Big Ole Spaceships?

So the other evening instead of lazing around on the sofa, I got all inspired with a sci-fi idea. I've never written a space novel before, but I've read all the classic goodies (Clarke, Asimov, Dick, Heinlein, Lem, Le Guin etc) and the new guys like David Mitchell, Jeff Noon. I've even read Iain M Banks. And some of those trashy ones that have girls popping all out of their spacesuits at opportune moments. But really, the best ones have one simple idea that ricochets through the whole story and gives it zing...

I can't claim to have one of those. But I can envisage the trailer blurb that says "The Answer – to the Big Bang, space travel, the afterlife, and first contact..."

So what do I do with this idea? I've written a synopsis, drafted characters, researched my factual data (to do with Deep Space and new galaxies and current & future space exploration) and I'm ready. Do I start the opening chapters, go for a screenplay, or pitch the idea itself? Who do I talk to or google for?

Come on guys, gimmee some clues...

Matryoshkas

‘During the Soviet era, the ‘State Planning Committee’ decided that it would be politic to make as many nesting Russian Dolls as possible, in order that each person on the Earth could get his/her own ‘matryoshka’. The factory dolls that were subsequently churned out had none of the appeal of the old hand-carved ones. Highly skilled old masters turned matryoshkas with very thin sides, which were considered to be a special artform. Painting matroykas was secondary. The professional artists who painted the first factory turned dolls did not treat them seriously enough. Without the native traditions, the matroyshka lost its charm and became an ordinary wooden toy, primitive and simple, but certain themes and patterns were still visible in their designs. The red and black Dog-Rose with many petals was the main element of the painted aprons. This flower was always considered to be a symbol of femininity, love and motherhood.’

Women are the real Russian dolls. Inside, are their children, growing and turning, their wooden faces emerging from the carving tool, their newly painted eyes blinking into awareness. Deeper within every doll is their mother, who only comes to the fore when the babies are born. That is when we realise what it is to have a mother and be a mother – the heart-churning, chest-rending ache of it, coupled with the sweetest indescribable joys. And when we first realise what our own mothers and grandmothers have achieved.

Within the Russian dolls of a family are the minute changes in appearance that dictate the changing generations – a misplaced mole or birthmark perhaps, a tendency to a long nose or a high forehead. Echoes from this genealogy create that striking sense of a family. When you walk into the room of someone else’s family gathering, there is a moment, while you are still an outsider, when you can see these clues. Laid out before you are a mass of pale-skinned, freckled, red headed folk, or the cast of The Cosby Show, or domed foreheads of every shape, size and age like Old Masters come to life. Whatever it is, you’ll see it that first time, as clearly as a brand on sheep. This is NOT your family. Your own family has blurred for you over time, until now all you see is its familiarity. Faces that might as well be your own in a mirror; you know them that well. Auntie this, Cousin that, who may be irritating as hell individually, but taken together reflect back your sense of yourself in the world. Like us Clarks.

My family is loosely from London, England. My mother’s side (Capon, Swetman, Hammon) moved out gradually, from Edmonton, North London to Hertfordshire and Essex, the Home Counties. My Dad’s family (Clark) have dispersed erratically to Bishops Stortford, Newmarket, and Clacton, and one or two to Spain, Israel, Tasmania. There is rarely a Clark family gathering anymore. The last was probably Grandad Joe’s 80^th birthday. I think I got stoned in someone’s car in a parking lot, and avoided the milling flesh in uncomfortable party clothes all dancing to bad disco in the marquee….

