Month: December 2023

Getting into shape

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I’m midway through the second draft of my novel, Unknown to God. I first began writing this several years ago and had completed the first draft before I was diagnosed with cancer. That hit my writing for six; it was over a year before I began on the second draft.

The sole novel I’ve published went through about five drafts. By the end, I was tweaking elements of it, trying to make it perfect. The heavy lifting and significant changes happened in the first few drafts.

I’m not an expert on this – I’m making it up as I go along – but I’ve got a fair idea of the editing process as it applies to me.

The first draft is pretty much a mind dump. You have an idea that’s ticking in your head like a bomb, and, in my case anyway, I’m dead keen to get it on paper before it goes off and there’s nothing left. Throughout this, I’m afraid the inspiration will leave me before I finish. I don’t know why. It’s almost as if I fear a sudden onset of amnesia. So, I’m not fussed over much with the first draft, and it can be pretty messy, and I’m mighty relieved once I’ve got it done.

I’ll take a break from it after that. Working so intensively it can get in your head in an unhealthy way. When that happens, it’s hard to think objectively about it, which is what you need. I take a few months off from it and work on something else. In the background, a part of my mind is still labouring on it, considering the changes I need to make. By the time I get to it again, it’s pretty ripe.

The second draft is about cleaning up the obvious crap and refining it into something more agile and readable. The story remains, but I’ll adjust the plot here and there, taking things out and maybe adding some in. I’ll look at the language and consider the motivations more deeply. There are more drafts to come, so it’s not about making it perfect but getting the shape of it right.

That’s my main focus, really. I may change things up in later drafts, but 95% of the story should be there after the second draft. I want to come to the next draft and know what it’s about without having to do all the thinking again. I can get stuck doing that, but it’s important.

The later drafts are about further refining it. It’s a bit like an athlete training for a big event. He starts fat and unfit but motivated, and as he goes along, he settles on a training plan, losing the fat and adjusting the program as he gets fitter and stronger, fine-tuning it as he closes on his goal. One day, he’s ready. That’s when I hope the book is ready, too – though it never is, really.

That’s where I’m at, midway through the second draft, and it’s been torturous. That’s partly because I got so busy with other things I couldn’t get a good routine going. In my experience, you need a pattern of work to get in the zone properly. When that happens, your mind remains fertile and productive so that when you return to the page, there’s plenty of stuff to go on with. But, up to a couple of months ago, I failed to get a work pattern going, and the writing came hard.

For the last little while, it’s been going well, but then I got stuck again. I didn’t know the right ‘shape’ this time. When that happens, I stare into space a lot, trying to figure it out. I want to get inside the story so the way forward becomes organic and natural. But it’s not always as obvious as that.

Sometimes, I’ll hook something I’ve written out to someone for feedback. What do you think? Does this work? How about x and y? It’s so choked in your mind you feel you can’t see clearly for yourself.

I reckon I must have rewritten this chapter five or six times. I’m tempted to go on to the next chapter sometimes and return to it later, but that doesn’t work. To start with, one chapter informs the next. It’s like trying to build a house without all the framework. And I’m pigheaded, too. I get so pissed with it I won’t move on until I’ve got it beat. I’ve always been like that.

It’s important though. It’s got to be authentic and move the story in the right direction. If I get the shape right now, it’s easier the next time. (By shape, I mean the basic plot and events of the chapter, the pacing and balance and, most importantly, the motivations that influence behaviour and action. It has to feel legit and make sense in the overall context.) If I get to the third draft without getting it right, I might find the story forks in a different direction from what I thought.

Finally, I’m nearing the end of the chapter and am satisfied with it – I think. It has the right balance now, which often equates to less is more. There’s been a lot of trial and error, a bit of experimentation, and everything short of mind-altering drugs. In the end, it’s a tried and true method that seems to have worked. I’ll write about that another day, but basically, it’s using the greats to inspire you to look at things differently.

Q&A part 4: challenges and triumphs

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Question: What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced in your writing career?

