Tag fiction

Delete #2 New Boy

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

(The first in this series was published here: https://writetime.org/anthology/)

The whisper went around the classroom, every time Miss turned to the board. Fight. They’re going to get him. After school. That’s what John Carter said. Little new boy‘s gonna get it. But Mrs Vurley didn’t hear it as she turned back to her year 9s and reminded them of the homework. Pointing to the board and “… by Friday no later please.” The bell rang and Mrs Vurley watched them pile out from behind their desks, rushing towards the door. She hadn’t heard the dark whispers but she watched as the new boy slunk away from her, separate from the rest. Did she see fear? “David, David? How are you settling in?” “Yes Mrs Vurley,” he mumbled. Mrs Vurly put her pencil behind her ear and looked at the boy again, eyebrows raised. She sighed. “Hurry now, it’s hometime, you’re out of here for today.” Looking up at her he said, “Yes miss, but John Carter said …” “John Carter? What about John Carter?” Mrs Vurley didn’t have a John Carter in her class. “John Carter? I don’t think I know him. What about John Carter?” “Nothing miss” said David moving quickly to the door. Delete.

Mrs Vurley looked out of her window at the usual scene of children milling towards the school gates, the lines of cars waiting for some, parents waiting for others. A few were on foot heading home or for the bus. There was only one small knot of boys, with a couple of girls in tow, lingering by the gate. She didn’t see David out by the gates and gradually the group of boys and their groupies drifted away. 

When David came to school the next day as soon as his dad dropped him off he ran a gauntlet of teases and taunts. His dad smiled as he watched with fond memories of his own school days. He didn’t see what he was seeing as he drove away, lost in reveries of a super posh school for boys. Delete. He didn’t hear when they said “white boy, hey whitey, come on, come on tell us who’s in that picture. We got the picture innit. Who is she?” As he drove away his brain had the scene with his boy centre stage, but he wasn’t seeing it. Delete. His brain heard the voices, unhearing the words. Delete. He moved on and stopped thinking about his boy. Delete. 

The catcalling was lost in the group, and no one was brave enough to be seen specifically to call out to the new boy. “Fresh off the boat are ya? Fresh from Alabammer are ya? Black Lives Matter ya know, yeah.” Fist saluting and laughing and then mocking his accent, like he was from the deep south and not from New York City. That accent was harder to copy his dad said David had told him when it first happened. And his dad, strong and tall and believing himself a streetwise New Yorker had no idea of how alone his child was. Delete. And so David didn’t speak much at school, not after the first day when he said his name in class and they were all supposed to welcome the new boy. Instead they stared at him and laughed at the way he spoke. Afterwards a couple of them had asked him his mobile number, although he didn’t know what they meant at first. “Oh, cell you mean my cell?” And that had set them off. “Yeah, your cell Yank. Give us your cell.” And they’d all laughed. David small and living in his head, processing the new country, this city school, the scale of it, the weird sports and having to read so much, write so much, confused and uncertain and very alone.

In the staff room Mrs Vurley was reminding herself of what they were supposed to look out for so that they could submit a pupil concern email. In her day bullying was just part of the day, some children were just marked out for it. Would it be how fat or thin they were, how shabby their uniform or beaten up their shoes? Would it be how clever they were or how stupid? Would it be their accent or how clean or dirty their hair was? Would it be how small or big they were, geeky, Jew, Christian or Muslim? She knew that it was impossible to predict, but that it hung on a chance moment, a thin thread and an unpredictable hook. And it was part of school life, ugly or not. Now they had guidelines and rules which at least gave an opportunity to do something. Now at the first sign they were alert and could take steps. And guidelines meant there was no need to convince sceptical staff or heads. Guidelines meant they could do something, not nothing. But guidelines and actions could also push it out of view. Delete.

It was Mrs Vurley’s day to monitor the lunch room so she made a point of watching this new boy, freshly arrived from America with his heavy accent and fretful eyes. She saw him sitting alone as two bigger boys took their places on either side of him. But she didn’t see David leaning forwards into his tray nor did she see the two boys sit closer and closer. Both had been held back from last year. Neither was bright and both were strong and confident, popular. They had pulled their chairs in close to David and were leaning into the boy. She smiled as she saw the Kendulu boy suddenly pull away and David fall sideways under the force and weight of the kid on the other side and they were laughing. Relieved Mrs Vurley turned away to deal with a fuss about mashed potato blowing up in the queue. Delete.

But her attention was soon drawn back to the boys. David’s tray had fallen sideways with him and Kendulu was no longer laughing, but up on his feet. “Look what you done man, look what you done, your shepherd’s pie is all over me trousers. Look at the mess you made!” And his friend jumped up to join in. “Look what you done to Ken’s gear man, look what you done.” They were both towering over David, hands pointing upwards, heads turning from side to side, voices rising, looking for the audience, for response. And they were laughing and patting David on the back. It was impossible to see that the pat was just that little bit too hard, lingering just a little bit too long pushing the boy down. David tried to stand but they had blocked his chair with their feet so he was stuck between the table and his chair half up half sideways and now Ken’s leg with its smears of shepherd’s pie is in David’s hair. It was time to intervene and as Mrs Vurley hoved into view both boys stood back, moving their feet and smug as David’s chair scraped unexpectedly back and he fell onto one knee, baked beans stuck to the tears and his tormentors with their hands in mock surrender. “He’s such a laugh Miss, he spilled his food on me on purpose miss. I done nothin’” and “Yeah Miss, it was on purpose, he’s bullying us, he thinks he’s cool ’cos he’s an American miss.” 