‘Sometimes matryoshkas portrayed the whole family, with numerous children and other staff members of households. There were matryoshkas devoted to historical themes. They described boyars (old Russia noblemen), legendary heroes, bogatirs (warriors), or Russian book characters. Those portraying older women would have their hair covered with kokoshniks; to portray young girls they painted hair ribbons. Black drake's feathers were stuck in the headdresses. The most popular dolls consisted of 3, 8 and 12 pieces, although in 1913 a 48-piece matryoshka made by N. Bulichev was displayed at the Exhibition of Toys in St. Petersburg. Some Russian dolls depict aspects of tea making. The Russian tea-making ceremony is reminiscent of the English one, i.e. tea is served in a teapot, with bread and jam, cakes and pies. It is normally served at 5pm (tea time) but also throughout the day, and especially when visiting a friends house. However, Russians might use a samovar to heat the water, instead of an English style kettle’.

And it really is a ceremony. No matter how corny, rushed or commonplace having a cup of tea has become, it’s a potent symbol of home and family. A cup of ‘tea and sympathy’ at times of stress or grief, a heartwarming mugful to dispel shock, the ritual teapot and dainty cups with saucers when an elderly relative, vicar, neighbour or potential in-laws call by. Those late night mugs of chocolate, or continental shots of coffee are all very well, but someone only has to say ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ and I feel cosseted and welcomed. I can differentiate old boyfriends and their families by different styles of tea. The dilute milky taste of Mark’s tea, the harsh tannin laced with copious sugar of Steve’s Irish family. Joe dubbed Auntie Doreen’s ‘Guinness tea’, relishing its rich copper colour and dense flavour - that ‘puts hairs on your chest.’ And now everyone drinks green tea, red tea, fruit tea, camomile tea, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, ice tea, tea with soya milk, tea with honey…

Nanny Em’s tea was the best. One bag of PG Tips per person, and one for the pot. Scalding hot water in the teapot and straight on with the woolly tea cosy, on a tray, surrounded by little plates of French Fancies, or Swiss Roll, or a slice of homemade apple pie. The cups were a mismatched combination of white porcelain fluted cups with a gold rim, and smaller, squat white cups with a pale pink tea rose pattern, all on plain white saucers. Inevitably, I spilled some tea in the saucer, trying to sit on her plump cushioned sofa. Grandad would slurp his tea noisily out of his saucer afterwards, to the delight of us kids, sat waiting for Nan to rebuke him for his manners. Whereupon he’d roll his eyes at her, and pull a goony face at us, jutting out his lower jaw to show us his one peg of a tooth. The tea itself tasted mild, warm and soft - the type of tea that rolls round inside your mouth and is fit to drink alongside Southend’s best battered rock eel and chips, or after a late tea of marmite soldiers and runny egg, or with early morning smoked kippers, bread and jam.

The world is random

While walking along the road from Alcalali to Parcent this morning, I found one credit and two debit cards in the name of Miss H. Deaves, chucked in the ditch. I wouldn't normally be scouring the ditch but the cars bomb so close at times, that you have to be aware of the roadside in case you need to make a leap to safety. (One night walking home in the moonlight I got tipped in the ditch and found the stream at the bottom. Another time Joe and I were drunk and stood in the field pretending to be trees whenever potential axe-wielding murderers drove by looking for their next victims. Of course, we used to live in London, or we'd never think such things, here in sleepy rural Spain.)
Where was I ? Oh, yeah, so I found these cards and it seemed like a message. I'd been having a tough time at home - pile of bills mounting up, Joes new business is just eating cash, the girls need shoes, teeth-braces, swimsuits, school books - an endless list. I haven't bought new underwear in over a year. How grim and unattractive that sounds! I looked at these cards in my hand - one from Abbey National, one Tescos, one HSB - and they were all in date, signed on the back, pristine-looking. A womans name and signature. And for just one second I thought about what would happen if I kept them? Hid them in a drawer in case times got even harder. Would I be tempted to try and use them? Could I even hand them in for a reward? I wasn't really sure of the procedure - should I report them to the Guardia Civil? Ring the number on the back? Would the person have already cancelled them?
I imagined a lady, pleasant-looking, very English, living over here maybe, with folks back in the UK, and a retaining back account there. Perhaps she'd been robbed last night, and the thieves used her cards to pay on the motorway toll roads. Maybe she was devastated - could she have been mugged like a friend was last week? A knife held to her throat through the window of her car, while she was made to hand over her bag and contents, possibly forced to reveal her PIN number. Horrible.
By now, I'd walked home, and was snatching a quick tea before picking the girls up from their last day at school. I stood holding the cards and picked up the phone. I thought about the arguments lately, and how I'd threatened to walk out last week. I wondered why I'd found them today. Was there a reason? Is the world just random?
Of course, I phoned to report the cards stolen - the phone operative at the other end said they'd already been cancelled. Could I please cut them up, length-ways and width-ways and dispose of them? I put them in the bin, with a strange sense of purpose. Miss Deaves would never know I'd found them, and there they were among my decomposing tea-bags, the remains of Tabi's Rice Krispies, the bill envelopes.
Tomorrow I would write the first line of my next novel - maybe the one that will get published. Maybe the one that will moulder in the Playroom cupboard until Farley finds it one day, looking for scrap paper, and hand it out in sheaves to her two sisters to cover with exotic drawings of stick people and grinning suns and wobbly houses.

