Tag Archives: Untitled Novel

April 26, 2012

Chapter 3

By J Michael Melican

It’s finished… well. The draft at least.

Today was  apublic holiday in Australia, and thus a rather fruitful day for me as a writer (thanks in no small part to the generosity and support of my lovely wife, who provided me with some kid-free time).

I’m at about 2,500 words for the chapter, which is a little short really. I’d like to see about 3,000 per chapter, and some mathematical OCD in me wants the chapters to be about even in length. I’ll get over that if I concentrate. Chapters should be as long as they need to be. Word counts be damned.

That said the word count for the project is at a quite pleasing 14,000 words at the end of Chapter 3 so I think I’m on track for novel length.

Below I’ve posted an excerpt from the end of Chapter 3. It’s the first real conversation between Brian and Aisha. It takes place the morning after his first shift in her kitchen. She’s invited him in for a cup of tea, for reasons he doesn’t really understand, and he’s agreed, also for reasons he doesn’t understand. We join them here just as Aisha sends her sons off to school and our main characters are left, for the first time, alone:

 

Mr Ward’s a bloke from downstairs. He’s old enough to be retired. He introduces himself to me as Arthur, but I can call him Art. He reckons everyone does. The Muslim woman calls him ‘Mr. Ward’ though.

He picks the boys up for school and just after eight there’s a little group of kids of Primary school age gathered in the driveway under Mr. Ward’s watchful eye. As well as the two boys there’s a little white girl with straggly blonde hair, probably about eight, and two Asian Muslim girls in little head-scarfs from Indonesia or something. I’d been to Bali on a footy trip once and I knew there was plenty of Muslims in Indonesia. The five of them set off with Art to school, walking in a nice neat line like they’re ducklings and he marches in front like a mother duck.

We watch them go from the balcony and then I follow her back inside, to a couple of seats in her kitchen. The door stays open again. I don’t question it.

The tea is too milky and flavoured with honey instead of sugar, but I figure I better finish it. My tummy’s empty but the kitchen smells like spicy food and I’m no good with that so I keep my mouth shut and sip my tea. She sips hers and we’re both silent. She looks out the window until we see the little procession of kids making their way along the street to school.

‘I’m Aisha,’ she says as she reaches into some high cupboard for a cigarette packet.

‘I’m Brian.’

‘Yeah, I know. You said that last night.’

She watches through her kitchen window as her neighbour walks the children from the flats to school. She offers me a smoke but I’m supposed to be quit so I wave it away. She lights hers off an electric stovetop, smokes it nervously.

‘Weird isn’t it that you’ve got a Kaden and I’ve got a Jaydin. I figured your kids’d both have Muslim names or Arab names or something,’ I say it smiling but the words sound wrong now they’re out of my head and in the air around me. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken. Kaden’s name is Islamic. It means “companion”. I named him because he came to me at a very difficult time in my life, and he is my companion, and his brother’s companion in difficult times.’ Her eyes were still out the window, but unfocussed, looking at nothing. ‘What does your son’s name mean?’

‘Dunno really,’ I shrugged. ‘Don’t suppose I thought much about it like that. My wife, my ex-wife, she just liked the sound of it and it seemed a good enough name to me. I wasn’t too fussed. Most of the names in my family are pretty normal and we figured we’d give Jaydin something a bit different. We spell it with a “Y” in the middle, “I – N” at the end. The girls’ names had a “Y” in the middle and ended in “I – N” too: “Maysin” and “Maddysin”. It was going to be a pattern, but… anyway. Just didn’t work out like that I s’pose.’ I shut up. Didn’t really know why I’d said so much, probably because I’m tired. The silence is too much for me then and I need to change the subject. ‘Old Art seems nice.’

‘He walks them to school Tuesdays’ she says absently. Her eyes haven’t come to me yet. Always they’re out the window. ‘There’s an old Turkish man in another of the flats and the two of them take turns.’ Her accent is beautiful, like she was the BBC’s Middle East correspondent. ‘The door has to stay open or people will talk,’  she says in a sudden hurry. ‘Door and blinds. I don’t want anyone saying I had you in here privately.’

‘Yeah, no worries.’

‘Not for you maybe. There’s a family in the flats next door: Muslim, like me, but not really like me… stricter, you know? It would be a worry for them.’

‘Not really their business is it who’s in your apartment?’ Her eyebrows arch in response and she looks at me properly now.

‘Never had nosy neighbours?’ she asks. I shrug gently and go back to my tea. ‘I suppose it’s not their business really, but they would make it their business. They’re very interested in me. They are concerned that my life isn’t…’ she seems to struggle for a word. Compromises. ‘Not Muslim enough I suppose.’ I set the tea down. I don’t know why she bloody invited me in the first place.

‘I’ll go.’

‘No. Please. Finish you tea.’ She smiles and it’s kinda beautiful in its own way. She puts me in mind of the princess in that Disney ‘Aladdin’ movie. I take a big scalding gulp of tea, nearly finish the lot, and lean back. A thought occurs to me.

‘Is that why you invited me up here? You want some sort of protection from me? B’cause I’m hired to guard the vacants that were vandalised. I’m happy to check in on you but…’ I trail off. She smiling again but this one’s almost mocking. ‘I say something funny?’

