Alien is my favourite film. It’s horror at its finest: based on suspense and dramatic tension and dark mystique (the latter thanks to H. R. Giger‘s infamous design for the sets and the eponymous alien). The jump-scare is barely present. Like Jaws, the fear comes from not seeing the monster, only knowing it’s hiding somewhere just out of sight.
Five sequels have appeared since (not counting the Alien vs Predator crossovers). Following the fate of most sequels, they don’t approach the success of the original — with the exception of the first sequel, creatively titled Aliens, which is more of a science-fiction action adventure. But they each develop the mythos of the predatory aliens, known in the films as Xenomorphs.
I’ve recently rewatched the most recent, and perhaps the most vilified, instalments in the series: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Both are prequels to the original film, and the thirty year gap necessitated some stylistic changes.
These two films at first appear to sell themselves on the promise of exploring a prominent mystery from the original Alien: what is the Space Jockey, why was it carrying the Xenomorph eggs? The Space Jockey is found by the crew of the Nostromo after they pick up a distress call. They find an ancient crashed spaceship housing a giant, fossilised pilot: the Jockey. In the cargo hold they find thousands of eggs, one of which becomes the Xenomorph antagonist of the film.
Everyone loved the Space Jockey. There is huge mystique around it. Giger’s elephantine design, the strangely organic design of the chamber, the sheer scale of it (see the humans in the photo).
But ultimately the films are quite the disappointment in exploring the Space Jockey mythos. They turn out to be a race of super intelligent psychopaths who seeded the Earth with life millions of years ago, and since then somehow decided to kill all life with deadly bioweapons (the Xenomorphs). A mixture of bad story decisions, and probably some editorial interference from the studio, meant that the films simply didn’t live up to the hype.
I don’t think they could have possibly succeeded anyway, as the imagination always trumps reality. That is the primary reason the original film was so effective. The Jockey storyline was doomed to failure.
But I still love both Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, for another reason entirely. I think that the heart of these films is the android David. Throughout the films he has his own quiet, sinister subplot: he murders various people in pursuit of discovering more about the creation of life, the Jockeys, and the Xenomorphs. In the course of two films, he overthrows his tyrannical ‘father’ (who delights in telling David that he created him, but is bitterly jealous of his immortality) and becomes a cross between a philosophising monk and mad scientist.
David is Pinocchio’s dark side.
Committing genocide against the Xenomorphs’ creators, experimenting on humans, crafting the Xenomorph form in pursuit of the “perfect organism”, David spends both films pursuing the power of God, the power to create life. In doing so, he is looking for a way to become a real boy.
This aspect of both films is often overlooked, and on repeated viewing it is the standout storyline — the one that delivers. Michael Fassbender‘s performance brings it all together, and I find David to be the most believable and interesting quietly-mad character in modern film.
If there’s another Alien film in the pipeline, I’d rather see a David spin-off than anything else. Take a watch of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant if you haven’t already, and take note of David. I’m convinced it’s a masterclass in character creation.
I recently finished H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald. It’s a stunner.
I’ve read a lot of non-fiction books lately where you initially wonder how a publisher ended up green-lighting the book. Somebody’s dad dies to they buy a hawk and try to train it?
I mean, okay, sounds a bit off-the-wall, but I’ll give it a shot. It starts off smooth enough, and I thought it would be a bit avant-garde, a book about hawks that might be tenuously linked to some aspect of modern life. I was happy enough.
Then it span around and kneed me in the delicates.
The book rapidly becomes a beautiful account of a woman struggling with spiralling depression after her dad dies, as her regression into a childhood obsession with hawks. There are a lot of parallels drawn between her experiences and those of the writer T.H. White, author of The Sword in the Stone and The Once and Future King.
The style is strange, with autobiographical elements mixed with fictionalised snippets of White’s life. But this recipe makes the whole thing come alive. The prose could cut glass.
Some favourite snippets:
We carry the lives we’ve imagined as we carry the lives we have, and sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost.
Like a good academic, I thought books were for answers.
The hawk had filled the house with wildness as a bowl of lilies fills a house with scent.
