Killed while leading donk and patient

An introduction to my writing props and some brave asses.

This week will be about writing. Though mostly about the scaffolding of writing. The props, the author’s equivalent of a person holding a prompt sheet. It won’t be lyrical. I ain’t John McPhee. By the way, John McPhee should be certified as as genius not just because the ending of Looking for a Ship is so damn good, but because when someone asked him what he thought about the (colossally stupid) term “non-fiction,” he said:

“Non-fiction, what the hell, that is just non-grapefruit we’re having for breakfast.”

Why is factual writing — also a terrible term — defined by something it is not? Obviously that mirrors society’s priorities. There are far more book prizes for fiction than for non-grapefruits. The French refer to “reportage” (though I’ve also seen references to the equally ridiculous “non-romanesque”) and the Italians have saggistica (actually more “essay”). Both are better than non-fiction but none convey the craft of making a book that is attempting to convey the world but with the tools of any writer: imagination, pace, craft, construction. Just sticking “creative” in front of it doesn’t help either. Or “literary”. Non-fiction should always be creative and literary.

But back to my props.

I remember in Liberia that shopkeepers would have signs outside their shops that listed all their services and goods. This is similar to French towns, which have motorway signs declaring that X town is nearby and listing “son église,” “ses jolies ruelles",” “ses pains au chocolat.” I remember one Liberian shop had a long list and at the top it said, “WE DO THE FOLLOWING” and for some reason I found that charming.

I USE THE FOLLOWING.

• Devonthink 3. It is an AI database, and has been an AI database for many years, long before AI became suspicious (yes, I’ve found my books on the searchable database of books that have been stolen to train AI). DT3 is powerful and I probably only use ten percent of it. I think I started using it for Ninety Percent, and I wouldn’t stop using it now. My favourite feature of it is “see also,” which is what you click on when you have gone through your tags and still not found what you are looking for, and the AI presents similar documents but in a good way that is not always a straightforward connection. It has a great forum and very responsive tech help, also both important.

• Scrivener. I love Scrivener. It makes it easy to chop and change with bits of text, so you can compile and move things easily. You can see things side by side. It is elegant and it is clever, and its ‘compile’ function for that glorious day when you think your manuscript may actually be ready, is magical. I also use about ten percent of it, but I like that ten percent a lot.

• Transcribe. I used to use this for manual transcription (listening to audio and me typing it in). I discovered a curious thing: I type better when I’m not looking at a screen. Over the years, I’ve stared a lot at walls. I’m a good typist thanks to my mother, who when I finished school and had taken a gap year, told me I should learn to type and sent me to the Yorkshire Post building (now demolished) where I spent six weeks learning touch typing. It is a skill that once learned, and barring brain damage, stays pure in your head and fingers.

• Rev. I used to use Transcribe’s auto-transcription service, unless I had enough money from my advance to pay humans to subscribe. But recently I found Rev, also an AI service, and it is quite brilliant. For some reason it thinks I’m writing about phishing and trolling not fishing and trawling, but otherwise I cannot fault it wait yes I can. Its habit of including dozens of “mmm-hmmm affirmative” is infuriating but forgivable. Using the forms “gonna,” “gotta” and “shoulda” is like nails on a blackboard. I asked whether there was an option to change this bad habit, but was told they use “conversational English” and so I’m gonna have put up with it. That said, I never do manual transcribing any more; it’s much quicker to get Rev to do it (and in about five minutes) then go through that. Search and replace is my friend for all the “gotta”s et al.

• Upwork. I’m a new arrival to Upwork. It’s like mybuilder.com (of which I am also a big fan) but for freelancers and people needing work done. So far I have sought people to transcribe from Senegalese French and Wolof, and from the Philippines languages Tagalog and Cebuano, when I wanted to double-check a translation, and also wanted a film to be translated. The Upworkers have been reasonably priced, but they set the fee so hopefully it’s not exploitative, and so far I’ve been delighted with them.

• Standup. I used to use an app called Stand which was great. You set an interval and it reminds you to stand up and ideally do stuff. It is much less violent than my Garmin watch buzzing at me and yelling MOVE. Then Stand got updated and I updated my version while forgetting that Apple thinks my Mac is obsolete and a lot of stuff won’t work with my antiquated (12 years old) OS. So I wrote to Stand and they tried to help but then put me in touch with Pavel who has created Standup. Every 45 minutes I get up and do a few minutes of yoga and if I didn’t have a computer to tell me to do it, I wouldn’t.

None of these things are free except Standup and all of them are worth the money.

That is the digital and I also use the analogue.

