Nothing New About Story-TELLING

 

Here we are at the end of January with the first blogpost of the month. If Christmas was quiet, January has been manic for all the wrong reasons. Despite this, I actually managed a few non-fiction shorts for Medium and attended a couple of writer events.

The Romantic Novelists’ Association

Halfway through the month was a digital meeting of the Northern Chapter of the RNA – Romantic in name now, rather than genre action, as many of us have spread our wings over the years. Zoom meetings were inaugurated during the pandemic, and the group decided to continue running them when the monthly face-to-face meetings re-started. It has helped a few far-flung members and those who can no longer travel so far. We keep meetings to Zoom’s free 40 minutes so as to focus the mind.

One of the subjects covered was revamping promotional material for our individual titles – hence the image above, which is for a Horror novella, the antithesis of Romance, which I use for marketing on Facebook and Twitter. It’s a bit grey, a bit flat, the text is bigger than the title. Yes, it needs a rethink.

Humber SFF

A few days ago I attended an Open Mic event at Humber SFF, reading – you guessed it – an excerpt from The Paintings, though in truth it was more of an edited excerpt. I had a 2,000 words limit, but had to find a standalone scene which would both make sense and not give too much away. Not easy. Horror relies on pacing and tone to build anticipation, something which can’t be achieved in half a page. I found my ending and worked backwards to its start, some 3,500 words distant. Ouch! It took four condensing edits, but on the night read well.

It was while I was in the act of reading, an ear on the reactions of the audience, that two things came to mind: The Paintings is a first person narration, and the narrator is female. This could work for self-read audio.

I’ve dabbled before, under duress and a short lead-time. I had to download Audacity, learn its software, and produce a short story, when a local in-person SFF convention had to go digital at the start of the pandemic. I recognised the merits of self-audio then, but life had other priorities.

National Storytelling Week

Tonight, I’m off to another writers’ meeting – often there’s a dearth, but sometimes they pile up like this – and the call has gone out for links to audio stories in recognition of it being National Storytelling Week.

The idea behind the dedicated week is to promote the “oldest artform in the world”: audio performance. The week came into being in 2000 and, although its original remit was firmly aimed at children, it has blossomed to embrace a wider audience, hence the call for links. Well, I have a story ready to go, but it’s no use on my harddrive. Alas, it needs to be hosted somewhere.

A list of this year’s face-to-face events can be found HERE, but there is absolutely no reason why a digital event, even a single author event, can’t contribute. Something to consider for next year if not this.

All Things Father Christmas - including Santa and NORAD

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images via Pixabay

Here I am, back again with my traditional Christmas post, because, as with all good Traditions, it has the right amount of fact while not taking itself too seriously. And at the end of yet another tumultuous year, we do need a bit of not taking oneself too seriously! 

Let it raise a smile as snippets are retold over a glass of something warming and yet another brandy-laced mince pie.

