SAVED BY THE SANDERSON

 It's happened to me again. I'm stuck in my new book. I've been wambling around, finding excuses not to sit at my desk, not to get on with it.

The problem is more or less mechanical; I need a First Contact Team for an alien planet, probably up to a dozen characters, only two of whom will be important to the story, but the others have to be there. And I just don't have them.

There is lots of material out there about creating characters. You can see it in every second-rate writing course, often it even starts with a character sheet, like the ones we used to use for Dungeons and Dragons. Most of these people advise you even to start your whole writing project with this. Define your main character. Then they witter on about a lot of rubbish like height, weight, colour of eyes, colour of hair etc. None of which is the slightest use if you do not have a story.

For me, the story is always the thing, and usually my characters emerge from that. They will be what the story needs them to be, and this generally works really well for me; in fact I can't really think of an instance where it hasn't. But then I don't usually have this big cast of background characters. I've already written a lot of supporting characters among my alien race of people, but those were easier, somehow; their context was a whole society, whereas here I am limited to the members of a First Contact Team of a spacegoing people. And I've been really stuck on it.

And then I remembered Brandon Sanderson. Wonderful Brandon Sanderson, who saved Bloodsucking Bogans, probably my favourite of all my books. I had almost completed the first draft of it, but when I read over it, it was absolute shite. It was so bad that I was facing just ditching the whole project, yet I couldn't bear to, because it was my pet idea that I'd had for years and been so looking forward to writing. 

But help was at hand, for I was taking Sanderson's course at the time. In case you don't know, Brandon Sanderson teaches a graduate course in fiction writing at some university, and because the man is a truly good and generous human being and an absolute mensch, he has the entire course videoed and makes it available, free, on Youtube. And it's amazing what one can learn from it. My big takeaway this time (I was taking the course for the second time, because he updates it every few years) was a big section about how to figure out what is wrong with your draft, and how to fix it. This advice worked so well for me that I was able to finish the book, and publish it without shame, and it remains one of my favourite things that I've done, and in fact has taken a place among my own feel-good reads. Yes, people, sometimes I read my own books.

Anyway, I had a bit of a look, and the wonderful Mr Sanderson has indeed updated the course again since then, and this time, there is apparently a big section about creating characters. So I'm entirely confident that my problem will be solved.

I was tempted to go straight to that section, but having benefited so greatly from this course before, I'm going to take the disciplined route and watch the whole thing from the beginning. One never knows what other gems one will find. 

VALE FERRET

 

A vast and powerful personality has left the world. He slipped quietly away between one breath and the next, on my lap, with my quiet talk the last sound in his pointed ears. The room seemed to echo with its emptiness; even in the debility of extreme old age, Ferret had a massive presence. 

Born feral, Ferret was hand reared by a human mother. He lived happily with her for the first five years of his life (happily, that is, except for the terrible event that took his leg. I still hope the worthless individual who set traps for cats in his vegetable garden will get what he deserves.) For some undisclosed reason, he then went to long-term foster care, in search of a new permanent home.

Ferret spent twelve months in foster care, and during that time he became close friends with Louis, who also became our cat. Very different personalities, they evidently found something precious in each other, and I'm told they were always together.

Around that time I had lost my own cat, RooRoo, and the foster carer offered Ferret to me. I saw a picture of him, thought he looked boring, and didn't want to take on a three-legged cat whom I mistakenly thought would be 'special needs'. So I foolishly declined the opportunity and continued to search, unsuccessfully, for a new companion.

A few months later, the foster carer (at that time a friend - now, alas, no more) contacted me in violent distress, saying she had been evicted from her rented house. I saw danger looming and headed it off by quickly offering a specific, clearly delineated amount of help. I offered to take two cats for a period not to exceed three weeks, while she relocated herself. And so I brought home Ferret and his friend, who at that time was named Fatboy. We set them up with nice soft beds in the dining room, to give them a little distance from the dogs. Remember, they were to be with us only for a short time. They had cardboard boxes and pillows to sleep on. I went in there several times a day to chat with them and check on them. Louis came out and was friendly, but Ferret lurked in his cardboard box and if I went near him, he would greet me with a rant of appalling proportions; spitting, growling and generally offensive behaviour. I got used to this routine.

