The endless quest of a not-quite-writer and almost-musician to try and create something of worth in a fight against procrastination, cider and a never-ending merry go round of pets. Follow this to find out how not to finish anything you start.
I’ve written a lot of stuff about fathers and sons over the years - it’s the central theme of my most recent novel Gap Years - and I don’t think any of my books fail to mention that defining moment in life when you realise your father is not an all-powerful, omniscient creature.
Sorry Dad (if you’re reading) no idea why I keep harping on about it. Love you, and you are an all-powerful, omniscient creature as far as I’m concerned.
This week I experienced the other side of the equation for the first time.
I am only 42 years old and already becoming obsolete.
Record scratch - 'That's me, I guess you're wondering how I got here'
Without going into details, our bedroom ceiling desperately needed replastering and I am by no means a practical man. Despite this we reasoned we could save a few quid by pulling the old ceiling down ourselves - a decision both of us have since come to regret. It seemed a no-brainer to ask my firefighter stepson to help since he is both younger and fitter than me.
My initial misgivings were obvious. Despite the fact he has plenty of experience ripping out old plaster and lathe ceilings, as far as I know he has never before had to do it slowly, carefully and without anything being on fire. However, he and his girlfriend turned up, suited up and got stuck in with the crowbars.
Within not very much time at all, it became apparent he knew what he was doing a lot more than I did and I quickly deferred to him on most decisions that needed making (one of which should have been obvious, and had been pointed out to me for days by proper builder people before we began).
And then there was a lot of loft work, perching precariously on beams that clearly weren’t fit for purpose when they were put there over a century ago (which is probably why I need a new ceiling in the first place). My vertigo has led to me getting Adam to do stuff for me plenty of times before, but usually I point him at a thing then tell him what to do and how to do it. This time the situation quickly became reversed as it became apparent he knew how to get insulation out from underneath beams without ripping it to shreds or getting it in his eyes.
A more traditional, manlier man than I would have felt threatened.
Especially when he told me to stop if I was too hot and vertigo-ish.
If we were lions he would have taken me out back to a quiet bit of Serengeti and ripped my throat out before taking the pride for himself.
Look at the murder in his eyes - my days are limited
Luckily we are not lions, and I have never had any pride.
This is the first time he has been better than me at something I needed to do that isn’t going up a ladder. It didn’t take him long to be better than me at skate-boarding and putting out fires, but that never really mattered. This one felt important. I sat in the garden that night, looking up at the stars and contemplating my mortality.
The wheel of time keeps on turning, and nothing lasts forever. Not me, not you, not even Keith Richards. For sure as Windows 10 made us forget all about XP (what happened to 9? How bad was it?), One Direction made us forget all about the Beatles, new Melissa McCarthy Ghostbusters made us wonder who this Bill Murray guy is and Dan Brown eclipsed Dickens we will all be replaced by newer, more modern versions of ourselves that we - mistakenly - think are not as good right up until the moment it becomes glaringly obvious we are wrong.
It is now a truth universally acknowledged that anybody who does anything creative will get battered for expressing personal opinions online. We get told artists aren't supposed to have political views. Don't alienate your potential customers, stick to writing/singing/crochet/cheese-making. You know, like George Orwell, Peggy Seeger, Margaret Atwood and Chuck D. Well fuck that. I've always been a little to the right of Karl Marx and rarely ashamed to bleat on about it.
I used to spend a lot of time getting into arguments in pubs, on the internet and anywhere where there are people with opinions. My first really big blog post was on this very subject (it was the first time I realised people were actually reading what I was writing and had to start editing this shit properly).
But then social media exploded, and I got tired of the endless bickering, those who wanted to win rather than have an intelligent discussion, and I stopped calling it out. This anger fatigue (a bit like compassion fatigue, but slightly less cunty) made me decide to be more tolerant, even going so far as to tolerate the intolerant. However, it turns out just avoiding conflict has not made things better for anyone. Since I have been scrolling past and respecting other people's opinions Brexit, Trump and Farage all happened, and the 'free-speech' warriors (currently crying about a 16 year old autistic girl on a boat who says climate change is real) have taken over the discourse.
So fuck them. From now on I will not be turning a blind eye to the bullshit. Expect comments, links to Snopes and requests for your source material. There is no such thing as an alternative fact. I won't be engaging in endless back and forth that goes nowhere, so don't assume you have won just because I stop.
IT IS NOT ABOUT WINNING, IF YOU ARE RIGHT I WILL ADMIT IT, I HAVE NO HILL I WISH TO DIE ON - unless you don't like Billy Joel's 'Scenes From An Italian Restaurant,' in which case you clearly have no soul and we can't be friends.
I expect I will lose some friends, some followers and some fuckwits. But honestly, I don't know what else to do, there are some genuine differences of opinion which I will respect, but if your opinion is that some people are not as worthy as some other people simply because of their faith/race/sexuality/class/gender then I don't have to respect that and you are an arsehole.