‘No. Not funny. Thank you, you’re a kind man to think that way, but you can guard your vacants. I have protections of my own.’ There’s something there in her words or her voice like she’s being mysterious but I’m too bloody tired to care too much about what secrets she wants to keep. My tea’s gone in another hot gulp.

‘Suit yourself then.’ I stand from the table. She watches me like I’m under inspection. Bright brown eyes with sharp focus. ‘Thanks for the cuppa.’

‘You’re most welcome. I will see you tonight. Insha’Allāh.’ I figure that’s like her version of goodbye.

‘Yeah,’ I say as I head for the door. ‘In shar a la.’ She smiles her friendly smile then and I watch the door close on it.

*

On the drive home I nearly fall asleep at a red light and the cars behind me lean on their horn until I take off. I wonder what colour Aisha’s hair is, and at home, after I’ve stripped to boxers and pulled the thick drapes over the windows and checked the 5pm alarm and gotten in deep under my doona, I fall asleep remembering her smile.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Novel(la) in Progress

April 18, 2012

progress

By J Michael Melican

1779 words today and a total of 10,800.

I’ve written the scene that made me start writing the novel now. It takes place in chapter three.

Where ideas come from is a fraught discussion and not one on which I claim any great authority or revelation. I can (kind of) tell you where this novel idea started though. How useful that is I’m not sure, it’s kind of like a creeping vine with several roots and with offshoots that have created their own root system so that the original is not special but just one among many.

So the one among many that had me start writing, and which spawned the vines that would become Brian and Aisha and various other components of setting and character and plot is:

[She smokes nervously. Watches through her kitchen window as a neighbour walks a clutch of children from the flats to school. She offers me a smoke and I'm supposed to be quitting but I rationalise it as a way past her defences. She lights it for me off an electric stovetop.

"he walks them to school Tuesdays" she says with an absent wave to the window. "all the men have a turn." her accent was beautiful, like the BBC's Middle East correspondent.]

Now that hasn’t quite survived intact even into the first draft and it may be edited out of existence before I’m finished (even the ‘BBC Middle East’ description - kill your darlings), but there it is. The first note I took on what is now a 10,000 word manuscript and will, I believe, be a novel-length manuscript one day.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Musings, Novel(la) in Progress

April 16, 2012

“Untitled” Chapter 2 Sample Excerpt

By J Michael Melican

The untitled novel project is progressing quite well. I wrote another thousand words or so tonight, so chapter two is finished at about three-and-a-half thousand words and the project so far is at 9,059. Are they all going to stay? Almost certainly not. Hopefully there’s some more to be added and some gems to be polished from this raw material, but it’s a decent start and about 1/8th the way to novel length.

This excerpt has the first meeting between the two main characters who I’ve profiled, Brian and Aisha.

Brian has taken the job with Neville Coffey, a security guard position for a block of flats next to a park in Brunswick where there was a break-in and some racist graffiti. He has met some of the residents already, and it’s already been a bit of an eye-opener for him. He’s also seen from a distance a Muslim woman smoking on her balcony.

Now it’s midnight, his first night on the job, and he’s doing his hourly patrol (this is the last part of Chapter 2):

Chapter 2:

…

On my midnight patrol I’m getting pretty lax. I barely walk past the cleaners’ van any more. If someone’s coming through that fence they’ll need a cordless screwdriver or an axe and either way that’s noisy. So I figure no one’s going to make the effort and my patrols are more and more just for show and to relieve the boredom. I’ve finished a few packets of chips and the energy drinks already; made a start on the Coke.

I decide maybe the park needs a quick sweep. Maybe especially near that shrub where I can take a leak. If I hadn’t needed the leak I probably wouldn’t have gone into the park at all, and then I wouldn’t have heard it, so it’s kinda lucky I decided to get the Coke after-all.

I’m just about to get my fly down near the tree when I hear a shriek from deeper in the park. The zip’s back up in a second and I get my torch held high near my shoulder, flick it on and scan the little circle of light around the park. Trees and benches and swing-sets cast wavering shadows. Nothing. Nothing but night. I walk a little further. Cautious now without really knowing what I’m scared of.

In the back corner of the park, where the fence of the flats and the fence by the alleyway meet, there’s a big old gum tree, leaves waving gently in minimal wind. I scan the base and still there’s nothing and I’m about to shake this feeling loose and go back to my piss when for some bloody reason I can’t explain I lift the torch a little, shine the disc of light up into the branches…

and I near shit myself.

Suddenly I’m stumbling back, half-falling, half-fleeing. The torch-light careens wildly around, striking leaves and a glimpsing fence and shooting useless off into the sky a lot. When I finally get still my heart’s beating a mile a bloody minute and I can hear my own breath coming quick and noisy. I flash the torch-light back up into the trees looking for it again. I’m searching the tree for another glimpse of a dark face, near as black as the night, not quite human. Like some giant ape peering down at me with beady little brown eyes that shine with hate. Eyes like I’d sometimes seen before and always on guys who were about to do me some violence. I’m looking for an ape in a park in Brunswick, but it’s gone now and I’m left feeling a bit stupid. Everytime I say it to myself it sounds a little more ridiculous, and I know it can’t be what I’m looking for, but even as I’m telling myself it was nothing, or a possum, or a trick of the light, I’m not convinced. I don’t believe my own bullshit.

Then there’s another shriek behind me, but this one’s half giggle and I have heard it half-a-hundred times before. Teenage girl. Fleeing. Breathless. Stupid with adrenaline.

