It's a Wonderful Life

Every time I watch Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life--which is quite often as I rate it the best film ever made--a different scene really grabs me. One time it'll be the scene where Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey loses it completely on Christmas Eve, wrecking his house and shouting at his children as he pulls up just short of the end of his tether, emerging from his rage to a see a fear in the faces of his children which reflects a darkness in him. Another time it will be the scene where George and Mary first kiss, George trying as hard as he can not to give in, but being washed away on a tide of his feelings.

This time, watching it with my Grandmother on Christmas Day, the scene that got me (and brought a tear to my eye, I don't mind admitting), was this: Having given up his dreams of travelling and college to help his family and the people in Bedford Falls, George is on his way from his wedding to his honeymoon. He stops, though, when he sees what looks like a run on the bank; his duty tugs at him and he makes his way to the Building and Loan he has kept alive as the last bastion of hope for families wanting to own their own home rather than live under the thrall of the local scrooge and slum baron, Mr. Potter.

He finds a panicked throng of customers and a scared witless business partner. The bank has called their loan, and all of their cash has gone to pay it, leaving nothing to pay the worried customers, who all want to make withdrawals. Potter, meanwhile, sees his chance and puts it about that he'll pay fifty cents on the dollar for shares--peanuts to him and a long awaited chance to tighten his grip on the town. George pleads with the depression-hit customers, telling them they'll all get through this if they stick together, that he can't pay out now, but can pay out next week. This doesn't satisfy some, who would rather go with Potter, so as a last resort, George and his wife Mary offer to pay out of their honeymoon fund.

Unfortunately, the two thousand dollars they have will only go round if people restrict their withdrawals to what they really need. A first guy just doesn't get it, and insists on his entire balance of two hundred and forty two dollars, but a second guy accepts twenty dollars to tide him over. Then George comes to the lady who is third in the queue. When asked how much she can get by on, she looks uncertain for a second, and then says quietly, "$17.50?" George is taken aback for a second at the consideration shown, and then launches himself into a flurry of gratitude for the example she has set. After this, of course, they manage to keep everyone happy with two dollars to spare.

There's something about the way that scene plays out, about her mental scrimping and saving when she could so easily have just followed suit and said twenty dollars, that just resonates. If there were more people like that, who took just what they needed, and less people like Mr $242, the world would be a better place, for sure. What really resonated was watching it with my Grandmother, though. Amazingly, at 83, she had never heard of the film. She loved it, as I knew she would, but that scene above all else made me think of her.

She's sharp, but physically she's finding it tougher every year, but she still raises thousands of pounds for charity every year, still volunteers a day a week at the hospital, wheeling round people younger than her and walking round to sell raffle tickets instead of standing in one place, because it ups the percentages. Of anyone I know, she has the heart which could best be described as good. She always wants to help, never puts herself first. She is definitely a $17.50 kind of person. She is an example I will try to follow. For sure, life is a more wonderful thing for having her in it.

Liars' League

We were sat around in the crowded upstairs room of an old fashioned pub with wooden panelling and stained glass windows, listening to tale after tale being spun. It seemed like something from a long-lost era; all we needed was a hearth to gather round and the smell of horse muck to waft in from the street outside.

This was the Liars' League. As their slogan goes, 'writers write, actors read, audience listens - everyone wins'. It was strange to sit and listen to my story read out loud in front of an audience. Our story, I should say, as the successful entry was co-written with Deborah Rosenblum, who I met via Scrawl and SMYL. She's a real talent, and we worked well together.

We entered the theme 'Ice and Fire', and our story was a tale of both. I was nervous as it was being read out, but the actress was well-practiced, and she brought it to life well. The reaction was good, and the warmth I felt as it was applauded made up for the lack of a hearth.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

Keeping in Touch

Some friends who are pretty desperate for me to get on Facebook made up an account and invited all my friends to it. I've just been and deleted it; there are a number of very good reasons I'm not on Facebook, and it being forced on me is definitely not likely to make me any more amenable to it. But it did make me think about whether I'm making as much effort as I should to stay in touch with people and to stay involved in the lives of people that matter to me.