P. J. Moroney: Most of it’s a challenge. No one does it to get rich, though that’d be nice. You do it for love. You do it because you must. You do it because that’s who you are. It’s all a challenge, but most things worthwhile are.

But, yeah, that’s not the answer you want. Well, consider this. I’ve been writing since I was about 17. I figured it was something I wanted to do seriously from about my early twenties. I’ve been writing in all the years since and dreaming about it. I have a bagful of old notebooks with scratchings from when I was just a kid. There’s a hard drive full of stories and fragments and so on. All of that, and I’ve only just now finally got something published. You could say just persisting all that time is a challenge. I deserve a medal, and most writers do.

I guess the biggest challenge is mental. To keep going takes a fair bit of stubborn belief. You have to believe that you have something worth saying and something that people might want to hear or read. I don’t know what kept me going. Some of my early writing was awful, and if I knew it then I might not have gone on. Good thing I didn’t. But that’s the thing you have to deal with: doubt and discouragement.

I always felt the need to express myself by writing. It was like I had so much going on that I had to get it out somehow, and writing seemed natural to me. It was a way of interpreting and understanding things. What are stories but parables? Over time, you get better at it. You see and think with more clarity, and the words come more precisely. I always read a lot and loved it – loved the language as much as anything. I had things I needed to say, but I wanted to say them stylishly, too. So, you keep at it.

I’m half amazed that I published anything. It didn’t look good a while back, but I always said I would do it. Now it’s done. So, yeah, the biggest challenge is believing in yourself and staying the course.

Question: You have done it, and congratulations – but now you have, you must plan to publish more now.

P. J. Moroney: You betcha.

Question: Are stories only really parables?

P. J. Moroney: Maybe they’re a bit more than that, but not a lot in my book. Depends on the sort of writer you are, I guess. You hope your writing is entertaining and enjoyable to read, but you’re saying something, aren’t you, or showing it? And instead of saying it straight out, you couch it in the form of a story that people can sympathise with and understand without having to process it too much. It’s the old adage, show, not tell.

But that’s not true of every writer. It is for me.

Question: Can you share a particularly rewarding moment in your writing journey?

P. J. Moroney: My first interview? Maybe I do have something worth hearing.

But really, it’s probably being published, though it fades fast. It’s definitely a milestone and very satisfying, but once it’s done, it’s done. You’ve worked on it so hard for so long that it’s great when it pays off – that’s the point, isn’t it? – but then it’s finished and in the past, and you’re onto the next one. I find I live very much in the moment when I’m writing.

But I reckon I’ll be pretty pleased when they make a movie out of my book.

Q&A part 3: the creative process

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Question: Could you describe your typical writing day?

P. J. Moroney: There isn’t one.

I used to read about the habits of great writers and wonder what would work for me. Some of them got up bright and early and wrote till lunchtime and took the rest of the day off. Others were the opposite. I reckon at least one wrote standing up. I think Henry James dictated his novels.

I haven’t had the luxury of a routine. I was a working man, so I wrote when I could, which was mostly on the weekend. I think, in general, I write more in the afternoon than in the morning. I need to get into the day first. I feel I write better in the winter than in the summer, but that’s probably my imagination. I’m pretty disciplined, considering.

Early days, I wrote everything long hand. Eventually, I began to write using my PC, and I still do that, but do a lot of writing on my iPad now, too, away from my desk. Occasionally, I’ll jot a thought or an idea or a scrap of dialogue in a notebook or one of the apps on my phone. When the words come harder, I try to change things up and might head out to the garden or a local cafe with a notebook and a pen.

Things might change when I get rich and famous.

Question: How do you approach the development of your characters?

P. J. Moroney: I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think I have an approach. As for development, it’s all in my head.

Most of it’s in my head. I’m not one of those writers who use cue cards or who do a lot of research. Character development is pretty organic – they’re just there on the page, and they grow from that.

It’s not something I’ve ever thought about much, maybe because it’s always seemed so natural. I guess I have an idea of the major characters when I start something, but most of their growth is spontaneous, and the minor characters sprout into being along the way. Character informs action, but I like to let it flow.