My torch-light picks them out straight away. Two couples running from me, ducking under the monkey-bars, blonde girls clutching each other’s hands and a boy on either side half-leading, half-dragging them by their other hand. I take about three steps in chase but it’s pretty obvious that even the girls are running quicker than me. Pain shoots up from my right knee, even decades after they rebuilt it the second time. I stumble to a stand-still and watch them run off. I figure there’s no point anyway. There’s nothing for me to do even if I somehow caught them. Can’t really tell them off for being in a public park at night. I’m only mean to be watching the flats and they’re far enough away from the fence that they’re no threat there.

I wander over to the picnic table where they must’ve been sitting. There’s a pizza box littered with uneaten crusts, some empty cans of pre-mix vodka on the ground, and a half-full bottle of bourbon on the table. It’s one of those little ones about half the size of a real bottle – probably just the right size to smuggle under a hoodie on your way out of the bottleshop. I don’t reckon they’re coming back for it so I take a swig and then tuck it into my belt. I take my piss right there and figure it’s worth another lap of the flats before I go back to the car.

At the back of the flats, up the driveway, past the cleaners’ van, there’s about a dozen cars parked. They’re all pretty old. None really even worth stealing. They’re mostly Japanese or Korean makes: Toyotas and Mitsubishis, a Kia, Daihatsus and Daewoos.  It’s all quiet and I head back, but on the way I see that cigarette up on the balcony again and the silhouette of the Muslim woman.

I stop beneath her and back against the fence a bit so I can look up at her.

‘Hey there,’ I say. Not too loud. Not while there’s people sleeping.

‘Hello,’ she says. It’s not what I’m expecting. She’s soft but her voice carries right to me easily enough and it sounds kinda like a pommy bird I knew once.

‘I’m Brian,’ I say. ‘I’m…’ but she doesn’t let me finish.

‘You smoke Brian?’ Still softly. She sounds polite.

‘I used to. Quit it a while back though. I got a boy, you see. I missed seeing a bit of him growing up and I don’t want the ciggies to knock me off before I see him grow the rest of the way.’

‘I’ve got two boys,’ she says.

‘Sorry. Didn’t mean nothing by it. It’s a personal choice I reckon.’ The conversation stalls. I try to fill the silence. ‘I didn’t even know Muslims smoked,’ I say. It sounds stupid in my head even as I’m saying it.

‘Well, well. An expert on Islam?’ she said. I know when I’m being mocked, and for an instant it got my hackles up. ‘Actually you’re right,’ she said.

‘I am?’ Surprised.

‘Yes, in a way. There’s nothing in the Qur’an specifically that forbids it. Cigarettes weren’t around in the time of The Prophet, peace be upon him. But recently some scholars have been interpreting the Qur’an and making their own fatwa on cigarettes. They say The Prophet, peace be upon him, instructed us not to harm ourselves, and as cigarettes are undoubtedly self-harming they should be considered haraam.’ I didn’t really know what she was talking about. ‘Let not your own hands contribute to your destruction.’ Her voice rang out so I knew she was quoting.

‘Is that so?’

‘Indeed it is.’ She stubs out her cigarette on the balcony rail. ‘They sure are hard to quit though,’ she adds. ‘If you would like to know what’s going on around here come and see me in the morning,’ she says as she opens her door and she goes back inside while I stand there.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Novel(la) in Progress

April 11, 2012

Submissions

By J Michael Melican

Recently I set myself some goals , so I thought I’d better keep you up to date on my progress:

Firstly – Today this blog went past 500 views! I’m pretty happy with that. So far this week I’ve had 100 views and it’s only Wednesday. I’ve also got over 40 followers and the blog has been read in Europe, Asia, the US and Australia. So over-all I’m calling the goal of ‘set up a blog’ a successful one so far.

Secondly – I haven’t got an agent yet, but really that’s a longer term goal. I’m hoping I’ll get one this year, so I’m calling that goal in progress. The next agent on my list requests paper manuscript samples rather than electronic so next week I’m going to do some printing and put together a really enticing package that’ll make them thrilled to represent me. Or at least that’s the plan.

Thirdly – I have submitted two short stories this week. One to a paying market and the other non-paying. We’ll see how they’re received but it feels good to have them out there. I also submitted a third story to a third market but it was automatically rejected because it was shorter than their minimum fiction guidelines. This was entirely my fault and I’m a bit embarrassed about it. The lesson of  course is to always read the submission guidelines carefully. Even if you’ve submitted to that magazine before and you think you know them.

Fourthly – I’ve been writing some more on my Untitled Novel project and I’m pretty happy with most of it. One conversation sticks out to me as a bit forced. It’ll need some drafting work, but the protagonist’s voice is flowing well and I’m getting a feel for the piece. Thanks to my wonderful wife’s patience I had a good block of writing today, adding 3,000 words to take me past 8,000 and almost completing chapter 3. I’m about 10% of the way there I think.

Fifthly – (and lastly) I tried writing a query letter for my novel Exile which I plan to submit to a small press when their submissions open next month. I’ve got the manuscript complete. Now all I need is a good synopsis which summarises 240,000 words and at least six Point-of-View characters across split narratives into a page or so. Then I have to improve this query letter in which I use about 300 words to entice the publishers (and hopefully readers) to pick the book up. Not easy, but if it were easy everyone would be doing it.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Musings

April 11, 2012

Ups and a down

By J Michael Melican

So I’ll go in reverse alphabetical order and deal with the good news first.