Opinions that differ from mine that I will tolerate:
That you don't enjoy the same music as me (Billy Joel excepted).
That you don't like my books.
That you think I dress like an idiot.
That football is important.
That capitalism can still work (though expect some laughing).
That the Monarchy are worth every penny.
That it matters whether the jam or cream goes first on a scone.
That tea is not a meal, but a thing you do at about half four with cake.
That your god is real.
Things that I will no longer classify as 'just a different point of view':
Nigel Farage.
Nigel Farage popped round last night and wouldn't stop crying about not getting the Brexit he wanted. At least I think that's what he was on about - I was too busy waiting to see if he noticed that I'd served him up a glass of Beast Man's piss. pic.twitter.com/BKGKjlnEiP
That your god thinks the LGBTQI community are evil and subhuman.
That your god thinks you should inflict harm on anybody.
That racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/rape jokes are just 'banter'.
That trans-women go through all they do to perv on cis-women in toilets.
That Trump is not a lying, self-serving white supremacist.
That this country is being brought to its knees by immigration rather than tax-dodging, land-owning, grouse-shooting, xenophobic cunts.
That climate change is 'just a natural process, human activity has nothing to do with it.'
That your linked article from Spiked, The Canary or the Daily Mail has anything in it that isn't complete propagandist bullshit.
Nigel Bloody Farage.
That unborn babies have more right to life than foreign adults.
That the laws of economics are as unchangeable as the laws of physics.
Any clear shit-stirring post that involves poppys or people in shops disrespecting our 'brave armed forces' I've never seen one that's actually true - check Snopes.
That an advisory referendum result won by breaking electoral law and barefaced lies represents democracy and anyone questioning it is a traitor.
Any shared Facebook post that begins or ends with the words 'Share if you agree...' or 'Share if you remember...' IT'S A FUCKING CLICKFARM KAREN!
That vaccinations are bad.
That mentally ill people just need to pull themselves together.
Anything at all that mentions chemtrails, prehistoric aliens or a flat earth.
That my socks, bright green crocs and corduroy combination is not cool.
Nigel Bloody Fucking Cunty-Faced Farage.
(I have not mentioned the Hopkins woman out of respect for her family).
And that's pretty much all I can think of, there's probably more, please add to the list in the comments.
One thing I've noticed about getting older is that my pop-culture references are going out of date. My random shouts of, 'Monkey Tennis!' at trailers for new TV shows, or, 'It wasn't me that done it, Mr Hoppy!' in a geordie-esque accent are often met with blank stares anwyay. But most people used to at least chuckle a bit at 'Thats you that is,' 'You're so unfair,' or 'Am I bovvered though?'
I turn 42 this week and the number of people who understand why I have titled a blog about it 'Life, The Universe and Everything' is dwindling. Soon I will just be a strange old man screaming 'That's Numberwang!' at strangers who look as bemused as I did at 'Here's a funny thing, there'll never be another,' or my kids do at 'I didn't get where I am today by...'
The reason I haven't written a blog in a long time is not because I've been working hard on my next book (I totally have though) but because I haven't had an idea that stretches to more than a paragraph. What follows is a list of disconnected random musings, some of which are funny, and some of which will make you wonder what the fuck is wrong with me.
I have worn Converse All Star (or cheap copies of) for the best part of thirty years, and just this year realised they are not comfortable. They are too thin for my massively wide feet. Reasoning that anything Grayson Perry can pull off, I can too, I bought a pair of Crocs, due to their reputation for comfort. It turns out that comfort only applies if wearing socks, and not walking far. I quickly lost the skin from the tops of my feet walking up and down the road to the day job and am in need of footwear recommendations for those times between big warm boots and flip flops.
Downsizing is a popular thing which I am all in favour of. I've recently sold off a few unneeded guitars, I'm still trying to sell off my massive comic collection (do please message me for details) and most of my read books go to charity shops. I do most of my reading on a kindle and mostly listen to mp3 downloads anyway. Spotify is alright, but it's as morally-grounded as strangling puppies for pleasure and what happens if the whole streaming business model dies? No music for you.
I would get rid of all my actual books and big slab of vinyl but for fear of the apocalypse. When I'm living in the burned out remains of my shed after the meteorite/ice age/zombie uprising/nuclear armageddon, I will stand a much better chance of rigging up a rudimentary way of getting a turntable and amplifier to work than desperately attempting to reverse the effects of a world-ending EMP burst on my kindle, laptop and mp3 player.
So my excuse for having so much stuff is to prevent boredom as I wait for radiation poisoning to kick in.
I have discovered face-blindness, and it's a thing I probably have. I don't recognise anybody I've met less than five times, never have and never will.
