Writing practice | Steve Toase -Wir essen immer bei Kerzenlicht

After my collection came out last year, 2022 felt like a quieter year writing wise. Moving house in the middle of the year meant that my attention was elsewhere for a lot of the time. However, I did have several stories published over the year.

On the Hills, the Knitters – Bourbon Penn 26

The knitters moved to the elephant five years after the plague ended. Sam and I watched them walk up past the village, carrying their possessions in rucksacks and wheelbarrows.

When the wheels caught on broken limestone, they helped each other, carrying the barrows between them over the rough ground.

The elephant wasn’t ours. We never asked for the three hundred foot knitted effigy to be dumped on the mountainside above the village. We didn’t put it there, but it had been sprawled across the rocks so long, longer than I’ve been alive, we felt it was part of the village. When the wind blew in the right direction, we smelled it in the street, the decay of the wool rotting in the summer sun like dead lambs. Sometimes lengths of orange yarn floated down the slope to catch in the gutters. As kids, we collected the strands and wove them into bracelets, telling ourselves that the elephant would protect us from evil, though we never knew what evil it could defend us against. Exchanging them and wearing them around our wrists as friendship bands.

On the Hills, is one of my knitting cosmic horror stories, inspired by a major landscape artwork in Italy and dealing with grief, loss, outsiders, and crafting.

You can read the full story online at the Bourbon Penn website.

Flowstone in Three Lobed Burning Eye 36

The sensation of damp gravel against his hand is exactly as Dave remembered, sharp and nauseating at the same time. He stands and brushes down his jeans, then looks at the tiny precise stones stuck to his palms by moisture and imprint.

The staircase rises above him like a concrete cascade frozen in a singular moment. His life still feels stuck around such a moment. He looks down at the path again, and is hit by the scent of pennies, but does not know if it is spilt blood or spilt money he is remembering.

The caves have changed since he was a child. Now many colors of bulbs highlight the stone wonders on either side of the walkway, where before there was only darkness and a fading torch. He touches the hardhat loaned to him by the attraction, and finds a safety sticker peeling away from the rim. He plays with the edge as he sits again on the damp floor.

Flowstone is a story inspired by two tourist attractions near my hometown of Harrogate. As with many of my stories it uses the frame of horror to explore grief and loss.

You can read Flowstone at Three Lobed Burning Eye.

The Ercildoun Accord in Lackington’s 25 – Prehistories

Small Finds Nos.034-082

A series of small metal coins, heavily worn through apparent use. Each coin is stamped on the reverse and obverse. Larger than standard coinage and heavier, with a golden appearance. During the preparation to remove the finds from site, the material was identified as: leaves (variously sycamore, elm, and ash), sheep’s wool, and bone dust.

-Extract from Small Find Report Excavations in the Lower Kingdom of the Seven Silken Ghosts

I pour the hot fat into the concentric circles and watch it settle against the stone. The winds across the moor are fresh, cooling the fat white and opaque. In the central hammerstone-chipped cup I pour the whiskey, the alcohol staying golden. For years we did not know what the cup and ring stones were used for until we found the Calkerdale Stone in a peat bog, offerings preserved by the lack of air and death.

The irony of using prehistory as a gateway to study prehistory does not escape me. I place my hand against the rock, feeling the grain shift beneath my touch. The surface softens and flexes against my weight and then I’m reaching through for another place.

For a few moments after I arrive my skin is grey and glittered with feldspar, then fades back to normal flesh. In this place I feel myself ageing as everything around me does not. I can feel myself rotting with life.

This was so much fun to write! How would you carry out commercial archaeology in Faery? With great difficulty it turns out. I love stories about the fae that deal with the complexity of whim, whimsy and obligations, but also deal with the visceral character of the world.

You can read the full version of The Ercildoun Accord in the Prehistories issue of Lackington’s.

The Taste of Sound in Analog Magazine July-August 2022

06:00

This is the Autonomous Population Emergency Broadcast System. This country has been disrupted by an unspecified event. We shall bring you further information as soon as possible. Meanwhile, stay calm and stay in your own homes. There is nothing to be gained by trying to get away. By leaving your homes you will be exposing yourself to greater danger. The safest place is indoors. We shall repeat this broadcast at regular intervals. Remain calm.

APEBS 0034 feels the microbes within its gut shift into a new configuration, allowing theflow of chemicals that activates the siren. The sound is intense and it retracts its aural canal, folding over the carbon fibre skin to protect its sensory system from damage. The sound will continue until all the sugar has been metabolised, before the broadcast is repeated.

The Taste of Sound is my second story in Analog and I’m so happy it found a good home. Again, this story came about from two ideas. The first was research for an article I wrote for Fortean Times about Emergency Population Warning Systems (there’s even a YouTube playlist I put together for the article here if you would like to be unsettled by strange sirens. The second inspiration was the living architecture work of Dr Rachel Armstrong (for example here).

You can read a Q&A I did with Analog about the story here.

Pellets in Not One of Us #70

I am scattered. I am fragments. I am separated. Hidden and distant from each other.

Most of me has been digested, even as I rotted, but some morsels survive, scattered in the leaf litter for the dirt to do its work.

Others are enwrapped in sparrow bones and rabbit tendons. Grit and dirt. I hear the bird’s wings against the sky. They rise into the air. I am spread between them, able to hear everything from within, as if my gristle lodged in their gullet becomes part of their vast elegance. Just for a while. Their feathers are a symphony and there are many feathers. Many scavengers feasted upon my corpse. Through their hunger I have become a multitude.

The inspiration for Pellets came from some research into which birds of prey make bone pellets, and the idea of fragmentation after death but awareness and identity remaining.

A copy of Not One of Us can be purchased via the website.