As two other staff members started ushering the small audience back to their food, Mrs Vurley looked at the two boys. “What’s this about?” “David?” “Ken?” “Jason?” David said nothing, but shrank even smaller into himself. Kendulu repeated it was on purpose and that they were being picked on by this new boy, who thought he was so great because he came from America. “And you Jason, what do you have to say?” “It weren’t me miss.” The bell rang and Mrs Vurley gestured them away and the two boys sloped off leaving David alone. As he looked up to answer Mrs Vurley’s unheard question David saw Jason draw a long finger in a straight line across his throat, before turning it into a wave and a laugh as Mrs Vurley followed David’s gaze.

“David, how long have you been at this school?” Mrs Vurley was a little embarrassed that she hadn’t really noticed the boy. Delete. Embarrassed but unsurprised. He was an unprepossessing thing, quiet and withdrawn, keeping his head down, avoiding contact. “Five weeks Mrs Vurley.” “Five weeks” she repeated, ”and how long have you been friends with Kenulu and Jason?” David stared sullenly at his lunch tray and its unappealing mess. “They’re not my friends” he mumbled and tried to straighten his shoulders, tried to claw back some sense of dignity. “But they like to follow me and send me messages on FaceBook an’ all. So maybe. Dunno.” There followed a series of questions, questions that Mrs Vurley knew she should ask, even though in the back of her mind she knew the answers already.

Yes, there was harassment, although he was evasive as to its frequency and intensity. Yes there were incidents, like today only mostly unseen and yes there had been unflattering pictures posted online and shared with various school groups. Girls and some boys sent him flirty messages and then ridiculed his replies. They invited him to online chat sessions only to block him at the last minute or worse to hide behind fake accounts and make ugly threats, sometimes with pictures of cats with their throats cut, or birds with their wings ripped off but still alive and bleeding. They threatened to tell his dad that David was staying over with friends, but really they planned to kidnap him and sell him as a sextoy to white supremacists. Mrs Vurley rolled her eyes at this, but still. The digital world’s a dangerous place. “How many David? How many boys and girls are doing this to you?”

By this time David was crying and the lunch room was empty. Mrs Vulney was glad she had no lessons this afternoon and persisted. “Do you know what mobbing is David?” “No miss,” he sniffed. “Do you know how to block people on your social media accounts?” “My dad’s told me I should do that and I’ve tried. But Snapchat messages disappear straight away and they use fake names. I know it’s them, and I want to be their friend though. That’s why I kept my Facebook account after … ” “After what? After what David?” “Nothing” he mumbled drowning in their power. Delete.

As she hit send on her email and its attached Pupil of Concern form, Mrs Vurley hoped that her colleague’s initial call to the family would go somewhere. It didn’t. They laughed it off. Delete. But later Mrs Clayman tried to talk to her son, except that the talk was more a forced encounter. A bully’s privilege? “It’s gone.” “What do you mean gone, David? Are you being picked on or not. You have to tell me.” “It’s gone because it’s SnapChat. The messages disappear straightaway.” “Don’t lie to me David. That makes no sense. I know you’re hiding something from me.” Mrs Clayman didn’t know she needed to get him to take screen shots. Would he have done? Would she have looked? Delete. Mrs Clayman tried another line. “Well what about FaceBook? Show me what you’ve got on FaceBook.” Here David had more to say, “I know I should block them on FaceBook, but if I tell them I’ll block them they just laugh, ooh you know how to block do you. Then they send me notes in History saying sorry. So I unblock them, then it’s ok for a while and then it starts up again. And on Instagram they pretend to like my pictures, but they’re just mocking me. You can tell in the comments.” The tears were rolling down his cheeks as David continued: “And I tried setting WhatsApp so that no one can see my picture and status and Aunty Jean got upset, so I put it back.” David could see that she wasn’t hearing what he said, wasn’t seeing, was inhabiting her own old world. Delete.

Mrs Clayman was starting a block of her own. This was all too silly. They’re just boys being boys with the new kid. It will pass. He was still adjusting to the new life. The school had it in hand. “David, let’s keep this in perspective shall we? They’re just lads and you’re different and sensitive, you know that don’t you? Let’s not get all bent out of shape about kids at school. It’s just their way, the British way, you know that I am pretty sure. You’ll get used to it. It’ll be fine.” Delete.

The Draftsman and technology in the age of XXX

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

The world is awash with writers, fitness trainers, dog walkers, chefs and book bloggers. And around each of them is a web of service providers, sales channels and even sometimes paying customers. Yet very few of us have been able to give up the day job. As a début author (The Draftsman) I am totally drowned in an ocean of other writers and overwhelmed by the expectations of what one must do to stand out and build a following in the wild, wild world of XXX where XXX means whatever you want. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with the work, the actual book, but everything to do with how skilled you are at managing the online channels, from Amazon to Wattpad (don’t ask), and how good you are at name dropping. And I am absolutely crap at all of it. I don’t want a relationship with algorithms or the XXX anons.

