The Missing Story

A couple of months ago my friends lent me Tagore's selected stories, recommending one in particular, 'Kabuliwallah'. When I looked it up I thought I had the wrong page because the story was not there and after checking several  times, I realised the story was missing, it had been removed. So I read another couple of stories instead and loved 'Exercise-book', a story about a little girl who loves writing so much she will write on any surface she can get her hands on. His stories can be saccharine but there are gorgeous details, and unexpected harshnesses that stab you like drawing pins in a warm bath. When I mentioned the missing story to my friends they explained they had given me the wrong book, that they had another identical edition, and that 'Kabuliwallah' had indeed been carefully removed a long time ago to fax to someone. So we swapped over the books and they gave me the edition that did have 'Kabuliwallah' on page 115. As  I was reading it, the pages fell out and I thought what have I done, only to realise that these were the few pages that had been removed from the first edition, now slotted into the wrong book.  In the end, I got two 'Kabuliwallah's; these are the tiny beautiful details that make the world go round.

The Istanbul Review: Issue 5

Delighted that the gorgeous The Istanbul Review Issue 5 is now on sale in Looking Glass Books, a wonderful indie book store in Edinburgh. I have flash fiction in this one. This issue also has writing by Elif Shafak and Lesley Glaister. And the stunning cover artwork - and art within - is by Canan  Berber. The Istanbul Review gives 2.5% of its profits to NGOs across the world promoting literacy.

Three essays & a review

I highly recommend Deborah Levy's recently published essay, 'Things I Don't Want to Know' - it's feisty and sharp, with long, gorgeous sentences that can make you dizzy if you are not careful. Towards the end she says: 'What do we do with the knowledge that we cannot bear to live with? What do we do with the things we do not want to know?' I also enjoyed Zadie Smith's essay on writing, 'That Crafty Feeling', which I came across a couple of weeks ago on Poets and Writers,  Lines We Live By. Zadie's tone can sometimes feel a bit too artfully self-deprecating, but I love her obsession with the first 20 pages of whatever she is working on, and this: 'After each book is done, you look forward to hating it (and you never have to wait long)...'

Also enjoyed Janice Pariat's 'A line runs through', her short piece on borders in literature in which she references Saadat Manto's short story 'Toba Tek Singh'. I read Manto for the first time just over a year ago and was bowled over.

And allow me to link to this new review on Amazon of The State of Me which begins: 'This is an excellent book from a gifted writer. I don't think it ever received much publicity, and so I suspect nearly everyone reading it suffers from or knows someone who suffers from chronic illness. This is a shame as it's a superb portrayal of the "world" of chronic illness, yet at the same time it is never dreary or too depressing...'

Short story in The Scotsman

Delighted to have a short story in today's Scotsman, they showcase emerging - I will be forever emerging -  and established writers in The Write Stuff. I sent off  'A Small Punishment' last November and heard back in less than a week that they wanted it. So refreshing to hear back so quickly, usually you are waiting for months and months when you submit on spec. The story should have appeared before Christmas, but I was nudged over by the great man. And thanks to my friend Ciara for giving me the heads up about the feature (she had one of her own stories published last autumn). My story was, in fact, shortlisted for the Bridport Prize in 2011, but has never been published. I have edited it significantly since then - also, made it less sweary - that's the great thing about a piece of writing, you can leave it for months or years and go back to it. It is never really finished. Five years on I still want to change sentences in The State of Me.

Being nudged over by Nelson, gently

When I woke up on Thursday morning the shed had been blown over on its side like a Monopoly piece. I'd been awake for a few hours before I actually noticed, and it was utterly dislocating to see. I felt powerless. When I went to bed on Thursday night Nelson Mandela had just died.  I  lit candles - these rituals we have because we don't know what else to do - and shed a fair few tears at some of the television footage. I was due to have a short story in the Scotsman this weekend but it has been postponed because they needed space for  tributes. It's something  of an honour to have been nudged over by Nelson. The shed is happily fixed (thanks to neighbours and joiners), and I'm now brimming with Mandela memories. So much to link to but I will just link to these: Nadine Gordimer  in The New Yorker; Marina Hyde in The Guardian; Teju Cole in The New Inquiry; this by Musa Okwonga; and  Jon Snow's blog .