There are times when I get stuck – when it doesn’t come so naturally. I expect that. People are complex, and even if these characters are my creation, I want them to be as authentic as possible – that is, think and act in ways that are true to the person. Sometimes, I will create characters that vary from my personal experience of life, and so I have to reach to make them authentic. It can be hard to get the nuance right and true to personality. Occasionally, I’ll ask someone better placed to review what I’ve written to get their perspective. Otherwise, in those cases, I spend a lot of time trying to inhabit their character to see and act through their eyes.

The rest of the time, it just happens. You get to know these guys so well that it becomes second nature as if you’re spirit writing for them. You put them in the room and let them perform. The starting point for me is understanding what they look like, and from that, everything flows – their tics and idiosyncrasies, how they talk, what they say, their attitude to life and their flaws, and all the rest of it.

Question: Do you ever base your characters on real people?

P. J. Moroney: Not really. Not completely, anyway.

Of course, what I know of human nature and people comes from interacting with characters every day of my life. It’s natural that you’ll pick up things and use them along the way, mostly without being aware of it. How someone walks, say, or the verbal tics someone might have, as well as character traits, and so on, but it’s all pretty anonymous.

Occasionally, I will take the look of someone and use them, extrapolating from that into character and history – a different person altogether.

Back in the day, when I got pissed off with someone, I would sometimes think I’ll fix them up someday by using them as a nasty character in one of my stories, but I’ve never done that. There is no character I’ve written that is even 50% of anyone I know. Most of them are organic creations but often around the seed of a trait or attitude or look. They’re born in my mind, but they come to life on the page. I think of them as real people once they’re written.

Q&A part 2: about the writing

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Question: How do your travel and career experiences influence your writing?

P. J. Moroney: All your life experiences contribute to your writing. Everything you see and do counts, and many of the things you encounter along the way will end up fueling the creative fire.

Work is a big part of life. We spend half our life there, pretty much. It plays a huge part, even if it’s not conscious. You pick up a lot of subliminal material just going to and from work every day for years, and in your office, and getting your coffee and going out for lunch, and so on. And that’s just the surface stuff. It goes deeper.

Not all writing, but much of it is about characters. Work in an office, and they surround you. You get to see up close the human dynamics at play, different personalities and characters, different ways of being. Then there’s the politics of place, what people do and how they deal with it. A lot of it’s pretty raw. You see people under pressure, you see them happy and sad, you see them stressed, and you see them at their most ambitious. It’s a rich stew of human stuff, and even if you don’t use it directly, it informs your thinking and philosophy and maybe even your behaviour.

As for travel, that’s different. It’s handy seeing how other people live and absorbing different cultures and all that, but the value of it is that it enlarges your soul if you do it right. I mean, if you treat it as more than just a photo opportunity and immerse yourself in the history and culture of a place, you learn a lot – not just about the people and place, but about yourself as well. You come away as a bigger person, I reckon. I don’t want to use the word enlightened, but there’s a bit of that.

When I travelled, I would soak it up. I’d try to get off the beaten path. Half the time, I’d travel rough. I opened myself up – I wanted to meet the locals and see how they lived. I had some unforgettable experiences.

I don’t know if I ever consciously used that for my writing, but there’s at least one story set abroad. More importantly, travel broadened me as a person. Everything you write comes from inside, and the richer you become with experience and knowledge and perspective, the richer your writing should become.

If only it were so easy!

Question: What themes do you find yourself drawn to in your storytelling?

P. J. Moroney: Themes are things you figure out in retrospect. You start writing with characters and plot in mind and maybe a general idea of what you want to say. In my experience, themes emerge in the writing. You don’t start with them in your head – I don’t anyway – but then you write something and read it back and see the thread of a theme emerging. And it makes sense to you because it’s yours – it’s come from inside.

I guess I became more conscious of it after the first few times, and editing and rewriting, I would look to sharpen them a little. In between times, I’d wonder about it, exploring what they meant – not just in general, but what they meant to me. And why.

