescue it and release it back into the garden. This is one of the drawbacks of summer; the cat finds it easier to hunt.

Are most horror novels too linear?

Something I was thinking of recently, is a problem with horror novels. The action can be too linear. I’m thinking of something I recently read, centred around a haunted/cursed house. As a reader, you know that something is going to emerge in this place which the happy couple have brought. It’s in the middle of nowhere, the history starts emerging and you are just waiting for the supernatural things to start, that were promised on the back cover. I admit that the idea is that we are supposed to be getting the tension while we get to know the characters.

The drawback is that if you don’t like the characters, it gets to be a long wait. True, you can play guess-the-victim. However, the problem for me is that it already feels familiar already. As you have guessed from the above paragraph, I was waiting for the moments when the monsters emerge or something supernatural happens. A lot of the surprise of the narrative felt as if it had gone.

A possible solution to this is to try to avoid a conventional narrative for telling the story, to stop the reader getting too relaxed. I’m not a fan of ‘It’ by Stephen King but that does have the story move in two different time periods. Or ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami. That appears to be two different narratives with the connection being gradually revealed. Or ‘House of Leaves’ by Mark Z. Danielewski. There is nothing set in stone, to say that a horror story has to be completely conventionally told. It could be told from different flashbacks, multiple viewpoints, starting with the ending and working backwards. The text could even move into different media as the story continues. I think that experimentation with the narrative will become more common, just to stop the reader getting too comfortable with the material.

Finally finished the first draft of the short story, I want to submit to an anthology. Unfortunately, it now has to go through the whole process of re-writing and re-drafting.

Cut Price Opera

In the light of cutbacks everywhere, a group of new credit conscious operas will be premiering soon. So coming to an opera house near you will be:
Madame Caterpillar
The Magic Paper and Comb
La Trivial Pursuit
The Plastic Ring Cycle
The Toenail clipper of Seville.

Boscastle, Museum of Witchcraft, new story in production.

Recently went to the Cornish village of Boscastle with my family and lover. We had great time walking the dog along the paths. It’s a great experience to walk and hear the sound of water running. (See picture for further detail.)

The Museum of Witchcraft is also worth visiting. It now has panels dotted around the walls to show the heights that the floods reached.

I’m currently working on a short story, I’ve got an optimistic feeling about. Of course, this is before I get feedback on the first draft. It’s for an anthology that wants stories involving two types of monster. I have managed to find two different kinds that don’t get used that much and have a reason to be working together.

The first of many moans....

Already the hype for the World Cup is starting to grate on my nerves. It’s becoming another excuse to sell TV’s. Then everybody is supposed to be surprised when England gets knocked out in the first few games.

They should do a realistic World Cup video game. “You are the England team manager. You have to keep the squad together in time for the games to start. Prevent your strikers from injuring their feet beforehand. Stop the players cheating on their WAGS and missing the game from getting stuck in divorce courts. Persuade them to give up drinking and clubbing with their showbiz mates.” Look, it would bring the element of strategy back to football and is more interesting then 11 over-paid men kicking a ball.