Dawn Caught and Dead in Not One of us #72

“Day 1

Dawn caught and dead, the fish laid in the bottom of the bath, vast below the shallow water. A single distorted eye gazed up at the discoloured paint on the ceiling above. Occasionally my uncle, (the one responsible for dragging the creature from the sea – the one who never ate seafood himself) walked into the small room to stare at the fish, as it lay there too close to the surface. Ash from his cigarette fell into the bath, smudging the scales grey. He continued to stare, taking a lungful of smoke that he looked barely large enough to contain. Dead, the fish continued to ignore him and I continued washing my hands. Smoke rose to turn the ceiling tiles an even richer yellow. He dropped the exhausted cigarette down the toilet and flushed.

This strange little story is based on true events from my childhood. My Dad used to go sea fishing and caught a huge cod. With nowhere else to put it in our small terraced house, the fish stayed in the bath until it could be divided between family members.

Issue 72 of Not One of Us is available at the website.

720° in Mother: Tales of Love and Terror from Weird Little Worlds Publishing

“Dog hair felted every inch of the carpet though the dogs the hair belonged to were long since dead. My mum sat across the room, a magazine folded upon her lap, open at some random story of misery. I did not ask how she was. I did not care.

“You got my message?” she said.

“Doris passed it on.”

She shifted in her chair, letting the magazine topple to the ground as if she still expected me to pick up after her. Behind her an old FM radio played, a barely audible brass band fading in and out so I could not recognise the tune.

“She was always good, Doris. Always did as she was told.”

“Not always.”

I’d seen the bruises myself. Worn my own too.

This is another story inspired by local history from where I grew up, as well as personal experiences growing up and difficult family relationships. Again, I want to use horror to explore subjects that can sometimes be difficult to approach directly. The whole anthology is excellent, featuring authors such as Sarah read, Dan Coxon, Hailey Piper, John Langan, and Ai Jiang.

You can grab a copy at the Weird Little Worlds bookshop here.

Since I was given a set of Oblique Strategies cards, (digital version here) I’ve been choosing one at the start of each writing day. Some I use to set the mood of my work for the session, and some I use to have a bit of snark. One has become so important to me I have separated it from the main card pack and display it above my desk. That card simply says ‘Gardening, not architecture’.

There are many, many metaphors for writing, and many, many metaphors for writing practice. For me, gardening, not architecture fits very well to writing fiction.

Architecture implies a plan, building materials, and permanence. In traditional architecture, the impression is one of a project that is built with certainty and is rarely revised when construction begins. Sure, some repairs might be made and issues addressed if they occur, but overall, what’s on the plan ends up being built.

Gardening, I believe, is a more flexible and useful metaphor for writing, and I think this works whether you plan out every paragraph or you discovery write. Let me explain what I mean. (Warning, this metaphor is going to get stretched atom thin, but stay with me.)

If you’re gardening you take account of the seasons and the soil, the prevailing wind and the local conditions. You might have a plan for your flowerbed or allotment plot. What’s at the heart of this approach, is that when you plant seeds, bulbs or shrubs, you never quite know how they will turn out. Of course your plans may turn out perfect, and your fruit bushes may be abundant. Or it might go disastrously wrong. There may be major storms or drought. Parts of your garden might become waterlogged or the birds might strip the fruit from the branches of your cherry tree. Your potato rows might become overgrown with weeds.

You have to be responsive and proactive in your management by constantly making decisions and adjustments. (Doing nothing and allowing it to go completely wild is an entirely valid decision). You might decide that the fuchsias are far too dominating in the back corner of the garden, so you trim them back. You might see a mysterious plant growing by the compost bin, research it, find it’s a rare orchid and decide to leave it in place. You might choose to sacrifice one blackcurrant bush to the garden birds, but net the others so you have them for yourself.

However, the important part of all of this, is that throughout all the decision making, the garden is still a garden; coherent, whole and intact. It might look very different from what you intended, with roses and magnolia dominating where you hadn’t intended them, but you will still have your garden.

I think this responsiveness, this flexibility is a more useful mindset to approach writing fiction than architecture or sculpture. Often we have an idea of where we want to go, but until we start writing, we don’t quite know what it’s going to look like, and in the same way as we can pull weeds up from amongst the potatoes, or thin out the bedding plants, during editing we can change elements of the story while still allowing it to stay coherent.

Even in the cold, something good can flourish

I also think that the gardening metaphor allows for the possibility of surprise, the chance that we can arrive at a beautiful outcome that we weren’t expecting.

The idea of gardening works whether you are a planner or a discovery writer. You might have more control as a planner, but the final story is probably still going to need some editing, in the same way as a planned garden will need management to get it looking how you intend. And if you’re a discovery writer? Well, you can throw seeds all over the place, see what comes up and work from there.

Can I stretch this metaphor even further? Oh yes!

What happens when a story just doesn’t work. If a garden doesn’t work, you can salvage seeds, ready to start again. You can dig up plants that are in the wrong place, put them in the greenhouse over winter, and replant them in better locations the next year.

In the same way, you can dismantle a story, find the elements that did work (because no story is a complete failure). You might have a good character, but not in the right narrative. A setting might be perfect, but not fit the particular chapter. You might have nothing to show apart from the way the protagonist holds her cup of coffee as she looks out across the city. What you can do if you approach this as gardening is take the elements that might work elsewhere and nourish them in the better soil of another story.

Architecture is different. The building might develop and age. You might be able to tinker. You might even be able to add to it, but the architecture has a solidity and coherence that doesn’t allow for much flexibility. The garden is constantly changing, and constantly changeable. You can beautify it, or make it more practical. Even with all this tinkering, the garden will still be the garden as a story will still be a story, and eventually, you can sit back and put your feet up, enjoying the beauty of it.

So when it comes to writing, my suggestion is, don’t be an architect, be a gardener.