We are very bad at scale. The things that live in the soil are too small to care about; climate change too large to imagine. We are bad at time, too. We cannot remember what lived here before we did; we cannot love what is not. Nor can we imagine what will be different when we are dead. We live out our three score and ten, and tie our knots and lines only to ourselves. We take solace in pictures, and we wipe the hills of history.
Everything about the hawk is tuned and turned to hunt and kill. Yesterday I discovered that when I suck air through my teeth and make a squeaking noise like an injured rabbit, all the tendons in her toes instantaneously contract, driving her talons into the glove with terrible, crushing force. This killing grip is an old, deep pattern in her brain, an innate response that hasn’t yet found the stimulus meant to release it. Because other sounds provoke it: door hinges, squealing breaks, bicycles with unoiled wheels – and on the second afternoon, Joan Sutherland singing an aria on the radio. Ow. I laughed out loud at that. Stimulus: opera. Response: kill.
It turns out it’s not a confessional, but an announcement of a bold plan. For anyone unfamiliar with Sanderson: he’s a prolific high fantasy writer. He writes big honking doorstops of books. And in lockdown he ‘accidentally’ wrote an extra five books. Five.
(Why do the rest of us bother?)
Not only is he releasing these in 2023, but he’s doing it via a Kickstarter campaign. And the books are being released with the options to go in blind: just a book that arrives once a quarter, accompanied only by the knowledge that it’s a Sanderson novel. Or you can get some juicy previews already.
This isn’t unheard of in indie publishing, but Sanderson is a trad publishing heavyweight, so the video was seen a couple million times within 24 hours. This kind of experiment is new ground: a statement that one of the most successful authors in the world is pursuing his own publishing routes, embracing the hybrid lifestyle, and retaining his IP.
Like millions of other people, I would have Neil Gaiman’s babies (we’d sort out the mechanics). His world-renown literary works aside, he also gives a bloody good interview.
What really grabbed me today was Neil’s comments on writing longhand. He always writes his first drafts out in a notebook, and it affects not only his process, but he has observed it affecting others, too.
Neil notes that before PCs with word processors were mainstream, he edited an anthology of short stories. Then, the word counts averaged around 3,000 words. Only a few years later, with more computers around, he edited another anthology, only to find that the average word count has more than doubled.
On a computer screen, words are cheap. There’s no paper or ink to waste. There’s no selection pressure on the choice of words — just use them all. I wonder if short stories are fundamentally more difficult to write by computer than by hand. Does the brain process the task in a measurably different way?
Gaming environments for success
Neil has a well-known writing habit: if he doesn’t write then he is free to do nothing, but he is only allowed to do nothing. In minutes, doing nothing tends to lost his charm, and he so he writes. Procrastination is short-circuited.
But he also does something else. Neil produces his second drafts by copying his longhand manuscripts onto the computer. When he does this, if he realises he doesn’t need a page or so, he just doesn’t copy it up. Instead of deleting a whole chunk of digital copy, feeling like he’s losing work, he in fact saves himself the labour of transcribing.
This approach of using technology, environment and ritual provides an environment where Neil maximises his chance of doing the things he’d rather do. It doesn’t have to always work, it just has to be better than the default state.
Prime your environment to make the next action easy.
First drafts are just meet-and-greets
In any case, Neil doesn’t try to catch lightning in a bottle. Even the master doesn’t spit out perfect prose right away (though I suspect his first go is usually still disgustingly good). I’ll close out with his thoughts on what first drafts are for.
… Nobody is ever meant to read your first draft. Your first draft can go way off the rails, your first draft can absolutely go up in flames … it is you telling the story to yourself.
I haven’t posted since November. A lot’s happened since then, including a new job and a downpayment on our first house.
I’ve spent a lot of that time editing, rather than writing. I’ve focused on my backlog of short stories, dusting them off and buffing them until they’re like glass. The oldest of the stories was written over two years ago. Even in that relatively short span, I’ve changed as a person, and that change is reflected in each draft of the stories.
First drafts are always unrefined, anyway. It’s like firing a bow and arrow while blindfolded: you’ll settle for shooting in the right direction at first. As Joyce Carol Oates said:
“Getting the first draft finished is like pushing a peanut with your nose across a very dirty floor.”