The blog seems to be going pretty well. Today was my third best day since the big opening day of the blog in terms of views. I’ve got more than ten followers through wordpress (thanks guys!) a couple of followers via e-mail (thanks guys!) and nearly 30 followers on Facebook (thanks to you guys too!). If you aren’t following yet it’s easy. Just look to the right-hand side of your screen and use either e-mail or Facebook to stay up-to-date with my posts!

Not bad for the first week.

Even more importantly than the stats the blogosphere has exposed me to lots of other people doing lots of cool stuff and to helpful resources and opportunities I wouldn’t have found otherwise. It’s also been really inspiring me to write, and I suppose that’s the most important function it can serve. If I feel there’s an audience for what I’m writing then it’s more than just me bashing a keyboard, it becomes a more shared experience of creating something, and I think that’s been really energising. A week ago I hadn’t even conceived the novel project I’m working on, but now I’ve got a plan and characters and some major plot points and I’m drafting.

Which brings me to my second ‘up’.

Despite all the distractions of life and the competing commitments that have needed juggling I wrote over 1,000 words today on my untitled project and have a total of over 5,000 words. That’s a complete prologue and chapter one and a start on chapter two (in draft stages). I’ll keep posting some excerpts in the drafting section as I go, as I did with the prologue and with chapter 1.

And now the bad news…

I’d put a query in with a Literary Agent here in Australia whose website suggested they were open for submissions and accepted Fantasy manuscripts. The list of Australian Literary Agents who fit that description is quite small, so I was hopeful of at least being able to send them some of my writing.

Not to be. They’re “not looking at manuscripts such as the one I describe”. It was a basic form letter (e-mail) rejection but they sent me a link to a list of Literary Agents. It was the same site I’d used to find them but at least they’re being a little helpful.

Anyway rejection is always bad news, but it also means my search for an agent is now a little more focussed. Not too many more can reject me here in Australia, and it may mean I need to find one overseas, but in the age of the internet that shouldn’t be an insurmountable hurdle. New York and London are as near to me a Sydney for all intents and purposes.

So I leave today feeling energised, with a little more written than I had this morning, with a little more clarity of focus, and with determination to keep working at it.

I read an interview with Joe Abercrombie wherein he said his First Law trilogy was rejected several times and kicked around failed submissions for almost a year… and his First Law trilogy is excellent, so I’ve got a few months and a few more rejections and revisions up my sleeve yet.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Musings

April 10, 2012

‘Untitled’ Chapter 1 sample excerpt

By J Michael Melican

This is the first draft of part of Chapter 1. There’s some racist language in there, but one of the themes I want to explore is the effect of casual or unchallenged racism so it’s not there gratuitously. I’ll post something to the blog about the themes of this project in future.

We rejoin Brian nearly twelve months after having lost his crowd control job in the prologue. He’s been mostly on the dole in the meantime and finances are a worry for him. He’s got a job offer from Neville Coffey, who runs a small security company:

Chapter 1:

Neville Coffey always had a reputation as being a dodgy fucker, but like I said I wasn’t in much of a position to be choosing my employers. I’d actually worked for him before, well, kind of. He’d run the crowd control on a venue in the city and some nights, when they needed an extra guy, they’d outsource to the company I was working for at the time. So a few times I’d worked with his guys and they seemed alright. Nev’s reputation never come up while I was working with them, but in the industry if you mentioned Neville Coffey’s name people’d narrow their eyes and tell you to watch him. ‘He’s a slippery bastard’ they’d say.

So when I go to meet Neville I’m already a bit nervous ‘cause I’m not too sure I can trust him. In the phonebook and on his website his business is listed at a swank address in the city, but he gets me to come and meet him at some little office in the middle of the suburbs. It’s part of a strip of little offices across the road from a shopping centre. There’s cheap lawyers and accountants with single door frontage and narrow stairways that lead to pokey little rooms. On the walls are some of those motivational posters with images like oars in water or an eagle in flight and under the image there’s words like “effort” and “leadership”. One of them has a woman with no arms who’s painting with her foot and underneath it says “what’s your excuse”.

The girl on the desk is nice enough. Her name’s Suzie. She’s blonde and tan and pretty in a way. Not like a model but well dressed and nice make up. She smiles and takes my name and asks me to wait. Then she’s back to answering the phone or working on her computer like I’m not even there.

There’s some old copies of “Australian Security Magazine” and a stack of glossy brochures advertising Neville’s company. I flick through one. It offers crowd control for pubs, clubs and parties. I did an 18th party once and I’m never doing another. According to the brochure Neville also specialises in security guards, security patrols, close personal protection, risk management, debt recovery, fidelity investigations and every other thing under the sun. The brochure is decorated with pictures of Neville and the blokes who work for him. Sometimes they’re in suits carrying briefcases. Later they’ll be peering out of a car with a camera in hand. On the next page they’re near a small plane on tarmac with a waiting limo. They look like fucking idiots. But like I said, I can’t be choosy.

Neville leaves me waiting half-an-hour so by the time I see him I’m pissed off even though I’ve got nothing better to do anyway.

The girl at the desk leads me to another room, even smaller than the waiting room. There’s a table here and four chairs. When Neville comes in he’s got two of his guys with him. A big, fat wog with greasy hair and a tall, skinny kid with a shaved head. I recognise them from the brochure outside.

