Seeing Stars

Or how Microsoft made me lose the will to live.

I find that the back stories for characters can take on a life of their own 

With a critical eye on the structure of Tankard’s Legacy’s yet to be titled sequel, I realised that the personal history for James Tankard had started to grow with the tenacity and reach of a creeping vine. My research had led me to Ireland, the Philippines, Jamaica, even Orkney. Left brain told me: highlight and delete. Right brain was a little more cautious…this was a story ..in its own right. Hold on there a darn minute!

I considered the popularity of the ‘chapbook’ format. Cheaply printed, affordable, the very first pulp fiction that,once read by the whole family, would be recycled as kindling or bum fodder. Thus, there are very few surviving copies to peruse, perhaps the odd Victorian miscellany of songs and scores calling itself a chapbook, but certainly not the well-thumbed pamphlet of 'Moste Terrible Tales' that I envisaged.

So, why not write my own chapbook of that olde pyrate Tankard’s adventures upon the high seas as related by an amanuensis well-versed in his life history? 

My thoughts turn to Aphra Benn who has to be one of the most intriguing women of her age. Her most famous work is 'Orinoco', inspired by her travels to Surinam, South America. No one seems to know for sure what took her so far from home, but it is likely she was involved in espionage on behalf of Charles II, since she was granted an interview with him soon after her arrival back in England. While there, she was perfectly placed to garner information about deputy governor Byam and his shenanigans, which was of great interest to a king fast losing control of the greedy souls exploiting the riches of the New World in his name.

I can’t help but feel it’s something of a liberty to presume to know a real historical character well enough to include them as a character in my book. Perhaps I am just afraid because I lack the profound knowledge and acuity of Hilary Mantel in transforming the dry facts of history into stunning interpretive fiction . Or, perhaps nearer the truth, I just like to pull someone out of history and make them my own without the responsibility of living up to historical fact. 

The lives of Cheng I Sao, Alexander Selkirk, Woodes Rogers, William Dampier have all fed into my stories, but James has been manufactured from scratch, albeit with a physical resemblance to a certain public figure based in my locale. Deciding on the chapbook format gave me free rein to indulge my imagination in inventing his life and history and away I went. I cut and pasted the existing text into a new Word document and spent the next two hours spinning the yarns of his history.

Then I blinked. 

Why were my contact lenses suddenly fuzzy? 

I peered more closely at the document and my heart began to pound. I felt slightly lightheaded. Every character in my 5-page document had been transformed into an asterisk.

What had I done? What hadn’t I done? 

With growing horror I packed up my laptop and sprinted across town to the Mac shop. My beautiful, slim, silver lappy was slowly succumbing to some tubercular cyber-disease, killing off my documents one by one…so I thought.

The boys at the Mac shop soon realised otherwise. They’d witnessed disappeared wedding photos and missing dissertations, and done their utmost to rehabilitate tearful customers beating their heads on the floor in despair. However, they’d never seen a document turned into stars. 

“I don’t think we can do anything,” they warned me. “It looks like a Microsoft issue.”

And it was. 

Ipad in hand, compassionate computer nurse, Sam soon found a forum of fellow victims.  Windows 2011 was the culprit. Like me they'd just been hammering away at the keyboard for hours only to watch their hard work turn into nothing. Even the saved document was corrupted. Unless you’d backed it up. I’d been about to…but too late. 

Aren’t you always just about to back up when these things happen?

Outrage, fury…resignation. By the time I’d taken leave of the Mac boys, I felt utterly drained. That a company is so huge and invulnerable it can roll out a product with such an unholy glitch bothers me immensely.  But The Mac guys were so sympathetic, so determined to unearth any possibility of resurrecting my work, it was salve to the blow MS had delivered. 

I reminded myself – this could have happened to the document of my new novel, instead of the first chunk of a novella  That could have meant losing six hours of pure, intense, in-the-zone creativity.  Then I remembered that I had actually printed out the original back story of James Tankard. It wasn’t beyond redemption. Perhaps this time round I’d write it even better.

One thing is for sure - this time round, I’ll write in Pages!

There Might Be Even More Giants...

There seems to have been quite a flurry of interest in my posts on Jack the Giant Slayer, and so I feel inclined to continue with his adventures.

When Jack took leave of the King of England's court he donned his slippers of swiftness and strode on over hill and dale until he saw an extraordinary sight - two giants who had but one head between them, and spoke by throwing their head from one to the other.

Swiftly covering himself in the cloak of invisibility Jack approached, brandishing his sword of sharpness, so that as the head was tossed mid-air between the two giants, it took only a single stroke from Jack to slice it in two, whereupon the giants fell dead to the floor.

Near to where the giants had sat was the entrance to a cave and Jack went inside to seek the giant's treasure (for it seems that giants are wont to hoard treasures in their caves). He followed a dimly flickering light that led him to a huge room furnished with a table and chair. The table was strewn with bones, and Jack turned to see a great cauldron bubbling away over the glowing embers of the fire.