On the third day, Ferret suddenly emerged from the dining room when I was in the kitchen. He made a beeline for me and overwhelmed me with love. It was quite an experience; I ended up sitting on the kitchen floor while he swarmed all over me, and in the process I was informed that I was now HIS. It was a powerful experience. I rang up the foster person on the telephone. Please, please don't say I have to give Ferret back, I told her. I cannot part with him. She quickly agreed, hung up the phone and no doubt went away rubbing her hands and going 'I love it when a plan comes together.'

Ferret was now part of the family, but Louis, more shy, continued to stay in the dining room although he was always happy to chat if one went in there. After a couple more days, though, my husband, never a cat man before, spontaneously fell in love with him and I had another call to make. And so, the two friends remanied together until the ends of their lives.

Ferret quickly fitted himself into all of the spaces in my life, and several that he made for himself. He helped me at work

and would spend most of the working day in my in tray. I had to rearrange my desk and keep my work in a separate pile, or else I could not get at anything. One file always had to be left in the tray, though. If not, Ferret complained that the wires of the basket dug into him.

He helped me study...

He helped me decorate the Christmas tree...

And clean the bath...

And bring up my puppy...

He was there in everything that I did. Several times a day, he would climb up the big tree next to our house and get on the roof. He loved it up there. Occasionally, he'd be joined by Louis.

Louis was not a problem; if he went up the tree, later on he came down the tree. Ferret, however, with his one front leg, could not come down by himself. I had to go up the extension ladder and carry him down. We fell into a routine. Ferret would call me when he wanted to descend, and I would go and fetch him down. The extension ladder became a fixture at the edge of our patio. There was just no point ever putting it away.

Ferret travelled really well in the car, as long as I did not play any music of which he disapproved, which was a wide field. He had a particular hatred of Harry Belafonte. I got into the habit of listening to audiobooks instead as we travelled between town and country. Ferret loved the country house, and it was nice having a break from the ladder. 

Ferret comforted me through the loss of two wonderful hounds, and the loss of my husband's dog, and he helped me bring up two puppies. He saw me through my Grad Dip, and he was there when I was admitted to the Legal profession. Well, not there in the Supreme Court, obviously. But no doubt he was at my desk, watching the ceremony online. He had certainly been there for all the study. 

His initial sweariness, although he continued to have quite a mouth on him, was never repeated after that first amazing encounter in the kitchen. Not with me, anyway. 

Ferret got on very well with our dogs, and my husband's enormous German Shepherd learned to scrunch himself up into one half of his futon, leaving the other half for Ferret. Ferret, although a small cat, claimed his full half. Still, his primary dog relationship was with my girl Emily; they were really besties, and therefore when Memphis died, I was thoroughly caught on the hop at Ferret's terrible grief. He had a rough, rough time, and actually started to self harm, biting off all his fur on his stomach, chest and legs, right back to the skin and often making himself bleed. I ended up putting him on Prozac for six months. That got him through it, although he always after that kept his bikini area shorn, like a tiny Brazilian. I suppose he just preferred it that way. When Emily died I kept her hidden from him until we could get her out of the house. I feared what that loss could do to him.

All the same, I could hide her body from him but I could not hide her absence, and within a few months Ferret, who had been a hearty, healthy cat in the prime of his middle age, suddenly started to become very old. He became incontinent, and gradually, over the ensuing couple of years, lost the ability to walk, although I kept him mobile for as long as I possibly could, always encouraging him through the slow walk to the kitchen rather than picking him up and carrying him. Losing Louis earlier in the year, though, was a blow to him, and in the last few months of his life, he could not even stand.