This is ironic, given that I have spent my career writing about technology, and that technology is what’s making all this possible. From word processors like Apple’s MacWrite and Microsoft Word, through to layout tools and the container for print ready pages that is PDF, I’ve been mostly on top of it. Looking back over the years I am pleased to see so many of the amazing innovations we’ve covered, now in the hands of so many creative people. These media production technologies are cheap, readily available and make it possible for anyone to produce a book, newsletter or whatever. And that has driven author incomes down.

The Draftsman, one in a gazillion.

It’s been the same story in the music industry as technology made production processes cheaper and accessible to more people. This is all quite wonderful because it lowers the bar to entry, so that more ideas can be shared in many different creative ways. Technology is central to The Draftsman, and how clever inventions make a difference to inventors, users and the planet. 

Technology is central to everything, so it’s fair to say that the publishing industry’s raw material, imagination and passion, is completely entangled with it. Today writers must develop an online following in order to be noticed. The online following comforts publishers who might be reluctant to take risks with new ideas and points of view. A following suggests a swathe of keen buyers and so informs budgets, project planning and print run lengths. Technology creates opportunity for so many expressive formats and allows publishers to identify and target potential readers for a given work. But there is way too much noise in the online world and much of it is self-serving and rather ugly.

In The Draftsman, set in 2006, two years after FaceBook launched, there is no social media apart from a passing reference to emails and the speed of internet connections. And there is a bit of foresight too, when Martin Cox ponders the rate at which many forms of printed content will migrate online, to decimate the printing industry and create opportunities for new business models. Even in 2006 when FaceBook was only two years old, it was clear that internet technologies were reaching not just into industrial applications, but also becoming central to daily living. By 2012 when FaceBook went public the platform had 845 million users and social media was a habit.

And yet I didn’t want Martin Cox to be an online junkie. He’s obsessive and dark, and what he would do with an online existence would be as obsessive, as dark. I didn’t want to write about how dark, given his personality and history, and his various confusions. But perhaps I should have done because that would have required more research into the whole social media eco-system and the paths through it. It might have made me a more adept manipulator of the channels and algorithms and it might have made me more popular, in a bitsy sort of way. (That’s binary digitsy, not little particles.) And the darkness in The Draftsman might have found an audience. Then I would have lots of followers and publishers might have been swooning at my feet. But then again, the lack of swooners might just be that I don’t write as well as I think I do. Read The Draftsman and decide for yourself. Ever yours, XXX.

Delete

Laurel Lindström 2 Comments

(published November 2021, in WriteTime Anthology Two http://www.writetime.org)

Meredith March studies the wreck peering at her from the mirror and adds a touch more mascara to already overly mascara-ed eyes. She is always heavily made up, having never fully recovered from her Dusty Springfield circa ’69 phase.

     She’s sitting at a mock rococo dressing table wrestling with curling tongs. The dressing table has three mirrors so there’s no escape. The curling tong cable has folded back on itself in many places and refuses to straighten. Not in its nature. When Meredith tries to grab a lock of hair with the tongs, the tightly wound cable kinks, stiff and unyielding, knocking over bottles and assorted lipsticks. Stuff rolls to the edge of the dressing table. Meredith tries to stop things falling to the floor, but the tongs burn her cheek and tear her hair. Weak tears streak black under her eyes. Three sad faces remind her that she is tired and forgotten and life’s pretense is overwhelming.

     The dressing table vibrates. There’s a message on her phone. “On way,“ it says. “Flight on time.”

Very happy to have been included in this collection. And flattered.

     Delete, she says. Delete and back to the primping which needs more care to be convincing. Delete says Meredith aloud at her three reflections, carefully unwinding her hair from the too-hot tongs. Delete she says again, dabbing cold cream on the red burn mark.

     Delete. But then what?

     What would she do instead, how would she persuade herself to do anything, go anywhere, see anyone if not for the stranger buckling up and peering out of the window at an airport monotony. He’s her main topic of conversation, with her friends, with the children … but with them less often, they know how she feels about their dad. They understand.

     She knows it isn’t love with him, never was really. They don’t know that. It’s not lust any more, and they couldn’t even go there. It faded in about year three. “When I was seven,“ she ponders, struggling into a loud floral print dress he bought her for Christmas.

     Seven in dog years is 49. Too old to still be living in different countries. Too old to be waiting for him to get a London posting. Too long to be so old, so static, so floral, so tired. Too long for this same routine.

     It wasn’t so bad when the children were young. It wasn’t so bad when the money was anovelty,  and the holidays too. New cars. Shopping with the girls. Inane gossip. Housey housey fixy upping. Following the lines. All of it too old. And now: Delete.

     Downstairs, Meredith checks her black outfit in the hall mirror, florals now under the wheels of a dark revision. She searches for her car keys, checks the time, puts down food for the cat who’s asleep on a sunny window ledge. He ignores her wistful stroke of his head.

     Meredith takes frozen pastries out of the freezer. He likes those Danish cinnamon whirls.

     She puts on her coat, picks up her bag and … Delete. Puts the bag down again and runs upstairs. Breathless, she finds her passport and retrieves her stash of €784 in old holiday money. Waters a plant. Glances around the kitchen.

     The journey to the airport is about as long as the flight from Madrid, give or take. There’s no need to hurry. She ponders his appearance in arrivals. He’ll be underdressed for the murky Manchester skies. He’ll shiver as they leave the terminal. He’ll say: “Ooh, so much colder than Madrid. I’ll need to pick up a coat.” He’s coming back to his home town, but he likes to remind her of his difference, it will give them something to do, something to fill the space between them. Meredith hears the reruns of those filler conversations as she starts the car and switches off the radio. Delete. No distractions now.