‘Brian, mate. How’s it been?’ Neville asks. He puts on like he’s happy to see me but we’ve never really met face-to-face before. He’s smiling ear to ear and all charm. I wonder if part of the reason he’s got this reputation is that he looks like a rat. His top teeth are too big at the front, so when he smiles that’s all you see. His nose is thin and pointed and his chin’s weak.

He sits opposite me and his two guys take the other chairs, one on either side. I wonder why they’re there. Nod to each of them in turn. The skinny kid nods back. The wog just smiles enthusiastically and sweats a lot. It’s not even that hot.

‘Brian this is Leo Angurio.’ He indicates the wog who keeps smiling and says nothing. ‘He’s the head of my mobile security patrols. And this is Jason Milligan.’ The kid nods again. ‘He’s heading up my static guard division.’ He reads something in my reaction. ‘I know he’s young, but he’s good. You can trust him. Now at any given point any of the three of us might contact you so it’s not like you’re just taking orders from Jase or from Leo, or from me even.’ He gives a little laugh that’s gotta be fake. ‘Well I say “taking orders”, but you know what I mean.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I reckon I know what you mean.’ The wog seems distracted already but the bald kid just keeps looking at me. Makes me kinda uncomfortable. ‘Look I don’t mean to be rude, but I been waitin’ half-an-hour here Neville. Tell me what job you want me on and I’ll get straight out there if you like.’ He laughs again. Maybe genuine this time.

‘Straight to the point. I like that. I do. I’m sorry about the wait Brian, I am. You know how things get sometimes. The shit hits the fan somewhere and suddenly you’re arranging shifts or sending a patrol somewhere. Anyway, we have a job in the northern suburbs mate. Inner-north, not too far from you I understand. We thought it’d be right up your alley.’ He smiles. Waits for me to say something. I can’t think of anything worth saying so Neville just presses on. ‘It’s a block of flats in Brunswick mate – sixteen of them, but there’s a few empty ones. There’s been a little trouble there of late. The cops are aware of it and they’re right on board with us. Basically over the weekend someone’s taken apart some of the fence where the flats back up against a park. Anyway they’ve come in through the fence at the back of the lot and they’ve gotten into one of the vacant flats. Probably just kids having a party you’d reckon but they’ve fair trashed the place and then they’ve gone and put up some racist shit on the walls and that sort of thing. Normally wouldn’t be something we’d be involved in but there’s a big breach in the fence, it’s not getting fixed before Easter, and like I said there’s a few vacant apartments in the block so the body-corporate’s worried about squatters and vandals and shit like that. There’s a bit of overseas investment as I understand it so they’re just claiming the security costs through insurance or as negative gearing or whatever. No skin off their nose to have a guy on the site overnight for the next week or so.’

‘So it’s a week’s work?’

‘Well at least I reckon. At least a week. See the big issue here is it’s Easter next weekend. Now we got hit with this Saturday night and I got someone on site last night but that was a temporary fix mate. We need someone who can be there every night this week, and ‘cause it’s Easter I’m struggling to fill my regular shifts already. Too many young blokes are ducking out of town on the long weekend you see. Anyway I heard you live alone, no kids or anything, and I was hoping you’d be right to work through Easter.’

‘Just night shifts?’

‘Yep. Twelve hour shifts. Seven pm through to seven am. Piece of piss mate, you’ll spend half the time in your car. Give the block a foot patrol every half-hour to an hour. Flick your lights on to anyone who looks dodgy and that’s about it. I just need to know you can do it right through the Easter weekend mate. Give me that assurance and you’re on the books. When this job ends there’ll be other shifts for you I guarantee it. We’re going gangbusters in here for work at the moment. I can’t get good guys on my books quick enough. I tell ya Brian. All I get are bloody Indian students who can’t speak a bloody word of English. You advertise a job and there’re two dozen of these fucking resumes that stink of curry before you get to a name you can pronounce.’

‘I’ve got a boy. He lives with my ex-missus. I’d want to see him on Easter Sunday.’

‘Not a problem mate. Like I said it’s just seven to seven. The day’s yours. Spend a few hours hunting eggs with your boy. Just make sure you’re right for Sunday night.’

I make a show of thinking it through but it’s bullshit and I reckon they know it as well as I do. Neville needs me to cover this for him, but if he doesn’t get me he’ll get someone else. One of the curries perhaps, but it doesn’t really matter. He just needs a body on site. I need to pay the rent, and that means I need him a lot more than he needs me, and that means that eventually I nod and shake each of their hands in turn just like we’d all known I would when I first turned up.

******

This excerpt is about half of what I’ve written for Chapter 1. I’m still getting comfortable with the first person but I think it works for Brian. As a reader we will really get a sense of how he understands things and how his character operates.

I’m still a bit uncertain about the tense. At times I’m finding these really great phrases in the simple present and I want to use them. In my head I’ll plan out whole scenes in simple present, but then when I write I sometimes revert to simple past. At times the narrative is going to require some variation and obviously with dialogue any tense or aspect may come up, but it’s Brian’s narrative I’m most interested in. The prologue was in past tense and I like the idea of having the prologue past and the novel present, but it may not work… we’ll see. I suppose that’s part of the ‘joy’ of drafting.

