beat: James Burt's weblog

Reading at Grit Lit on December 9th

I am very excited to announce that I will be reading at Grit Lit on December 9th. The event takes place in the Red Roaster and will include readings from Tim Lay, Amy Riley, Joe Evans and Nina de la Mer. I'm particularly excited about seeing Erinna Mettler, whose novel Starlings sounds fantastic, "a daisy-chain novel set in Brighton" that Louise Halvarddson recently wrote about.

The piece I'll be reading is 'The Other Child', a horror story about ex-girlfriends and books.

"Sarah and I broke up a year back and we’ve both seen other people since, but she still calls me when there’s a problem. A few months after we split she phoned one Sunday morning because there was a spider in the bath. That time, with the spider, I thought it was an excuse, that she was too embarrassed to say what she really wanted. I flushed the spider, followed her to the kitchen and put my arm around her. It was fairly awkward when Sarah explained that it was just about the spider. I apologised and went back home to bed.
I’m the person she calls when the bathroom floods, or her house was burgled, or her new boyfriend needs another man to explain that it’s over and he should return his key. The Paula Sharp thing started with one of those ‘can you help me’ calls, but this time Sarah refused to describe the problem on the phone. “Just come over, please?” I’d promised myself I’d stop doing her bidding but was curious about what she wanted. And there was always the chance it might be the other thing."

Advance tickets are available here for £5. The event starts at 8pm on December 9th.

Next Not for the Faint-Hearted: November 7th

Not for the Faint-Hearted is a monthly writing night run by Ellen de Vries and me. We show a picture on a projector, and everyone spends a short time (usually three minutes) writing a response. It can be a story, poem, dialogue, or something else. When the time's up, everyone takes a turn reading something of what they've written. It's far less intimidating than it might sound and everyone seems to enjoy it. If you want to come along then sign up here. The next session is in Brighton on November 7th starting at 7pm.

Meanwhile, Tom has asked me to post some links to the pictures used in the last session, at the start of this month. Here they are:

1. Tiny Kitten
2. Mar Mousa Monastery
3. The Best Way to Make it Through
4. The Awful Truth, Day 4: Could be working harder
5. Gravestones #1
6. Vitral de Catedral de Berna

 

Spacedog fan fiction

Spacedog are one of my favourite bands. They seem as if they'd be easy to describe, but obvious words like ambient, haunting, or ethereal don't do them justice. There's a lot of humour in their live shows, robotics and a weird touch of folk music. And there's also Hugo.

Back in May I saw Spacedog's Televisor show at the Brighton Fringe (video here). In the interval I scribbled a short story inspired by one of their songs, Laika. I tidied it up a week or two later and gave Sarah a copy. She's now put it on her website and you can read it there.

Sarah's site also includes a great pair of essays on Twitter, one against and one (guardedly) in favour. They give an interesting account of what twitter is and isn't, as well as describing one person learning how they prefer to use the medium.

Clown stories volume one

Last night, Mr. Parkinson came round to visit:

We drank beer, ate curry and worked on the layout for Clown Stories Volume 1. There's still a little more work to do, but I'm hoping to finish that later this month. A few last minute bits of proofing, and a general polishing of the design and it will be ready:

 
The cover is by the illustrator Kate Shields. The book contains three stories by Chris and the rest are mine. They're not the worst of my clown stories - only two people have read those, and I'm not really in touch with them any more. They're not the worst of my clown stories, but some of them are not very nice. 

What can we learn from Hitler and Hume?

In his talk on Algorithmic Art, Tom discussed the sales on his Hitler and Hume project. Tom used Mein Kampf as an input to music generation software and has put it for sale on Amazon and iTunes. Tom openly admits that ambient marimba and woodblock music is not a great musical innovation. However, he surprised me when he announced, "I'm selling nearly £25 a month of this rubbish at the moment. Vast majority EU, then the US. Grossed about £250... I have friends with actual musical talent who've sold less."

