The Blood Gate

After 12 years, and much procrastination, I can finally reveal this excerpt from my novel, The Blood Gate. It is only a second draft, so please feel free to add commentary on how it can be improved:

Chapter 1

I never thought I’d be standing on the very edge of hell. The jagged cavern beneath me, monstrous waves churning within it.

There was a time when I thought I’d never care about anything or anyone ever again. I was too selfish, too blind to see what I’d become. But now, in the dark and cold, I realise what I must do to protect the ones I love. I have no fear. I’ll be redeemed, of that I’m sure.

The air is clammy, almost wet. I stand on the precipice above the massive crack in the rock. Freezing air shrieks as it rushes out, swirling around me.

I have no fear.

The warm sands I know well are so far away. And I am alone. Night is falling. I can smell the sea bashing at the rocks below. The brine is so heavy in the air. I can taste the salt at the back of my nose. Pounding on the cliffs. Pounding in my chest.

I wish someone was here with me. Anyone.

I will have no fear.

Breath getting harder. Faster.

I step out. I fall.

Ash to ashes

Ash to ashes, dust to dust,

Twisted wreckage, blackened earth,

Severed tendon bleeding love.

Ash to ashes, dust to dust,

Important questions never asked,

Ice frosts over frozen hearts.

Ash to ashes, dust to dust,

Broken bodies, bloodied bone,

A hundred reasons to be on my own.

The point...

I’m sure many writers sat down over Christmas with the noble intention to chain themselves to their writing desk and produce a masterpiece.

I had such an aspiration.

However, between the mountains of chocolate, copious bottles of booze and the kind of TV that rots a person’s brain from the inside out, I found myself with only one day of holiday left.

One chapter of my novel still to write. Not enough jelly babies and coke in all the world to drive that all-nighter….

 However….

I am not a person easily dissuaded by ‘the hard way’. In fact, some days, I am sure I go out of my way looking for the most difficult way to do the most routine tasks.

So, I sat myself down in front of said TV, and thought about how I was going to finish my novel. I am a great believer in thinking. Not about important things, like thinking before you speak, or thinking about how to figure out a mathematical equation. No. I think about how best to rescue intrepid heroes from pirates, bandits and dragons.

The important things in life.

Several hours later, and only once the Five afternoon movie was over, I did indeed chain myself to my writing desk. Surrounded by jelly babies. Hmmmm…jelly babies….

And then something magical happened. As the sun set over smoggy Rugby, and the people began returning home from work, a sudden wave of inspiration hit.

There is nothing quite like the golden groove you hit when you find the rhythm of the story, and the characters flow along with you. The book pretty much writes itself at that point.

Which brings me back to my point. After 12 years of long, hard procrastination, I can finally say that the last word, of the last page, of my grand novel, is done!!

Warwickshire, a poem

                                                                                        
Rolling, rolling, ever rolling,
Clouds of thunder and dark.
Shining, shining, ever shining,
Sunlight, songs of the lark.

Deep and roving, those wandering hills,
That lie softly in the mellow folds,
Of golden grasses that wave,
Warm and glowing in the dusky gold.

The sun's own funeral,
Orange red pyre,
Drawn deep into the sleeping trees,
Leaves burnished with fire.

Lost in the warm summer eves,
Bones old and tired,
Clouds drawaing in the blanket of night,
Upon the gentle, honest shires.

Sample of the short story ‘The Railway Bridge’ by S.J. Menary.

This story is currently in the process of publication with Anubis Literary Agency as part of a literary anthology.

‘Mother always told me not to go out after dark.

Dark black streets, wet with cold hard rain, infecting the senses like a contagion. The full moon is out tonight. It’s hidden behind brown polluted clouds and illuminates from behind like bad stage lighting.

I hate full moon. All the weirdoes come out on full moon. Lurking under the railway bridge, down the lonely road, in the shadows of the train station. Desperate for blood.

I watch as the yellow windows blur past as the train rattles across the bridge. The noise fades away, and I hear the thin sound of lonely footsteps.