Right now the project is just over 4,000 words (9/4/2012). A bit less than I’d planned for from the prologue and Chap 1, but for 20 chapters and an epilogue that would give me about 80,000 words.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Novel(la) in Progress

April 7, 2012

‘Untitled’ Prologue sample

By J Michael Melican

So this is from the prologue of the new writing project I’m working on.

It’s first-person POV, which is a bit unusual for me but something I’m experimenting with more. I like the intimacy it gives of being right in the protagonists head and I think it helps me with giving the piece an authentic voice or tone, but there are obviously limitations that it brings and particularly with a protagonist like Brian who’s unlikely to wax lyrical or engage in much deep philosophical reflection. We’ll see how I manage the tight focus of first-person I suppose, but so far at least I’m finding it works to give Brian his voice and let him tell his story in his own way. Let me know if you agree (or if you don’t).

Prologue

It was Saturday night and I was working the door when it happened. I’d been working the venue long enough that I had seniority so I didn’t really have to do door shifts anymore if I didn’t want, but I kinda liked having fifteen or twenty minute stints outside where the air was fresher and there weren’t so many people.

Used to be the sort of place where Saturday nights you’d need four guys inside and two on the door. That was before they fixed up the old pub near the railway line into a club. It weren’t so busy any more since then and we were only running two inside and one doorman that night. It was an easy job. The pub was on the edge of an industrial area, not too far from the waterfront but a bit away from the main roads and the railway. You didn’t people coming out here except to come here.

The regulars here were mostly oldies putting their money into the pokies or across the bar. There was a DJ but he was pretty crap and no one came this far out of their way for the music. Other than that it was pretty standard really: a bistro which did about enough business to pay the kitchen staff; a couple of pool tables and some TVs cycling between footy, rugby and music videos; fake plants against the walls.

What I liked about it was that there was rarely any trouble.

One of the regulars, Jimmy, used to be in with the Painters-and-Dockers and would get around telling stories of how he’d known Lewis Moran in the early 90s and stuff like that. Most people who were likely to cause trouble were probably too young to be scared off by the Painters-and-Dockers but if I ever had to kick anyone out  Jimmy’d give me a wink and afterwards he’d always say ‘want me to sort ‘em out for ya?’ and we’d laugh. He drank rum and coke. Always rum and coke.

The bloke behind the bar was a kiwi. Nice enough bloke but he’d had his two front teeth knocked right out of his head and he could give you a grin that made him look hard as fuck. When he cut drunk blokes off they’d see that grin on him and then I’d give them the tap on the shoulder and they’d figure it wasn’t worth the effort.

So it came as a bit of a surprise this Saturday night when a little trouble came my way.

There was about half-a-dozen of them. A couple of girls and four young guys. They were pretty dressed up, came walking from the direction of the railway lines with the girls carrying their high-heels and laughing at the sky. I figured that meant they either got put out of the other club or they never got in. Either way I figured we wouldn’t want them either. I got on my radio while they were still a way up the street and by the time they were at the door there was me and Rangi waiting for them. Rangi was barely nineteen but he was already a strapping kid. He stood a couple inches taller than I did and looked as tough as they come. He reckoned his uncle had played Rugby internationally for Samoa against Jonah Lomu. When I looked at Rangi I believed it.

The first kid tried to go past us without looking, like he could pretend we weren’t there. I put my hand on his chest.

‘Hold up mate. We’ll need some IDs.’ I said. The girls started fumbling their purses and the kid at the front went into his pocket but there was one of them up the back just trying to hang in the shadows. ‘Your mate too,’ I said, loud enough that they could all hear.

‘Just get your ID out,’ one of the girls said to her friends. She showed me hers and I made a show of looking at it, but really my eyes were on the kid at the back. Something wasn’t right with him. I gave the girl her licence back.

‘Hey mate,’ I said. ‘Come up here and give us a look at you.’ He was slow to react, but he stepped forward. Straight away I knew he was trouble. He stared right at me with wide eyes and pupils so big his whole eye looked black, like there was no colour in it at all. He swayed a little, and his shoulders shook. His whole body was bulging and tense, with drugs, with gym-weights, with the frustration of not having his own girl…

‘Don’t reckon we’ll be able to help you guys tonight I’m afraid,’ I said. There was a chorus of disappointment and complaint. ‘What the fuck?’ and shit like that, and the girls pleading, ‘oh he’s alright, he just needs a place to sit down.’ I never took my eyes off him though. I’d been in enough fights to know when someone wanted to start one. He glared at me.

‘Fuck you you racist fuck!’ He spat at my feet. In my younger days that probably would’ve been enough but I’d mellowed a bit post-thirty. I was too old to be tangling with drug-fucked kids in the streets.

‘Don’t reckon insulting me’s doing you any favours either mate,’ I said. I smiled, sweet and innocent and ugly. ‘Probably best you move on. There’s others waiting.’ There was too. One of the regulars, a bloke about my age, name of Tom, with a young tart on his arm who he’d probably paid for and now wanted to show off to his mates at the pub. He spoke up now.

‘Hey Brian, Rangi. No trouble is there?’

‘Nah mate, no trouble.’ I said it to the young kid with the black eyes.

‘Just as well,’ turned to one of the other kids who weren’t getting in. ‘Hate to see you have to hurt these young-uns.’ It was a joke meant for me. It found the wrong audience – had the wrong effect.

The kid Tom’d spoke to said ‘Fuck you old man’, but the kid I was watching didn’t say a word. The knife came out of nowhere.