The interesting question here is: what are people buying when they buy a record from HItler and Hume?

Tom's discussion of his project made me think of some interesting posts I've read lately:

• How I Got a Blank Book to the Top of the Amazon Charts
• Are e-books the new content farms?
• The Kindle Swindle

Which is not to compare Hitler and Hume to scammy ebook publications. But, what's interesting is that 

1. Amazon is such a low-friction way of selling content
2. People who want to buy the Hitler and Hume EP are finding it (even if there are only a small number of potential fans out there)

I think this is, potentially, incredibly exciting.

January 16th - Creative Writing Tea Party

One of the fun things last year was setting up the Brighton Creative Writing Sessions with Ellen de Vries (who also runs the Not for the Faint-Hearted workshops with me). We put on playful writing workshops and last year we held events based around  Writing and Images, Wabi-Sabi, the beats, short stories and the Tarot. 

We have some interesting events planned for 2011, including writing about Brighton and a guest tutored session on erotica. Our first session, planned for January 16th, is going to be a departure from our usual events, a writer's tea party:

Slap your inner dormouse out of winter slumber. Have a cup of tea and munch on some cake and get some writing done while you're at it. This is an afternoon of writing, reading and diving into the endless possibilities that lie within teapots and under plates on Sunday the 16th from 2 until 6. We're going to be doing short writing exercises and enjoying tea and cake. If you want, bring along something you're already working on. It's going to be friendly, fun and strange.

Unlike our previous workshops, this is going to be a drop-in affair. It's £5 per person, but you can stay for an hour or the whole thing. Tea will be provided, along with cake, and we will also have a tea-pot filled with prompts and writing exercises. To guarantee cake, sign-up here (pay on the day). 

The workshop takes place at the Brighton Life Drawing Sessions HQ, which is at New England House (map here: http://bit.ly/gsqBQ4). We're starting at 2pm - see you there!

(If you want to read a couple of reviews of our previous sessions, check out these blog posts by Sara Crowley and Louise Halvardsson)

We Have Always Lived in the Slaughterhouse (reading on December 15th)

A new story of mine, We Have Always Lived in the Slaughterhouse is being read at the next Are You Sitting Comfortably night in Brighton. The event takes place at the Basement in Brighton on December 15th at 7:30pm, £6/£4. White Rabbit always put a huge effort into their nights and it is well worth attending.

The theme for the night is Horror. My story is an unpleasant story about an unusual domestic arrangement:

"When I was ten years old, I lived with my sister and my Mum in a slaughterhouse. Mum was hiding from her ex-husband, my sister’s Dad, and Uncle Harry thought we’d be safe in one of the old offices. Uncle Harry converted the disused office into a living area, with beds and a small gas stove. He even found some oilskin, hosed down and cleaned, and hung it as curtains, giving each of us our own areas. We didn’t mind living in that old office. Better to hide there than to see our mother beaten." 

I'm hoping that the night will be the perfect antidote to the Christmas preparations. See you there?

Not for the Faint Hearted and the third thought

Last night was the ninth Not for the Faint Hearted session that Ellen and I have run. I still feel the same excitement about the event that I felt for the first. We're also still bringing in new people along with our regulars. That mix of friends and newcomers is one of the things that keeps it fresh.

The prompt images that we used last night were:

• 8 minutes
• 5 minutes
• 3 minutes
• BREAK
• 3 minutes
• 3 minutes
• 3 minutes
• 3 minutes
• 2 minutes

This time we used several black and white archive images. Weirdly I found those more difficult to write about than modern photos.

My favourite thing about these sessions is hearing the different responses people have had to the same images. For me, one of the challenges is finding a good idea in the time available while still having time to write it.

