Category Archives: Blog

What, exactly, is the Waters of Meribah About?

I was contacted by a college SF class, asking me about my short story The Waters of Meribah. In particular, they wanted to know, what did it mean? Here’s my reply…

My degree was in Mathematics. I’m fascinated by what can be mathematically proven and what can’t. I’m intrigued by the fact that maths reveals so much about the universe, and that leads me to wonder about the things that aren’t revealed. The things we simply can’t comprehend.

I’d been planning a story describing the gradual process of changing from human into the other when a friend of mine lent me a book. Inside it was a photocopy of the passage from The Waters of Meribah, being used as a bookmark. I don’t remember what the book was, but the bookmark captivated me. What really struck me about the passage was that Moses and Aaron’s reaction was quintessentially human: they questioned.

Now, a recurring theme in Science Fiction is our relationship with the alien. In my story I wanted to examine the totally alien, something so alien that humans couldn’t comprehend it. Something so alien that in order to understand it, we would have to stop being human.

I didn’t know the ending to the story when I began writing, but as it progressed, as Buddy Joe changed, I realized that what made something truly alien wasn’t a different body, or different emotions, it was something that struck at the heart of what it is to be human: to think, to reason, to question. If something is truly alien, it won’t think as we do. If the alien visits our world, we won’t be able to comprehend it,

If we are to understand the alien, if we are to gain a greater understanding, we have to do what Buddy Joe does at the end of the story. We have leave to our current minds behind in this world.

I’m not sure that the above answers any questions, I’m not sure it even answers mine. I suppose if the answers were clear cut, I wouldn’t have written the story, I’d have just done some maths instead…

Change

I’ve just changed the hosting for my websites. I’ve been meaning to do it for a couple of years now, but there are always other things to do.  Add to that the worry that there are so many services dependent upon the hosting provider its no surprise that I ended up staying where I was, paying over the odds for a declining service.

That’s the modern business model, get you tied down to so many different services you find it harder and harder to move. That’s why Apple and Google like to make themselves so indispensable to all the different parts of your life. That’s why people hate to move banks: they’re worried about the fuss of changing all their standing orders. Well, I moved banks in the mid 90’s, and once I’d done it I realised how easy it was to do it a second time. Once you become aware of how something works you become free to uproot and move somewhere better. People accept second best because they’re afraid to move on. They’re afraid because they don’t know how.

That’s my view, at least.

Vincent Deary writes far more convincingly on why people find it so difficult to change in his book How We Are (How to Live Trilogy 1).

Vincent Deary is a health psychologist, but don’t hold that against him. He’s written a quietly literary book that meanders through an impressive range of sources and references on just why people are creatures of habit. From urban planners to Terry Pratchett, from Primo Levi to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this is a book packed full of small revelations that unite to form an oddly positive and refreshingly different perspective on what it is to be human.

As for the new webhosting… Well, so far it’s very, very good indeed. So good I’m thinking of giving them a mention on my tech site.

 

 

Why I Wrote Dream London

Some years ago I was standing outside Dobcross Brass Band club, just an hour before midnight. The dark hills rose up to touch the sky and then sky rose up forever. The sounds of brass bands faded in and out of hearing as the breeze stirred the warm June air…

I was there to watch my daughter march to the last competition of the Saddleworth Whit Friday Band contest. Around thirty children lined up in rows and, at the signal, began to march. This was their home town gig: the people of Dobcross applauded loudly as they marched away. The scene reminded me of other times that young people, not that much older then these, had marched away in uniform to the applause of villagers.

But I digress. That’s not why I wrote Dream London, although the event described above did inspire some of the final scenes in the book.

I could digress further and talk about Occupy London, of making the trip to visit the protesters camping outside St Paul’s Cathedral, back when people were still indignant about the Financial Crisis. I could talk about that but, like the brass bands, although the event inspired the plot of the book, it’s not the reason why I wrote the book.