I did worry I was racist, as 'they' do all look the same to me. The trouble is, 'they' are Keeley Hawes, Suranne Jones and Eva Green (see also: Colin Farrell, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp). I'm not sure I even recognise my family by their faces and have a shrewd idea the only reason I wear hats all the time is so I can pick my own reflection out of a line up.
My cousin Tea covers the subject of Prosopagnosia really quite well in her book 'A Curiosity of Doubts' which I recommend to everybody.
I've always considered 'do as you would be done by' a sensible rule for life; treat others as you would wish to be treated. But then I watched a documentary on Channel 5 about people who like having their genitals nailed to planks and now I'm not so sure.
I am uncomfortable using a mobile phone in public, and have only just realised why. It is not for fear of it being stolen, or appearing rude. It is because I grew up in an era when the only people who owned mobile phones were the worst kind of show-off pricks you could imagine and subconciously do not want to be associated with them.
My endless banging on about gender as a social construct has reached its natural conclusion. I've decided we are all born non-binary, poly-amorous and bi-sexual before social-conditioning takes over. We are taught that boys will be boys, girls will be girls, and those who aren't paying attention will be forever uncomfortable/beaten up on buses. Society has done its thing with me and I am now Neterosexual (only attracted to Netty - that's my wife in case you didn't know.)
I have finally accepted a book is now worth 99p. Less than a packet of Rizla papers, less than fifteen minutes' parking in Brighton.
Sometimes I worry that it's rude to charge people at all to read something that cost years of my life and a tiny piece of my soul.
Marketing said piece of soul means I have to spend a lot of time pretending to be interesting on Social Media. Usually by driving somewhere pretty and taking a photo of my dog (I keep her locked in darkness under the stairs the rest of the time, I do not like her, she is a marketing tool and only allowed out for photo ops. Don't ask about the cats.)
I could give the world a truthful insight into my life, but if I were to tweet, 'Just made it to season 5 of Brooklyn 99 on Netflix, still mainlining Pringles, lol,' four times a day it would not sell books/interest anybody. Neither would my drafted blog, 'Might have another biscuit before I start season 3 of Santa Clarita Diet.'
Why is it that any time I have a quick five minutes to watch the news it is always either sports or business news? Where is the pottery news? Wherefore the D&D stats? Why no books and music news on the every-half-hour BBC Breakfast cycle? Why aren't my (alright, I only do 50% of those things) hobbies represented like my brother's are?
This is just like being eight years old again.
British culture is an indefinable thing. Ask four different white men from Surrey what they think of the Chelsea back four and you could end up talking about plants, football, buns or asking what the fuck sort of a name Binky is.
Two of the biggest problems I endlessly argue with idiots about are due to poor use of language. Firstly, we let climate change be spoken of in terms of 'The Environment' as if it is something separate from us; and saving the planet, rather than the human race. If the words 'Human Extinction' had been used more widely forty years ago we might have done something about it by now.
Secondly, we let people use the term offended to mean crying in the corner, rather than not wanting to be complicit in structural bigotry perpetuated by tiny, tiny incremental bits of awful forcing us to call out bad things. It's the exact opposite of being a delicate snowflake so stop getting so offended at any suggestion that the status quo is shit.
I was told I would get more right-wing with age, this was bullshit.
It is the year 2019 and still people are looking around to check who is in the room before saying to me 'Do you want to hear a joke?'
No, I don't want to be in your clearly-about-to-tell-a-racist/sexist/homophobic/cunty-joke club.
It is 2019, what the fuck is wrong with you?
The only similarity between Boris Johnson and Donald Trump is a shit haircut. One of them is a very clever man hiding his agenda behind a facade of bumbling idiocy and the other is a very stupid man desperate for people to believe he is a 'very stable genius'.
Why are the only two songs I can think of with the mightiest of Anarchic sentiment (Do Anything You Wanna Do) both such fucking boring middle-of-the-road Dad rock? I mean come on...
So Happy Birthday to me - I'm playing with my band Jealousy and the Cat in the Beaver Inn, Appledore on the night (Saturday, June 15th) do come and see us*.
*warning - may contain middle-of-the-road Dad** rock.
**speaking of Dads, it is Father's Day this Sunday, and your kids won't have bought you my very funny book about Father-Son relationships, Gap Years, so I've put it on a 99p special offer until from the 13th to the 20th of June, you're welcome.
The worst advice my father ever gave me
was: 'If you don't know the answer, make something up and say it
authoritatively enough that nobody questions you.' I think he meant
it as a joke, but one of my friends once told me that while I would
undoubtedly be useful as a phone a friend on Who Wants to be a
Millionaire he would never use me because he would 100% believe my
made-up bullshitty answer. I can't blame him.
This, conscious or unconscious,
self-assured bullshitting is rife, in a certain kind of person. I
recently ran into a vague acquaintance in the street (late 60s,
well-off, male, white) who asked me about my dog. He said:
'Is that a Husky?' (I get that a lot)
and before I'd had time to get my answer out, he added, 'it's
definitely got some Husky in it though, am I right?'