And yet, his life had value to him still. I remained, and remain, utterly convinced of that. His world had drawn in to a tiny scope, but he enjoyed his food right up to the last, he always enjoyed cuddles, he still purred and occasionally delivered a gentle bite of love, he loved to be carried out into the garden for the morning sunshine. I didn't think he could see very well any more, but he would lie there scenting the air and listening to the birds, and he always seemed happy. And because I am self-employed, and work from home, I was able to provide all the support he needed. Right up until that last day, when it was clear in the morning that he had set his foot on the road and would not be turning around. All through the day he drifted, semi-conscious. I was able to get him to take a few sips of water, but he would not touch food. And that night, I knew that if I went to sleep, I would wake and find him gone, and he would have died alone. And so we sat up together. I held him on my lap, and stroked him gently and talked quietly to him, and after a few hours I realised I was talking to empty air. Ferret was no longer present.

I buried him next to Emily, whom he loved most in the world after me. There will never be another cat like him.

J is for JUNK

 J is for Junk, and that's the major theme in my new release, Operation Trash Bandit, which is now available. The focus of this book is hoarding, and it therefore seems suitable that my breakout activity as I work should be decluttering.

Even more suitably, my current venue for decluttering is my office. That's right - I'm writing surrounded by the very situation I'm portraying, or nearly. 

I started the office declutter some time ago, when I first realised just how much effect my cluttered workplace has on my concentration. My early efforts foundered, but then my friend moved in, and I saw him weeding out his stuff in the wake of the move (no, Virginia, one NEVER declutters BEFORE moving. It's a law of nature. You always mean to but then you run out of time and shove everything into boxes. Oh if only I had $50 for every box full of waste paper I've thrown out after a move. I could probably buy a new house and abandon this horrible one to the rats.)

Anyway, seeing my friend making such valiant efforts to declutter his own belongings has inspired me and I've actually done a lot in the last few days. This morning I even got up early and reclaimed a bit more floorspace before I had to start my day.

I is for INTERVALS

 Today I'm thinking about the concept of Interval training, where you run about and keep stopping to do small amounts of strength training. It's supposed to be super good, although as I know little and care less about the fitness industry I cannot say whether this is deserved.

Be that as it may, I have found the concept of intervals utterly invaluable in tackling any large and daunting task. E.G. studying law. Decluttering a house. Writing a novel. You set a timer of some kind for a short time - perhaps half an hour, or even less, and then you go like the clappers without looking at the clock. And, more importantly, without looking out the window, or Facebook, or the weather forecast, or really anything else unless the house is on fire or a baby is screaming.

I had great success with this when I was studying Law. In fact I really don't think I would have got through without it. I was failing Criminal Law when Robert Cilley very kindly explained about using the intervals for study. I was familiar with the concept from doing the Flylady system, but somehow I'd not expanded that to include other areas of life. And from that time, my law study took off. Oh, it was still masses of hard work, there's no getting around that. It certainly was a hobby of the 'are we having fun yet?' variety. But all the fear and doubt wemt away, and once I got my study method in place, there was a 'rinse and repeat' flavour to it. This is something I've found so often in life. Once you've devised a really good system for doing something, once you've road tested your system and adjusted it and worked out any kinks, it takes away a great deal of the more daunting aspects of things. You rely on the system, and providing there's nothing wrong with the system, and you practice it honestly, it doesn't let you down. Ever. Much of my life has been lived in the shelter of this idea.

This is me being admitted as a lawyer. Living proof of the efficacy of the interval method!

So, with writing. For the last few years I've struggled with productivity. I've written in this blog about the terrible events of 2021 that led to my total cessation of work for many months, and my slow road to recovery. Now, I'm finally getting back in the groove, and although there have been a few stumbles along the way, and a lot of supervening life events requiring more and more time to be taken off, things are finally moving. 