     The phone tracker app shows flight BA0461 casting its line across the sky. The M6 is slow as ever and Meredith March has time between stops to scan her phone, check flights, book parking in the short-term carpark. £20 should be enough. Sitting in the traffic, silent, another message on the phone. She texts back: “Yes, I know I booked parking.“ Delete.

     It’s Friday night. They can go and get him a coat tomorrow, hit the shopping mall masked and hand-sanitised and count the empty stores. He’ll want a pub lunch. She’ll explain that they can’t. He’ll tell her this commute will only be for another few months. And then he’ll change the subject.

     She turns on the radio: “A shooting in Tampa, Florida … ” Delete. Tampa, Florida. We were there once. Flew in direct and spent two weeks arguing about alligators and sun cream with the children. Tampa. Delete.

Pulling into the short-term car park, watching the barrier bounce satisfyingly up, Meredith March smiles, parks and switches off the engine. She leaves the key on the rear passenger side tyre and turns away. She is early. There is time to kill. Kill or be killed. Delete.

     When Mr March in his too-thin coat comes out of arrivals, his expensive four-wheeled carry-on in tow, Meredith is watching out of sight. She notes his handsome profile and the way his look slides across the people waiting, as he seeks her out. She’s not quite ready to turn away.

     She sees him frown, sees him tap at his phone and wonders why her phone isn’t ringing. As Mr March stands legs astride his case, Meredith March heads quickly for Security before anything can happen to divert her. Amidst hoards of people she is reminded to social distance and to keep moving.

     The bored security man in a purple turban is repeating his lines as he scans the queues, checking, always checking. “Laptops, tablets, shoes off, coats off, number four please, and madam to number two. Take off your jacket please”.

     Bang bang with the boxes, through the screener, then shoes on, coat on, tablet retrieved. Phone buzzing.

     A host of duty free shops on the other side, a host of strangers, a host of new worlds. It’s credit-card heaven in the Kurt Geiger shop with an excessively-made-up young woman, also channelling her inner Dusty. “Lovely make-up,” Meredith can’t help but say and the lovely young girl beams and pats her beehive. She hands over three bags with three new pairs of shoes and one with Meredith’s discards. “I’ll keep these on and you can keep the old ones,” smiles Meredith, handing back the bag.

     Next stop is an expensive Tumi expandable carry-on for the shoes and now the Hugo Boss Japanese stretch crepe jacket and matching trousers. The Hermés scarf. The Cartier watch. And the lingerie. And the many hundreds of pounds worth of Sisley make-up.

     Another glamourous young woman is massaging her face and holding sample skin tones, head on one side quizzical, eyebrows tight, unfeasibly long fingernails flickering under artificial light. “You have wonderful skin, you know. Shall we try something a little different?”

     “Yes, please,” says Meredith. There’s a message from him. “In arrivals.” Delete.

     She hands over the credit card and glimpses something a lot different in the mirror. She packs the new beauty regime in the new carry-on and heads for the cashpoint, teetering on her new heels. She withdraws maximum cash from all of his credit cards and has to sit down to stop from feeling dizzy. Picks up her phone again. “Waiting.“ Delete. “Are you held up?”Delete.

     Meredith March steps away and checks her gate number, 46. Meredith March heads for the lounge. Sipping cava and picking at cheese she goes online and posts a picture on Facebook of her new suitcase and stilettoed feet with the message: “At airport still waiting for John.“ She crafts a text message to their son: “When you get this, tell him the keys are on the tyre. Level 2 K32. ”

     The phone is buzzing again but it’s time for gate 46. Deep breath. Stand tall in those high heels. Tits and teeth. But that buzz. “Where are you?” Delete. As she wheels along in the high new shoes, behind her mask Meredith is gone. Delete.

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins – A Review

Laurel Lindström 1 Comment

Part II

This is the second part of my review of American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. The first part focuses on the book, it’s story and my opinion of it. This part addresses the antagonism directed at Jeanine Cummins for having the temerity to write about brown people, even though she is white.

Authors under attack

Author Jeanine Cummins was attacked by a cohort of women of central and northern American backgrounds, on the basis that Jeanine Cummins should not have written American Dirt because she is not Mexican. And? 

In the case of Jeanine Cummins the controversy kicked off when American Dirt was selected by Oprah Winfrey, a big name USA celeb, as her latest Oprah’s Book Club pick. Accusers say that as a white American woman Ms Cummins should not have written a novel about a brown Mexican woman. She had no right to the story, even though it’s a work of fiction based on creative thinking, research, hard work and peer reviews. The charge is not unlike that levelled at Edna O’Brien for Girl a novel that follows a group of young girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria and one girl in particular. Both authors have been attacked for their work, despite the fact that their books illuminated otherwise very dark and unseen places. Besides vilification, the two writers also share another rather more important quality: imagination and dedication. But for that they get no credit. 

Half empty, half full, twice the size it needs to be, or a glass in need of topping up?

Why can these half-empty types not just appreciate American Dirt for the wonderful writing, the strong characterisations and the insight into what thousands of people face every day just to survive, baffles. When are we going to get over this proprietariness when it comes to ideas, characters and stories? It seems that it’s more important to discourage and block, to put people off their work, to prevent them expressing the stories and ideas in their heads, to stop them sharing what they see, how they see it and why they think it matters. Does imagination and commitment to the work of getting it onto the page need permission? And if so, why? Is it because people don’t want to be offended? If so there are plenty of intensely offensive books out there. Don’t buy them if you think you may be offended. But also don’t whinge because someone else told the story first.