I quickly interjected, 'No, she's an
Alaskan Malamute.'
At which the chap said, 'Oh yes, I’ve
seen them before, they've definitely got Husky in them, yes.' Before
going on to criticise the anti-Brexit demonstration that was
happening across the road, telling me he was going to go and explain
democracy to them. 'We had a vote already, they lost.' At this point,
I started to think I was being mansplained to. Clearly I know more
about my dog than this person who has just met her. But I am also a
man – albeit a fairly girly one. Perhaps, given his ruddy
complexion, I was being hamsplained to?
I
am fairly sure that democracy is not handing supreme power to a
government
with
no mandate and branding those who do not agree as traitors
I politely smiled and made my excuses to
leave. There are some people I have no time to argue with, not even
to explain the Alaskan Malamute is a separate breed to the Husky -
well known for its pig-headed stubbornness - and actually much older,
so if anything the far-better-known Husky has probably got some
Malamute in it. And I am so tired of arguing about illegal votes
carried out on misleading information I now have an 'agree with both
sides' policy in public.
Old-fashioned British privilege is still
alive and well as evidenced by the dramatic drop in kids studying
languages at school on the news the other week. Everybody speaks
English right? ‘Dos Cervezas por favor Manuel’ is all the foreign
any of us need to know, and not even that, you can point at the San
Miguel pump and wave your fingers at the barman. Though it is more
fun to sing Dos Cervezas por favor to the tune of Queen’s ‘Las
Palabras De Amor’ at any given opportunity. Couple this alongside
the bluster and bluff of many of us refusing to admit we're wrong and
you can see what led to a lot of the problems with the world today.
The much-criticised White Male Privilege, and the toxic masculinity
that surrounds it. It's not easy being ham. Although, in fact, it
quite clearly is easy, but you could be forgiven for thinking it
wasn't given how much of the stuff we chaps take for granted as
god-given rights needs to be split up, broken down and just chucked
in the bin.
Hot
Space is Queen’s best album and I will fight anyone who says
different
I'm guilty of it myself, as I said
earlier, my dad told me to do it. It's the attitude that still leads
me, when asked if I've heard a new band, to declare that I either
love or hate them, based on an immediate judgement of their name, or,
in best-case scenario, say 'I think I know the name,' rather than
admit I haven't got a fucking clue who they are. I am gammon, hear me
boil.
Conversely, I have plenty of friends who
are happy to admit gaps in their knowledge. Not many of them went to
the same public school I did though. Most of them are nice, normal,
working class people, the type I work with. I tell them things, and
they listen, and believe whatever I tell them, because I am a bit
posher, and therefore must be deferred to. This might be an
oversimplification of a complex situation, but I've noticed it over
the years. My accent gives me undeserved gravitas. I have been known
to use this power for evil, filling people's heads with
misinformation and lies.
It
might not just be me that sounds more knowledgeable than I am
Please
learn to back down gracefully instead of arguing yourself into
corners
People of the UK, we have a class
problem. You knew that already though, right?
I noticed it quite prominently at
breakfast in a Premier Inn last month. The seemingly random way those
coming down for food were placed at empty tables slowly began to take
on a pattern. The nice bit, over by the windows, with large tables,
nicely spaced out, was filled with elderly couples – men in pink
trousers explaining the correct way to boil eggs to women with
massive handmade scarves – whereas the very close together tables
near the coffee machines were populated with tracksuits,
phone-starers and feral children. On my second morning there I began
to think I should get a nice haircut and put a suit on to enjoy my
breakfast in peace - because, at heart, I am a fucking snob, alright?
This isn’t just going on at discount
all-you-can-eat breakfasts. It's pervasive and it always has been.
The culture we consume is filled with a certain kind of person from a
certain kind of background who is very good at lying when they don’t
know the answer.
I
know she wasn’t an editor with a flat in Bloomsbury
But
you know what I mean
We're too soon into a post #MeToo world
to see the knock-on effect in fiction (publishing timelines are
unavoidably long)* but I suspect, if anything, it will lead to yet
more feisty middle-class girls from Hampshire being motivationally
bummed in cute knitted hats. I realise that the reason for the nice,
quiet, bookish, middle-class girl heroine is because more books are
bought and read by nice, quiet, bookish middle-class girls than any
other group (I have no evidence other than my Twitter timeline for
this outlandish claim). Representation is nice, it is good to see
yourself in the stories you read. But, and just think about this,
what if the reason the working-class council estate kids aren't
reading books is because all available books portray them either
stabbing, being stabbed, breaking up marriages in grubby, doomed
affairs with the handsome but flawed husband, or being aided by the
middle-class saviour to become another fucking media twat.
