VinceT

I spend a lot of time in stories.

From the deep dive of novels to the crystalline focus of screenplay, from the ether of poetry to the immediacy of song, all of it story.

I talk about story. I write about story.

Consciously and sub-consciously, story has been my life’s work.

I worked in a major corporation for 20 years, on both sides of the Atlantic ocean. I had job titles. I had a career path. I had a talent profile. I had performance documents. I had direct reports. I had resources to manage. I had internal politics to wade through. I had crappy days. I had great days.

Even with all that, story was my life.

Or, more accurately, maybe it should be my life was a story.

It was about a guy who… did that.

[and three years ago, I started telling a different story - I'm now a guy who does… this!]

In my corporate career, I interviewed thousands of people for jobs – not just passing conversations, either; at least an hour of a candidate’s background, motivations, values, aims and aspirations.

I heard their stories.

[these are the voices in my head when I write]

And I remain convinced that everyone – you included – is living out a story in each moment.

A story about a guy or gal who…

[forgive me, I'm not writing a legal document, so I'll use guy/he from here on, though there's nothing gender specific to this]

When I coach people, or counsel them on career change, or on life in general, I listen for their story, where it finds friction, where it finds alignment. Who is this guy, who does he believe he is, and who does he expect to be next?

Is he a victim, railing against misfortune?

Is he a plucky upstart out to prove ‘the man’ wrong?

Is he a dangerous firecracker in a box of dry tinder?

Is he a searcher for some ultimate, hidden truth?

These and many other archetypes play out in movies, television and books all the time and, like it or not, thanks to mirror neurons, we mimic what we see others doing. We absorb these archetypes into ourselves, and organize our lives to become one of these stories.

So, who is this guy?

Is he the spouse who believes he can get away with an illicit affair?

Is he the under-performer, distrustful of management and determined to screw the company over? The over-achiever picking up the slack from that under-performer?

Is he the guilty child, still suffering from toxic parents decades after that influence should have waned?

We are all stories. Stories about a guy who…

So, what’s your story?

Who’s the guy who’s you?

Because, once you can see your story

[and research estimates that only 15-25% of the population have the self-awareness to be able to do so without help]

you can tell a different story. How different? Well, that depends on you and, yes, on your story. But have no doubt, story-telling is the rocket fuel of personal growth and professional development.

It’s why so many companies get it wrong by prescribing paths and defining jobs – when we cede our story to the company, we lose our identity. Is it any wonder so many people feel lost in their day-to-day, disempowered and floating aimless?

What’s your story?

Who’s the guy who’s you?

Who’s the guy who you’d like to be?

Drop me a line if you’d like me to help you answer those questions and start telling a different story.

I was humbled to read this review of Family Rules at Word Up Nerd Up today:

“… I picked this up for a casual afternoon perusal, intending to read the slim volume over the course of a couple of days. Within the first few pages I was lost in the time warp that is brought on by a really good story. There was no way I was ending the day with Family Rules unfinished.

The story ricochets between the UK and New York, the 1980′s and present day, all narrated [sic] in Kenny’s plaintive voice. He was at once a child who had to grow up too quickly, and an adult who never did grow up, suspended in a state of perpetual discomfort and discombobulation.

Kenny’s life as a child actor is central to the story, but surprisingly it is not accusatory. Throughout it all Kenny is damaged, but he is not deviant- a small, but important, distinction.

My biggest problem with this book was the inconsistent use of American and British spellings and colloquilisms. Quite truthfully, it is exactly the kind of inconsistency you would expect from a young man who spent his first years in the UK, then moved to the US with his British parents. I know this, yet I still found it distracting. What can I say? I’m nerdy that way.

My verdict: Read it! One thought I had as I raced through Family Rules is that it is what A Million Little Pieces could have been, had it been good. For all the over the top angst and drama spewed by Frey, he didn’t get it right. Tuckwood has managed to create a believable story that leaves us feeling both saddened and hopeful for the main character. It is still early in the year, but I have a feeling that Family Rules may very well end up on my list of top reads in 2012…”

Today, I’m interviewed over at As The Pages Turn as part of the Family Rules Virtual Book Tour:

“… To understand Kenny, it’s really important to know that he spent the first five years of his life raised by a television-family, often being treated as little more than a prop or dummy. It’s also worth noting that his addictions began in those years, his minders giving him Valium in honey to keep him calm between scenes. The upshot is that psychologically, Kenny runs away from reality whenever it gets too close. He’s quite a poignant, tragic character; as a writer, he feels very real to me, more-so perhaps than any character I’d written before.