Same pic as in part one of this review because Jeanine Cummins’ agent has ignored my request for a photo. And why not, I’m a nobody and clearly not deserving of courtesy.

Headline news

That American Dirt had massive support from a powerful publishing machine (Headline, a Hachette imprint) makes matters worse for the antis. It makes it better for readers and the author, because it means more people are exposed to the book and the ugly realities it describes. The antis overlook that the deal to publish followed a three day bidding war involving nine publishers. They believe, probably correctly, that another author might not have received the seven figure advance, the promotions and publicity that Cummins got. But the original book proposal was instantly resonant for so many publishers because of its timeliness and relevance, plus its commercial potential. Cummins was signed to a major publisher and got the ginormous advance not because she is white but because her work sells. Cummins has already published three other books which sold well so she’s got solid track record of delivering the goods. A known quantity. In commercial terms the subject matter and the author of American Dirt are low risk. Publication of American Dirt isn’t about exploiting underrepresented authors, being insensitive to cultural fragilities or not supporting emerging talent. It’s about commercial risk and sales. That’s the reality.

In 1890 Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray “To define is to limit.” Perhaps we should all stop trying to limit the imaginations of creative people, and should instead put aside envy and jealousy. We should stop letting life’s unfairness get in the way of appreciating what others create, whoever they are. Let’s stop the creeping censorship, let’s stop seeking out people to criticise and condemn, and let’s think about the real implications of the whole concept of individual cancellation. It’s been tried many times in the course of history and it always ends badly.

Book club pick

I came to this book because it was required reading for our book club. I knew nothing about it or the fuss, but was hooked from the first page. The insights and perspective and horror for Lydia, Luca and the two sisters is impossible to step away from. They cling and invade with increasing tenacity as the reader moves along through the story alongside these people who exert such a pull. They’re with me still. American Dirt helps us to gradually understand that all of us are vulnerable to this awfulness, but for a few twists of fate and luck. The migrant’s desperate trek is not an abstract, distant, elsewhere problem. It is here and now, it is part of our humanity and inhumanity. In her details and the reality she creates, with imagination, research and dogged hard work, Jeanine Cummins sustains excitement and tension throughout the 454 pages of American Dirt. When you put it down you may be surprised to find yourself shaking and your blood pressure up. Prose like breathing, intense and rapid from start to finish.

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins – a Review

Laurel Lindström 2 Comments

This review is in two parts. The first part focuses on the book, it’s story and my opinion of it. The second part addresses the antagonism directed at Jeanine Cummins for having the temerity to write about brown people, even though she is white.

Part I

American Dirt is the story of Lydia and Luca, a mother and her eight year old son. They are on the run following the brutal assassination of all their relations, sixteen people, at a family birthday party. Lydia’s husband had been an investigative journalist. The brutal murders follow the publication of Sebastián’s in depth profile of a local Mexican cartel boss and his growing influence. The massacre is supposed to kill the entire family, everyone at the party. But Lydia and Luca, hiding in the loo, are overlooked and escape.

The book follows Lydia and Luca’s terrifying progress as they flee their home city, Acapulco, to make their way north to the United States. The journey is over 2700 km. The cartel equivalent of an All Points Bulletin, complete with Lydia’s image, is shared across Mexico throughout the criminal network and beyond to spies, informers and hangers on, anyone who’ll turn Lydia and Luca in for gain. It’s a terrifying premise made all the more sinister by the fact that Lydia, unaware of his identity, had become friends with the head of the cartel.

Javier, boss of the vile Los Jardineros cartel, had been a frequent visitor to the bookshop Lydia owns and the two share a love of books and poetry. Their kindred platonic bond had grown increasingly intimate and personal over several months. Javier calls Lydia the Queen of his soul, rather than the Queen of his heart (his wife) or of his pants (his mistress). Lydia treats their closeness as an asexual and private personal intimacy based on a shared love of literature.

These two complex and conflicted characters evoke all that is precious about relationships that don’t count as extramarital affairs, yet are profound and meaningful in an extramarital dimension. As Lydia flees she constantly re-examines to horrible effect her latent deceit or not deceit, naivety or trust, truth or lies and how she was so duped or not duped. What did she not see? What did she see? Who was that man? Who was she?

Ignore the fuss and read this book. It will stay with you.

Following the murders Lydia is a perpetual twist of emotional confusion  which gradually resolves into the only emotion she can feel: hate for Javier. She examines her relationship with her murdered husband, their deep love, romance and friendship, all that they shared. Mixed in with the hate and fear, she must hold fast to and protect Luca, all the while travelling under a veil of horror. Lydia must allow Luca his pain and his grief, and yet keep uppermost the urgency and danger of their journey. “If there’s one good thing about terror, Lydia now understands, it’s that it’s more immediate than grief”. No time for sorrow. This must be balanced with trust and Luca’s faith in her. For the most part Cummins achieves this balance and only occasionally does the reader feel that Luca is just a little too good to be true, that his flawless acquiescence to his situation and his mother’s ministerings is real. The tears are too few.