Is there a place for a story of a kid
from a working class home, on a council estate, who doesn't actually
see anything wrong with where he or she's from and isn't yearning to
escape? Girls who can go on to do something important without being
non-consensually bummed into it?
We have a problem with the working class
in this country, mostly that we are eroding low-skilled employment to
nothing and ensuring the creative industries don't pay enough at
entry level to be anything other than a hobby for the already well
off. If this continues we will never see anything other than the same
old tired literary fantasies of 'University Lecturer works out his
mid-life crisis by fucking a mentally unstable student,' and its
mirror 'Woman who was abused by her college professor goes through
emotional turmoil before finding new love with a younger, slightly
less-rapey University Lecturer.'
*correction - I’m too far behind in my
reading of new releases to have any idea if this statement is true,
please correct me, I want to be wrong.
Unless you've had me
muted for the last month (which is entirely possible) then you'll
know my new book just completed a blog
tour (follow the link for an explanation if you don't know what that
is). I'm quite pleased with how it all came out, and, while I
promise I am working on new blogs, today I'm just posting links to
all the promotional content I created to promote Gap Years.
First
up, two small guest posts I wish I had kept for myself as they are
possibly two of the best things I have ever written.
This is some of the
best Londoner-baiting I have ever done (and I have form) about the
mystery of London-based fiction and its dominance in literature.
Hosted by The Magic Of Wor(l)ds.
Not-London is a
strange place, a place for people to be from – striving through
their young lives to get to the bright lights of London town; or a
place to go and hide, to get away from the stresses and strains of
the high-powered lives they lead in the capital. It is peopled by
those who have failed, those who are resigned to lead lives of no
meaning and quirky, menacing characters that will derail the hero’s
quest. A place for young, go-getting, couples to relocate to before
being terrorised by ungrateful locals.
Then a short
dissertation on pigeonholing your work into easily marketable
categories and why it's impossible. Hosted by Splashes Into Books.
Musicians will
invariably try and invent their own genre, claiming nobody else
sounds like them; describing it as
electro-swing-glitchhop-disco-gypsy-funk-prog, and actually sounding
a bit like somebody playing Pink Floyd guitar solos over an Orbital
album while an asthmatic didgeridoo player hacks up a lung. Artists
will refuse to be drawn into even the most modernist of niche, while
authors, not allowed the luxury of making stuff up, because
marketing, will sigh and call it Literary Fiction.
If
you live in a rented family-sized house with a high turnover of
tenants, then digging a hole in the garden
involves a game of rabbit roulette. There's always the fear of coming
across something already buried there.
‘Oh how
exciting,’ she says. ‘Nobody’s ever sung me a Tom Hopkins song
before.’
Tom fucking Hopkins! Really? Tom fucking Hopkins? The twelve
year old that won that TV show last year, that Tom Hopkins?
Housewives’ favourite Tom Hopkins? Christmas number one Tom
Hopkins? Toddler’s birthday party disco Tom Hopkins? The one even
Melody thinks is for kids? Fuck my life.
It’s all so
different from when I was his age. When I was a kid round here being
gay wasn’t even an option, unless you wanted a swift kick in the
head and a trip into the river. It’s good that he has options I
didn’t. I admit I have trouble with it, but I mean well, I am a
product of my upbringing. I grew up in Devon in the 1970s, where
diversity was something to do with crop rotation.
It is not
funny. It turns out that Leanne is a sex blogger. A very successful
one by all accounts, shared constantly by people laughing at the
idiots she goes out with all over social media. I have read it before
and laughed, but didn’t make the connection, there are no pictures
of her and she uses a pseudonym. I am now at the top of page one,
with more likes and shares than any before.
‘Nice.’
Rhiannon appears at the door in a dressing gown, grinning from ear to
ear.
I stop singing
immediately, frozen mid-Jagger.
‘Didn’t know
you were home,’ I say, sheepishly, face matching the wine in my
glass.
‘Evidently.
Show me your moves then.’ She sashays on to the rug and strikes a
pose as the opening riff of ‘Happy’ kicks in – because this is
the 21st century and we don’t have to go and fumble about in
the sleeve for disc two.
And finally the
reason I sent it on tour, the reviews, unanimously good and providing
me with lots of juicy marketing quotes – left here for you if you
can't be arsed to click the links.
I adored the
writing style which easily created all of these situations with much
realism, and brilliant humour. I have smiled and chuckled throughout
the story, at both the writers wit and the scenarios that happened.
This coming of
age story is also driven by emotionally complex and psychological
aspects. It’s a contemporary read with an honest approach to a
messy family dilemma.
Gap Years has one
of the strangest starts to a book that I have read in a long time.
After just the first page, I was completely drawn in to Dave
Holwill’s unique writing style.