To answer your question, I think there are a few themes – maybe the critics will teach me a few more. I think redemption was one of the earliest themes I identified. As themes go, I think it’s a good one. The opportunity to come good, to change the course of something, to redeem yourself – if only to yourself – is pretty rich. Why me? I couldn’t say, but it matches well with the sense of a journey, which I’m also drawn to.

Otherwise, I think flawed masculinity is one of my themes – don’t ask. Except to say, I think a lot of macho bullshit is bullshit. I think many men lose their way for whatever reason, and I look at that.

That aligns pretty well with personal identity, also. I see that in my writing. I’m curious about it. I mentioned earlier how I like the idea of a journey, and that’s because we’re all on a journey whether we know it or not. We know how it starts, we know roughly how it ends, and in between, we have to figure out how to live and who we are. This might sound a bit new-age, but I reckon the ultimate journey is finding our authentic self. That’s the jackpot, but easier said than done.

Question: Why is it so hard?

P. J. Moroney: There’s a lot of distractions these days. Everything gets delivered to us, on the TV, on our phone, at the supermarket. We get caught up in lifestyle, seductive as it is, and lost in that is direct experience. It’s easy to accept the cushy ride, and before you know it, it’s all over, and you haven’t begun to get at the real stuff.

Everything is a fucking marvel, and we take it for granted.

Question: What is the real stuff?

P. J. Moroney: Let’s not go there – except, I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to write. That’s the journey.

Question: How’s that going for you?

P.J. Moroney: Still going. I’m on the road, though.

Excerpt from Send to Darkness

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No spoilers, you’ll need to buy the book – but here’s a tease:

You might think by the way that Helena Ryle spoke about me that I was a someone, except I wasn’t, not really. It was not fame I possessed but infamy, and even that, after two years, very much faded. People thought they knew me. I was one of those faces that stirred distant memories. Aren’t you that footballer, they might ask? Or was it you that…? And so on. Occasionally, they happened across the right story – oh yes, you’re the policeman, aren’t you, the brother? Even then, though they might look at me sideways, they made little of it – they expected to see something, some evil, horns or something, and instead, they found someone quite normal.

One man’s normal is another man’s weird, of course. It was different for me. I didn’t know what normal was anymore, and even if by now my story was one among millions, it was my story, and though I don’t like to admit to it, as fresh to me then as it was when it happened. It still burned in me, and because it did, it was not something I ever dwelt on. It was one reason why I didn’t stop to wonder why it was important to Helena Ryle, regardless of the clues that it offered to me.

My brother, Ray, was eight years older than me and shone so bright that I was lost in the shadows until everything changed. In his prime, Ray had been the pin-up boy of the force. When he turned it on, he was an oversized personality who was also – as the newspapers loved to proclaim – ‘police royalty’. Not just the son of the commish, Ray was also the decorated head of the drug squad and, to the tabloid audience, the cop they knew best. He was writ large, the police go-to man, the cop every punter related to and rooted for because they knew him and because he spoke their language. For a while, Ray was everywhere. He was a pugnacious, witty, almost comic-book version of what a 21st-century cop should be. None of it was false, but it was not altogether real either. Ray was more complex than that, and not just in the ways we soon learned. He was my brother, and I saw him as the public never did, felt the easy affection of an older brother for the younger, shared with him my exuberant hopes and witnessed the rare occasion when he was less certain or less boisterous.

To the broader world, to the media, to the public who wanted to know which nag ‘Razor’ had tipped for the Cup, and to the police PR department who egged him on, Ray was a commodity. He knew it and lapped it up. “Give ‘em a little of what they want,” he had once said to me with a smirk, “and there’s nothing they won’t give you back.”

Then it changed. There was a tip-off: Ray was dirty. From one day to the next, Ray went from folk hero to public enemy number one. It was a circus. The tabloids shrieked his name, and the talkback lines choked with outraged callers shocked that Ray had not lived up to the image they had thrust upon him. Ray was guilty of the one thing that could not be forgiven: he had betrayed the trust of the people – and the people’s proxy, the media.