Javier is another matter. Lydia knows him viscerally as do we as the story unfolds. She knows that Javier will never let her go, that he wants to own her in death if not in life. Lydia and the reader are unaware that Lydia and Javier share in loss, until towards the end of the book. Running from Javier and his interlinked network of ghouls to a place of safety is all that matters for Lydia and Luca. That network ranges from hotel receptionists to bus drivers, so evil and ever-present death dog their every moment. They are unable to pause to mourn or grieve or even to fully comprehend the horror of what has and is happening.

Cummins handles this tension deftly whilst keeping the book’s momentum going. Along the way they meet up with two young sisters following different but equally dreadful terrrors. The two girls and Lydia and Luca are cautious, suspicious and reluctant to share their stories. There’s the fear always that the more you share, the more you have at risk, and might lose. As the small group pushes on in the blind hope of new life in El Norte, other migrants some new to the migrant path and some not join them. And yet never is there much sense of comradery. All of them know this is fragile, transitory. They know the chances of reaching safety are slim, that everyone is an enemy, a threat, a risk. So they keep mostly quiet and trudge on, an intense blend of fear and hope pushing them all forwards. And we are there too, with every agonising and possibly futile step.

Read this book!

This is a story everyone should read. American Dirt is a story that takes a wrecking ball to our cosy sense of first-world safety and security. It leaves us bereft and distressed, haunted and overwhelmed. Shock and fear creep over us with every page; a sense of ghastly, guilty relief echoes though our senses as we keep on turning the pages, urgent and desperate to know what happens next. We are guilty because we know it’s not us, but there are lots of others suffering what these migrants suffer. The awfulness of Lydia and Luca’s experience can be kept at arm’s length, but it cannot be kept entirely away from our sense of safety. We read wide-eyed and gorge on this awful story. Yet we are secure and largely protected from the organised lawlessness that is everyday reality in Mexico, Honduras, Guatamala and elsewhere around the world.

This is a story everyone should read, because it hasn’t been told quite like this before. This is a story everyone should read, despite the hostility it provoked when first published. It is so vital a story that it doesn’t matter who wrote it. This is a story everyone should read, because its author binds the reader tight to the characters with every dangerous step of the way. In our guts comes some glimmer of understanding of what these people, the unwilling migrants, go through and the horrors of their experience.

A structural edit? What? Thank you Helen Francis

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

I have heard that when starting out as a novelist, getting your manuscript finished is the easy bit. I always thought that a little bit silly, because you’ve sweat blood over the thing, spent months or even years on it. But I’m beginning to see there is some sense to this. For a start there’s all the additional prep, the formating and understanding the process. Then there’s the cover design and blurb to sort, both of which are easy and exciting. But then comes the structural edit. This is not nearly so easy or as exciting, and sweating blood plays no part. 

A structural edit has to ensure that the plot makes sense, so if it doesn’t you’re faced with some heavy duty rewrites and rearranging. The structural edit also checks that the characters in the novel are believable and consistent, and that you haven’t overloaded them with tropes that undermine or distract the reader. As important is a check on the consistency of voice and point of view, of tense and credibility in terms of dialogue. These are all things you think you’ve addressed during your umpteenth rewrite, prior to submitting the manuscript to the publisher. But no matter how thoroughly you think you have gone through your work, you’re bound to have missed stuff. This is why editors are so vital and so lauded by their authors. They can literally help to spin gold from dross.

I’m now working on implementing the structural editor’s recommendations for The Draftsman, wrestling with the dross and trying to find the gold. In the process I’m learning a lot about writing. I’m struggling to resolve all the queries and suggestions to make The Draftsman better. Struggling, but at it.

Without seriously competent editing advice, this never could have happened.

Helen Francis did the first big edit of the Draftsman for Unbound, the publisher. She has given me a mix of mild critique and several excellent suggestions to improve the narrative. Helen has also pointed out that I use far too many pointless and distracting adjectives. Both my mother and my sister noticed this after they briefly skimmed some early chapters, but I thought I knew better. Ms Francis agrees with them. I was wrong. Now the adjectives thing is making me wonder why I thought I needed them in the first place. It might be that using too many adjectives is a way to avoid getting to the point. That’s probably because I wasn’t quite sure what that point should be or even what happened next in the story. More likely it’s a tendency to hide behind excess words because I don’t trust myself. This isn’t surprising because I trust virtually no one, so why should I trust me? There’s no habit for the trust thing.

Fixing all the points raised in the structural edit is extremely demanding and quite frankly exhausting. It’s at this stage that you understand that your book really is going to be published, and even if you might not agree with your editor’s suggestions, together you’re creating something that people will buy, a viable product. You might have to completely rethink how you present your characters. You might need to focus on how much or how little you want readers to get to know them and their role in the story, beyond helping to drive the plot. And yes, you must decide how many adjectives to use and which ones.

There is some real risk involved in this process. You need to make sure that the story doesn’t distort in the course of the rewriting and edits. This is almost harder than writing the thing in the first place, because you’re probably now working on some other work, one that’s completely different. Keeping within the bounds of the book is tough and it’s very tempting to bring in all sorts of other ideas as part of the structural editing process. You find there are lots of possible new digressions, subplots and thoughts you have in the middle of the night and think will made a massive improvement. Resist: they’re bound to go nowhere. Keep them far away from your editing process, keep them for another day, maybe as notes for a different story. Stay focused wholly on the work in hand.

