Pre-Obituary Thoughts
I'd love to make her moan, my remark to my mates on the day that I first spied wife.
Now I'd just love her to stop.
Open your mouth, a game that we'd play, back in a time when our headboard would bang.
Now I pray for those lips to be sealed.
As she lay asleep in our bed, I'd watch in wonderment at the rise the fall of her breast.
Now I just want it to stop.
It is the breath that powers the mouth, to make the moan. 'You never take me out!'
Now I've decided, I will.
I've joined a forum, and I've learned loads. It's good, there's a couple of people who will go out of their way to help you with your craft. Anyway, I feel really guilty. We are required to review each others stories. So I'm reading these chapters and it's late. I've been awake 48hrs and I'm getting kind of cranky. This author, whether through idleness or arrogance, didn't write a synopsis. I read the first couple of pages and it's about Nazis, by page 5 they're murdering millions of Jews. When it came to the review I abused the poor chap! So I feel at tad guilty, the book was about escaping and stuff. - It's not the point! I did what anybody would have done in a bookshop or a library. By page 3 I'd decided I wasn't interested and nothing was going to change my mind.
In other news. I've always struggled with the point of short stories. Unless you've got a bunch of 'em, what are they worth? A book voucher as first prize in the village church short-story competition perhaps? I use them to practise, you'll usually find something odd or difficult about mine. I'll not allow myself to use essential components like dialogue or thought or imagery. I even thought about submitting a screwed-up blank sheet of A4. Claiming it was representative of the destiny of a Caucasian middle class child – Nah! They'd see through it.
Where was I going? Yes, I've been reviewing short stories and coming across a lot of – short stories! I'm reminded of Lethal Weapon, II - I think. Danny Glover summarises the murder together with the motive in very few words. Mel Gibson replies 'It sounds a little thin.' ..
I'm running in to a lot of that lately. If I were a reviewing a physical manuscript – I'd be checking page numbers, checking under the bed to see a pages had fallen out, stuff like that. Then you really really think about it and you start getting paranoid. You KNOW you're missing something, but you just don't get it. Bizarre thoughts enter your head, like; Maybe the protagonist was a cross-dressing Aborigine. In the end – you realise. It was a story about a boy who met a girl, nothing more. And just like after consuming a McDonald's burger, you realise; you didn't particularly enjoy it and your stomach still complains about lack of sustenance.
What do I want (Yeah, you're damn right – It's about me!) I want the reader (reviewer) to appreciate my art! Judge me on the task I've set out to achieve. You know I won't criticise in this manner unless I have a go myself. I've tried to write two 'thin' stories at the same time. I've to make over-clever 'Camera shot' transitions from past to present. Not to confuse the reader, but to make them take pause, draw breath and say – 'Oh, I get it.' And recognise the stupidity of romance. Why did she skip over cracked paving slabs? Why did they start speaking as Shakespearian characters.
Whilst the reader ponders and wonders in awe over the genius of the rapid tragic conclusion. I want them never to know, it was not contrived. My daughter wanted to use the computer to 'go on' MSN, and I wanted to watch Holby City.
There's too many snobs and old farts around who are resistant to change. I don't think any new writers are under any illusions about self-publishing. It's 2008 and every day the world changes. To claim to be an authority of x amount of years is almost irrelevant. We have new toys now like microwaves Ebay and mobile phones! So yes, shit's changed. As POD costs are reduced the literary world will change. More raw un-edited unprocessed work will enter the market. Books will be better for it – the reader will have more choice. Perhaps a chance to experience raw talent not yet shaped for the mass consumer.
As much as the 'experienced' are adamant self-published books will not be taken up by publishers, logic dictates that they will. Perhaps not today, but soon. It's called 'How business really works.' Popular products struggling to reach potential customers through lack of production capacity or distribution facilities are purchased by larger companies, if the figures stack favourably.
If you tell me that publishers will only ever accept 'single sided; double spaced; 12pt; TNR manuscripts' – I'll tell you all quality newspapers are broadsheets.