It’s
oddly beautiful how Holwill portrays the family as they attempt to
piece their lives back together. The novel is
impeccably diverse and inclusive, while never once stepping into the
realm of bigotry. If you like books that will make you feel
something, and where you can relate to the characters, I highly
recommend this
book. http://www.vainradical.co.uk/blogs/gap-years-blog-tour-review/
The author does a
magnificent job of showing the pressures and problems that beset the
ordinary people up and down the country in the modern age and every
reader will find something to relate to in this story. It is unusual
to see male relationships portrayed so honestly and accurately, and I
felt really moved by it.
All the
characters were endearingly quirky train wrecks and profanely
talented in the use of creative expletives. I am enamored with the
talented scribbler Dave Holwill and unrepentantly covet his peculiar
characters, clever wordplay, and highly original vulgarities. He has
mad skills.
It’s that
diversity which makes it so enjoyable to read, it is so unpredictable
and with Dave’s acerbic tongue it is gritty and honest., this book
is everything and more a coming of age story should be
The writing
sweeps you along through the chaos and is immensely entertaining. A
quirky, absorbing read. This is another sharply satirical novel from
this author about false expectations and the sub-optimal lot of
humankind.
A compelling,
gritty, realistic and absorbing read about family, connections,
relationships, adulthood, building bonds, and new beginnings. The
Characters are relatable, complex, endearing and definitely made an
impact. It had plenty of drama, wit, emotion, angst, making it an
entertaining read that I highly recommend.
With beautiful
writing and dark comedy, this is a quirky novel that I highly
recommend giving a shot. Dave Holwill’s writing will draw you in
and the characters will see you through to the end.
The story is
gritty, realistic and believable and that is what gives it an added
edge, a very well written and enjoyable story about the ups and downs
of relationships – highly recommended!
No, not Christmas,
and no, not going back to work yesterday morning. Neither of those
are really my bag, baby. I'm talking about New Year. I'm fairly sure
I've written about it before, but I can't be arsed to hunt through
old blog entries to look it up so if this is identical, then I'm
sorry you noticed, but grateful you've stuck at reading this blog for
so long.
Bear with me, I'm
not a total Grinch, I love New Year for the same reasons most people
love Christmas – being with the people you love, in a place that
makes you happy and forgetting all the everyday worries and bullshit.
And I do enjoy Christmas, even though I disagree with an awful lot of
its mandatory activities.
But…
New Year has no
obligations, no bill to foot other than the next round of drinks and
a funny hat. People don't come and force gifts upon you unasked for,
you can easily decline a drink without fear of offence (I never
would, have no fear). As opposed to Christmas, which if you dislike
its environmental nightmare implications will get you labelled a
killjoy. A fact I have once again learned the hard way.
This year, I posted
a note on facebook – with a link to a study showing how uselesspresents are sinking the world into an unending landfill of plasticarmageddon (as we all drown at the bottom I like to think a
well-meaning auntie will have bought me a singing plastic money box
as an end of the world present, having learned nothing) –
explaining that I did not want any gifts, nothing, nada. I know what
people are like though, I know they think I'm lying, and that they
believe you can only show people how much you love them by
bankrupting yourself buying novelty bottle openers. So I made a list,
like a five year old might. Booze, fags and guitar strings – so not
exactly like a five year old. But things I can use, things that I
enjoy, things that will make my life a little bit better. I even
specified which kind, in order to avoid my usual sideways look and
'Thank you,' that shows what a terrible liar I am as the
disappointment spreads over my face.
A
lot like this face, but a little less green
Many people liked
the post, some of them shared it, these very same people then came
over, at Christmas, and had the barefaced cheek to give me things I
can neither drink, smoke, nor play Van Halen riffs on. I am naming no
names, and I love you all dearly, and I am sorry for being an
ungrateful shit. But I should not be made to feel like this. I am
happy to buy gifts for people who want gifts, I am happy to get your
children something that makes a dreadful noise or an awful mess and
puts a massive smile on their faces, I will not deny you your
Christmas. But I will love you all the more if you fucking listen to
me for once.
The whole thing is
an ecological disaster, from the unrecyclable cards and wrapping
paper, (a well-meaning right-on friend posted a complaint about the
brown paper they had ordered for greener Christmas presents turning
up in plastic wrapping. I would have liked to see the post
complaining about the paper mache delivery had it been raining that
day, and had to bite my tongue over the irony of having your brown
paper delivered by petrol guzzling vans and trains in order to save
the world a very small amount, and yourself a walk to the post
office.) to the truckloads of uneaten food and the endless sea of
plastic novelty bullshit.