The main reason that I wrote Dream London was that I wanted to make sense of something that had been living in my imagination for years. I had a place in my mind that was obviously inspired by my time living in London, but I didn’t understand what the place was. I’d imagined walking some of the streets, in my mind I’d spoken to some of the inhabitants. I’d even dreamed about visiting an abandoned church there, painted purple and decorated with stars. The trouble is, none of the things that I imagined made any sense,

I had a collection of scenes and impressions of another place, I had a plot of sorts and a disparate collection of characters but no story. This may sound like I’m being deliberately awkward, but I’m sure many other writers will have had the same experience: that of thinking you have a story, of trying to write a story, but for some reason not being able to. I kept abandoning drafts and turning to other projects, but I was frustrated.

And then it occurred to me that I didn’t know why I wanted to write the story. There has to be a reason for wanting to spend a year completing a novel, and I realised I didn’t know what that reason was. What was it about Dream London the made we want to write it?

And so I thought about it, and I realized that the thing that fascinated me about Dream London was Dream London itself. What fascinated me was the logic behind the place, because Dream London does have a logic, even if it is illogical. I’m a mathematician, that’s the way I think.

So I thought about the logic, I thought about what would exist in Dream London and what wouldn’t. I thought about how people would react to the city, because I believe that’s the key to a successful book: not trying to make the story fit your ideas, but rather letting the story arise from the reaction of the characters to their situation. Dream London fascinated me. Once I understood how it worked I would just have to turn the characters loose…

So I thought about how it worked and there it was, the book, ready to be written. An exercise in Dream Logic. All I needed was that last spark that would ignite the process. And then a friend told me the story that made everything crystalize, but I’ve written about that elsewhere…

Buy on Amazon UK    Read an Extract        Buy on Amazon US

Boring, but Very, Very Useful

The most boring talk I attended at Loncon3 was the one about Tax for Writers. It was also the most useful. HMRC were there to encourage writers to claim as much tax back as they could when filling in tax returns. The presenter (and okay, he wasn’t boring, he did a very good job) was at pains to point out this wouldn’t turn us into Starbucks or Amazon, it was simply the way the system works.

The best place to go to for help is here: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/startingup/help-support.htm. I’ve been filling in tax returns for my writing for years now, but I still found some useful stuff there. I’d recommend any UK writer to take a look.

All the above is a huge misdirection, of course. Our overly complicated tax system is just a way to keep an excess of accountants in work, and to allow the rich and powerful to shirk their social responsibilities. If we were to simplify the tax system, a lot of very clever people would be freed to find useful employment, working for the betterment of humankind rather than simply to enrich themselves and their masters.

If you can figure out how to bring a simplified tax system about, I really hope you will do so. If not, you might as well try and get some money back out of the existing one.

Parrenthorn Debate @The Portico Library

“This House Believes that the European Union should not have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”

I was delighted to be invited to the Portico Library in Manchester to adjudicate a debate evening with students from Parrenthorn High School, as part of the Portico Library’s Conflict and Community Programme.

The standard of debate was high, the students had clearly researched their topic and spoke persuasively. Even more impressive, they proved themselves capable of listening to opposing points and providing counter arguments.

I’ve written elsewhere about the raw deal teenagers today receive at the hands of the media. Anyone in doubt of the potential of teenagers should begin by listening to the pupils of Parrenthorn High School.

Thank you to the Portico Library for inviting me, the staff and pupils of Parrenthorn High School, and the Zochonis Charitable Trust for sponsoring the event.

The Proposers
The Opposers

Six Things to do When You’ve Finished a Story

  • Put it away for a few weeks. That way you can come back to it with a fresh mind
  • Ask yourself Can I delete the first paragraph? The answer is usually yes
  • Ask yourself Is the ending really as strong as is could be? The answer is usually no
  • Read the story through out loud. It’s amazing the things you’ll pick up that you wouldn’t have seen on a read through.
  • For the same reason – if you have the time and the patience – key the story in again
  • Lastly: submit the story to a market. You can’t hang on to it forever…

See Also