So I'm resolving to do just that, and I'm going to start by using this blog more regularly. Which means it will have a slightly wider focus than just my writing, but as I'll be writing about whatever I choose to focus on, it'll still be a writing blog.

Make sense? Keep reading.

Back to The Legendary

The Legendary have printed another story of mine:

The Sonora Home for Wayward Girls

Which will be archived here when the new issue is no longer new.

I really like this one. It's short and bitter.

Show Me Your Lits

Well, after that paean to Scrawl, it's only fitting that my other online writing love gets a little bit of the same treatment, especially considering I have another story up now which started its life there. Show Me Your Lits is a wonderful, wonderful place. Its focus is on inspiration, and helping kickstart ideas an impetus to write. Every week, there's a flash challenge, where you access a prompt and then have ninety minutes to write a piece inspired by it. Everybody posts their story anonymously, and everyone comments on each others stories and votes on their favourite. It's not really very competitive -- it's a hell of a lot of fun, and it has inspired me to write some of my best stuff, and vastly improved me as a writer, as well as giving me the occasional ego boost.

And now, the piece I wrote which got me my first ever win there, Neuroplasticine, has been published by Grey Sparrow Journal.

Thanks, Lits. Thanks in particular to Errid, who runs it, and is one of the most supportive people I know, and who very early on trusted me enough to make me a moderator there.

Scrawl

Another piece of mine has gone up, and it's a piece which owes everything to Scrawl. Scrawl is a place I owe a hell of a lot to, in writing terms. When I decided I wanted to pick it back up, the course I took gave me legs, but Scrawl gave me wings. It's a raucous place, and I've gotten into some duels there, but inspiration, beauty and many good things seep up between the cracks.

My best stories have come from the lovely Katie's flash competitions on there, including this one. Story Garden is an irregular collection of choice pieces from the site, which is a writer's hang-out with bells on. I recommend it to any writer, and I recommend The Story Garden to any reader. I've linked to my story, but it's well worth exploring the whole thing:

'Prologue' in Scrawl: The Story Garden 8

Married

I'm not one to get very nervous in front of crowds; it's what I do for a living. So I stood calmly in the registry office, waiting first for the guests, then for my bride. I'd looked in the mirror on the way in; the suit looked good, chocolate and cream. I was ready.

Wasn't I?

People started to come in. Briony's brother, Aaron, who had agreed to be an usher, although he didn't know many of family by sight, and I had to help direct people to their seats. Greeting everyone as they came in diverted me, happily. Everyone was so smiley, and so pleased to see me, and by the time I'd completely lost count of how many cheeks I'd kissed and hands I'd shaken, suddenly the room was full, and -- well how about that, I was nervous after all. Maybe just a little.

Then the waiting.

The song coming on meant that Briony was outside the door, ready to come in. The song was 'Go', the cover, by Sparklehorse and the Flaming Lips, and suddenly, within the first few bars, all the meaning and the memories packed into that song, the reasons we'd chosen it, had me welling up, before she'd even entered the room. My view seemed to undergo one of those zoom effects where everything rushes away from you without moving, and the enormity of what I was about to do hit me almost as hard as the beauty.

And then the beauty walked in the door. I think Briony is beautiful first thing in the morning, with sleep in her eyes. I think she's beautiful every second of every day. But she's never looked more amazing than she did at that moment. The tears were still brimming, egged on by knowing, by being able to see, how nervous she was, and how she was still doing it anyway, walking towards me on her father's arm.

And so we were both nervous, all the way through the vows, all the way through the ceremony, until I got to kiss her, and she was my wife. I don't really remember the words. Everything that should be there was there, the vows, the rings, but the thing that was most important was that she was there. And that she would be there, now, 'til death do us part.