Two of the stories only needed tightening, though I’ve managed to shave them down by around 30% each. The other two required a complete overhaul; they’re barely the same stories I started with.
I’ve been submitting them, with no expectation of acceptance, taking the long view. I’m racking up the rejections already.
My short-story submission statistics so far this year (I use Duotrope to handle my submissions)
In terms of writing activities, I’ve done nothing else for almost three months. Every morning for around an hour, and in the evening when I can squeeze it in. It’s put me in an entirely different headspace: every word counts; misplaced punctuation reads like a bullet fired through a china-shop window.
It’s very different from my usual get-it-on-the-page, word-vomity method of writing fresh material.
What’s really been impressed on me is that revision can create a definite sense of peace and solitude. Like those model ships that people build inside bottles. But it can also be a bottomless pit — there’s no natural end to the process.
“A work of art is never finished, only abandoned,” remarked Paul Valéry (though there seems to be some controversy over who actually said it).
When to draw a line under a project is one of the hardest things to get right. Working on a lot of short stories in sequence seems like a good way to get better.
I’ve never revised any piece as much as I’ve revised these stories. I’m sure I could recite them from memory by now. I might even get an acceptance if I keep it up.
Posts here on the blog and issues of my newsletter, Sluice, will be on a looser schedule for the next month. I’ve been working on the final draft of my book, The Wind That Carried Us, for several weeks.
I’ve never participated in a NaNoWriMo before, because I’m usually writing most of the year anyway. But this event is coming at just the right time, and it sounds like a good way to encourage myself to get more finished. I’m hoping to provide a couple of updates about how I get on, but that will be dependent on energy levels and how I get on.
I have a post-it note on my desk that says RADIANT GENIUS. All-caps, no explanation. Just RADIANT GENIUS. It’s been on my desk for a while now. I have no idea what it means, so it’s useless, the product of a less refined moment.
But I can’t bear to throw it away. Adorable that I thought that note would be useful later. How could anyone forget the entire phantasmagorical world of ideas unlocked by those infamous words of power: RADIANT GENIUS.
There’s another note on my desk. It says Robots and Dragons. And there is a little smiley face on it, to emphasize the calm confidence I had in those words at the time. Clearly it was a genius idea — though I’m not sure I’d call it radiant genius.
I’ve written a bit about notetaking and systems for developing creative ideas. But the above are evidence that there’s another side to scribbling everything down: some proportion isn’t useful and is at best clutter, and at worst is confusing.
A few might be comedy gold, fodder for the pinboard. But the whole effort at keeping notes falls flat if it isn’t searchable to some extent. The whole system has to be purged periodically for it to be of any use.
For me, that just means reading over everything, collating things into a blog post or my .inbox file on Evernote (inbox sorting in Evernote is explained here), or a list of quotations that I keep on Notion (twinned with things that sync from my Kindle using ReadWise). Occasionally things go into Obsidian, where I’m building a sort of personal Wiki (they call it a Second Brain, but that sounds a bit grand for what I’ve got going on).
Keeping things running smoothly does mean throwing things away, which I find difficult, especially when I feel like the note is just on the cusp of reminding me of something good. But if it doesn’t serve as a decent trigger for your memory, the note has failed, so it has to go.
I wrote a few weeks ago about my generally scattered mindset at the moment, and how that’s been refelcted in a messy workspace. So my focus for the next little while is keeping clutter to a minimum. Though I’m going to keep RADIANT GENIUS a while longer.
I have a special love for certain kinds of films. Not because of how technically great they are, but rather because of how they manage to be unself-consciously outrageous.
There’s a recent film about a Megalodon (giant prehistoric shark) called The Meg. It’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
Early in the film, the giant shark destroys a nuclear submarine by smashing into it with its face. At the end of the film, Jason Statham kills the shark by stabbing it in the neck with a knife. The disregard for physics or even consistency of the viewer’s expected suspension of disbelief is just… *Chef’s kiss*.
It might not be fair or accurate to call these films B-movies, because some of them have big budgets, well-known casts and have a lot of commercial success. I’m using that label because of how they are perceived by critics and the public.
These films are usually sneered or laughed at, and are generally considered to be lacking in quality or artistic merit, on a tier lower than the standard action flick.