What enables me, a basically idle and frivolous person, to achieve this, you ask. Well, it's intervals. When I see the day stretching out before me, nine to four an impossible, uncrossable waste, like the Arctic Circle or that vile shopping mall in Doncaster, my nerve fails me and I just want to go back to bed, or stare at youtube for six hours. But if I've to work for half an hour, I can do that standing on my head, as it were. So I do that, and then I do something else, either for a few minutes or an hour or whatever, and then I go back to work for another session, and I rinse and repeat and by the end of the day, sometimes I find I've achieved a decent wordcount, and also done a number of other tasks that would otherwise have gone on being endlessly procrastinated. It's like magic - work less, get more done.

So for the next little while in my blog, I'll be going back to chronicling my working days using this method. It's a good tool, this; it keeps me honest if I have to tell how I spent my day. Wish me luck!

H IS FOR HOUSE.

We have a friend moving in with us today. Our house in town is a modest dwelling in the suburbs. Technically three bedrooms, but actually only two as I have converted the biggest one to an office. It was already pretty full, with me and my husband and our two large hounds and two cats. It might be a little cramped with the addition of another adult and his five hounds. And a house, of course, is finite. It's made of bricks and mortar. Or, if you're rich and posh, vast blocks of stone chiselled out by hand many centuries ago. But whatever the material, it's a foundation and walls and a roof, and it doesn't magically expand.

H, however, also stands for home, and a home is another thing entirely. A home is not bricks and mortar and roofing. A home is made of love, and care, and patience, and the infinite small accommodations of goodwill that humans make for each other. A home is a living thing, and like most living things, it is stretchy. 

With the chaos of Moving Day, and the fitting in of everything, I've been inspired to really get into my declutter, which had rather stalled, what with injury, and eye surgery, and so on. I have always in my mind's eye the memory of my grandparents' house. They had what they needed, and nothing extra. Shopping was not a recreational exercise for my grandmother. She bought the best she could afford, took extremely good care of it, and replaced it only when it had worn out. Her whole married life, she had the same china, the same silver, the same furniture. There was none of this modern 'doing up' of rooms, either. All of the rooms in her house remained as they had been set up when she first moved in And that house was the happiest, most peaceful place in my childhood. So that's my ideal, although the category of 'things one needs' seems to be rather larger these days, with the addition of so much technology. 

So I'm really looking forward to seeing my house get properly weeded out, and embracing that more disciplined lifestyle that brings with it so much peace and comfort. But I'm also looking forward to discovering what our family will become, with the new additions. Because, above all, a home is made up of the people in it, and all the myriad connexions between them. 

We're going to be just fine.

G is for Generosity

 Generosity. We don't hear a lot about it nowadays, except when being pestered by telemarketers pimping the latest in 'charity' scams. It's one of those old-fashioned virtues, like patience and temperance and fortitude, that don't quite fit with the modern world and it's me-centric culture.

There's far more to generosity, though, than giving out money to panhandlers, or buying lavish presents for one's friends. The other part of this underappreciated virtue, perhaps the greater part, is at once easier and more difficult, but far, far more subtle. It usually doesn't cost much in concrete terms, but can come at a great price in the intangible. I'm talking about generosity of spirit. For example: the ten minutes you take to think yourself into the other person's viewpoint in an argument. That's cheap in one sense - it costs no money at all. But in another way, it can be, as the poet put it, 'hard and bitter agony'. For to achieve this, we must let go of our conviction that we hold the only correct view. We must admit that the other person's view may also be completely valid. As valid as our own, and perhaps more so. The other person may be right. We may be wrong, or both of us may be right; one of the hardest preconceptions to give up is that belief that every question can have only one answer. A really good example of this is the dialogue between adherents of different religions. 

There's another kind of generosity, too, that's largely uncelebrated nowadays, when everyone is about showing off their fabulous lives on social media. It is the small, humble acts of service that go largely unnoticed and often unseen. And these can be the hardest ones of all. I am constantly challenged in this area, myself. It's one thing to open your home to a friend who's temporarily homeless, or to rescue stray animals. It's quite another thing to respond with the same gentle patience the sixth time your old, incontinent cat wets his bed as you did the first time that day. To just shut up when your husband did the laundry incorrectly. To listen to someone's story that she's told you a hundrred times, and pretend you haven't heard it before. These things, so small, seem to take an herculean effort.

