The Zen folk have a saying: you should meditate for twenty minutes every day, except on days when you don’t have the time. In which case you should meditate for an hour.

I think the same principle applies to writing – write for four hours a day, except when you don’t have the time. In which case, you’ll need to write for eight hours. And you still won’t catch up with yourself.

Photo: 'Zen' by Louise Leclerc via Flickr and Creative Commons

Articles from around the web which fascinated me – and which I hope may be of interest to anyone who has read my books.

Neanderthals were smarter than you may think

The Atlantic has published an article about discoveries in a cave in France which are rewriting our views of Neanderthals. (My prehistoric stories in the Koriba series don’t feature Neanderthals – the people in those novels are all Cro-Magnon or modern humans. All the same, I assume visitors here may share my wider interest in all things prehistoric.)

The finds at Bruniquel Cave include hominid-made structures – created from stalagmites and stalactites – which are astonishingly old:

After drilling into the stalagmites and pulling out cylinders of rock, the team could see an obvious transition between two layers. On one side were old minerals that were part of the original stalagmites; on the other were newer layers that had been laid down after the fragments were broken off by the cave’s former users. By measuring uranium levels on either side of the divide, the team could accurately tell when each stalagmite had been snapped off for construction.

Their date? 176,500 years ago, give or take a few millennia.

The structure were clearly not intended as shelter since they are deep within a cave. The best guess is that they were made for ritual, religious or cultural purposes.

 “The Neanderthal group responsible for these constructions had a level of social organization that was more complex than previously thought…. We now know that Neanderthals made tools, used fire, made art, buried their dead, and perhaps even had language.”

Waking from a coma

STAT has a piece on the use of brain scans to predict which patients might one day wake from a coma (a situation featured in my novel Lost In Thought).

A simple measurement using a device available in every hospital could distinguish brain damaged patients who are likely to “wake up” from those who are not, scientists reported on Thursday.

Scientists have tried using position emission tomography, or PET, imaging, which measures brain metabolism, to better predict which patients could regain consciousness.

The scientists tested the technique on 131 brain-injured patients: 49 in a vegetative state, 65 who were minimally conscious, and 17 who were emerging from a minimally conscious state. No single region was associated with likelihood of regaining consciousness — that is, the brain does not have a “consciousness center.”

But overall metabolism did show a difference.

Life and creativity after a stroke

Mind Hacks has a piece on Lotje Sodderland who experienced a major brain haemorrhage at the age of 34 and has made a documentary about her experiences and recovery.

She started filming herself a few days afterwards on her iPhone, initially to make sense of her suddenly fragmented life, but soon contacted film-maker Sophie Robinson to get an external perspective.

It’s interesting both as a record of an emotional journey through recovery, but also because Lotje spent a lot of time working with a special effects designer to capture her altered experience of the world and make it available to the audience.

The documentary is now available available on Netflix. This is the trailer:

Lotje wrote a long-form article which appeared in The Guardian back in 2014.

It’s a dog’s life, so they saying goes. I say, why not join them – especially when they’re sleeping  under the pear tree on a beautiful warm May day.

Not the most flattering shot of me – but shooting a selfie with a dog licking your face is kinda tricky.

Happy dog

I’d like to predict that in the very near future, this idea will be coming to a novel and / or movie near you:

In a new scientific review paper published in World Neurosurgery, a group of Oxford neurosurgeons and scientists round up a set of dire, terrifying warnings about the way that neural implants are vulnerable to networked attacks.

The quote above is from a post on BoingBoing. The scientific paper is here, but sequestered behind one of those ludicrously expensive academic paywalls.

Perhaps the most concerning attack strategy feasible using currently implanted neural devices involves the use of operant conditioning to exert substantial control over a patient’s behaviour.

Reminds me a little of the character Kilgrave in Jessica Jones – only with science instead of comic book ‘mutation’.

(By the way, I’ve just invented the word ‘neurobabble’ – and I think I’m going to use it a lot).

Seth Godin today posts about something he calls “the gulf of disapproval.”

It applies, he says, to new ideas, inventions and businesses.

most of the people who hear about it don’t get it.

And the idea, business, invention would die on the vine, if it weren’t for another group:

the early adopters, the believers, and some of them are sneezers. They tell everyone they can about your new idea.

There aren’t many of them at first. And the number grows agonisingly slowly. But gradually, they begin to convert the disapproving.

It is these people you need to focus on – the few that do get it, not the many who turn away in bafflement. Otherwise, you run the risk of hitting the wall. Of giving up.

I think it applies as much to books and stories as it does to ideas and business ventures.

Check out Seth's post here.

Do detectives know what they’re doing? It’s a question that should trouble not only the police, lawyers, criminals and others involved in the cops and robbers game – but all of us who read, write or watch crime stories.

In fiction, police investigators are often portrayed as highly skilled at getting to the truth. Once they have a suspect in the interrogation room they use guile, know-how, gut instinct and cunning psychological ploys to make the bad guy break down and talk.

The truth, as I’m sure we all suspected, is somewhat different.

An article in Wired reveals how interrogation techniques have developed over the years – and how they have changed significantly in the UK and Canada, with similar changes about to happen in the USA.

Back in the day, the article explains, interrogation methods lacked subtlety:

Until the mid-1930s, police still widely used the “third degree”—that is, torture—to get suspects to talk. Officers across the country hung suspects out of windows, dunked their heads underwater, and hit them. In 1931 a presidential panel known as the Wickersham Commission called atten­tion to the brutality of the third degree. Then, in 1936, the US Supreme Court effectively outlawed the practice with its ruling in Brown v. Mississippi, a case involving three black men who were beaten and whipped until they confessed.