Why do we read fiction?

Can reading literature make doctors better doctors was one of the questions posed at a 'Dissecting Edinburgh' event last month. It made me think of James Wood's How Fiction Works where he describes how in 2006 a Mexican municipal president decided that his police force should be prescribed reading certain novels - One Hundred Years of Solitude was on the list -  to make them 'better citizens'. And psychologist Keith Oatley speaks of fiction as a 'kind of simulation that runs on minds', and argues that novels can help us understand the world better. I'm not sure if  doctors *can* 'learn' empathy from fiction (I tend to think you've got empathy or you haven't) but  it's certainly  interesting to think of why we read rather than the more often discussed why we write. Both questions are answered by Portugese writer Fernando Pessoa: 'Literature is proof that life is not enough'. (I came across this gorgeous quote a couple of months ago in Pascal Garnier author's note in The Panda Theory. It is often in my head now.)

I happened the day before yesterday to be reading the quaint and bizarre short story 'Rab and His Friends' (1859) by Scottish doctor John Brown  featured at the Dissecting Edinburgh event - Rab is the name of a dog belonging to a man whose wife has incurable cancer - when I learned that Iain Banks is terminally ill. I had a lump in my throat. I remember reading The Wasp Factory in a friend's flat in Aberdeen in eighties. And how crazy we all were for The Crow Road in the nineties. I recall it was dramatised too. Such sad, sad news.

Guide to flash fiction

I was delighted last year to be shortlisted for the Bridport flash fiction award, though I have written very little flash and am still not, to be honest, entirely clear of what it is.  I like it because it requires less energy than short stories - I see everything in terms of energy - though flash is not just a case of trimming a short story to a paragraph or two, flash is its own thing, and it still needs to be crafted and edited like hell. A recent helpful article here by Vanessa Gebbie, from the Bridport Prize blog, on what constitutes flash fiction - I had not heard of drabble (100 words fiction) or dribble (50 words).  I also came across - and loved - this description last year by Vanessa  on Writers and Artists site: '...A flash of narrative lit up, then extinguished, leaving the reader wondering, but satisifed - because a good flash is never incomplete'.

Manto & translation, & Pakistani fathers

This is Saadat Hasan Manto's Mottled Dawn, Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition, published by Penguin India. The cover is exquisite, it came the other day. The painting is 'Melting Wit' (2005, acrylic on canvas) by N. S. Harsha. I'm not sure if the clowns are bleeding or melting. Harsha says: 'I fill my work with gaps and loose ends; I want to lead and mislead the viewer. Ambiguity makes a picture very exciting'.

I've already read 'Toba Tek Singh' online - the first story in this anthology -  and have also read the introduction by Daniyal Mueenuddin, whose own short story 'A Spoiled Man' from In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is one of the saddest stories I've ever read. I look forward to the rest of Manto's  deceptively simple yet brutal and sometimes funny stories about Partition. It struck me that Manto was only seven years older than my Indian-born Pakistani father, who migrated to Karachi briefly in the late forties before coming to the west to work as a doctor. Manto migrated to Lahore from Bombay, but he was never happy there. Both of them died as not old men through alcohol excess.

These stories have been translated by Khalid Hasan and I was interested to read that Aatish Taseer - the estranged son of  the assassinated Pakistani politician (himself the nephew of poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz ) - does not approve of Hasan's translations, suggesting he lacks 'the simplicity, speed and vitality' of the original prose. He has translated Manto himself in an anthology of Selected Stories (Random House). I downloaded these last month and have read a couple. This reviewer is critical of Taseer's criticism of Hasan as a translator. As I only know a few words in Urdu - banana, water and thank you - I have to trust that whoever has translated has done a fine job.

And, on translation, here is a list of the best books of 2012.

Tinsel and Heated Rollers

This is the micro story I contributed to Caroline's fundraising ebook in late spring, 100 RPM. Every story had to be one hundred words or fewer:

Tinsel and Heated Rollers
They were going to Alex and Linda’s for Christmas dinner. Donna liked going to their house. It was bigger than hers and they always had coloured tinsel. Thinking about the tinsel made Donna less sad. It stopped her thinking about her mum crying last night. Her mum said 'Silent Night' always gave her hope. Her mum didn’t like coloured tinsel. She thought it was common. Alex and Linda had given her mum heated rollers for Christmas. When you plugged them in, you could smell them heating up and a red dot on the top turned black when they were ready.