We eased up when the comedy effect of using a fake pen to pose for signing the register photos kicked in. Suddenly we were laughing, and she relaxed, and smiled, and the grin that I thought couldn't get any wider on my face did just that (and stayed that way for the rest of the day). Looking out into the sea of smiling faces was beautiful.

Music is really important to me, and we spent a long time choosing our songs to walk in and out to. Walking back down the aisle to the strains of 'The First Day of my Life', it just seemed so perfect, so right. Again, a song charged with meaning for both of us, and the perfect start to being married. In theory, for a couple who've been together for four years and lived together for two, getting married shouldn't make a real difference to how you feel about each other and about the relationship. And in a way it hasn't, because I couldn't have loved her any more than I already did. But at that moment, and every day since, I have felt different. I have felt, more definitely, and more assuredly, a team, part of a whole, with her, and happier about it than I've been ab out anything.

The rest of the day was a blur. I couldn't really describe it all in detail if I tried, and certainly not in sequence. The sunshine was glorious. The food was wonderful. The venue... it's stunning, remarkable - a 13th century tithe barn, the restoration of which has won a number of awards, and the perfect backdrop to a beautiful, auspicious, day. There were chats, there were photos, there were plenty of drinks... there were some fabulous speeches; Giles, her Dad made us feel ten feet tall, and my best man brought me down to size again in a very funny fashion. I even managed my speech, with no script, as well as I could have expected. We circulated, the string quartet played... a lot of the evening we spent talking to different people, and the whole thing was charged with some kind of magical glow. And every so often, I'd turn, to see her there, across the room, or at my side, looking back at me, and smiling, or oblivious, and smiling. And it still sends shivers down my spine. It was so amazing to be there, with all these people I care about, all so happy to see us happy. I've never felt a vibe like it.

the only thing that went wrong was that it ended. But then we went back to the hotel, and from there, the next day, to the lakes.

A week and a half later, I'm still pinching myself. My wife is more than I could have dreamed of in a partner, for life, and my wedding day was more than I could have dreamed of in an occasion. I wasn't ready. But then, who is?

More Stories Published

Still not really sure what I'm using this blog for, but it's been awhile since updating, so there are two key things I am definitely going to put on here. I'll do the easy one first.

I've had some more pieces published. I went through a phase of writing lots of flash, mainly through www.showmeyourlits.com and the weekly flash competition there, and submitting it to as many online 'zines as I could. And I've had a few acceptances, some of which have gone live:

'Spelling Bee' was published in Poor Mojo's:

http://www.poormojo.org/cgi-bin/gennie.pl?Fiction+444+bi

'Potential Energy' was published in The Foundling Review:

http://www.foundlingreview.com/July2009Issue4Pearce.html

'The Pier at the End of the World' was published in Bewildering Stories:

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue349/pier_end.html

I've had a number of other acceptances, which have made me very happy, but they're all pending publication. Of the above pieces, I'm probably most fond of the last - it was my first stab at writing again after a long hiatus, and I love the main character.

Old Hand

Ok, so now I am an old hand at this. I now have two pieces published, thanks again to The Legendary. It seems to be a good fit. Perhaps because they like something a little sleazy, with a short sharp shock in there somewhere, and tight. I aim for all those things, mostly.

So now I'm getting down to the submissions business proper. I'm treating this more as an exploration. I get the feeling that there is a massive machine. I can hear it clunking and whirring. It involves a lot of people writing and reading each other's work, but it seems as if sometimes it may be distanced from a wider audience. I want to see what I can get here, see where it takes me.

At the moment, though, I'm just getting rejections.

Perspiration...

My new story, 'Letting Go' is here:

http://www.downdirtyword.com/fictionpage.html

And will be archived here, along with the first piece they accepted, 'God Bless':

http://www.downdirtyword.com/authors/terrypearce.html

Published

So, I keep wanting to make out that I'm an old hand at this writing lark.

