What I Write

When I was younger, I thought I would only enjoy one type of book: one that had magic in it. Then, I found A Series of Unfortunate Events, and everything almost changed.

Except, that was it. That was the only non-magical series I was reading. Until I went to secondary school and was required to read Boy by Roald Dahl, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, I didn't read another book that didn't have magic in it. I was reading Harry Potter, and Darren Shan, and Garth Nix.

My first book was a fantasy book. My second was sci-fi. And it wasn't just a genre fixation. I was only reading and writing novels. Nothing else.

I tried to write some short stories. They were derivative at best.

Then, when I was seventeen, I wrote a book that didn't have magic in it. It was set in Dublin, it had swearing in it, and no one could throw a fire ball or read anyone's mind. It was a perfectly ordinary book. More or less. But it was still a novel.

I tried writing some poetry, and couldn't get it right.

Eventually, I found my poetic voice. That was important for me. I was writing things that had meaning for me, and I was able to put some form on them. It was a big step in the right direction.

As I entered third year in college, I wrote a play for the first time. The only time I'd ever written a script before this was a bad, short screenplay a couple of years back.

By this point, I was doing something else with my reading, too. I was reading all sorts of books. I was reading novellas, poetry, short stories, and non-fiction. I had actually found non-fiction interesting. I was reading books on business and mental health and writing, and I was loving it.

When I wrote Balor Reborn in 2012, I also started writing flash fiction. I managed to take ideas and turn them into 1000 word stories quite easily.

The end result: I now write novellas, in different genres, as well as flash fiction on romance and mythology and vague elements of fantasy and magical realism; I've been writing poetry, and I've written short scripts for stage production; to top it all off, I've been writing books on writing.

It may not seem significant for some, but when stories were my whole world, turning to all of these different areas and genres has been life-changing for me. I'm not just a novelist, or a poet, or a playwright; I'm a lot of different things, all at the same time, and it's the spice that makes my life that little bit more interesting.

Short Story Writing for Leaving Cert Students

Last night, a former teacher of mine reminded me of a couple of things. Firstly: I'm a writer who knows things about writing. Secondly: I'm a teacher who has some experience teaching creative writing. And thirdly, I'm old.

Okay, not that old. But I'm old enough to have sat my Leaving Cert and to have written and published several books since. I'm old enough to have gone through college. And I'm experienced enough to have written a lot of short stories in my time.

The point is, I was asked for advice, and I was able to give it, and I think it's about time I put together a post on this for all the English teachers (and English students) out there.

1. Keep it simple. You have a limited amount of time and space in which you must write your story. You can't create an in-depth universe in the few pages at your disposal. You can't write a story spanning, in detail, a few years. You don't even have weeks. Try to fit the action into one day - two or three at most. Other things to avoid include: acts of terrorism, natural disasters, or mass murders, especially as a means of ending the story. (The old favourite, it seems, is to kill off everyone in the story with a volcano exploding.)

2. Plan in advance. Before you write anything, plan the story. Figure out your primary characters. Jot down 2-3 keys scenes you'll include, and know your ending. I can't stress the importance of this enough. You'll have a limited amount of time to write your story, so knowing how it'll come to an end is important. Otherwise, you run the risk of simply writing until it's finished. That's fine if you don't have a time limit, and if you have the patience to rewrite anything to make it more coherent, but in an exam situation, time is precious.

For a recommended break-down on how to spend your time in the exam, see this page: http://www.leavingcert.net/skoool/examcentre_sc.asp?id=326

3. Have some ideas before you go in. Knowing what sort of story you could feasibly write before you go in is a good idea. (Writing it all beforehand and trying to reproduce it under pressure is not.) Have a look at different photo prompts online if you need ideas. Getting used to them beforehand is also a good idea, given the trend of there being a photo prompt question on the paper. Look through news stories for inspiration, too. You never know what will peak your interest and what you can use in your exam. Remember, in typical situations only one person will read your story.