Scott liked it.

And time for The Snowman, the glorious Irn Bru advert, just so gallus. These Scottish landmarks really touch you if you know them.

Saadat Manto's 'Toba Tek Singh'

I have recently discovered the writer, Saadat Hasan Manto, he wrote short stories in Urdu, the bad boy of Partition literature. This story 'Toba Tek Singh' is one of his most popular, a satire on the separation of India and Pakistan, and focuses on the exchange across the border of inmates from mental institutions (based on fact).

'All that these inmates knew was that there was a man by the name of Quaid-e-Azam who had set up a separate state for Muslims, called Pakistan. But they had no idea where Pakistan was. That was why they were all at a loss whether they were now in India or in Pakistan. If they were in India, then where was Pakistan? If they were in Pakistan, how come that only a short while ago they were in India? How could they be in India a short while ago and now suddenly in Pakistan?'

The full story is here in English, it is very short, and funny and desperately sad at the same time. I just wish I could understand Urdu and read the original.

Junot Díaz on writing

I came across this interview with writer Junot Díaz a while ago and am only getting round to reading it. I love what he has to say:

While a short story cannot build the same kind of relationship with a reader that the novel can, the short story can far more convincingly remind the reader of life’s cruel brevity and of how irrevocable some of the shit we decide and that happens to us can be.

And this:

Each narrative mode has its benefits and its dangers. Third person, for example, runs the risk always of being dreadfully etiolated and sounding like it’s been dipped for a decade in an acid bath made up of the pulped voices of 1,001 old dead white males. Third person runs the risk always of being something that doesn’t dance. And first person clearly is always in danger of becoming a narcissistic pinhole, an all-or-nothing bargain. But again, I don’t think one writer’s preference says much about what is possible in the form.

Literary criticism, Karachi Lit Festival 2012

Interesting discussion here on literary criticism from Karachi Literary Festival 2012. This is the third year of KLF. Speakers are Hanif Kureishi, Muneeza Shamsie (mother of Kamila Shamsie), Stefan Weidner - a German critic - and Alok Bhalla, whom I just love, I could listen to him forever. Hanif seems a bit grumpy, but he's always interesting and I like his comment, around 10 mins in,  that 'a book, in a sense is a collection of instructions for an experience that takes place in your head'. I like the slightly dishevelled feel to the event, and the panel being brought tea; people in the audience seem to wander in and out, I have watched other sessions, unlike the buttoned-up literary events we have here, where sometimes you are scared to breathe. I got such a pang to go to Karachi watching this, I have family there, but I can't have the vaccinations, it could make my ME worse, and I simply could not take that risk (and I couldn't risk not having them). And there are obviously other factors too, it is hardly the safest place, at the moment. I love this recent essay by Mohammed Hanif on living in Karachi. And this is a lively blog review of other events at the 2012 KLF. Over the weekend, I finished reading In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin, the final story in the collection, 'A Spoiled Man', is one of the saddest stories I have ever read.

Writing about writing

Is there any process or human endeavour that has as much written about it as the act of writing? It seems to be endlessly discussed, a subject of fascination. I enjoyed this recent article. Still, when (famous) writers reveal their tips, I half want to run away, as so much of this advice relies on physical wellbeing: Get up early, write so many hundred words, don't leave your desk 'til bla bla bla. The only thing I find in common is we all write in our pyjamas and drink cold coffee. And I really liked this article by Jenny Diski, which I may have blogged before. She sagely says: Not starting isn't the end. At least, not necessarily. Although I am the opposite of prolific, writing is always there, the impulse, anyway. I can't imagine not  being allowed to write, having no tools, that would be my idea of hell. There is nothing more exquisite than the process of writing taking you away from yourself, you don't even know you are doing it. Was thinking  back to 2008, it took me a year to recover physically - and emotionally - from the hurlyburly of The State Of Me, then I got recurrent uveitis in 2009 (which,  touch wood has gone for good, I stopped treatment last October). Then last year we had the carpetbombing of PWME with negativity from the media and a certain consultant psychiatrist and his merry men. I cried so much during that time, just feeling so thwarted by lies. Anyway, here are the very short stories which have been published since The State of Me: 'The Bangle Man' was in the fundraising anthology 50 Stories for Pakistan, and 'Parched' which appeared in Glasgow to Saturn, Glasgow Uni's online lit mag in 2010. Both stories can be read here. And I had a flash fiction 'Tinsel and Heated Rollers' earlier this year  in Caroline's fundraising anthology 100 RPM.