The truth is, it's something I've known I could do passably for a long time, but I've done nothing about it. A girl I used to write love letters to used to tell me I should be a writer. She was the kind of person who only made compliments when they were very specific, and true. I write in my job, for comprehension rather than beauty, but I write.

But it's nothing I've ever gotten much done with. I've always had a problem sticking with stuff. The shock of the new rarely has aftershocks with me.

This year the brand is having a major overhaul.

This year I'm getting married.

This year I'm getting my head down and getting out of debt.

This year I'm straight and sober.

This year I'm writing.

And now I've been published. So any attempts to make out like I've always been doing this are blown out of the water as I say, as a writer and somebody who chooses their words carefully, ensuring that what is communicated is exactly what was intended:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks and props to:

The Legendary

Stories Everywhere

'Where do you get your ideas from?'

That question is maybe the biggest cliche in writing, and most big-time authors have developed a funny, droll or caustic response, depending on their wont, to trot out at dinner parties (Neil Gaiman has some great answers here).

And the truth is kind of like he tells it (although it takes a class of seven year olds to drag it out of him) - you see, just like anyone else. Your senses take in information, just like anyone else. The difference is you remember it, you examine it, you engage with it. You ask questions (what if and so forth), and you combine and change elements. You take what is, and imagine it differently, or describe it perceptively. You make people see what they didn't see, or didn't imagine could be instead, or just categorised the first time around (we often mistake categorisation for seeing - we lose the detail by fitting what we see into an easy box with a rote response). So, just like with a painter, the key first step is to see, to keep your eyes and all your other senses open, all of the time.

So I look around, and I see. And the things that catch the attention are often the controversial things, the things that are tough to unpack. The furore around Jade Goody is one. Here's a very average person, scrutinised and carried up on a media wave, and exploited, and deeply flawed. It makes me think about the uncertainty principle. Does she change, does her morality change, through being observed? The Poppadum joke was not good. Surely its like is heard once a minute. Was she a devil, then? She got cancer. Millions do. She used her spotlight (which most of those millions don't have) for good, to raise awareness, and has undoubtedly saved lives, before she died. Is she a saint, now? She was human. Much as I want to find no interest at all in whatever The Sun proclaims I should be interested in, I find that, as an average human held up to the light in a way few have been, she is an interesting case that makes me think of plenty of ideas, about being human. Which is what stories are about, of course. Even if they're about being elves or dragons.

Susan Boyle is another case in point. It's a complex one again... she came to attention on Britain's Got Talent, set up for some ridicule from the crowd and the judges as a woman who's not what they've come to expect from indentikit twenty-year-old hopefuls. One amazing performance and thirty million youtube hits later, everybody has an opinion: 'It's all an edit, a set-up', 'The fact that it's gained attention is an insult to her', 'It didn't surprise me', 'She showed them', 'It's all cynical TV', 'The audience and judges were disgusting in the way they treated her', 'What's the big deal, she can sing - lots of unattractive people can'... Where's the truth? Again, she's human, the audience are human. But we can all strive to be the best humans we can be. For me, it says a lot about expectations, and reactions, and assumptions, and the lesson is to think carefully about the basis for your judgements. Don't assume; don't categorise. See.

Who knows, maybe you'll get an idea for a story.

The Cat Sat on the Mat

That's where we start, with school, with words. The alphabet... i used to wander around school singing it in tunes: Star Wars... AB - CDEFG - HIJKL - MNOP... The Pink Panther... AB - CD - EFGHIJKLMN - OPQRST... Oh yeah, that's getting trotted out in the speech my best man's concocting, no doubt. So maybe I was the crazy kid who loved words and wandered around in his own little world, and maybe I still am. If so, I'm learning to make links with the real world, because some of the most interesting shit is when one of my little tangents makes somebody stop in their tracks a moment because it reminds them of the view from their world. I'm gonna set down some of them there tangents, flights, trains and musings, and it starts here.