But Jack then heard a sound of moaning and groaning and weeping. He followed the sound to a great dungeon full of men and women. The dungeon was the giant's larder. When Jack explained, as he unlocked their jail, that he had slain their captors the people were overjoyed to escape their grim fate. They crowded out from the dungeon and showed Jack where the huge chest of the giants' treasure was kept. The chest was locked fast, but Jack's enchanted sword made light work of that and jewels and gold coins spilled forth as he cleft the chest in two.

One of the captives was an earl who owned a castle not far from the cave, and he invited all to celebrate their freedom with a great banquet there. The party was in full swing when they heard knocking on the castle gate. It was a messenger who had come to warn them that the dead giants had a two-headed nephew by the name of Thunderdell, and that hearing of his uncles' brutal demise he was sworn to avenge their murders.

All was dismay at this news, but Jack just laughed and promised them a great spectacle. He stepped outside and cut through the drawbridge with the sword of sharpness so that it would only bear the lightest weight without collapsing, and then he stood at the edge of the moat awaiting Thunderdell.

As the giant grew near and saw Jack he roared with fury and came running with great rumbling steps, but Jack wore his slippers of swiftness and ran around the moat taunting the giant, pulling his cloak of invisibility on and off, so that he disappeared and appeared at will, goading the giant to even greater rage.

At last the giant was gasping for breath, waving his club and screaming with rage while Jack, still laughing in his face, began to retreat along the drawbridge and back inside the castle. Thunderdell began to follow, but under his great weight the drawbridge began to crumble and the giant tumbled into the moat. Before he had a chance to pull himself out Jack cut off both hideous heads to the sound of a great cheer from his audience. Jack smiled and took a bow before returning to finish the feasting and celebration.

Well, our Jack was never one to tarry, and the very next morn he continued with his travels on and on until he came to a vast land, dry and barren, with hardly a tree or a blade of grass to be seen. It was almost dark and Jack was tired and hungry. At long last he came upon a tumble-down building with a faint light burning within. He knocked on the door and an old man answered. Jack asked for shelter and a bite to eat and the old man replied that he could only offer a straw bed upon the dirt floor and a bowl of thin soup.

Jack accepted the meagre offerings with a smile and remarked upon the lonesomeness of the place. The old man's face hung with sorrow as he explained that once he had been lord of a great fertile land of plenty. "But at the top of that mountain in a great grim castle resides a giant called Galligantua with his friend the Sorcerer. Galligantua one day demanded the hand of my only daughter, and when I refused him he took her by force  to keep in his castle. The sorcerer transformed her into a milk-white doe before casting a spell which ruined all of my land, destroyed my castle and turned me into a decrepit old fellow helpless to defy them."

The former lord's eyes filled with tears at the thought of his dear daughter, but Jack told him that he was Jack the Giant Slayer, and that all giants were the same to him. "But it is no good," the old man said, shaking his head. "Two griffins guard the gates of the castle. They never sleep and any who pass will be torn to shreds by their great teeth and claws."

Jack then showed the old man his enchanted cloak, shoes and sword and reassured his host that he would rescue the princess and break the sorcerer's spell. At dawn he woke and put on his cloak and shoes and in one bound he was at the top of the great mountain. The two griffins sat either side of the castle gate, their huge eyes burning and flames shooting from their beaks as they lashed their spiked tails, but Jack passed them, and once he was through that gate he turned and hacked off both their heads with a single stroke of his enchanted sword.

Once he was within Jack saw a beautiful silver horn hanging from the wall. Beneath it were written strange magical words, but with his cap of knowledge Jack could read them as clear as his own name:
"He who once this horn doth blow, shall the giant overthrow. He who blows it twice shall make fall the  gates, towers, roof and wall. Who blows it thrice within that hour shall break the sorcerer's power."

Jack gave a gleeful laugh before putting the horn to his lips. As he blew Galligantua looked out of the window and demanded, "Who dares disturb me?" Where upon Jack cut of his head with the sword of sharpness. Jack then blew the horn twice more and the great castle rumbled and fell to the ground in a great heap of stones revealing the awful winged figure of the sorcerer so poisoned with evil he was more beast than man. Jack pressed the horn to his lips and blew it thrice more, and as the third note resounded through the air the sorcerer gave a terrible scream and burst into flames.

Jack then felt the ground shift beneath his feet and the mountain sank into the earth and all around him was transformed into green fields and lush forests alive with birdsong. A crowd of people and animals emerged from the trees and Jack saw that leading them was a milk-white doe staring beyond Jack, so that he turned to see what transfixed her.

Even Jack was amazed, then. For instead of a castle a beautiful palace rose up behind him and from it came striding a handsome man with dark curly hair smiling from ear to ear. When Jack looked again the doe had changed into a young girl who hurled herself into the man's arms with a joyous shout of, "Father! My father!"

The man of course was the lord returned to his former vitality and the girl was his daughter.

What could happen next, but that Jack married the girl and lived happily ever after. He continued to kill giants of course, but then when only the least troublesome giants remained trembling for fear of Jack in their caves, he felt that perhaps he could afford to be merciful and left them to die of old age.

The End.

Many thanks to Ruth Manning Sanders for her many volumes of wonderful tales from around the world.