A weekly photo prompt blog you can check it (run by yours truly) can be found here: http://writingpromptphotos.tumblr.com/

For easy to read, and sometimes ridiculous, news stories, I regrettably point you in the direction of the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

4. Know your characters. One of the easiest ways to prepare to write a story without knowing the exact conditions of the story, is to prepare a few characters in advance. Create a protagonist in love; create a protagonist who wants to travel; create a protagonist who wants revenge. Mix things up a bit. Write male and female characters. Write characters of various ethnicities. Don't be afraid to create a genre-defined character. Give your characters depth, a background, an attitude, a way of looking at life. When you get the question - sometimes a line to include, sometimes a photo prompt, sometimes a lot more open than that - you could include one of your prepared characters. If you can't, create one on the spot. You should have plenty of experience in creating an interesting character. The most important thing to remember is that how your characters act and think is more important than how they look.

5. Know how to create interesting settings. A room isn't simply defined by what you can see. Think about the other senses we possess: hearing, smell, touch, and thermoception (the sense of heat and cold) are perhaps the most relevant here. Use them to create an atmosphere in a room, a depth beyond what we can see. When you've figured out how to use those properly - I advise describing your bedroom using those six senses (the five listed above, plus sight) and try describing others areas, like a nearby park, a shop, and a restaurant - it's time to turn to the cultural and social aspects of the setting. Paper 2 in Leaving Cert English deals with the Comparative Study. One area of this is the Cultural Context question, in which you need to dissect a piece for the culture created. The greater your understanding of factors such as religion, employment, crime and education on an environment, the better. You won't necessarily need all of the information, but it helps to create a more interesting setting (and write a more interesting story) if you can make use of them.

Above all else, practice.

Going into your Leaving Cert only ever writing stories (or essays, for that matter) when your teacher tells you to isn't necessarily a good idea. You should practice writing in your spare time - call it studying, if you have to explain it to a parent or guardian. You should aim to write a story at least every couple of weeks. It counts for half the marks of Paper 1, and deserves the attention. (As a further bonus, developing your writing skills will help you across the board, science and maths based subjects aside.) If you want a change of pace from trying to come up with your own ideas all the time, try out some fan fiction.

If you have access to a Kindle (or Kindle App on a smart phone or tablet) and you want to read more from me on this area, you might consider my two books on the matter:

Available on Amazon.com
and Amazon.co.uk

Available on Amazon.com
and Amazon.co.uk

Worker, Chef, Writer, Trainer

If today had a theme, it would be Time. My ability to keep track of it was tested, both in work and at home, and while I failed miserably in the shop, I managed to not kill everyone at home.

See, as part of the changes happening in the shop, we have to return a lot of old stock. I was left to the kids' section today, with a twenty page list and a pile of empty boxes. My four-hour shift usually drags by, and while I did check the time on a couple of occasions, I failed to truly keep track of things. Five minutes after my shift had ended, I was still plucking books from the shelves.

Oops?

Thankfully, I had access to a clock later in the day when, by circumstance, I was left to put the dinner in the oven. Lots of different types of chicken (you know, thighs, wings, drumsticks), any of which could have killed us if not cooked properly.

But I'm a good boy. I put the food in the oven at the right time, and everything turned out nicely.

Today also marked the beginning of two things: the work on my poetry and prose blog, and a nostalgic game-playing experience.

I began the blog-work by putting together the banner and getting the blog a name. I've opted to use Wordpress. While Blogger is good, I find it's a lot more difficult for other people using it to find posts. Wordpress at least lets people use tags that actually work within Wordpress.com to find posts with that tag. (Yes, I know, Blogger tags are for Google's benefit...)

I have a list of things I need to do to finalise the work before the launch (I'm hoping Friday, with a flash story), and I'm going to draw up a list of different projects to keep me going on the site. Fun, right?

As for the nostalgia... well, someone mentioned Pokémon on Facebook earlier, and now I'm playing Pokémon Yellow online. It was the second - and last - Pokémon game I owned. I could have picked a more modern one - even just more recent than Yellow - but I couldn't resist the idea of having my own little Pikachu following my character around on screen.

It brings back fun memories of playing the game as a child. I still have the Gameboy I played it on, though I couldn't tell you where the games have all disappeared to. It's a pity, really. We probably gave them to a cousin, or something.

Still, I have my Pokémon game to play, now, I have a new blog to work on, I have a lot of work to do in the shop, and I didn't give the family food poisoning on account of my ability to look at a clock. I call that a good day.