I've said it before – The cost of producing a single novel via POD is now competitive with printing the manuscript on a domestic printer. When busy editors realise the printed book format is easier to read on the train and in bed, no doubt it will become the new standard. Who in their right mind wants to walk around with 400 loose sheets of A4 and an elastic band anyway?
I might be talking a complete load of bollocks, it doesn't really matter. All of what I've said is possible. While we have possibilities, we have hope. Most of us [hopefully] are at the beginning of our publishing careers. How publishing used to work and still would if I had my way', is of little or no use to us. Self-publish:- 'How publishing will work for you in the future.' - I'll buy a copy.
I'll tell you what, they've done us ain't they? Strike me down, no word of a lie, they've stitched us up good 'n' proper. We fought off them bleedin' Krauts during the war but these lot 'ave done us. When them Germans came up with their Arian supremacy bollocks, we give 'em stick, made 'em clear off back to their own manor. This new lot, I tell you what, it's stealth. The bastards snuck in, bosh bosh bosh! Stitched us up like kippers, it's all over.
Mark my words, it's all come on top. 2008, year of the brown baby, trust me. They infiltrated us haven't they. The cheeky buggers. In the 60's, started breeding with our birds didn't they. We didn't mind 'em havin' a few of the rougher ones! I mean that Gloria, rough as old boots. Who'd want her? Anyway, we was set up, 2008 Year of reading they told us. While half the bleedin' country's got their 'ed stuck in a book, one of 'ems scored hat-trick for the England footy. Well course, everybody loves 'em now. So next another one sticks it the Wops, don't he. He goes and wins that formula one thing, so they've got us all lovin' em. Before you know it, bosh! Another one's in the White House, he's got all them launch codes to them nuclear bombs, we're done for. I ain't racialist me, in fact I'm protected. When that Winston geezer put our Donna up the duff, I became family. Nah, you know what, I take me 'at off to 'em. Operation Melting pot, good luck to it.
The practical. Those with an eye on fortune and glory. They who dream of seeing '#1 Best Seller' adjacent to their name and title. Surely they have a plan. A carefully plotted method to achieve their goal. I said practical, didn't I? Agent; Publisher; Editor; edit; Editor; publish! Agent; Hollywood; producer; adaptation; Director; Movie. So right, by my reckoning we're gonna hit the big time in 2011/2012.
Who will guide, train us to write this work to make the public part with cash to learn of the contents of our imagination? Most of us will seek pattern from what has gone before and adapt to our own ends. The creative writing course does not speculate, it only serves to detail how it was done.
At this point, we, cease. There is only you (them) and I.
James Bond could not start in our times, let alone in 2012. It is tradition. With tradition come the fouler stench of racism and sexism. A superior white (English) man with superior technology and superior intellect trying to stop people (usually foreign) from taking over world. He must bed a bit of skirt or two on the way. Now is better to paint him a cheat, on the take from the government. Perhaps I should finally write the Mrs Bond chronicles. All the time in suburbia, with the three little Bonds. Finally she wonders why her husband has been going on 'fishing trips' for years but has yet to bring back a fish.
As all media merges into one, I gamble on the teachings of CRT, LCD and Plasma, my window to the world. Globalisation is upon us. Random House look to sell 1 billion copies of each book.
Let's take Desperate Housewives with its 150 million viewers and the creator signing an EIGHT figure deal – The man doesn't even write it! He's a runner. Forget Teri Hatcher, the writing, the acting, they were all contributory factors. Carlos and Gabrielle, the Hispanic protagonists. The expertly deployed, well timed, money shot. Successful Latino protagonists who were neither drug dealers nor maids and cleaners. Desperate Housewives didn't simply get translated into Spanish, it's remade in four different versions. 'Amas de Casa Desesperadas' is the toast of South America There's the Argentine version, another for Ecuador and Colombia with a Brazilian version for those speaking Portuguese. The Walt Disney company struck the mother-load. Gabrielle and Carlos were their heroes.
Did I say Heroes?
Another global bomb, representative of the target audience. A worldwide success, the cast represents more cultures than the Beijing Olympics. Each of the Heroes being a hero to their own cultural origin. Is it cynical? Hell yes! Is it successful? Undoubtedly! Will it apply to the literary world and best sellers in 2011/2012..... ?