And remember that you have to watch that fictional characters don’t start to change on the page. If you aren’t careful, this can happen almost without you realising it. Be disciplined and make sure to keep your face out of the narrative pie. Taking suggested edits one at a time and considering each one in the context of the paragraph, chapter and overall work, is slow and tedious work. It’s a first for me so I’m finding that process difficult. The structural editing thing is pushing me beyond what I thought were the limits of my abilities. Or perhaps I should say beyond whatever it is that feeds my sense of limits. I know I’ll get it done and in the end The Draftsman will be a much better product. Thank you Helen Francis.

(from July 2020)

Review of The Draftsman

Laurel Lindström 2 Comments

The Draftsman is a story straightforward in overall theme, but is written with an incredible focus on detail. Some authors leave you to decide what or how the characters form, but in this book, every detail of each character and the interaction in the story is richly laid out for you. This by no means lessens the read, in fact it is nice to indulge in the language used and not have to work too hard building images in your head. Whilst reading the story, knowing the specific details of each character allows you imbue the whole storyline without guessing the direction of the theme or road the author is taking you down. You easily get into the connections between the lead character Martin Cox and feel how he wrestles with the issues in his life. You see Martin come out of his shell as he gets deeper and deeper discovering the new property he has purchased and this in turn leads to the twist every good story has at its conclusion. I would thoroughly endorse a read of The Draftsman, it was a book I felt I needed to read cover to cover.

Isn’t that lovely? Much appreciated. Thank you Brian Sims, reader.

You can find other reviews of The Draftsman here:

https://wordpress.com/post/laurellindstrom.org/1078

https://wordpress.com/post/laurellindstrom.org/1082

https://wordpress.com/post/laurellindstrom.org/1094

https://wordpress.com/post/laurellindstrom.org/1087

… and buy the book here: https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Laurel-Lindstrom/The-Draftsman/25875852

You can buy the book here: https://unbound.com/books/the-draftsman/

Picture this

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

It’s a peculiar sensation to see first cover visuals for your first novel. They’ve got the story’s title and your name – your name – writ large. And one of them is a perfect expression of what the book’s about. It jumps at your throat, it’s gorgeous, professional and an image that you couldn’t ever think of, not in a million years. 

The sensation’s almost as good as the moment when a publisher’s email says “I’d like to see more” although only almost. That feeling shimmers and shines for a very long time, forever maybe. It’s so powerful that it’s almost impossible to answer the email. And then you can’t find the file you need and when you do you can’t open it. You can’t spell the name of the person who wants to see more of your work, or indeed your own name because you can’t spell at all. All the words have dried up and blown away under your hot frantic panting, your overexcited breath. Worse, you have totally forgotten what the story’s about and how many words it is. Because you can’t find the file again, it’s impossible to find out, and because you’ve inadvertently deleted the precious email you can’t send the requested material in any case.

……..a massive thank you to John Walsh for providing this cover endorsement!

After some minor moments your blood pressure’s so high it’s making your eyes go funny. And the banging in your veins and pulsating brain drowns out your own voice, and you can’t hear yourself saying no, no I haven’t really deleted it, it’s still in the bin, still on the mail server and still on the automatic back up. It’s data, it still exists, it does, it must, it has to. It’s got to still be there somewhere. Except you’re still panting to the point of hyperventilation, your eyes are still being weird and you can’t really see the details on the screen so it’s impossible right now to try and retrieve the email.

If you reach this point, for any important email, not just the one from a potential publisher, the best thing to do is to go to the window, open it, look down, look up, make sure to stay inside and not jump, and wait until your face starts to hurt with the cold. This only works in winter, so in summer you have to actually leave the building; try to do this calmly so as not to terrify colleagues and other members of your household. Once outside pretend to be exercising very slowly until you can be sure that your vision is not made up entirely of darting silver spears and unpredictable colour flicks. If the sun’s shining, don’t look at it. Keep your eyes down.

Once your eyes are being sort of normal and you are relatively calm, stay away from your desk for a few more minutes and think of restful things, like the majesty of snow clad mountains or sleeping puppies. If you go back to your desk too soon, there is a very real risk that the demon will roar once more and the whole scary scenario will repeat itself. You must prioritise finding the important email, reading it carefully, understanding the questions and systematically answering them like a grown-up. Panic and hysterics have no place in this process.

The cover designs are exciting and tell me that publication of the Draftsman is really happening. Tears will be in order when I see the first edits come back from Unbound. That someone has taken the time and trouble to fix my text somehow means more to me than a publisher wanting to read it. I know it’s what they’re paid to do, but still it’s all quite wonderful. Each step of the way makes a change, transforms, recreates and confirms. Not just for the book, but for me too.

Where the sun’s always setting. Or is it always rising?

Keeping the passion alive?

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

Whether you’re a writer or not, sometimes doing the same old same old day after day can get a little dreary, tedious even. And you find the contact problem gets harder and harder to solve. Much as you want to, you just can’t seem to keep your bottom in contact with the chair or your fingers in contact with the keyboard.

Any excuse will do: answering emails even the really uninteresting ones, checking to see if the postman’s been, having yet another cup of tea and having to go to the loo even more often. Doing the laundrey. You start to wonder if you should rearrange your knicker drawer, or straighten your speaker wires, maybe colour code the food in your freezer. In extreme cases, even the hoovering is irresistable. And the contact problem isn’t just about making contact with the chair. How often have you decided that your keyboard, screen and mouse need a thorough clean or at least a good scrape around with your fingernail or the scissors? Anything but look at the screen and keeping your fingertips in touch. But the contact problem must be brutally addressed, otherwise your chosen profession becomes a hobby. Don’t use excuses of any description, especially not that you have writer’s block. Sit down and get on with it, even if it’s just a limerick or a haikuor a comment on someone else’s bookish blog.