Ray became Judas, and not even his death could appease the baying crowd. There was no satisfaction in that. Like a scorned lover, they were furious with their shame. They wanted answers. They wanted to hold him in the palm of their hand, and in their power, they wanted, should the law permit, to hang, draw and quarter the dastardly traitor. They got none of that. He’d played them for a mug and got away with it. Now, he was gone. But I remained.

None of you can understand what it was like. I wasn’t sure that I did. When the blood’s up, when tabloids scream headlines every day, and carnivorous reporters stake out home and work, the presumption of innocence is nothing more than a judicial precept. If I was not Judas, then at least I was Judas’ brother, was I not? I was guilty by association, if not in fact. At best, I confused people. I was the inconvenient reminder of their shame and cupidity. What I said or did or if I was guilty or innocent was beside the point. The point was they needed a living, breathing fall guy, and I was it.

There were TV cameras there the day I left. The sun blazed from a blue sky, and the cameras pointed at me. I stood where I was told, numbed by disbelief. There were speeches made and a presentation while I continued to play my compliant role. I was lauded for my service, praised for my accomplishments, commended for my sacrifice, and publicly consoled for the shame wrought upon the family name. You see, I was one of theirs, after all, officially, but the fine-sounding words did nothing to disguise their smug hypocrisy. As far as the world was concerned, I was innocent only because they couldn’t prove I was guilty, and that was that…

Q&A part 1: background and inspiration

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I had an interesting Q&A session answering a range of questions about my writing, how I got started, my routines, and inspiration and so on. What’s interesting about it is that it forces me to think about and articulate many of the things I take for granted or haven’t considered for a long time. Whether you’re a writer or not, I think it can be a rewarding and enlightening experience.

There’s quite a bit, so I’ll add the entire session over a few posts. This is the first. Feel free to ask me your own questions.

Question: Can you tell us about your journey from the corporate world to becoming a writer?

P. J. Moroney: Well, I was always a writer, I think, but it was easier making a living working in corporate, so that’s what I did. I was good at it mostly and enjoyed a lot of it. It’s an interesting question to consider as I think the split between those two options reflected different sides of my persona. And I think my writing fed off my work to a large degree.

To start with, I never considered my writing to be a viable career option, so it was easy to work a job instead. My dad was a bit of a mover and shaker and would wear a suit to work every day, so I grew up around that. I never really considered any other option but white collar.

It suited me in ways. Back when I started, it was pretty ruthless, but I took to it. I saw it as a challenge and I discovered I was more robust and competitive than I thought. I enjoyed the cut and thrust. Enjoyed the striving. I think it made me a little of who I am.

It wasn’t a bad life. We were the cliche, worked hard, played hard. I had the attitude that I didn’t want to moulder and grow old in the corner, so I put my hand up for a lot. It was more interesting that way, and it could be very rewarding. It financed a lifestyle for many years.

For a while, I styled myself as a bit of a corporate bohemian. I was deliberately out of step in ways, but much of it came naturally. I realised it was more fun doing things for the experience than the reward, though I prospered from it. I was very confident of my abilities and always reckoned I was more value giving my honest opinion than toeing the conventional line. I think I got a reputation for being blunt, though once someone said I was like a wholesome, private school type. It might sound corny, but integrity was always important to me. I was never a yes man.

Long story short, you get older, life happens, shit happens, perspectives change, and so do the times. I was pretty jaded towards the end. Stale and unhappy. Even angry. I was writing a lot more by then – I’d always written – and was beginning to think that I might make something of it. The big moment came, and I took it – a redundancy. That’s when I really started to take my writing seriously.

I’m skipping over a lot of stuff here – a few catastrophes along the way, Covid, cancer, and so on, but that’s the general drift.

I still do some corporate stuff, but freelance, minus suit and tie, working from home and only when I want to. Have to pay the rent.

Question: You said you were angry. What were you angry about?

