G R Jordan author, poet, and top Dad apparently!
Tag: conflict
Methodically Creative – words combined that don’t make sense?
It was my English teacher who said the word in a school report. Methodical. Truthfully I didn’t know what it meant. It sounded similar to the word on those cough sweets. Now that I know its meaning it is certainly an appropriate word for a man who likes to make lists, who sees a structure in apparent chaos, a guy who abhors sheer randomness. You probably know those devices for writing prompts. Spinning wheels or random numbers indicating your protagonist, the dilemma, the setting and the type of story. That is never me, never.
Unfortunately my creative side was never pushed and although apparent in my scientific nature, I struggled along on my own in the arts disciplines that I loved. Life was about getting a degree to get a job and then build a life. There was little room for my music, my poetry and my drama to be anything but pastimes. I look at my own kids now and hope I can stop myself from making that mistake.
Science is all about methodology and without doubt it is one of the reasons I am well suited to it. My mind is diagnostic in nature seeking what’s not as it should be, spotting the flaw in the machinery. However, repetition bores me and I struggle with mundane going through the motions during experimental practice. I think a lot of us do. Wrestling with the answers is where it’s at for me.
And so it is with my writing. I diagnose life around me. I dismantle and rebuild it, looking to see how it works, finding the flaw before this churning mix in my mind produces an image or story. My wife asks can I not write normal books? Well no because in the normal the flaw is not seen. So often we have to take the flaw out of its surroundings to see it for real with no compensations. But there is always a method in the way that I do this. I have my mode of working.
Sometimes I get into difficulty with editors because my way of understanding the world, my method, means I often leap across different POVs in the same chapter in order to compare different agendas and motives. A life time reading Pratchett probably taught me how to do this (although I am still the novice to the great master in this) but more importantly gave the encouragement to write in my own style and not cling to the methods of different instructors.
So I hope you can see I am methodically creative.Science and art mixing, left and right brain co-operating. I believe these opposites are present in all of us if we let them loose, in different forms and ways to be sure, but conflict to hone the content we produce. What two words combined that don’t make sense describe you? Let me know!
G R Jordan author, poet, and top Dad apparently!
Footsteps – Epilogue
Next month I will be releasing the first novel in my Austerley and Kirkgordon adventure series about a pair of investigators into the paranormal. In order for readers to get a feel for my characters I will be releasing a short story prelude before launch day and as I am especially good to my blog readers, I am going to serialise it here. So take a trip into the depths of a lost graveyard in search of Eldar things with Messers Austerley & Kirkgordon and find out how this diverse pair became entangled in horrors from the past.
Epilogue
“And that is about that Officer. I went to drive the car but I didn’t have any keys, lost down below I think. Hot wiring it came to mind but to be truthful, it’s not a skill I have in abundance. Austerley was in a bad way, as was I, both losing blood and I could feel my overall capacity reducing, both mentally and physically. Listening intently, I located the nearest road and dragged the lunatic and myself over to it. It was less than a kilometre I reckon as I took the direct route.
By the time we were found, I think I was delirious and Austerley, well he had lost his mind in the depths. Ranting is a speciality of his, especially in other languages. And I do mean other! So that’s it, Officer. And to be honest I no longer care what anyone thinks or what happens because I damn well capped it and it ain’t coming out that hole. So do the decent thing and send me home and that space cadet to the asylum he deserves.”
The officer crunched up his plastic cup and picked up his notebook before leaving the room. Outside he took a right into the small viewing room and looked at the smartly dressed man in grey overcoat, polished black shoes and bowler hat.
“Crazy story but he tells it like he believes it,” said the officer.
“Yes, he most certainly does,” agreed the bowler hatted man. “Well, I do thank you for letting me watch. On behalf of Her Majesty’s government, I am glad that we have come to an agreement on how to proceed. Mr Kirkgordon needs some rest and recuperation and letting him seek it at home is a most excellent accommodation. As for Mr Austerley, the asylum at Arkham should suffice. A man like that certainly needs to be observed for all our good.”
“Nice working with you,” complimented the police officer shaking the man’s hand. “Take good care mister ….., mister …..what did you say your name was again?”
“Farthington, Mr Farthington at your service.”
Who is the strange Mr Farthington? Will Austerley recover from this nightmare? Does Kirkgordon return to a happy family and a snaity of mind? Find out in Crescendo!, releasing mid-October.
G R Jordan author, poet, and top Dad apparently!
National Poetry Day
It’s National poetry day so here’s one I made earlier in celebration. It’s from my poetry book “Four Life Emotions” and a wee favourite of mine. It tells of the relationship between my mum and my grandmother when the former was visiting the latter in a nursing home after the onset of Parkinson’s Disease. Sometimes life just flips on it’s head and we’re never truly ready for it.
My Child
She is my child.
She lies head caressed to my bosom, a babe in arms,
Seeking security of my presence.
She is my child.
I cut her food and instruct her on how to eat,
To take the joy of her new life.
She is my child.
She relies on me for the basic human functions,
Assisting her with her mistakes.
She is my child.
I hold her as she walks with unsure balance and direction
But with persistent agitation.
She is my child.
I am close to her and she to me,
For she said I’ll miss her.
She is my child.
She was my mother.
G R Jordan author, poet, and top Dad apparently!