Interrogation methods were changed, with a specific nonviolent method of questioning suspects introduced in 1962, after a manual of interrogation methods was published by John E. Reid, a former police officer turned polygraphy expert. (The methods it outlined became known as the Reid Technique). In the book, Reid likened the detective to “a hunter stalking his game.”

The manual gave rise to a new archetype: the silver-tongued interrogator—someone who, through intimidation and seduction, can get anyone to admit to anything.

It turns out, however, that most police, even detectives, are not so highly skilled. In fact, they are barely trained:

“You would think that at a large organization like the LAPD, a large emphasis would be put on developing interrogation skills for their detectives,” says Tim Marcia, reflecting on his own haphazard indoctrination into modern interrogation technique. “To be quite honest, we go to an 80-hour detective school, and probably about four hours is devoted to interrogation.”

While styles fluctuated somewhat, the basic outline of the Reid technique remained intact. And the most consistent thing over the years? No matter what detectives did with a suspect in the interro­gation room, they were convinced they were doing it right….

The trouble with modern interrogation technique, as Marcia would learn, is that, despite its scientific pose, it has almost no science to back it up.

Ouch. Detectives across the USA – and doubtless much of the world – were using dodgy theories that were untested and wouldn’t pass muster in a noir spoof where the detectives are supposed to be clueless idiots.  

“The case turned Hollywood detective story tropes on their heads.”

The method basically amounted to asking a few preliminary questions, getting a feel for the subject’s body language – twitches and ticks and so on – then moving on to the harder questions and seeing how they reacted. Once they think they know the truth, they then use tougher psychological tricks to grind down their suspect. The results were a deluge of wrongful convictions and false confessions – some voluntary from attention seekers, some coerced and some ‘persuaded’, where the detectives have effectively implanted false memories in an impressionable or mentally impaired suspect.

In the UK and Canada, less confrontational methods of interrogation have been in place for a number of years – focusing on getting the suspect to tell their story. The interrogators are not allowed to lie to the suspect, and they avoid ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions, focusing instead on obtaining an accurate account of what happened.

The style of interrogations in the USA is now about to undergo a major change. The changes  are being led by the HIG – the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group set up by President Obama to investigate more effective ways of questioning terrorism suspects. The HIG involves teams from the FBI, the CIA, and the Pentagon. Their methods are based on behavioural science and proper research, with an emphasis on ‘rapport building’ and being as non-accusatorial as possible.

The Wired article examines how the new techniques were used in LA on a notorious unsolved murder case.

From start to finish, people covering the case had been scarcely able to resist pointing out, in some way or another, how like a movie it all was. But what no one outside the LAPD really realized was just how much the case turned Hollywood detective story tropes on their heads. The interrogation room was a pleasant midrange hotel suite. And the hard-boiled detectives, despite looking like cops straight out of central casting, were working from an entirely new script.

“The hard-boiled detectives, despite looking like cops straight out of central casting, were working from an entirely new script.”

What all this means for fiction is that policing methods have changed or are changing – and crime stories  set in the present day will need to reflect that. The problem, of course, is that these non-confrontational techniques are less dramatic. It’s better television to have the detective threatening the suspect, slamming fists on the table, yelling accusations, storming around the room, throwing coffee cups. Lying. Beating up the bad guy.

None of that is going to be happening any more. At least, that’s the theory.

One of the most interesting developments in all of this might be to see who changes first – and who resists change the most – the police or the story tellers?

Read the article in full.

Picture 1: Anonymous Captured by Brian Krug via Flickr

Picture 2: 120830-F-MQ656-481 by DMA Hawaii Forward Center photostream on Flickr.

This is supposed to be my summertime writing environment, but it has been claimed and colonised by my not-so-trusty Airedale Terrier.

To be fair, she does look fairly relaxed.

What makes a book special?

Some writers have something important to say – and will typically write non-fiction.

Other writers may have a story they are itching to tell – and will usually write fiction.

But when the two come together, when a writer has something they feel compelled to communicate with the world, and they wrap that up in a great story (in other words, they dramatise it), then the magic happens.

The magic otherwise known as ‘theme.’

Too many works of fiction these days don’t seem to have much of a theme. They have plots and characters and action, stuff that happens, all the nuts and bolts, but no soul – like a Frankenstein’s monster of a tale, lumbering around half dead. Going through the motions.

If a book leaves you a bit ‘meh’, unsatisfied, as if it never really got going or went anywhere or had the drive or passion you were hoping to encounter, then it’s likely that the writer skipped on theme. That’s never a good idea.

If you like to think about the books you’ve read, why you love some and are indifferent about others – or if you write reviews of books online (such as Amazon or Goodreads), then next time, stop and ask yourself ‘what was the theme? Was the author trying to say?’

If you can’t come up with anything – then maybe they couldn’t either…

Photo by Khánh Hmoong via Flickr and Creative Commons

If you want a free book – and my undying gratitude – in return for an honest review then I’m happy to send out ARCs (advanced review copies) of my forthcoming books (including ‘Monster Hunters of the Undermire‘ and ‘Blood Read‘). Please get in touch through the contact page.

I would also be interested in hearing from potential beta readers to give their assessment of pre-publication versions of my books. Once again, if you’re interested please let me know through the contact page.

All copies will need to be electronic, but can be mobi, PDF or epub.