As you sink reluctantly into place, cracking your knuckles, fiddling with mouse and screen angle, it might help to remember that writing is like any passion. What keeps it alive is doing it over and over again because you love it, even if you might occasionally forget that you love it. Like sex it can get better every time, but not necessarily always, every time. You know from experience that there will be lows and highs, and even just middlings. But you never know which it will be so you keep at it. You hope and know that this is something you have to do, because without it you’ll turn into a neurotic and potentially violent mess. Remember that you learn from every encounter, whether it is with a lover, a favourite walk, or a book, or your work. Doing it is the point, and avoiding it will make you miserable.

This is definitely not a good way to solve the contact problem. No matter how much you love your shoes, keep them and your feet underneath the desk and get on with your work.

It’s as true for readers as well as writers. They and we want to keep on reading and writing because we are all constantly looking for connections, big or small, intense or feeble. We write to express something we don’t necessarily understand, because it takes a reader to give the work meaning. Otherwise it’s just hollow words on a page, a bunch of random shapes and glyphs. I have spent pretty much my entire career selling words and continue to do so, but not every one of those years of articles or projects has been an unmitigated thrill. Many times I still sit down and stare blank and empty at the page or screen. I watch the clock out of the corner of my eye. I see it tick away the moments as a deadline slowly rises dark and gloomy into unwelcome view.

For writers there is no other choice, but to ignore the gloom and distractions and to keep on writing. It’s the only thing to ease back into place the wayward screw that’s floating loose somewhere deep inside our heads. We keep on writing because without it, the world makes no sense. We must exercise that passion, intense, fleeting, irrational, wild or even crazy as it seems. Passion is about what we cannot rationalise. It’s about the intangible, the indescribable and momentarily knowable, about stimulation and response. Its fleeting nature keeps us coming back for more, like gin and chocolate and all those other marvellous intoxicants that lead us elsewhere from ourselves.

Social media is one such intoxicant. It’s one of the best ways to overcome the contact problem, but it is also corrosive, distractive. It eats away at time and motivation and the depth or durability of its merits are questionable. It strokes our vanity (all is vanity), encourages our voyeuristic tendencies. At its best it’s a tool for finding writers to share with or for growing our readerships. But mostly it’s time-wasting noise. For the rare few to have found a place amongst the noise, that place provides comfort, reassurance that someone hears you, is listening. They may even respond with something sensible beyond the expectation of a response in turn. That might be why whole days can go by with the contact problem solved, and not a word written other than social media monitoring and replies. Overcoming that rather different contact problem is much harder.

The trials of getting your novel published part 1: The journey so far

Laurel Lindström Leave a comment

Let’s ignore the dramas of writing, rewriting, fear of writing, panic when your brain is just not up to the task. And especially let’s not talk about the contact problem, the one where your bottom refuses utterly to make contact with the chair. Let’s assume you’ve safely gathered in all the words you need and that you have your work of fiction, collection of poems or short stories, whatever, ready to sell. This is a massive assumption, one that immediately alienates a whole slew of potential readers of this blog who still sail the rough seas of WIP. The intention isn’t to alienate though. This blog might help you feel less alone and more like carrying on nurturing your ideas, meeting people who don’t yet exist and harvesting the right crop of words to get them and their doings onto the page. Once they are captured, here’s what you can expect.

Manuscript in hand, you need to sell it so the obvious place to start is with a literary agent. Of course, an agent, that rare and fickly breed of wonderful salespeople, will take somefinding. The name agent is really not accurate in the wider context of commerce. Agents are sales men and women looking for what they can most successfully pitch to buyers in an open market. These buyers are the commissioning editors and publishers who will take a punt on a title and/or an author in the hope that the book will sell. Depending on how confident they are the publisher will then invest, one hopes, enough money to get the book edited, designed, produced, printed and distributed to as many outlets as possible. 

Would you buy this book? Would you sell it?

This is a mammoth task at every step of the way. Pity the poor editors wrestling with some 100,000 words, most of which are superfluous, choking a brilliant storyline in confusion. The designers have to decide what the book should look like, what cover best reflects the contents, what typeface, leading, page layout and so on. And they might even have to read the thing. The production and printing will be the easiest bit, because these are automated processes: spit digital files in and printed book blocks out. 

But the hardest bit, the bit that makes all the difference and the bit that only a worthy publisher can do is the distribution part. This is about sales, persuading book sellers to buy your book so that they can sell it to your hoardes of adoring fans. This has to be harder than writing the thing in the first place, and hats off to the amassed armies of people who do this. You are the people who bridge the gap between the author and the reader and you are the people who make sure that the market gets the works it wants, across the market and that’s a tough call.

Laurel Lindström Unagented but happy.

For the author and the aspirants wrestling with an unruly WIP, the trick is find an agent willing to take a chance but with so many of us, hopes of success are meagre at best. The only option is to work and work some more to make your book either as commercial as possible, or as unique as you are. For most of us the latter is the preferred course, but it’s unlikely to get you an agent any time soon.