P. J. Moroney: I’d had cancer. I felt damaged. I was damaged – didn’t have the strength or stamina of before, I was half deaf and couldn’t speak near as well. It’s hard to take. I felt diminished, and it was a long time before I could accept it. I was always too proud.

Anyway, I returned as this lesser person. I had the will for the contest but not all the tools. So it seemed – and I think, in hindsight, I thought myself more deficient than I was. In the meantime, I felt labelled, categorised, squeezed into a smaller space. There was a bit of paranoia in it, but healthy paranoia, if such a thing exists. I could have let it go, but that wasn’t my style. Here I am.

Question: That’s quite powerful. How do you use that experience in your writing?

P. J. Moroney: Time will tell.

Question: How ambitious were you in your corporate life?

P. J. Moroney: That’s an interesting one to answer. I think I was ambitious on principle, but I was never much interested in status. I took things on like they were a contest I had to win. The harder and tougher it was, the more I liked it. When I started out one of my best mates told me he didn’t want any responsibility and I couldn’t get that. I wanted responsibility. I wanted to be the man, and that was true for many years. There’s some interesting psychology in that I might write about one day. Maybe I have already.

I never wanted to be CEO or anything like that, though. It was too reductive to me. What I craved was the challenge, which is why I moved from contract to contract and took on projects, I think. I liked jobs I could score.

I was ambitious from the point of view of the challenge and the rewards, but it was all about life experience. I wanted to live fully, which is why I moved between jobs and why I travelled. I had my own business for a bit, and I’m glad I did – that was a dare I couldn’t refuse. It was lucrative while it lasted, but life moves on.

Question: What inspired you to write your first novel?

P. J. Moroney: Was it inspiration? There was no light bulb moment. I was always writing. Scraps mainly. Short stories. I figured I wanted to write a novel one day, but…

This was about 20-odd years ago. One day, I had the idea for the novel. I don’t know where it came from. Elsewhere, I’ve said Heart of Darkness influenced me. I loved that book. The theme of journeying into darkness is a killer. Very me, as it turns out. Plus, the voice of Marlowe – I wanted first-person omniscient for my novel. But is there a direct connection? I doubt it. I think that probably came later.

I loved the old film noir movies, too. They probably had an indirect influence. But where did the idea come from? Magic. Thin air. One day, it wasn’t; the next day it was. That’s the beauty of creativity – it has depths you can never understand.

Mind you, though the idea came way back, it took many years before I started to write it. I’m glad it happened. For a long time, I thought it never would.

After the shitshow

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Return to work

Look, it’s been a while since I posted here regularly, mostly for pretty obvious reasons.

Life, as they call it, got in the way, particularly cancer, which is a bit of a shitshow that takes a lot out of your daily schedule – among other things. That’s as good an excuse as any, but probably more relevant is that I lost some motivation to update this regularly. I was busy with things, true enough, and nothing happened that was worth recording.

I’d written a book but couldn’t resolve to publish it. In the meantime, I did fuck all writing when I had cancer full-on. I didn’t have the energy for it; without it, it’s hard to be creative. Then, that passed, and I began writing again, but it felt very personal. I had no notion of putting myself out there. I didn’t think much beyond the page.

What’s changed is that I thought fuck it, and went out and published my novel, almost on the spur of the moment. What’s the point of it gathering dust in my bottom drawer? I’d always figured I wanted to do more with it, improve it here and there, but I realised that becomes a vanishing point you never reach. Just do it, and so I did.

Odd how I feel having done it. There are people out there reading it at this very moment (I hope!) and most likely judging it. It can be a spooky thought, and that’s how I felt initially. But then it fades. I’ve done it; it’s out of my hands. Make of it what you will. It’s almost as if I’ve put it behind me now.

The one abiding sentiment is that I always said I’d publish a novel one day, and now I have. I don’t feel the pride you might expect, but there is a sense of quiet satisfaction.

More importantly, I have another novel to work on and then another after that. I have plenty of ideas. Hopefully, I’ll get the next one – quite different – released next year.