Congratulations,
this is where all your overspending ends up
I realise the irony
of my situation is that my day job is very much in the production of
novelty shit that people buy for Christmas, and if everybody took my
advice then I would be out of a job. But I am prepared to take that
hit, if it will help save the planet. In the same way that I would
eat nothing but plant-based food stuffs if there was a unified
movement to stop the destruction of the earth by ending intensive
industrialised livestock farming. (Full disclosure, I am not a vegan,
I do very much enjoy their tasty foods though and refuse to use the
phrase Flexitarian on the grounds of not being a pretentious
wankbiscuit. However, I worry that as the world burns and the last
humans are dying they will justify their choices by crying, 'But the
cheese tasted weird! The cheese!' Also, though I have not done any
serious research on whether the world turning vegan would help, I do
get the feeling that swapping fields fill of oxygen-guzzling,
methane-blasting cancer-inducing, colon-clogging meaty beasts for
fields of carbon-dioxide-neutralising, oxygen-producing,
nutrient-filled, bowel-emptying plants might help a bit.)
So how do I justify
my New Year love? Easy, it's just booze, all in lovely recyclable
glass and aluminium (please ignore the plastic bottled mixers and
crisp bags) and I have never been to an NYE party where the leftover
food hasn't been hosed up by the 4am munchies. Food that you don't
have to sit around the table for a hundred years to eat while your
weird Auntie Linda tells you how much you've grown and strokes your
knee innapropriately. We're all standing, if you're bored you can
shout, 'Oh my god, this is my jam!' and run off to the kitchen
dancefloor, or head out on the town for a previously undisclosed
prior engagement (hint for newbies, never throw the party yourself,
you will have no out).
And do go out, make
sure you are standing in the midwinter cold, holding a sticky drink
you have secretly removed from the pub in your coat underneath a
large clock – preferably attached to a church or similar public
building as it strikes midnight (interestingly our local church clock
did not bong at midnight, but I did hear it ring out quarter to four
as I staggered back up the hill to my house). Kiss the people nearest
you, whether you know them or not (please ensure the life-partner of
your choice is first, otherwise your year will be off to a very bad
start) spread a little magic, cross your arms and sing Auld Lang Syne
(in minion if you don't know the words, like pretty much everybody in
the world) spill that drink, light a naughty cigarette and march off
to the after party, there will be leftover food to hoover up and
drinks to minesweep. You can worry about everything else next year,
but until you go to bed, the world is a little bit more magic, a
little less wasteful, and entirely done by choice. You live in the same town as your friends and neighbours because you all love it, share that love for once.
However, you can
stay home if you like, I won't judge you, like you do me when I don't
want to do your secret fucking santa.
There is a palpable
reason for this celebration, the world has completed one more full
orbit around the sun, well done, I'll drink to that. I'm sure Jesus
was a nice guy, but we can't celebrate every nice guy's birthday –
on completely the wrong date – for thousands of years after they've
died, we'd never be sober again.
I
had no idea my dog had been out modelling for children's books
The big news this
Christmas is that I finally finished the book I told myself I wasn't
good enough to write. It's coming out in February with massed
fanfares and another top notch blog tour care of Rachels
Random Resources (doing the hard work so I don't have to). It is
calledGap Years and writing it has been like pulling my own
fingernails out with my teeth.
I tried to start
writing this dual first person narrative after I finished Weekend
Rockstars four years ago
before quickly
discovering
it was much harder to pull together than I had first envisaged and
abandoning it to write a funny story about a grandmother on a
murderous rampage. Which
was much easier and has done quite nicely thanks. About halfway
through writing The
Craft Room, however, I
realised I could write the two halves separately and glue them
together later. A decision I would learn to regret, but here we are,
two years later at the end of the journey and on the eve of
publication.
Here's the (still
open to change) blurb:-
19
year old Sean hasn't seen his father since he was twelve. His mother
has never really told him why. An argument with her leads to him
moving to the other side of the country to live with him.
The
one thing they have in common is the friendship of a girl called
Rhiannon.
Over
the course of one summer Sean experiences sexual awakenings from all
angles, discovers the fleeting nature of friendship and learns to
cope with rejection.
Meanwhile
his father, Martin, struggles to reconnect with Sean while trying
delicately to turn down the increasingly inappropriate advances of a
girl he sees as a surrogate daughter and keep a struggling marriage
alive.
Gap
Years is an exploration of what it means to be a man in the 21st
Century, trying to reject the social conditioning of the past and
embrace a tolerant vision of the future from two very different
perspectives – neatly hidden inside a funny story about bicycles,
guitars and unrequited love.
If
any of my beta readers are reading this and think I need to change
it, do get hold of me, there is still time.
The
reason it has taken so much longer to write than intended was because
of the damn characters not doing what they were told. During a radio
interview (with the lovely Chee
off of Phonic FM) for the launch of The
Craft Room what feels like a
hundred years ago, I explained how Rhiannon, the female lead of the
novel, had made me rewrite
her completely as she turned
out to be more manipulative than I originally thought.
She then revealed herself to be even
more complex than that, requiring
at least four complete rewrites,
and I began to despair of ever finishing the book.