Wishing all my readers, of this blog and of my novels,
a wonderful festive season, whatever your beliefs. 

 ~~~~~

Who will be leaving gifts at your hearth? 

Here in the UK it is definitely Father Christmas who will be visiting, and despite his title he has nothing to do with Christianity, or parenthood, or even humans. It is the spirit of Mid-Winter, a personification clothed in evergreen, wrapped in holly and ivy, and garlanded in red berries and mistletoe. 

Striding in from the myths and mists of pre-history, this jovial spirit arrived at the solstice to partake in the mid-winter frivolities. The people welcomed it with entertainment, plied it with food and alcoholic beverages, and gave offerings so that it might not linger too long but instead beat smooth a path for an early spring.

Not a terrible lot changed when the Roman Legions clanked up the beaches to make a home in these lands. They brought with them Saturnalia, a festival of light. Homes were garlanded with evergreen, and a good deal of partying was undertaken beneath the watchful eye of their god of agriculture, Saturn, often depicted carrying a scythe. So far so good.

Enter Christianity and a need by the early church to leverage ‘Jesus the Christ’ against entrenched Paganism. No one knew the birthdate of Jesus of Nazareth, so the Pope of the time decided Jesus should be given one. The Pagan equinox celebrations of spring and autumn had already been coveted, so why not align the day to the biggest Pagan celebration of them all? A bishop from the Middle East, recently raised to sainthood for his good works, was also pressed into action: Nicholas (more or less). In the face of such worthiness the Brits remained steadfastedly wedded to their eat, drink and make merry.

 

The Romans assimiliated or left for sunnier shores, and the Saxons and Jutes invaded from Germania, bringing along their Woden and winter’s Father Time. They also believed in eat, drink and make merry, so they fitted in quite well. 

 

A few centuries later came an invasion by the Norse and Danes (Vikings) who also believed in eat, drink and make merry (you might notice a pattern developing). They brought along their own version of Woden – Odin – who, during mid-winter, took on the manifestation of Jul – Yule – in that he was portly, white-bearded signifying age, had the ability to see into people’s minds and know if they’d been good or not-so-good, and rode a horse, Sleipnir, which travelled at terrifying speed due to it having eight legs. 

 

Father Christmas as we know him was beginning to coalesce.

Saint Nicholas didn’t truly put in an appearance on British shores until the islands were invaded yet again, this time in 1066 by ex-Vikings, the Normans. However, no matter how the populace was “encouraged” to be pious, once out of the church doors after celebrating Jesus’ birthday, eat, drink and make merry remained the national stance. 

 

Not even the Puritans, who in the mid-17th century took the field and the country during the English Civil War, could fully ban Christmastide – ie the eat, drink and make merry – though they certainly gave it a determined try. In retaliation, Father Christmas, as he was by then well known, made appearances in Mummer’s Plays, basically to raise a glass or an obscene gesture (or both) to the Puritan Parliament. 

 

And what happened to the Puritans? We happily waved them off to America (more or less).

 

A group of Mummers entering a well-to-do Victorian house, Father Christmas leading. Note his holly staff & crown, and drinker’s nose. Assorted characters in the troupe following include St George and the Dragon, England’s patron saint. Illustration, by Robert Seymour, from ‘The Book of Christmas’ by Thomas Kibble Hervey, 1836. Image in Public Domain via Wikimedia.

 

It was in America, after the War of Independence in the 18th century, that the populace began to embrace a certain Sinterklaas from the Dutch tradition of Saint Nicholas, doubtless because it wasn’t British. (How's that for holding a grudge?)

 

In 1810 the New York Historical Society held a dinner in honour of Saint Nicholas, and twelve years later Clement Moore, drawing on Norse and Germanic folklore, wrote a poem A Visit from St Nicholas which was subsequently published as The Night Before Christmas. Thus Santa Claus came into his own, wearing the vestiges of Father Christmas/Jul. Even the reindeer and sled mentioned in the poem came from the Sámi people of Lapland, who the Norse peoples to the south of them firmly believed were ‘magicians’.

The Coca-Cola Company? Bah humbug! Late to the party.  Father Christmas, even Santa Claus, were wearing red before it showed up with its non-alcoholic beverage. But it had, and still has if its vivid red pantechnicon is anything to go by, damned good copywriters.

 

Which finally brings me to NORAD. Yes, the North American Aerospace Defence Command based in Colorado Springs. 

 

In 1955 Sears Roebuck & Company, also based in Colorado Springs, placed an advertisement in the press inviting children to phone Santa. Except the phone number was misprinted. Guess who was inundated with phone calls? CONAD – the Continental Air Defence Command and forerunner of NORAD. Despite being in the grips of the Cold War with personnel supposedly watching for in-coming missiles from you-know-where, the Defence Command put diplomacy to the fore and gave radar updates to children on the progress of Santa from the North Pole.

And thanks to the late Colonel Harry Shoup, Director of Operations at the time, it still does. Check on Santa’s progress at https://www.noradsanta.org/ Arrive before Rudolph gathers the other reindeer, and visit the Elf Village where there are activities and games to keep you and your little ones enthralled.

So, wherever you are, and whatever spirit of Nature you believe in, be sure to eat, drink and make merry this festive season. It's a Tradition.

 

 ~~~~~

With grateful thanks to Wikipaedia, History Today, Time-Travel Britain, Museum of UnNatural Mystery, and NORAD for their assistance in producing this tongue-firmly-in-cheek blogpost.

Garlic and Silver Bullet at the Ready: It's Halloween!

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Halloween fiction, as its contemporary street "decorations", can be cute or can be gory. 

Or thoughtful. 

Or unsettling. 

Its aim is not to make readers flinch, but to make them read on, knuckles tensing, while the hairs on the back of the neck prickle and rise. 

Slowly. 

Its main ingredient is dread, the anticipation of the inevitable, signalled at the edge of vision by a series of tiny markers that may, or may not, be fact. It is the... not knowing. The... should we laugh, or should we run? 

Inevitably, it starts with normal life. Or what passes for normal.

https://viewBook.at/Paintings

Fine art assessor, Kristin Jeffries, arrives at an address to report on a group of paintings. Why is police tape hanging from the door? Should she trust the anxious client who admits he's not the owner?

Dizzy females are often portrayed as idealised victims in Halloween fiction. Yet, some rise to match the all-pervading inevitability of their situation.

https://viewBook.at/SofBMann

Elaine haunts auctions held in crumbling country mansions, dreaming of a find that will make her and Gary rich. An iron-banded trunk has no key. What might it contain?

Short fiction can play to its constrained time frame, introducing the reader to genres not usually considered wedded to the Halloween theme.

https://viewBook.at/CtoMankind

Dark tales for a dark night. Don't look here for happy endings, just an unsettling sense that, once opened, there's more that might arrive, unbidden.

I trust you enjoy your Halloween. If Halloween has not enjoyed you.

 

The British Monarch's Royal Standard

It is with sadness, and inevitability, that we hear of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96 years.

She was the longest ever reigning monarch of these islands, and will be sorely missed. Her sense of country, and of duty and of service to her country, will not be surpassed.

“The Queen is dead. Long live the King!”