2012 Calender Portfolio

My parents broke one tradition this Christmas: they didn't get us a calender. Every year for as long as I can remember, we have received some form of calender from our parents; usually this means we get a Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy or Doctor Who calender. This year: nadda.

So, I'm compensating for the lack of on-the-wall calender by doing something different with 2012: I'm making a portfolio. I will be purchasing a large a4 binder (one of the thick ones that hold more pages than you usually need to include...) and putting in it the basic calender pages. That file is almost ready: I just need to choose 12 awesome pictures to put on it, to make it special for myself.

But it doesn't end there. Every time I get an assignment, or assign something to myself, the brief will be printed and added to the Calender Portfolio. Why do I call it that? Because everything I write or do in the year will end up in this folder. Every short story, every poem, every essay, possibly even the first chapters of every novel I work on. The full scripts for the play and mini-series I will be writing will find their way into the portfolio, mixed in with photographs from nights out with friends.

Why all of this? Because I want to be able to say to myself that I did something worthwhile in 2012. I want to be able to show that something significant happened at some stage, because I will probably forget what happened when. Events have a way of blurring from one year to another, particularly if they happen in the winter months (since the academic year isn't over). I want to record my work, just for myself.

Also, I'm insanely weird.

I like a good project, and anyone who wants to join me in this is more than welcome. I have the file saved in .doc format. I have a contact page on my website. If you want to avoid the trouble of putting together the calender file yourself, just ask me for it. Simple as that.

Whatever happens, I know that if I stick with this I'll have something to show for myself at the end of the year. Or rather, something to show to myself. I have an awful habit of not giving myself enough credit for what I do during the year, because of the lack of things to show for it all creatively (since I always forget about assignments in college...)

I'll be back with more on this in January, when I can see if it's actually going anywhere. Sure, I know I'll be busy then!

Website is a Go!

My website is launched! It can be found here: http://paulcarrollwriter.com

It's been a relatively long road. Well, six weeks. I decided, at the very end of July after finished Camp NaNoWriMo, to set up a website. The idea was simple: I would write articles on the website, I would post short stories and poems, and that would be that. I would run it through Wordpress.com.

That's how it started. I set up a Wordpress.com account, and I got things on the roll. Then I thought, I could run other things through this! And that's what I will be doing. I have ideas in place, some of which will appear sooner than others, that will be ad supported. I'm not a fan of ads on my own personal space, which is what this blog and the main part of the website will be, but when it comes to these other ideas, ads will be fine.

But that's way into the future (in one case, but not necessarily another). For now, I've got a set list of features on the website.

It functions like a blog, categorised and organised neatly so that it represents the two sides to how I work: with my head and with my heart. The "head" work is the articles under Writing Advice. The advice ranges from (very) basic legal advice to the basics of writing that I picked up over the years to a guide to what I call 50K in 30 Days, which is essentially NaNoWriMo. I've done it enough to know how to do it properly, and my "win" this summer in the Camp version was the final piece of encouragement I needed to try help people do it too. First drafts are important.

The "heart" work, then, is the Writing Samples section. This includes short stories, poems and Doctor Haik-Who. The last one is for a bit of fun and variety. I have specific niche talents and especially nerdy hobbies, and if I hide that fact from the world I'd be lying through my teeth (or fingers...).

Two ideas I have for expanding on what I offer the world - the ad based things I mentioned - also play on the "head" and "heart" of my writing. One will be an article site, the other a fiction based site, both attached directly to my website. For now, they will remain hidden (though I think some people can already guess the fiction based site!).

Combining the "head" and the "heart" is the Free Downloads section. I'll be adding downloadable pieces to the website through this section. Already there are opening chapters from a novella I wrote in Summer 2010, called Stepping Forward. I won't even attempt to explain it to you. The .PDF file features the opening five chapters, which should give you a pretty good idea of what the book is about, without giving away too much! It's short, of course, being a novella, but it's a fun book as far as I'm concerned! It didn't bore me in the editing process, anyway, and I normally can't stand to look back on things I've written!

There will be other things added to this section of the website, which you can find out about through my Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn pages (links in the sidebar!), as well by checking out the News section, part of About. This About section has an author bio (er... my bio), the News section and a Writing Progress section. That last one is just a short page on what I'm working on. It's generally for larger projects than, say, my latest article for The Phantom Zone.