Once
I had got
to grips with her, I realised I needed
to cut a 30000 word subplot and replace it with something more
interlocking in order to tie it all together. And even after all that
there was still something wrong
that I couldn't put my finger
on. Off it went to my aunt,
who is the best editor I know, in hopes of a reply of heaped praise,
as I wanted it done, over with, out in the world. She pointed out
that my ending had become a massive Deus Ex Machina
after all the changes I had wrought since first committing
it to .odt file.That
was the thing, finally a
finger had been put on it,so
off I went to
rewrite the ending, again.
It
is now the
book I wanted it to be when I first imagined it on a cold morning
when I was supposed to be working on my first novel – Weekend
Rockstars. Well, it isn't,
it's completely different, like they always are, but it works. The
characters are doing what they should, and what they want to and it
feels right now. I'll leave it up to the readers to decide if it was
worth all the pain.
There
is, however, one scene that has been a sticking point among everybody
that has helped me along the way. There's no point trying to be coy
about it, there is a very graphic sex scene between two men in there.
Half my readers told me it was a good thing, and to leave it in,
while half of them said exactly the opposite, that it was
cringeworthy and awful and needed to go. I've heavily edited it to be
less smutty and slightly more tasteful and it is no worse than the
heterosexual sex scenes that occur later and upset nobody. I felt
that representation was more important than offending any
heteronormative sensibilities though, so it stayed, for better or
worse.
Because
representation is important.
Diverse
in species, but not really in character, when you get down to it
There is a lot of
noise about representation these days. As a writer it is at the
forefront of the zeitgeist, and there are very angry people on both
sides. Go, join in on Twitter if you don't believe me. As a white,
cis-gendered male, 40-something writer it is more important than ever
to keep abreast of it.
At Christmas time, I
am very well represented in the popular culture of the season. I am
always well-represented in pop-culture, I can identify with Kay
Harker from the Box of Delights, Bob Cratchett and Moley – even
Arnie as he Jingles All The Way to buy Anakin Skywalker a cheap Iron
Man knockoff. I may not be from their time, their country, or even
their species, but they are written from a familiar perspective. I
feel at home with them in their awkward, very familiar feeling
worlds. I would, at this point, like to reel off a list of well-loved
BAME, female-centred, gay and trans characters that I don't identify
with, but thanks to the way our world is set up, I've never been
forced to watch/read/listen to them and thus can't bring them to
mind.
And that's the
point. Had I not been able to identify with the characters in my
childhood fiction, I would probably never have been inspired to
create my own worlds, would not have felt so happy. I was an awkward,
weird kid who felt happier in the company of fictional friends than
real ones. What if I had not been able to see myself in them? What if
they had all been from a completely unfamiliar world? The kids from
Narnia and the Magic Faraway Tree may have been from a different
time, but they felt like they could have existed in 1980s Guildford.
Like the other children I met at Sunday School, in a world that was
soon to disappear in a blur of technology and atheism.
And so, when
creating new worlds and new civilisations, every type of people need
to be visible. Gene Rodenberry knew that when he made Star Trek;
Uhuru, Sulu and Chekov were ground-breaking. I don't think we're
going backwards just yet, quite the opposite, but it's very easy to
think the work has been done and get lazy.
Being from the
background I am, I am un-uniquely unqualified to write the stories of
BAME and LGBTQI communities, but that doesn't mean I can't ensure
that my background characters reflect them and it doesn't mean that I
can fail to deal with them entirely in my story lines. In Gap
Years, the two main characters
are dealing with changing attitudes in an ever more progressive world
from two very different points of view. Sean, as a 19 year old, has
no problems accepting all kinds of diverse and differing types of
people, while his 50-something year old father, Martin, has to work
harder to check his inbuilt prejudice.
I
can write from the perspective of straight white men in Devon,
easily, I am a straight white man in Devon. Ironically
I recently read a book set in Devon that felt a lot like it had been
written by someone who had never even visited, some major
geographical mistakes were made, along with the kind of
misunderstandings
about rural public
transport that can
only be assumed by a city-dweller. I
would feel uncomfortable writing from the perspective of a
trans-woman struggling in Uganda though.
Not because I find the subject matter uncomfortable, but because it
is not my experience. I can empathise, I can try to understand, but I
can't really write that story. It doesn't mean that my straight,
white Devon men can't encounter a Ugandan trans-woman in their
travels (spoiler: they don't) and my background cast is as diverse as
the story (and my as yet
undiscovered built in privelige and prejudice)
allows.
It
certainly doesn't mean that I can't write a couple of gay scenes and
trans characters. But it does mean that I need to run it past my
friends and relatives with real world experience to make sure it
reflects the realities of their life – which I very much did. The
most important thing to do as a writer (and we all know this) is to
do the research, make sure it will ring true, not only does it make
you a better writer, but it also makes you a more sympathetic human
being, and that can only be a good thing.