Reaching

Just when you think - Whats the point??!! - someone steps in and says "Read your blog. Loved it. Some issues on there. Made me think."

Isn't that where we're all going with this? Isn't it like the scene in that movie Bruce Almighty where Jim Carrey gets to be God, and has to listen to everyone's prayers (via email). You can read 20 blogs in under ten minutes - and every one has a prayer or a wish or a thought process outlined in it. You can perceive lifestyle choices, faiths, politics (duh, obviously) loves, loss and heartache... and the humanity of it strikes you, whether the blog is from Aarhus or Zimbabwe.

Of course, publishers wanna publish it - in them old fashioned bindings of paper and string, because there's a world of people immune to blogging who yet wanna know about it. But it's a vast human experiment - greater than reality tv, more open to measurement than the impact of the internet, more poignant than hacking email - because these sites are the sneak peek into your hallway that voyeurs treasure, and the rest of us claim as intellectual stimulus when in truth its more about soap opera...

The globe is changing - so fast we can't measure it or keep up. Climate, war zones, extinction of key species, barriers of geography and language are dwindling, people are getting a global consciousness. There is talk of a 'critical mass' - a point at which humans could truly learn from their mistakes. Is it round the corner? Check out some more blogs, and let me know...

2: More Chupa-Chups

I’d got hurt at school, from falling over in the playground. There were little stones, nearly as small as sand, and they got stuck under my fingernail and pushed my nail loose. It stung like anything, and I knew it would hurt more if they tried to get the stones out. So I started crying and biting my lip and swinging my arm about so the teachers couldn’t get to touch my fingernail. Marie-Carmen took me to the medico who turned out to be a lady, in this other building, who looked like she just sat there all day waiting for people to hurt themselves.

Then my mum arrived, and looked down at my finger as if it was going to bite her. Just as I stood up, a small brown-skinned boy was carried in, kicking and screaming, because he’d fallen on scissors. They were in a real rush and I saw his blood dripping and they left the door open, as though they had no time to waste with doors. So I watched the medico lady while she stitched his eyebrow and all the while the boy howled. I couldn’t see the doctor lady’s face. She talked Spanish under her breath but I don’t think she was angry with the boy, although she did pull him about roughly. I understood what she said:

‘Mother of God, they let them play with anything! It is for the doctors to care for children now, not parents. If I were able to have a child like this, surely there are good things to teach him, things that awaken his soul; not to be left in a room like the spare bull. To hell with the lazy foreign dogs.’

Eventually, she was done.