Ivvy is like the Yang to Kenny’s Yin. She’s a junkie cop, working undercover for Vice. Older than Kenny, she’s drawn to normality like a moth bashing its head against a porch light. This push-pull between Kenny and Ivvy is key to understanding their relationship. She’s clinging to him for some sense of a normality she can attain, while he’s repelled by her neediness because it feels too real.

The joy for me in writing Family Rules was to take these two damaged people and make them ‘parents’…”

And, before you even think of calling me

[Mum]

I’m not thinking of starting up again.

I just finished Certainty, the screen adaptation of Do Sparrows Eat Butterflies? and am very pleased, and humbled, by how its turned out.

That last may strike you as odd, to be humbled by a story. But if you read Memento: 2001- My own time and space oddity, you’ll remember that the novel was written against a backdrop of seismic shift in my life. Most of the writing still feels like a dream to me.

In the 8 years since I published the book, I’ve tried to start writing the screenplay a number of times but never gained traction with my muse. And, as ever with my novels, all the time I’ve had readers telling me that they can see the movie when the read the story, and that I should really think about adapting it.

Last year, around the time I started work on Team Building, I took tentative steps to begin Certainty, but all the other stuff of last year held me off any serious work until December.

And when I did turn my attention to the adaptation, I realized just what had been holding me back.

I was stuck in the how of telling Ray’s rebirth.

For those who haven’t read Sparrows, it’s told in first-person, present-tense – i.e. what happens to Ray happens to the reader in real-time. By necessity, there’s a LOT of internal dialogue and Ray’s weighing up of events, and of his reactions. This lends pace to the writing and, truly, is what brings people into the story so deeply – we experience Ray’s rebirth, we don’t observe it.

All of which is great in a novel but, frankly, crap in a movie – unless we’re making 1960′s French art house, which we’re not.

[believe me, if I'd written and published this in the 60's, there's a good chance that's exactly what would have happened]

There was a real risk that this would be a) a boring film, b) completely lost in self-analysis, and c) totally unworthy of the original novel. This is a story I love, filled with characters I know intimately, and I couldn’t let myself do that to myself.

So I was stuck.

Until, one day in the shower

[oh, how the movement of water, and idle reflection, opens my sub-conscious]

I had a very clear and vivid snapshot of how to bring the internal dialogue to the screen.

[and no, I'm not going to tell you what it is]

Tentatively, I started carving the screenplay – lifting the whole book over, chopping out all the unnecessary, and porting the internal dialogue into the vehicle I’d imagined. And boy did it work! In the space of a couple of weeks, I reworked, tightened and shaped this story for the screen. A couple of days back I registered it for copyright and it’s already heading out into the world.

And, yes, I was humbled by the process – as I often am. When you give yourself to your art, and allow it to flow through you, it can feel other-worldly – a scary feeling, a joyous feeling.

Once again, Ray’s story has told itself and, though the hard work of getting it out there now begins, right now I feel like a post-coital cigarette.

If only I still smoked.

Which I don’t.

But you get my drift anyway, right?

I’m guest blogging over at Everyday Is An Adventure today as part of the Family Rules Virtual Book Tour.

The times they are indeed a-changing…

You’re no longer selling a book, you’re interacting with your audience. You’re selling access. You’re selling you.

You’re selling out… on purpose.

If it’s Tuesday, then I must be very happy to be interviewed by Lindsay over at Everyday Is An Adventure, my latest stop on the Family Rules Virtual Book Tour. Lindsay will be reviewing the novel soon, so stay tuned.

“… I see writing a novel as like running a marathon, and learned early that it’s easy to start out too fast, use up all my energy and find myself out of steam halfway through. Like marathon running, getting to the finish line is all about putting the training miles in. I’ve written eight novels, well over half-a-million words – which freaks me out sometimes – but I now know how to pace myself, and how to keep the well-spring rejuvenated.

I do run into writer’s block every so often, but don’t let myself get too hung up on that, I just keep writing…”

Family Rules Virtual Book Tour – guest blogging at Literary R&R:

“… First up, I should really make very, very clear that Family Rules isn’t my story. I’ve been fascinated by the response of readers, who often ask me whether it’s about me. It’s not, definitely not; it’s a fictional memoir.