Always the bridesmaid...

Found out last night I'd been shortlisted for the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2012 (officially announced next month). Of course would love to have been in the winners' category, but this is the first flash fiction I've ever submitted to an award, so I'm happy (I still feel *very* inexperienced in writing flash). Last year, I was shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize, so it maybe now feels a wee bit 'always the bridesmaid' (in distant past been shortlisted for both Asham and RLS Award), though I'm just pleased I can still write meaningfully as my output has been very thin and sporadic - necessarily so, and the uveitis saga didn't help - since The State of Me. I have an idea for a longer piece, a slim book, but I'm saying nothing until it is written (or has assumed a decent shape), I learned that the last time. Otherwise, for the next three, four, five years, everyone will be forever asking, How's the writing? And it is too much pressure, I can't write to deadlines, I can't write to order - I know from experience it makes me (more) ill -   and I certainly can't write every day, or even every week (at least, not anything remotely substantial): I write when I can and that is that. I must stick to my own pace.

I am a perfectionist and have huge self-discipline, from my pre-ME days, and no one puts more pressure on me than myself.

And, of course,  I read too;  so much of writing is reading. You have to engage with the world.

I have another fucking chest infection, only got rid of the last one six weeks ago - after two lots of antibiotics - and am now on a third lot. Coughing constantly is exhausting, you feel almost as if you're putting it on, is so dramatic sounding.

Gems

I recently read a Ray Bradbury short story, 'The Veldt', from The Illustrated Man, first published in 1951, and I was blown away, it felt so modern - and creepy - and I wished I'd read him before now (I've only read the essays Zen in the Art of Writing). Then I remembered that in The State of Me, Helen admires a 'A Flock of Ravens': 'I just read a short story by Ray Bradbury, it's called 'A Flock of Ravens', I really liked the tone, the hysteria. The man who sold it to me couldn't bend his arms properly.'

So I realised I must have read it too (my book is a  handy aide-memoire). 

I very much like this recent Goodreads review of the novel. And enjoyed this Jenny Diski article on writing, or not writing, via Fictionbitch. (Also, in order to write you need to read. But you should never force yourself to read a book for pleasure, there is a time for every book to be read.)

I've been dipping into Bord de Mer by Véronique Olmi, a French novella I read of here. The language is simple and not too taxing. And I've finally started An Exploding Case of Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif, I've had a secondhand copy on my shelves forever.

I've had a crappy cold that's recycling itself - and a racking cough - I got antibiotics yesterday, it was getting ridiculous - and have woken up more than once feeling horribly ill, more from ME than anything, that horrible weakness-nausea in the very core of your muscles, and you think: Fuck, please go away, and thank your lucky stars you are no longer like this *all* the time, confined to bed, as some poor people are.

Which brings me to Dr Betty Dowsett, I was greatly saddened to read about her passing, aged ninety-one, a true champion of people with ME. She worked alongside Dr Melvin Ramsay. (I was diagnosed By Dr Behan in 1984 according to Ramsay definition of ME, but  did not, of course, know that at the time as it was the only definition, before all the nonsense and watering down.)

*I just saw this, neuro-immune model of ME, from PubMed, June 2012.

100 RPM - stories inspired by music

100 RPM, a gorgeously designed ebook anthology, is released today, the project of Caroline Smailes,  whose enthusiasm is irrepressible and inspiring.

All money raised goes to One in Four charity, which supports victims of sexual violence.

And an  introduction by Nik Kershaw!

Caroline has explained all on her blog.

There are a hundred stories and every story is one hundred words or less and has been inspired by music on You Tube. The playlist is here.

My own story was inspired by Scottish band Glasvegas' version of 'Silent Night'.