Footsteps – chapter 6 Something’s Coming Up the Stairs
Next month I will be releasing the first novel in my Austerley and Kirkgordon adventure series about a pair of investigators into the paranormal. In order for readers to get a feel for my characters I will be releasing a short story prelude before launch day and as I am especially good to my blog readers, I am going to serialise it here. So take a trip into the depths of a lost graveyard in search of Eldar things with Messers Austerley & Kirkgordon and find out how this diverse pair became entangled in horrors from the past.
Something’s Coming up the Stairs
I think my strength was heightened by the terror. It’s the only way I can imagine that we covered the ground at such pace. As we were heading away from the beacons, the darkness began to engulf again and I was running in total darkness. Behind me I heard the gibbering of Austerley between his deep breaths. But farther back there were other sounds. Unholy voices, shrieks, howls, laughs if I was to guess at them. And a thumping. Like hundreds of feet pelting after us. There was no rhythm to it, nothing to which my imagination could grab and produce a picture in my mind. Maybe I should have been thankful but, in honesty, it chilled me more than anything else I have ever fled from.
Austerley knew what it was because from the moment it started he was easier to pull along, in fact, I was only steering him. He said so many words at the time, many of them in languages I didn’t know but he did say that word again. Said it a lot. Shuggoth. So maybe it was that. It’s easier to put a name to it, as it makes me less fearful but in that dark I knew no names. Just the sense of approaching terror, a devilish chaser, a Satan on our backs. And we ran, beaten bodies, broken ankles and lacerations a-plenty hindering us for sure, but Officer we ran!
I knew it was a risk. Somewhere in the back of my mind, something said, Kirkgordon, my son, don’t forget the stairs. But the terror was such that I was just running and I ran smack into the very stairs that were meant to carry us to safety. It was my shoulder that hit the stonework and I tumbled to the floor. Austerley tripped over my legs and I think he landed on the bottom steps for I heard him trying to climb.
The pounding noise of supposed feet got closer, pumping even more adrenalin into my system. Desperately I fumbled around to locate the stairs, trying to use Austerley’s voice as a guide. My heart almost stopped for it took me a good fifteen seconds to locate them. I eagerly took to my flight and covered some four steps before I tumbled over Austerley who must have fallen trying to negotiate the stairs in the darkness.
And then it hit. I felt the stairs shudder and something wet splatted across my legs. It was then that I was cut across my thigh by something sharp which drove me onward. Calling to Austerley to follow I made a start. But I heard nothing human follow me. I called him by name again. No reply. But I heard something trying to squeeze itself into a narrow space. There was a grating of skin on stone, and a noise that indicated pain in a forced effort. Not that the noise had anything human about it.
Bending back down the steps, my hands found Austerley. He wasn’t moving and I had no idea of he was alive or dead. There was no time to check, with our pursuer so close, so I grabbed him by the collar and prepared to drag him. That was when I felt the breath of whatever had pummelled into the stairs. Like acidic snotty mist, its breath blew across my face and I imagine that was inches from me, squeezing its way up the stairs.
I didn’t think. No yells or cries of terror were uttered. In my core I was numb, frozen in feeling. Thank the Lord that my trained reactions took over and my hands seized Austerley’s collar and I dragged him with all my might. I didn’t stop, just pulling and pulling, energy sapping from me but terror driving me on. Never before have I praised the dawn such as I did then.
Dropping Austerley beside the entrance to the grave, I limped my way over to the car and popped the boot, sorry trunk, although boot is proper English, you know. Yeah, I popped the boot and grabbed all the weaponry I had left. It wasn’t an enormous amount; a couple of grenades, some magazines, flash-bangs and a few explosives. Carrying them back to the entrance I began tossing them in.
Austerley opened his eyes beside me and he began to get agitated. He asked what the hell I was doing. Ending it, I told him, bloody ending it. Do you know what the stupid arse then says? Just put the lid on. The lid, I says to him, the lid. There’s a thing coming up the stairs that tops the tentacled horrors that nearly sliced us apart and you just want me to put a lid on it. Just why, I asked him, just flipping why? Now wait for this, Officer, he tells me he wants to go back down, another time to study these things. Can you imagine what I was thinking? The man wants locking up. So I said to him, Indiana Jones, that’s what you are, a sick Indy-clone. But it’s not flaming antiques you’re hunting. It’s the damned, the unholy, Satan’s own.
I told him, that as far as I was concerned, stuff like this should not be messed with. It was the stuff the good book told you to steer clear of, the evil you shouldn’t embrace. Any passing acquaintance with a church would have shown him that. And I said to him, Indy, people like you need protecting from yourself before you dump us all in your own filthy nightmares.
A “Churchy” telling me what to do. That’s what his response was and he tried to grab some of the gear and throw it clear. But I’d had enough. Also who knew how long we could have before that thing squeezed up the stairs. So I dropped him with my nerve grip, shut the stupid fool up. I tossed the rest of the weaponry into the hole, leaving myself one explosive to throw in and ignite the inferno. After toying briefly with tossing Austerley in as well, I dragged him clear and blew the explosives. When the dust had settled, the stairs had collapsed and there was no way down anymore. I drew the stone back across. Despite being exhausted and losing blood, I thought the stone important to cover any traces. This stuff doesn’t want looked into, Officer. Promise me that, if nothing else, promise me that.
Can you keep a lid on it until we see the fallout in two days time? If not, read the epilogue on Wattpad now.
G R Jordan author, poet, and top Dad apparently!