I think this comes from the main character, Kenny, who is pretty compelling. I’d be lying if I said I knew who he was when I started the novel…”

I’ve been humbled today by a review of Escalation at Amazon:

“… As this story unfolds Vince uses style and color to make this a tale that the reader sees, feels and experiences. This is all accomplished using highly readable, almost colloquial language that promotes page flipping — The premise is unique and the characters are ones that you will recognize to the point that you begin to believe this is potentially non-fiction. The reader is craftily woven into the story — solidly capturing and holding your attention. It only appears to be a “light read” whose premises stay with you long after you’ve finished it — on to the rest of Vince’s offerings ! …”

Escalation - A Novel - Front Cover

There is nothing better than hearing from someone who has read my stories, and this one hit me square in my heart and soul because it’s the core of what I’ve been trying to do since writing my first novel two decades ago: write as if there’s no writer, only the story on the page. To hear that anyone has grown into my stories to this extent pleases me so, so much – and to hear that it almost appears non-fiction is just… wow!

Thank you Ron, for your generosity in sharing your opinion, and thank you anyone who reads my stories, you have my love.

Hmmm… A bitter-sweet feeling today as I list my Vox AC30 amplifier on eBay (and no, that’s not it in the picture, that’s my Budda Verbmaster – which you’ll have to pry from my cold, dead hands!)

It’s a beautiful amplifier – does everything for which it’s renowned – the AC30 claims lineage to The Beatles, Brian May, Peter Buck, Radiohead and everyone in between. A legendary amp.

And yet.

And yet…

I just can’t find myself in this amp – I can dial in all of the above and more, it’s incredibly flexible, but I haven’t been able to settle in the two years I’ve owned the amp. I gigged it twice

[it's too loud for most local gigs and so very, very HEAVY!!!]

but the rest of the time it’s been in my studio, for recording and incidental practice when my current live amp has been elsewhere.

It’s sad. I so wanted to like this amp, and am still impressed by the tones available. But I finally reached the point where I had to admit it’s not for me.

And, of course, I’ve begun to turn my sights to a replacement

[what do you mean, Mrs T? Of COURSE I need one]

That got me thinking of the musiconomy, the flow of money through music equipment. Here’s what I know:

1. Most musicians don’t make enough money from their music to pay for their equipment
2. We are besieged by the advertising story of ‘elusive’ perfect tone
3. We hear great players (SRV, Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, et al) and, more often than not, give greater credit to equipment than to the players fingers – reinforced by the marketer’s assertion that we can buy some of their talent

[we can't, they are genius players]

And we buy.

And we buy.

And we buy.

And we get disappointed that the ‘tone’ for which we’re searching doesn’t sit in the new box. And the shops scalp their margins off us. And the piles of equipment that never quite ‘fit’ fill up cupboards and studios the world over – until, sometimes, we decide to sling it on eBay to at least recycle some of the value back into the musiconomy.

All we can hope is that we learned something through the owning.

In the two years since I bought the AC30, I’ve invested time, energy and, yes, money in my playing – I’m a better player now, and increasingly discerning about whatever endangers the signal path between my guitar and amp. I am more certain than ever that the tone is in my fingers.

And not in the AC30.

Why?

Because there’s too much AC30 in it.

Yes, I can dial up all those other players

[and believe me, I was tuning in something close Brian May's tone last night as I reached my sell decision, it sounded amazing]

but maybe that’s the issue. I don’t want it to sound like them. I want it to sound like me.

So I’ll sell… and I’ll buy whatever’s next – the musiconomy will take another turn – and I’ll hope that it’s a blank enough canvas to welcome me home.

Hi, all - I’m interviewed today at PumpUpYourBook.com, as part of the Family Rules Virtual Book Tour.

“… The book cover and author photo is the same thing – it’s a picture of my Dad and I on vacation when I was about 4 years old. I could make a pretty convincing pitch on that picture, so I’ll go with that.

About a year before I published Family Rules, it was my parents’ 50^th wedding anniversary and we went back to the UK for a big party. It was great being in the heart of family and friends and seeing the love between and for my parents writ large. During the party, there was a slide-loop of pictures, many of which I had never seen.

As I was chatting with my brother, suddenly this picture appears, of my Dad and I sitting on a beach breakwater. Dad’s got his arm around me, smoking a cigarette, a smiling Jack-the-lad, and I’m staring out at the camera with a scowl – I’m either cold or unhappy about something. I was transfixed; had never seen this picture, didn’t remember the moment…”