A revolutionary friendship - virtually.
I’ve never met Rosalie
Warren (I couldn’t actually since she’s a pseudonym) and I’ve never actually
met Sheila her alter ego (a ‘real’ person.) But we have become friends thanks
to the magic of cyberspace. That is the ‘virtual’ world in which increasing
amounts of the ‘real’ world are now framed and constructed. And because we’ve
become friends I offered to do her post for her today while she brings herself
back to the ‘social’ place following bereavement. I feel our society doesn’t
ever allow people the time and space to grieve and I’m very pleased to be able
to assist ‘a friend’ by hijacking her post for the revolution!
Because today is the 26thJuly. An important day for Cubans. 26th July 1953 marks the birth of
the movement that would ultimately lead to the Cuban Revolution
 |
| Sheila/Rosalie with books |
 |
| Cally writing in Cuba |
And in tribute to the
day I’d like to talk about another revolution being born. A revolutionary
friendship.
Since I first ‘encountered’
Che Guevara aged 14, I have studied, researched and generally obsessed over
Guevara and consequently over Cuba. [click here for 1999 youtube example] In
fact Guevarist economics might be just my Mastermind specialist topic! Guevara
and Cuba have been a central part of my life and yes, of course have found
their way into my creative writing. What has this to do with Sheila/Rosalie? (who
on her own admission knows next to nothing of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (to
give him his full title).
Well, plenty. I first ‘encountered’
Sheila/Rosalie in connection with her novel Coping with Chloe. Someone had
suggested it might make a good play and she didn’t really know where to start.
I suggested she solicit help from a playwright. I am/was a playwright! She
joined the dots.
She offered, very
professionally to pay me for my services. I declined. I was offering a free exchange.
A voyage into friendship. A barter relationship in accordance with my Guevarist
moral incentives principle (revealed in this story A FISHING LINE). It would
still be a professional relationship, but I didn’t want her to pay for
something I wanted to give her for free. I suspected there were things she’d be
able to do for free in return. The dangers of this system of course can be that
everyone feels put upon and ‘gives’ more than they’d like. Don’t get me wrong.
When I deal in contracts I like to have watertight contracts. But when I’m
working with friends I like the virtual handshake of friendship to be my
contract. Something told me Sheila/Rosalie would be a friend. And would be able
to offer me something more precious than money in return for my
help/advice/expertise in the playwriting arena.
How right I turned out
to be. We started to ‘get to know each other’ by reading each other’s works (as
well as copious emails of course). S/R read and reviewed Brand Loyalty (because
she liked it and ‘got’ what it was about. And we discovered that we had many
things in common.
We both lived in
Monifieth (small village outside Dundee) for a time. We both lived in Edinburgh
for a longer time (and I’m completely sure that we will have either sat next to
each other in the theatre or passed each other in a bookshop or some such
without knowing it, such is the fickle finger of randomness/fate) and we both
have an interest in metaphor and structure.
S/R offered to read ‘AnotherWorld is Possible’ for me ‘two ways’ as I was playing around with the episodic
version trying to do something ‘new’ with it – which was going to involve
re-working it so that people would read the story twice – thus gaining an
insight into the multiple perspectives of the central characters (one of the
key issues in the book is ‘whose story is it?’ and ‘whose truth is it?’) But
you can only read something for the first time once and I needed to find out
which way the story should be told FIRST (episodically or chronologically)
S/R stepped in to the
breach. And read it. (Episodically first – which is the way it was originally published
– first as an online blog in 2007 under the Spanish title Otro Mundo es
Posible, then as a paperback novella in 2008. The ‘stories’ or characters’
truths had outgrown this novella and were now extended into a trilogy I was
working on (non conventionally structured of course and with metaphor and ‘perspectives
of truth’ featuring in a range of ways – still somewhat shaky on the detail
there- it’s hard stuff making difficult things easy for the reader and I’m grappling
with narrative voices and structures on this as you read.)
This is where S/R and
Che Guevara tie in. Because the underlying ‘truth’ questioned in Another World
is Possible is whether Roisin actually is the love child of the ‘great’ man.
The trilogy extends the
narrative into the wider world of moral vs material incentive illustrated
through the relative ‘perspectives’ of competing economies (sounds riveting I
know but my job is to turn this into a narrative which captivates through a
trilogy.)
 |
| Peugeot garage in Havana c1999 (go figure!) |
And when S/R had finished her read, she did what you wish every
editor you’ve ever met would do but usually doesn’t, offered me some questions
and thoughts which enabled me to take a whole new path. And all for no money! I
got the view of a writer I trust and the opinion of a person I trust, doing
what I’ve never been able to trust an editor to do.
She wanted more of
Roisin. I won’t go into the detail but the result is that instead of Another
World Is Possible two ways (though you’ll still be able to read it that way via
kindle if you like) I will now have a four part trilogy. As well as AWIP and
 |
| because fishing is economics too |
 |
| some things are all in the mind |
The One that Got Away (in final draft as we speak) and
Butterfly Dreaming (the
metaphorical denseness of which is confounding me right now and needs much more
thinking time)
next up is The Revolutionary’s Daughter. S/R even gave me the
title.
 |
| Who is the revolutionary's daughter? |
And give me a good title
and I’m up and running. Roisin is (whatever truth you believe) the
revolutionary’s daughter and metaphorically of course, so am I. I am excited
about this and already writing the first draft in my head while revisiting
research areas needed before I’m ready to start committing myself to virtual paper.
And if that’s not enough
S/R further helped me by introducing me to the work of B.S.Johnson who ‘played
around’ with structure in a lot of ways I’d been wellying on about. Reading his
work offered me the chance to ‘see what works’ or what I thought about some of
the things I’d proposed to do. Saved me a lot of time trying, failing and
reworking my own writing in ways that would ultimately turn out not how I’d
want them. And gave me a lot to think about. That’s a true friend!
I don’t think what
either S/R or I have given or taken from each other has been costly – it’s all
been part of the emergence of a friendship which while virtual (we’ve still
never met, though I’ve heard her voice on radio!) is strong and ‘real’ and I
think stands as a testament to how writers can work together in roles of
editor/script editor or however you like to ‘identify’ them. When people know
their ‘business’ and trust each other sometimes you don’t need to make a
financial arrangement. Some things are beyond price.
So I would really like
to thank Sheila and Rosalie for everything she’s given me thus far. And point
out that in the future people are bound to recreate this story to suggest that
we are just ‘pals’ bigging each other up. (For example when I review Charity’sChild on IEBR in August). It didn’t start like that folks. We didn’t know each
other. We’ve still never met each other. But we found things in common and ‘get’
each other’s work and so can work together creatively. We have formed a loose
creative partnership. If we were paying each other money and giving each other
titles such as ‘editor’ no one would get hot under the collar. I suggest that
in the indie world it’s possible to bend the ‘rules’ without losing the ‘professionalism’.
It’s an established story that editors/agents etc ‘become’ friends. Sometimes
you need to look at the other perspective where friends become ‘editors’ and ‘reviewers’
(etc).
But most importantly for
me, Sheila/Rosalie is now a friend whose creative comment and judgement I trust
and that, believe me, is priceless! And revolutionary. As Che Guevara said ‘words that do not match deeds are
unimportant.’
AWIP is currently out of
print until the re-emergence of the trilogy next spring. Second hand copies are available
Comments