I hope you enjoy the book and pass on the word! I'm off to download my copy.

I'm finding I like microfiction more and more, the possibilities as a writer and the little energy required as a reader. Perfect!

* Review of my story here.

** And thanks to Glasvegas for RTing the anthology.

Two lovely things

Congratulations to Kitty Aldridge and the other winners of the Bridport Prize 2011, announced yesterday! I was v. chuffed to make the shortlist of 100 (out of 6000 entries) in the short story category, a long time since I had written anything new. Also, delighted that The State of Me has been in top 100 paid Kindle literary fiction for last month (with occasional dips out). I'm sure the bargain 99p has something to do with it.  A nice short Kindle review here.

Blowing your own trumpet

My back is fucked again, really it is getting ridiculous, I shouldn't be at my laptop but there are things to say.

Today is RLS day, wonderful Robert Louis Stevenson. This is the first official celebration.

I was,  many years  ago, shortlisted for the RLS Memorial Award on the strength of a short story. I didn't win, which in a way was good as I would not have been robust enough to go - everyone cycled through the forest to get their groceries - and that would have been  shattering, two stays in France being hijacked, my year abroad in 1982/83 when I first got ill, and this prize, two months in a remote, idyllic retreat.

But at least I was considered, my voice was heard, and that is what is maybe more important.

It strikes me again that here is so much pretense with this illness, you pretend you are more well than you are - for many reasons.

But in the end, you can't pretend, you can't keep up the mask. You can't sustain things.

And when you are in a severe phase, of course there is no pretending. Some people never get out of the severe phase: the wonderful Countess of Mar  in the House of Lords yesterday.

A pack of ME Research UK Christmas cards just arrived,  there are so many charities needing support, I always spread my choices over four or five. It can feel a bit like blowing your own trumpet when you send ME cards. My friends and family support me all year round and here I am reminding them that I am ill, but the money has gone to research so that is fine and dandy. But there are Amnesty International, Down's Syndrome Association,  Alzheimer Scotland, children with terrible diseases, starving children, children with no clean water, you would go mad if you thought about everyone who needed help.

And the abandoned cats in Greece (just saw an ad for them in The Big Issue).

Now I am off to do some cobras and corpse  positions (yoga).

Storytelling (4)

Been resting for days to be okay for some storytelling today at 4pm at the Edinburgh Book Festival. *I like how the banner photo makes me look like I was standing - I was sitting and managed to kick a glass of water over during the reading, naturally.

I'm very proud to be doing this wee ten minute book fest slot today. Take note, Wessely school: people with this illness do everything they can to achieve, in spite of it all!!! (Just realised am shelved above James Joyce, that makes me smile.)

I feel like a bad citizen. My library books are overdue - can't renew them online as others want them - but I've had to measure out energy like gold coins and am not certain I'll get them back by the end of the week.

From Glasgow to Saturn (19)

Delighted to have a wee story (Parched) - very wee, very short - in issue 19 - of From Glasgow To Saturn, Glasgow University's free online literary magazine - wonderfully named after Edwin Morgan's poetry collection (1973). I try not to think that it's thirty years since I went to uni, that would mean I am very, very, very old. I went when I was just sixteen, a couple of months from seventeen. My brothers were the same, we were all pretty much the youngest in our year(s) - at school and uni. We can go to school at four in Scotland. The other day I had hot chocolate from a vending machine and was transported right back to the student union, known as the QM, short for Queen Margaret Union (the other union, the GU, the 'men's union', didn't let women join til 1981). I still remember vividly sitting on the QM steps during Freshers' Week, an unseasonably warm October, in my clogs and skimpy Indian dress, I had a hippy thing going on back then though I hated folk music and listened mostly to David Bowie and Frank Zappa.

I am so glad I didn't know what was ahead, just sitting on those steps, carefree as hell. I got ill in my third year and unlike Helen Fleet I didn't come home from France once, I came home three times, I kept going back 'cos they couldn't find out what was wrong. I still remember trudging up the gangway onto a cross-Channel ferry, knowing that something was dreadfully and completely wrong. And I don't mean my perm - yes, I had a perm! My hair is already crazy hair - and yet I had a perm! Because my cousin had one, I wanted one too.