I didn’t want to go in there after that. As the boy came out, he looked at me strangely, as though the accident had affected his brain not just his eyebrow. Marie-Carmen nodded at us, and my mum dragged me in, but I wouldn’t sit on the chair or the bench. The medico had short brown hair whose ends turned up from being tugged in her fingers a lot. She looked at me and I saw her eyes were weeping oil. It just looked as if she was oozing from seeing so many things she didn’t like. I didn’t want her to touch my finger, and I worried that the oil would drip on me and I’d start seeing things I didn’t like. I told my mum that it was hurting and she asked about a way to numb the pain, but the medico said that my mum had to hold my arm still, and then she pulled my nail off, and flicked the stones away with a sharp metal shape, got the jagged bit of skin off, and squirted it with Betadine. It was in a bandage and my hand felt heavy before I could remember the Spanish for Stop.

‘Moltes graciés per su attención, señora,’ I said.

She shrugged: 'No pasa res.'

I thought it was better to say thank-you in Valenciano, like at school, because then people go relaxed, and let you off things. She did slump her shoulders a bit and she was quite young, and I thought if she didn’t have children of her own, maybe she didn’t realise how much it hurt.

After we came out into the stinging sun, I watched the boy across the road, digging a weed out of a crack in his house. His mother came out, shaking a tablecloth, and he cursed at her in Spanish. She was going to yell back, but he put his hand on his stitches and rubbed the hair out of his eyes and I could see she was upset. He sat on the step with his face all red and swollen. His mother went back inside.

We had to go past them to reach the Farmacia where they sold boxes of clean bandages and plasters and had jars with green water in where creatures floated. I was so busy getting given more chupa-chups and listening to my mum smile at the ladies, that I didn’t notice him creep in the door and watch me. I turned round when he said ‘J***r!’ in the same rude voice he’d used with his mother. I licked the pale pink and cream lollipop, as his mouth dripped oil from the sides, all down his chin. He looked like Gollum. But no-one else seemed to notice.

So now you know that the Dark isn’t just in my head. When people become infected they can spread it to others. I don’t remember seeing the oil before, but that’s like I never saw traffic lights in London until someone told me about them, and then I saw them all the time. Every corner had the lights, blinking their colours all day, splashing in shop windows and shining in my bedroom at night, while people and cars waited to be told when to go and when to stop. In the country there are no traffic lights. You can decide for yourself when it’s safe to go or stop.

By now I began to see the oil on other people. It stained their clothes, dripped from fingers, stuck their hair, stung their eyes. Some people hid it, but others were so full of it, it ran from their faces, and dripped on their kids. It was disgusting and shiny and hard to avoid. If I could, I’d have carried wipes with me, and worn a rainhat and washing-up gloves, only it was summer. Instead, I avoided talking to people who were so clearly full of the Dark. You’d think everyone would be horrified about dripping oil, but the ones who are infected don't seem to care, and the ones who aren’t infected yet can’t seem to see it. Except me.

The time when the Dark was strongest was at night. I mean that’s when everyone is most easily scared, isn’t it, but the Dark is cleverer than just shadows and creepy night sounds. I think it chose to live in the realm of darkness and half-truths because it knew best how to manipulate people, when they are tired and not able to focus. I remember one night, getting into bed, and really not worrying about anything, when my mum came in.

‘Darling... Nanna sends her love. She’ll bring your other paintings over next time she comes. Erm... you know Nanna’s not well, don't you?’

She stopped and tried to think of a way to weave it into a happy bedtime story but it was beyond even Mummy’s imagination that this was good news. Okay, so Nanna was getting ill, and my mum was telling me about it so I wouldn’t be so scared. When grown-ups do that, you know it’s the time to be really scared. It meant that Nanna was ill in a way that couldn’t get better.

That night I went to sleep thinking about my Nanna, and the time I played making tea with her. It was a day so incredibly bright you had to wear a hat or close your eyes. We were sat outside her house at the Bernia mountain, and Nanna had her feet in a bowl of water and I was using the same water to pour into my red plastic teapot. It was fun to pour the water over her sun-browned knees and make her squeal. Her toes had pale nail-polish on so they looked like shells in the bottom of the bowl of water. Big sunflowers had grown nearby, along the sides of her house, just from seeds dropped by accident. There was even a tomato plant that probably grew from the pips in Nanna’s salad sandwiches that she ate on the doorstep, because she loved her view of the mountain. I was just getting used to Spain and we were staying with Nanna for a while, so that Dad could buy a car and Mum could look for a house. It was playing out just like in real life when the dream changed. Nanna suddenly said:

‘Don’t fight it, Farley, when you feel angry. Get scissors, or break a toy, or shout in someone’s ear. You’ll feel better.’