{to be continued…}

1 comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Novel(la) in Progress

April 6, 2012

Character Profile: Aisha Al-Bayati

By J Michael Melican

This is a profile for the other major character in my new writing project.

Brian and Aisha will be the two central characters, with Brian is the protagonist and Aisha the deuteragonist I suppose. I’m not 100% comfortable seeing her as simply a foil for Brian though. I think Aisha’s role in the plot goes beyond her relative importance to Brian. She’s the one who brings in the Fantastical elements. She’s very important thematically, and she’s a strong counterpoint to Brian. Where Brian (due to his lack of confidence and acceptance of tragedy) is often quite passive and carried along by events, Aisha is more proactive; she seeks solutions and resists what fate seems to offer.

Aisha Al-Bayati

Aisha is a slight woman with dark-olive skin and large, brown eyes. Her face is narrow, almost pinched, as if from being underfed. She often looks tired. Her fingers are always busy, she’s often fidgeting with things or chewing her nails. Occasionally she’ll give in and have a cigarette.

She was born in Northern Iraq, the only daughter of a smaller offshoot from the Al-Bayati clan. Her family was well positioned in Iraqi society and relatively wealthy. Her father was a moderate and progressive. He, frustrated by the limited opportunities for his daughter and dissatisfied with Baathist politics, emigrated to Britain when Aisha was 14.

They lived in London and Aisha was educated in Britain. She always considered herself Muslim, but was very moderate in her interpretation and it became a less important part of her life. She enjoyed writing and studied journalism at City University in London, graduating in 1997. While studying she met other Arab Muslim students and reconnected with the religion. She fell in love with Bilal Alawi, another Iraqi Muslim studying in London. Like her father Bilal had anti-Baathist philosophy, but he felt that educated Iraqis had a responsibility to return to Iraq and try to effect change from within.

Bilal and Aisha were married in Mar 1998 (aged 23). She kept her ‘maiden’ name in a pleasant confluence of feminist and Islamic belief. The couple returned to Northern Iraq in June that year. She struggled with the culture-shock. The Baath party was stronger than either her or Bilal had remembered and the loss of freedoms to which she had become accustomed in Britain upset her more than she had anticipated. She had few friends, being ostracised by the local women due to her perceived airs (being educated and having an English accent even in Arabic). Though she sometimes wrote English language articles for smaller news services which Bilal submitted under his name she regretted leaving her aspirations as a journalist behind.

Aisha and Bilal had her first son, Mohammed, on April 24th 2000. She welcomed the boy, but having him made her long for her parents and a return to England. Bilal disagreed. Since his return to Iraq he had become a lot less idealistic and more pragmatic. He still professed privately to her to oppose the Baathists but more and more often he was working with members of the party. This disturbed Aisha and they sometimes fought over her desire to return to Britain. With her young son Aisha began to feel trapped and isolated. Bilal assured her that things were on the verge of change.

After the Sept 11 attacks of 2001 Aisha became more active in discussions of Islam and terrorism online. She ran an anonymous blog detailing life in Iraq under the Baathist regime. She kept this secret even from Bilal. Through this blog she re-connected with some contacts she had in Britain and some of her writing appeared in newspapers and other mass-media, always filtered through British journalists or Associated Press.

In January 2003, aware of the impending US invasion, she sent reports to the west and a request for help from her British contacts. She finally shared her secret with Bilal. He was furious and didn’t want to leave Iraq. He felt that Iraqi loyalists should welcome the US forces and help defeat the Baathists. He armed himself despite Aisha’s objections. Somehow Aisha’s blogging was discovered by others, and shortly after the US invasion she was labelled a traitor and a spy by others in the neighbourhood. The accusations were to be brought before a local tribal justice system in which neither she, nor Bilal, had faith.

In early February Aisha prayed over consecutive nights for protection and guidance. Within a week Bilal finally agreed that she should get out of Iraq. Her British contacts though couldn’t help her, citing the US invasion and becoming difficult to contact. Bilal had contacts who could take her through Al-Mosul and Al- Ya’rubiyah to a refugee camp in Syria, but they had to go before the borders were closed. Neither of them knew at the time she was pregnant. Bilal was supposed to join her after the invasion.

She was in the camp for nearly a year. Feeling betrayed by her British contacts she instead applied for resettlement to the US. In April she heard that Bilal had been killed by US forces. She changed her request for resettlement to South Africa, Canada or Australia. Her youngest son, Kaden, was born in the camp in August 2003. In January 2004 she was granted refugee status in Australia and resettled with her two sons, first to community housing in Flemington and then independently to Brunswick.

She has been in Australia since 2004. She does some freelance writing for a local community paper under a pseudonym. English papers are not that keen to have her by-line and while she speaks Arabic she doesn’t write in Arabic to a publishable standard. Her main income is social security which barely covers rent, food, bills and school costs. When she does have a little spare she sends it to her mother-in-law in Iraq.

She is religiously observant and believes in a spiritual duality of good and evil. She believes the Quran has evidence of Jinn and instructions on how to summon a Jinni. She believes that she had summoned a Jinni in Iraq which whispered to Bilal that he should save his family and get them out of the country. She believes that the same Jinni protected her during her time in the Syrian camp, but that the Jinni could not follow her to Australia. Because of recent stress both financial and social Aisha again prayed for protection. The next day Brian arrived at her flats. Aisha suspects Brian may be a Jinni in human form.

