Saturday Spotlight for September 7th, 2013

Daily Literature Deviations is proud to feature this special recognition article!
You can show your support by ing this News Article. We hope this gives you some insight into the person behind the art. Please comment and the features and congratulate the artist!


Artists will be featured in a special news article every Saturday. Major points to SilverInkblot and LionesseRampant for doing the hard work and research that goes into these articles!  

Today's featured deviant is:
SCFrankles!

Questions

 

1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your writing.

I started writing as a child because I loved reading. It felt a natural thing to do – it was part of playing. (Though I do remember wanting to be a professional author when I grew up.) But writing began to float away as I got older. I was in my mid-30s when I started again. I became friends with a younger colleague who was doing a degree in English and creative writing, and I had an acute urge to have another go. We were rather alike in a lot of ways and I suppose I saw my younger self in her. Writing at first was just to entertain my friend and other people I knew, and then it turned into writing for local competitions and writing for dA.

Though I attempt poetry from time to time, I’m definitely a prose writer. And, somewhat to my surprise, I specialise in flash fiction – especially six word stories. I didn’t plan for that to happen. But I do find rules and restrictions creatively stimulating, it has to be said. Humour is also something I naturally incline towards. My sense of humour seems to have expanded in middle-age. I had two major bereavements in my early 30s, and I suddenly got the great universal joke. I understood how ridiculous life is – it really shouldn’t be taken seriously. Though thinking about it, I was a fairly funny child too. (In both senses.) I feel a bit defensive sometimes about the fact I’m concentrating on lightweight comedy. I would have liked to have been someone who writes literary novels that make the reader think, but unfortunately that’s not me. However, I think there is merit in simply entertaining people.

I doubt I’ll be a professional author now but writing does give me a lot of satisfaction. Paid employment (for me anyway) consists of doing the same thing over and over again, as quickly as possible, to a “good enough” standard. It’s lovely occasionally to do some work that you’re trying to do to the very best of your abilities and which has a final result that will last.

2. How do you feel about dA as a literature community?

The dA literature community is hugely important to me now. In real life I don’t have any contact with writers. It’s wonderful to be able to discuss writing with people who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. And here I can present an edited version of myself – be judged solely on my writing abilities and my intelligence. (Such as it is.) That is pretty addictive.

It took me a while to be bold and get involved with the literature community, and I think to a certain extent I’m still hovering awkwardly at the edge. But I’ve found it welcoming and supportive. I’ve made a few very good friends amongst the dA writers – and many interesting acquaintances. I love having an audience of intelligent readers, and I love critiquing and analysing – when I feel I have something useful to say. I enjoy thinking about the nuts and bolts of other people’s work.

Being on dA, I’ve learnt to relax a bit and just take pleasure in writing – enter competitions and take part in events for the fun of it. And because there are so many groups and so much going on, I’ve been encouraged to try new things. I suppose I sometimes feel a little overwhelmed by how much there is going on – I feel I should be reading more, commenting more, doing more. But I’ve learnt it’s better just to do a little regularly than become dispirited and give up entirely.

3. Your work is often very short and very funny - is it difficult to be humorous in so few words?

I seem to have a natural aptitude when it comes to short and funny, and I’ve practised a lot. I do still have to work at it, but I think I know what I’m doing now. Flash fiction is like decorating and furnishing a tiny room. There isn’t much space to move around in but you do have the advantage of being able to see everything at once. When you’ve got used to the dimensions, you know exactly how to manoeuvre and how much you can fit in. The room doesn’t feel particularly small to me any more.

With six word stories I often go for a humorous moment – the action takes place over only a few seconds. Not an absolute rule, but I find that suits the format nicely. And using puns helps a lot. (I have a serious addiction there…)

4. Would you trade your talent for micro-fiction for the ability to write "traditional" (for lack of a better term) novels?

My initial gut reaction to this question was: Oh, hell, no. I think when you get right down to it, I am very proud of what I do. It’s a little bit different perhaps and I really wouldn’t want to give it up. But the idea of being a “proper” writer is very tempting. I think for most people “writer” equates to “novelist”. And I would like to write something that stands the test of time.

Though in my signature at the moment, I do have Ogden Nash’s Reflections on Ice-Breaking (1931):

Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

Only seven words, and it’s still well-known and still making people laugh.

I’m not certain that novels are completely off the cards for me, anyway. There’s that quotation from Hemingway: There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. When I bleed you just get a terrible mess. But I think I might be OK at distracting people from real life instead. Maybe I can’t use Hemingway as a role model, but I could always have a go at emulating PG Wodehouse.

5. What advice would you give to a beginning writer?

I suppose I would say, try and have faith in your own abilities. We each have our own voice and that’s what makes our writing appealing. Read the very best and learn from them, but don’t torment yourself by directly comparing your work to theirs.

And I know now that talent is partly what you’re born with but mostly it’s practice and making a conscious effort to improve. It’s something that took me a long time to grasp – you have to write regularly. My very best stories seem to just pop into my head in one piece, but I can still write well even when this doesn’t happen. Once you start writing better ideas come to you. You’ve got to give your brain a chance to see what the questions are before it can come up with the answers.

Poetry

Sticky SituationsA young man at swim in the Cam
Found strawberries forming a dam.
The soft fruit and gel
Caused the poor boy to yell:
“I’m in the most terrible jam!”
In the sea,
by the sand,
it’s just me
but on land
there’s a crowd
getting tanned.
My head bowed,
swimming slow.
Something loud
seems to grow –
a sneak-wave
grabs below.
And it’s grave:
though I try
I can’t save
or catch my
swimming-trunks.
Kiss ‘em bye.
A fish thunks
in my rear
and bites chunks
very near
to some parts
I hold dear.
Though it smarts
I just pray
that he… darts
far away.
In this state
I must stay.
I will wait
till the throng
think it late
and so long
to be where
they belong.
And then bare
I will speed;
maybe wear
some seaweed.
If I find
what I need.
My behind,
once a peach,
is now brined.
I beseech:
My towel!
(On the beach.
Out of reach.)
"Sticky Situations" by SCFrankles

Prose

Where Did Indigo?blue Violet Green.
yellow Red: "Orange?"
"Where Did Indigo?" by SCFrankles


InnocentSammy woke abruptly from his dream.
He was back in the garden in the sunshine but the scene was still vivid in his mind. Mummy pale and lifeless with bruises on her throat. Daddy slumped over her, blood seeping from his chest.
Sammy's mother glanced across at him.
"That's a lovely smile, sweetheart," she said.
"Innocent" by SCFrankles


The SphinxShe was a beautiful woman. In parts. Features of divine origin, breasts that would provoke envy in any plastic blonde. The rest of her was… leonine. Lot of body hair and those nails looked sharp. Her purpose was to ask the riddle. "What am I looking for?" No-one could enter the company without giving the answer. And no-one had entered for quite some time. The management was becoming desperate.
She checked her make-up in the desktop mirror and consulted her notes. Three interviews before lunch. No need to rush. Snacking on the hopefuls was enough to sustain her. The first was handsome and confident. She was tempted to let him straight through. But rules were rules. He couldn't solve the riddle, so that was the end of him. Second was a middle-aged woman, who babbled about experience and qualifications. The interrogator chewed her up.
Then there was the third. A thoughtful youth. Child of a sex offender and his teenage girlfriend. Abused and abandoned, being taken into care had saved his
“The Sphinx” by SCFrankles




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