I know now that I can write and edit a basic story in about 90 seconds - although I prefer to have longer. This gives me time to sift through ideas, abandoning the first few until I encounter one that surprises me. This reminds me of some advice that the journalist Caitlin Moran was given by Alan Coren:

"The first idea that occurs to you, will have occurred to everyone. The second idea that occurs to you, will have already also occurred to the clever people. But your third idea – only you will have had that one."

Writing and the Tarot Workshop

On Saturday we had the latest of the Brighton Creative Writing Sessions workshops, on Writing and the Tarot. Ellen and I were very excited as we had a guest tutor for the event, poet and tarot-reader Naomi Foyle.

The tarot has an interesting history as a tool for writers. Italo Calvino described it as a "machine for telling stories", and used it as the basis for his book The Castle of Cross Destinies. (Apparently there was supposed to be a third part of this book, called the Motel of Crossed Destinies, which was never written).

The workshop explored the Major Arcana and Fool's Journey. We played with relating the archetypal symbols on the cards with stories. For me it was most interesting to see how different people interpreted the cards, and the way these symbols could be used, something I want to continue exploring. I was also fascinated to learn that Ted Hughes collection, the Birthday Letters can be analysed in terms of the Major Arcana - more information here. 

I had a fascinating day - thank you to Naomi for running the workshop, and to Jake for providing the space. Ellen and I are now planning 2011's workshops. We have a Top Secret session planned for January, and Writing Brighton in February. Details to follow!

Some links on writing that have excited me recently

• James Bridle on Chetan Bhagat. I read all of Bhagat's novels on my holiday. They were a more interesting glimpse into India than many of the books I read written by non-Indian journalists. Bhagat is one of the most widely read authors in the world.
• Russell Davies has posted some of his favourite quotes from the new Coupland novel. The comment he makes introducing them is interesting: "I'm sure I'll read more of Mr Coupland's books but I'd almost rather read his lists or his notes. It seems like he's the perfect novelist to write the something-that's-not-a-novel that must be just around the corner." Having recently read Reality Hunger, I'm starting to see signs of this something-that's-not-a-novel all over the place.
• Another James Bridle article Birth Pangs of a New Literature: " Authors will keep on writing. They won’t get paid much, but hey, they never did. In fact, there’s a chance they’ll get paid more, if they’re smart, but probably not." 
• John Scalzi's Open Letter to MFA Writing Programs (and their students), prompted by the James Frey controversy. Some good points here, but one thing fills me with horror: some Americans are going into six figures of debt for a creative writing program? That sounds insane. More here.
• An awesome post from Everett True. The comments are worth a read too. "You don’t have to work for them. You don’t have to write for them."
• Fantastic interview with Mark Z. Danielewski, author of House of Leaves: "20 pages of architectural names. Ed Kastenmeier recalls this as MZD’s way of telling/showing Ed that the names weren’t meant to be read, that you were not expected to absorb every syllable in this book. Which is why when he was asked to cut them down, he sent back a revision with double the amount of names in it. Ed then understood that some of the passages in House of Leaves were not meant to be studied, at best, a misdirection at worst."
• Via Tom: Six Word Story, which seems to be an online game similar to the Not for the Faint-Hearted workshops Ellen and I run.
• Yet another link from James Bridle, who argues that publishers are losing millions to book guilt: "When someone with a bad case fails to finish a book, they don’t start a new one; they go into a holding pattern, crippled by guilt over their failure and unable to let go and start over. All reading stops. People have confessed to me that it’s been months since they last picked up a book, because they still haven’t finished the last one."
• The cost of a Richard and Judy recommendation: £25,000 and 50p per copy sold
• One last link, not really on writing... Path sounds like an interesting social network. Like twitter, it adds limitations: only 50 'friends' - focussing on quality of interaction, not quantity. Another limitation is that communication is restricted to photos, with the idea of 'giving' glimpses of moments. There is an interesting article at Wired. Today, I saw Path described as an 'anti-social social network'. Not sure how useful that description is, but this is an interesting category.