He’s walking fast. Young, 18 maybe. Just a kid. Rich Grandma paying for everything. Those extra strength glasses, pristine textbooks, brand new red hoodie. A kid like that is gonna be a doctor. Make the family proud. That is, if he can stay away from the wrong side of the railway bridge.

It’s raining. Just a bit. But Glasses pulls up his hood, checks his watch. He’s late. Probably has to get home to Grandma. Oversized town house, meticulous décor, shiny new car in the driveway.

Good little Glasses. He stops at the crossing, tapping his feet. He’s really late then.

The quickest way home is through that dark, deserted underground car park. A concrete forest of broken stairwells and abandoned shopping trolleys.

I watch him thinking weighing it up in his head. The cogs are whirring. It’s a faster route, but you just never know what’s hidden down there.

He takes that fateful step, and the shadows swallow him whole. All I can hear is the crunch of shattered glass under his expensive shoes.

Mother always said if I did go out after dark, always stay under the streetlights. Bad things happen in the dark.’

Observations on editing

My novel is almost done, and once I have written the last sentence, thrown my hands up in relief/joy/pure exactly that the thing is FINALLY finished, it occurs to me that the job of the novelist is far from done.

Oh no! I hear you cry. How can this be? You have an idea, you put pen to paper, a few years down the line (or more than a few if you are me) you have a book. Happy days!

Not so, I'm afraid. The finished book is rarely the finished product, by a long stretch. There are many editing processes to get through first.

1) Go back to the start and read the book from cover to cover. I guarantee that you will be mortified by the early chapters, as you will have progressed as a writer as you go along.

2) Initial edit. This is the basic grammar and smelling mistakes that need correcting first and foremost.

3) Plot inconsistences. You may well be surprised that you have missed bits out, forgotten characters entirely and assumed that the reader had mind reading powers. Because obviously they know that Johnny is Trevor's father, without you having to tell them.

4) The reader's perspective. Surprisingly, I have found that I for one forget I am writing for an audience. And the phrases I use may not be proper grammar, like. Because everyone else wasn't brung up proper, obviously. That'll learn yer. The best way to tackle this is to either join a great little writer's group and get people to read you work and point out all your mistakes. If you can handle it.
Alternatively, you could go for the gentler option. Ask a pool of your friends, with an interest in your subject matter, to do a proof read for you. Give them hard copies and ask then to scribble all over them with things they like/dislike or notice about your work.

Now, and only now, are you ready for the real work. Because contrary to popular belief, the shadowy world of publishing does not take your magical amazing book and make it into a hardback best seller. They will hack and burn and edit their way through it until it isn't even really your book anymore.

Someone once told me that the best way to survive this process is to write that perfect, magical, amazing book. Hide it in a drawer. Yours, and only yours, forever. Then take a second copy, and send it to the publishers. Let them tear it apart, put it back together again, and if you’re lucky, publish it. Two books. Yours and theirs.

I always thought that was good advice.

Missing chapters

I have been writing my first novel over a period of years (12 to be exact). And, as many writers find, it is hard to fit your literary ambitions around your day job. I have found that I have had to snatch whatever time I can to write, especially when inspiration strikes.

Therefore, it was inevitable that parts of my novel would end up on the back of train receipts and Greggs packets. 

So, when I finally drew close to the end, I had promised myself that I would go back and make sure I had all of my chapters in one place, ready for the first edit.  The prospect that each chapter would be neatly rounded up, in order, without any inconsistences, dwindled fast.

I found myself amazed at myself. How could I have written such brilliant paragraphs side by side with such utter crap?! I had thought myself a better writer than that! Where did that plot line come from? And who was that character? Didn't I cut him in chapter 12? Hang on, where is chapter 12?! And chapter 2 come to think of it?

Apparently, I found that, in between tearing chunks of my hair from my scalp, I had managed to miss out chapter 2 entirely, chapter 12 was written on the back of a metro from last year, and chapters 16 through 18 were handwritten in a scrap book I took on retreat with me.

Suddenly, that first edit seems a very long way off...