This is where, I think, the power of habit can really work for us. Once aquired, habits of kindness and patience are a practically endless source of strength. They help us to rise above the baseness of nature, to become better versions of ourselves. This is the real purpose behind religious events such as Lent, and Rmaadan. They are training exercises, boot camps where kindness, self-control, and so on get muscled up. I've no data to support my theory, but I'd be willing to bet that the people who really put in a sincere effort for Lent are probably better people all the time than they would otherwise have been. Ramadan, too - it isn't just about fasting, but about everything. 

End of life care, for any species, challenges us to be our best selves.

F is for Festive

Now that it's all over, the presents unwrapped, the feasts eaten, and in some houses the Christmas tree already stripped, it seems appropriate to look back on the season we've just weathered, some joyfully and some not so much.

What is the nature of this festival we celebrate each year? Despite how secular our society has become, it is still a major driving force in the economy, with people, especially the poor, rushing like lemmings each year to immolate themselves on cliffs of debt. Of course it's the poor; we are the ones who exist in this society to be milked, like cows.

So, the nature of Christmas. To a few die-hard Christians, Christmas is our second greatest feast, the celebration and reliving of Christ's miraculous birth, the beginning of the long, beautiful path of our salvation. To many people now, however, it seems to be the occasion for celebration of all that is worst in us: our greed, our gluttony and pure selfishness. I'd like to think that this is a catharsis, leaving us cleansed and improved for the new year, but sadly, this kind of thing doesn't work - like orgies of gluttony or drinking before embarking on a strict diet or regime of sobriety, what it really does is undermine our moral fibre and render it impossible, in the short term, to rise above the mire.

Of course, there is a great deal of lip service paid. 'Joy, peace and love', proclaim the banners, as beneath them hordes of shoppers elbow each other out of the way. People who couldn't be bothered giving one the time of day for 50 weeks of the year suddenly realise their entire life will be ruined if they don't get to have lunch with us in that particular week. In workplaces, there's a lot of hugging and kissing; people who spent their year stabbing you in the back and sometimes even sabotaging your work slobber all over you as if you were their long-lost mama come back from the wars. It's all about as real as tinsel, and as useful, although perhaps not quite so pretty.

This whole shitshow is exemplified, like most productions, by its leading characters. Just as Dr Zhivago was the poster boy for the film of that name, as Bruce Willis represents the Die Hard films, we see at the head of things the leading man of the day. Once, long ago, this role was filled by Our Lady, by the Holy Family as they trudged their way to Bethlehem, by the Baby Jesus. Now, however, they have been relegated to the status of extras, and the leading role is filled by Santa Claus.

Let's look at Santa Claus for a moment. Fat, jolly, and giving out stuff to children. He gets shoved down our throats with every bite of media, with every look around a shopping centre. He's even on the stamps this year. He's supposed to be harmless, and good, and fuzzy. Yet, what is Santa, really? Functionally, he leads us away from the actual meaning of Christmas, inviting us to focus on the gratification of all our basest desires: gluttony, greed, self-indulgence taken to ridiculous extremes. Wallow in the things of the world, he tells us. Ho, ho, ho! Who else can you think of that tempts us away from the right life to wallow in the cheap satisfactions of the body? I'll give you a clue - its name can be arrived at by a simple rearrangement of the letters of 'Santa'.

One of the Native American peoples, I am told, has a legend that inside each person are two wolves, one good and one evil. They battle each other for dominion of your soul. Which one will win, asks the querant. The one that is stronger, goes the answer. The one you feed.

Whom will you follow, next Christmas season? The one who leads us to kindness, to charity, to mastery of the self? Or the devil?