Her sons are now 11 and 8. Mohammed will turn 12 later in the month. She is mourning the death of Bilal. She’s unsure exactly when he died but she heard the news on the 8th April 2003. That makes Easter Sunday 2012 the 9th anniversary of his death. She wishes to recognise the date, but her grieving is complicated by the lack of clarity in Islam over death anniversaries. An Imam advised her that any religious observance of a death anniversary would be bid’ah.

Aisha is a smart woman and a strong one. She has a deep faith which she claims she has witnessed in the events of her life. She is pleased to be in Australia for the sake of her sons, but the overt racism against Muslims, especially women in the hi-jab, worries her. She is also worried by some of the young Muslim men who respond to this racism with their own violence and the preachers who she believes distort the Quran to more extremist readings. As a result she encourages her sons to attend a state primary school, speaks most often to them in English, and encourages them to get to know ‘Australians’. It is perhaps this desire to demonstrate the advantages of ‘integration’ that she initially speaks with, and shows kindness to Brian.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Novel(la) in Progress

April 5, 2012

Character profile: Brian Atley

By J Michael Melican

This is a profile of a character I’m developing for a new project. It’s set in present day Melbourne, but there’s some elements of Magical Realism in it.

Sometimes when I’m planning my writing I try to put a page like this together for important characters. It helps me to get a sense of who they are, what brought them to the point in their life at which we meet them, what events in their history might shape their responses and actions, what motivates them…

This is entirely fictional. I do sometimes worry when I create these characters that someone I know might read it and assume I’ve based a character on them or some mutual acquaintance. I can honestly say that Brian is not based on anyone. He’s a little bit of me I suppose (as they all are), a little bit from a variety of people I know, a little bit of my observations into human behaviour, a little bit of literary free-licence to exploit my role as author and put the poor guy through hell to make him (hopefully) interesting and sympathetic to my readers. I’ll let you be the judge of that and add some other character profiles from this project soon.

Brian Atley:

Brian is 41yo. He’s always been a big guy; now he’s getting fat. His red hair that he jokingly calls ‘strawberry blond’. He has bright green eyes with deep crow’s feet around the corners and weather-worn skin. His nose is red and a little bulbous. He keeps a goatee which is more obviously red than his hair. His knees are shot from footy (from which he retired at 29 after being diagnosed with degenerative cartilage in his right knee), but he still has a strong frame and plenty of strength in his body. He lives in a one bedroom flat in Thomastown.

Brian was raised in the country and moved down to Melbourne at 13. He struggled to fit in at school and was not very good academically (he’d never finished a book until his son lent him ‘Harry Potter’ which he’s nearly finished now). He smoked a lot of pot. His parents were having troubles; Brian kept himself largely and deliberately ignorant.

When he was 17 his Dad shot himself in the head. They said it was a hunting accident and the gun had gone off while he was climbing through a fence. Brian didn’t believe it. Brian’s Mum and his younger sister (13 at the time) moved to Sydney where his maternal aunties and uncle lived. Brian stayed in Melbourne as he was six months into a bricklayer’s apprenticeship at Holmesglen Tafe.

He didn’t complete his training. He got stoned a lot and a few months after his Mum left he crashed his car while drunk. He lost his licence for 12 months and lost his apprenticeship with it. After almost a year on the dole he was convinced by Centrelink to do a Cert II in Security / Crowd Control. He didn’t mind the Security Guard work but didn’t like Crowd Control much. He worked on and off enough for a few years while getting some side $ as a decent footy player to scratch a living.

At 24 he married the sister of one of his footy mates. Sarah was a hairdresser with her own salon. They were happy together but she had trouble conceiving. After a year of IVF they had their first son Jaydin. Brian was 27. Four years and more IVF later they had twin girls Maysin and Madysin. They were premature by emergency C-section. Maysin survived a few hours; Madysin almost a day.

The stress of losing the girls and financial stress from Sarah not working and Brian’s infrequent employment put tremendous strain on the marriage. Brian hadn’t learnt any coping mechanism and began to recall his parents’ failed marriage. When Brian’s drinking made him miss shifts things got worse. Eventually they split, three days before Brian’s 33rd birthday.

Brian has spent the last eight years trying to overcome his alcoholism (not entirely successfully) and patch things up with Sarah (completely unsuccessfully). For a year or two he had no access to Jaydin, but has cleaned his act up enough that he now has monthly visitation and is trying for fortnightly. He works hard at his relationship with his son but can’t quite make it work.

Brian is genuinely a decent guy who has been dealt a pretty rough deal by life but takes the hits and keeps getting up. He’s damaged, but denies it. He avoids introspection and doesn’t talk too much about his past. He’s pessimistic in many ways and has come to expect that he “kinda deserves” ill-fortune. He has no strong religious conviction, a pretty mild streak of Aussie nationalism expressed in a faded southern-cross tattoo on his forearm and a vague philosophy that newcomers should ‘fit in and speak English’. Socially he’s a bit awkward. He’s a little too honest and can come across as tactless. He is curious of others though and prepared to ask questions. What prejudice he has is ignorance and he discards it as he gets to know people better. He doesn’t have a lot of patience for people who try to manipulate or fool him, but nor does he really hold grudges. Unfortunately his only practiced coping mechanism for dealing with conflict is violence.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Novel(la) in Progress

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 192 other followers