Then Nanna sat down slowly as if she was going to sleep. She looked rather sad, as if someone had told her to say those things, but she didn’t feel good about it.

You see, I know my Nanna, and she would never tell me what to do. Neither tell me to be good nor bad. She doesn’t push other people to do anything. I think she knows that people have their own minds and forcing them to do what you want is evil. And what’s more it doesn’t work, because people just don’t like you for interfering. But because she mentioned scissors, and I had some in my school kit, I got them out and kept them near my bed just in case I’d need them.

What the Dark doesn’t realise, is that I know Nanna. I have spent more than three months with her, and put necklaces over her face, and shared my birthday cake with her, and told her things I’ve told no-one else. The Dark changed my dream so that I would think Nanna said being mean was okay. Can you imagine something so powerful and sinister that it can get into your dreams? And in your dreams it can make your family act strange and wicked. It’s pretty sneaky. If it does that to little girls, what could it do to grown-ups, whose dreams are less clear, and who are so busy they don’t always think slowly about everything? This is when I realised that I also know more about the Dark than anyone else.

I tried to ask Mum about the Dark, and she thought it was just the usual stuff, either me having a dream or being a weird kid. She was really nice about it but I could tell she thought I was just a scaredy-cat, all afraid of night-time. She’d try reading cheery poems at bedtime, and cuddling me, and bringing me drinks in the night for an excuse to check me. She tried her hardest to protect me, from knee-scratches and fast cars and bad weather, and giving me long relaxing stories to fall asleep to, but she didn’t know the Dark was real, and in my dreams, and it would be a problem for grown-ups too.

Maybe the Dark is following me from London. You see, at first, living in Spain was like one big holiday, and I didn’t have to go to school yet or get up on time. We found a house we liked and the builders were fixing it, (with Daddy getting in their way), and we had trial mornings with Marie-Carmen and even the thought of school still seemed like fun.

One morning, when Mimi and I were watching Spanish TV in our pyjamas, Daddy interrupted his latest argument with Mum to call to us.

‘Hey, Tigers!’ Dad said. ‘Isn't that a bit gory for breakfast time?’

‘But it’s the point where the sand goes brown with blood, and the bull bends to its knees. Cool! He’s gonna do the final stab. Watch, Mimi.’

Mum and Dad were arguing about not getting to the bank before siesta-time to pay some bills. They still hadn’t got the hang of what time everything opened and shut, what days the men came to collect the rubbish and which fiesta was the one where the whole village had a huge paella in the plaza.

‘Put a nice DVD on Farley. D’you think that’s fine for them to watch? Look, I need more work to pay for their school books and there’s no way the house is gonna be ready on time. Spain isn’t just a holiday now, it’s real life.’

‘If you got a proper job, you’d have to learn Spanish anyway,’ Mum was saying. ‘I’ll sort out the paperwork and make the bank manager understand somehow. Can’t you fix computers at weekends? Or sell your old Brownies at the antiques market?’

‘Those cameras are priceless, in original boxes. They’ve never been touched! Why don’t you sell your old books? You’ve read ’em all anyway.’

Maybe the Dark was affecting them a tiny amount, like having a sniffle before you get a full cold. They argued over the slightest thing; Mum was looking sad most days, and Daddy was always mooching about in the garage, turning over the stuff in boxes that they’d brought from England.

It was a few months later I saw the medico with the starey oily eyes. I think the Dark could tell we were a troubled family and it followed me to see if it could infect me when I was distracted.