Aside from that, though, the website is like any other, right? I mean, the Free Downloads section isn't on every website, but it's not unique. I wanted this to be a new type of experience. Yes, there are plenty of ways to get in touch with me that make me a little more accessible than some authors, but I wanted to personalise my website more. So I set up a Skype account.

Yes, Skype.

In the sidebar of my website, you'll see three buttons. The first is to add me to your contacts list. I will generally accept all requests. The second button is to see my status - you'll know when I'm online just by looking at my website. The third button is to call me. It's as simple as that.

This enables people to meet the author! I'm not published, but I've seen lots of people who aren't published and who have websites and one thing you can't do is meet them unless you know them. I've spoken to dozens of authors online, but rarely face-to-face! I want to give people that option. My face is already on the website, so I don't have to worry about that aspect of it. And I only have to appear online when I'm free to talk. It's as simple as that.

One last thing about the downloads, though. They're free, but they're password protected. The passwords will be available on the website. The point isn't to stop people accessing the writing, but to stop spambots accessing it easily. I figured this was the best way to do it. Sorry for the inconvenience, but hopefully you think it's worth it!

So there it is, my website is launched and ready to go. I hope you enjoy it, and feedback is appreciated!

The Mind Boggles

Before I begin, can we just confirm that we've established I'm insane? Okay? Good.

So, I was lying on my bed yesterday - as you do - and a weird thought came into my head. Why do I feel like I had a neglected childhood? I know I didn't! So, obvious conclusion must be that I had a past life as an orphan living in a horrible home where the walls were growing new things and the food was barely edible. That would explain my discomfort with mould and my unwillingness to try new foods. New foods might be barely edible. Like grey gloopy soup.

Of course, as I thought about this orphaned past life of mine, I began to feel quite sorry for the me that was dead. What had happened to my parents? How old was I in my memory of mouldy walls and gloopy grey food? Why was someone allowed to keep orphans essentially locked up in a building where the walls might eat them, given time?

Then, of course, the author in me decided it was going to go crazy, and I've come up with an idea for what I think will be a series of short stories that can be read individually without any prior knowledge of the others, except for the last one. I incorporated ideas I'd gotten through the day yesterday (as I wandered almost aimlessly throughout town waiting for the time when I would meet up with a friend for delicious noms and catch up on all sorts of stuff). So, now I have a series of stories going through my head, no time to write them, and only the main character's name to go by - it's in the title of the series. I will not be revealing it.

Of course, this all seems a bit all over the place until I tell you that the stories are past-lives in themselves. Hence the connection between orphaned me with the mouldy bedroom walls and the main character of my story. I do intend to write these stories - maybe throughout my college year - and have friends read them, but for now they remain a maddening idea of fantastical proportions. I have no idea how many stories there will be, who any of the other characters will be, or what sort of adventures my protagonist will get dragged in to in his various lives. I only know why it's all significant, and maybe, just maybe, this will turn from a series of short stories into a collected series of short stories that functions as an erratic novel.

So, I can add this to the list of books I have to write... fantastic.

Thankfully, with this series of stories, I don't have to worry about one thing: time travel. As my character's past lives are all important for the series, having himself travel back into them would create certain paradoxes. It would drive him insane. Because he cannot, ever, be allowed to see himself. The memory of it would rip his mind apart. (And that's why people who remember their past lives in fiction or - ha - in reality, should not be allowed to time travel. Nevermind the space-time continuum, they wouldn't survive the ordeal of viewing themselves! Most people wouldn't, anyway!)

Okay, enough teasers for a series that hasn't even been started. Tomorrow I'll have a new review. And next Wednesday, too. I come prepared this time. I've read ahead. Which is just as well, because I am currently reading several books, all of which are too long to finish soon while also writing. So many stories going through my head at the moment... YOU ARE TEARING ME APART LISA!*

*This is a thing we've picked up in college. To understand it, see this video.

P.S. if any of my friends/relations would like to design cover art** for any of my books/stories, please get in touch via Facebook/Twitter/email/age-old-device-called-a-phone. I have a mixture of commercial fiction (i.e. nothing too strange), science fiction and fantasy... and at some stage horror. I'll obviously let you read the story first... (Rude not to...)

** or photography, if it's not just a plain ol' photograph I could have taken myself...