• Whiteboards. Erasable. Stare-at-able (sorry) as you pace around your studio wondering how the feck to do that chapter that is taking you five days when you thought it would take two. (Looking at you, aquaculture.)

You don’t need glasses; I’ve blurred it.

• Post-its! How I love post-its. I used them for Ninety Percent and Nine Pints. For The Big Necessity, I used index cards, which were also useful and which I’ve kept. (In case you wonder at the presence of my own books in these pictures, it’s because I read favourite bits sometimes to remind myself I can make books.) (I read other people’s books for moral scaffolding too.)

  

  The post-its are currently things I want to remember to include and stern warnings to myself. “Krill.” “Too much ‘I’.” “Fish days.” One is a quote from Dwight Garner from his review of Nine Pints, when he said sometimes the writing “isn’t quite as sharp.” He was right, dammit, so he gets a post-it.

• A random Norwegian sailor from 150 years ago as inspiration. Also he’s hot and has good mittens.

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Animal hero of the week: Duffy

There Duffy was, minding his own business in a shed in the middle of a war-zone, when Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick “annexed” him to be a World War 1 stretcher-bearer. Simpson Kirkpatrick went by the name Simpson. Duffy was a donkey. He had arrived at Gallipoli in April 1915 with Greek handlers, meant to be water-carriers. But the Greeks were deported. Perhaps they were too like the Turks, which the Australian and New Zealand (Anzac) forces were fighting. The donkeys were left to their own devices until Private Simpson, a stretcher-bearer originally from South Shields, now with the 3rd Field Ambulance, thought a donkey would be very handy to carry men who had been wounded in the legs or couldn’t walk. He was right. Man and donkey — Private Simpson with his “little beast” — became a familiar sight. Historian Charles Bean:

Each day, and half of every night, he worked continuously between the head of Monash Valley and the Beach, his donkey carrying a brassard round its forehead and a wounded man on its back. Simpson escaped death so many times that he was completely fatalistic; the deadly sniping down the valley and the most furious shrapnel fire never stopped him. The colonel of his ambulance, recognising the value of his work, allowed him to carry on as a completely separate unit.

Gunner Sydney Loch:

One Red Cross fellow with a donkey passed twice or thrice that day. ‘The man with the donkey’, as we called him, was becoming known to all; firing seemed not to worry him. On his donkey he would mount a man wounded in leg or foot and bring them down Monash or Shrapnel Valley to the dressing station on the beach.

Soon, Simpson annexed a second donkey, who was named Duffy No.2. There was also Murphy, Queen Elizabeth and Abdul, though some were wounded or killed. (War records are not much interested in donkeys.)

Stretcher bearing was not glamorous, but it was essential, back-breaking, dangerous and relentless.

A young Simpson Kirkpatrick, pre-Australian

On May 15, Simpson went for breakfast as usual, but it wasn’t ready. Never mind, he said cheerfully, I’ll see you for dinner. That night, Turkish forces had mounted an offensive to clear the valley of Anzac troops. 3,000 Turks died and 100 Anzacs. Simpson had to gather the wounded. He set off with a donkey — history does not record which one — through Shrapnel Gully, the valley that was their usual route, even though it was bombarded by shrapnel and machine gun fire, routinely. He was machine-gunned through the heart and died. It’s not clear what happened to the donkey.

Private Arthur Adams, C section, 3rd ambulance:

19 May. Jack Simpson killed while leading donk and patient ... Bury J Simpson in evening large attendance.

I have got these quotes from an Australian report of “an inquiry into unresolved recognition for past acts of naval and military gallantry and valour.” Plenty of people thought Simpson should have been awarded a post-humous Victoria Cross, including several parliamentarians. No dice. The inquiry concluded that although Simpson and his donk had done excellent and brave work, there was no one act of valour that merited a VC. The inquiry does not concern itself with the merits of the donkeys.

L to R: patient, donkey, Simpson

Some submitters suggested that Simpson deserved a VC because he represented what it means to be Australian, and there was strong community support for such recognition. While this might be a popular proposition, the VC can only be awarded for valorous conduct in the presence of the enemy. The Tribunal found that Simpson’s initiative and bravery were representative of all other stretcher-bearers of 3rd Field Ambulance, and that bravery was appropriately recognised as such by the award of an MID [Mentions in Dispatches].

Simpson and the donkeys have been the subject of books (including one that “debunks all the myths about Simpson, called Dust Donkeys and Delusions), a play, but not a statue: this statue in Melbourne is actually of Richard Henderson, a New Zealander who took on — annexed — Murphy the donkey.

Of what happened to Queen Elizabeth, Duffys one and two, and Abdul, brave donkeys all, the historical record does not say.