They’re essentially films that people love to laugh at.
I love them. I love them because, in my opinion, they are about as close as you can find to untainted acts of creation in cinema. I don’t accept the premise that “artsy” films are intrinsically more creative or “worthy”, because I think there’s a certain amount of self-awareness and pretension that creep into those circles, which pollutes the end product.
These action-based B-movies are made by people who know that they’re going to be laughed at for what they create, and they absolutely do not care. They go ahead and create with genuine passion and often end up with over-the-top and raw results. There’s freedom and beauty in that. An echo of the child who plays with abandon in the corner of the room, ignoring everything else around them. That’s creation, and it goes back to the old Bradbury quote I’ve thrown out before:
“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.”
But let’s also acknowledge that I often just want to watch a giant lizard fight a giant monkey, and that’s okay too.
I live with frequent brain fog. I’m not sure why. Could be chronic stress, bad sleep patterns, over-dependency on caffeine to function, general anxiety. Who knows.
What I do know is that I only get about an hour a day of clear thinking, if I’m lucky. It’s difficult to compare between individuals, given natural variations in energy levels and attention span, so let’s be specific.
Most of the time I function just fine: I can socialize, run errands, exercise, do admin, and perform the less intellectually demanding aspects of work. But anything insightful, thoughtful or creative is walled off behind a snarl of vines, iron wool and vertigo.
As a rule, the wall comes down once a day.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in what triggers the spells of clarity. They just come, leaping from the shadows, unbidden and grinning.
Sometimes I’m lucky, ready at my desk or a quiet corner or a train. I can drop what I’m doing and take to the keyboard or a pad of paper before the wall is thrown up again.
Other times, I’m not so lucky. Maybe more often than not, I can’t possibly take advantage of the clear spells, like when I’m in the shower, out on a run, or during a conversation.
Catching the tails of creative bursts over a week usually produces a sprawl of notes like this… (see half-baked wisdom point #2 below)
Recently, I’ve had more free time and a rested mind, so I’ve been able to catch the clear spells more often. Maybe half the time.
In more usual circumstances, I’m a caffeine-addled, sleep-deprived, anxious mass, carefully groomed to look like a high-functioning adult. I might catch a clear spell once a week.
I’ve tried to use my recent ample free time to maximise the number of usable clear spells. I’ve experimented, and come up with five things that work for me that I think are worth noting (and I stress: they work for me; this is not advice).
Today’s Nuggets of Half-Baked Wisdom
1. Scheduling: I hate schedules, but they work. This is advice that’s been repeated again and again by creatives in every medium. See Daily Rituals by Mason Currey for dozens of examples. If you want to create, or even to think, it’s never going to happen if you don’t set aside time for it. That’s the bare minumum. Like condoms: better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
2. Notepads, notepads everywhere: I’ve heard one person say they keep a waterproof notepad in the shower. I haven’t gone that far, but I do have notepads stashed everywhere else now: in my pocket, my coat, my bag, beside my bed, beside the treadmill. It might not replace access to a journal or keyboard, but the little snippets and notes build up.
3. Strategic drug-taking: Calm down, I’m not onto mescaline… yet. But I’ve started taking caffeine at scheduled times to optimize its effects, giving a small kick without overloading me or causing a crash later. See books like Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, and Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, for the science. And if I’m stressed and too rigid to move, a wee dram of whiskey greases the wheels.
4. The Gaiman Method:Neil Gaiman says his writing method is simple. He sits down at his desk to write, and it doesn’t matter if he produces nothing. But he’s only allowed to stare out the window. He’s free to do that all he likes, but eventually his mind gets bored and starts making stories. Crafting an environment to induce boredom not only removes opportunities for procrastination, but actually incentivises your mind to invent its own distractions.
5. Don’t Force It: Probably the most important of the five. Everything has limits: we know when we’re too tired to go on, when our limbs are twisted to breaking point, when we’re about to lose our balance. Nothing good comes from pushing too hard. I’ve found that once I managed to make use of a creative spell, I often tried to squeeze it for all it was worth. But ultimately, what came out of it just wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, because I tried to climb a mountain in one leap.
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