Ideas can come from anywhere. If you don’t think they will they wont. But ideas, like women (or men dressed as women), will not be stalked. You cannot corner them and pin them against the wall. You cannot clip them with shot like a scuffle of game; wing them and pounce upon their injured, glistening, half-naked bodies. No, the ideal idea receiving state is called the ‘Bus stop modular sub-psychosemantic- elfhouse5’. It is all about simplicity. Pull up a chaise and grab your note book and learn:
You wait, metaphorically, for a bus that was never scheduled. You wait in silence, still as a city of tombs. As no buses run on this route it would be perfectly imaginable that no bus will arrive; but wait, wait, don’t divert from the purpose; don’t be tempted down blind alleys or retire to drinking and/or whoring establishments. Make yourself amenable to the possibility of a bus appearing like a dream; like the idea cavalry relieving your last stand (bus stand). Oh, what is this you spy? The number 60b, its destination: where you are going. Where is that? Who knows? Patience blog-fiend-friend.
I have used this technique staunchly and with the tenacity of a warrior-terrier closing in for lunch for some years now. It has borne fruit, though the fruit has been bruised, soft and unfit for consumption. Because when the bus arrives it is the mad bus, the bus with nothing but nutters on it, including the devilishly laughing driver.
I wake up from disturbing dreams. I sleep rough at the bus stop with no buses. And groundhog-like: the same mad fucking bus with the same but different mad fucking passengers. Shoot me now; shoot to kill.
Wednesday 30 June 2010
Tuesday 29 June 2010
I had an idea this morning but forgot it. I had a small ceremony in the garden, burying the idea. I gave it a solemn send-off showing how much I care: I don’t, though, ask anyone who knows me. Ha, you can’t, nobody knows me, I have been keeping myself a secret. That’s why it is best to forget the ideas that ship from Idealand. Post them straight back, return to sender. Yes, the idea I forgot was not forgotten without a huge effort on my part; the ceremony was an attempt to ritually pass on from the aching annoyance of yet another idea that will never go anywhere.
The idea would merely have toyed with me beat sore my fingertips as they enthusiastically bashed out internal imagery into recognisable shapes that form lines of meaning. Then with furrows on the page, on my fingertips and on my brow; a slow realisation: ideas are not enough. Ideas are cries from the elemental collective unconscious, calling for better; calling for evolution, screaming: ‘this is not good enough! Open a better path out of the forest?’
My idea, if indeed it was mine, was a deformed seed. A grass-like thing meant to help fill a summer field with the raw material of sustenance. But this seed has other ideas; genetically superior notions. This seed is a transformer sent to change the course of Mankind. Except, in negotiating the laws of chance it has travelled way off target. Unable to fathom that it is so much in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Damn the idea has come back to me. I must go and dig it up out of the garden and cremate it.
The idea would merely have toyed with me beat sore my fingertips as they enthusiastically bashed out internal imagery into recognisable shapes that form lines of meaning. Then with furrows on the page, on my fingertips and on my brow; a slow realisation: ideas are not enough. Ideas are cries from the elemental collective unconscious, calling for better; calling for evolution, screaming: ‘this is not good enough! Open a better path out of the forest?’
My idea, if indeed it was mine, was a deformed seed. A grass-like thing meant to help fill a summer field with the raw material of sustenance. But this seed has other ideas; genetically superior notions. This seed is a transformer sent to change the course of Mankind. Except, in negotiating the laws of chance it has travelled way off target. Unable to fathom that it is so much in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Damn the idea has come back to me. I must go and dig it up out of the garden and cremate it.
Wednesday 23 June 2010
Dreams
Last night I dreamed I was asleep. At the end of the dream I woke up, went to wrestle huge vaginas in Swaziland and then had another dream. Tonight I am hoping to dream I am awake. I also hope the vagina wrestling venue is in Switzerland.
Thought of the Day
And then, in the lull, the winds change. Warm fire laps encouraginly around my ankles. Daggers made of stuff that makes iron look flimsy strike out from my core and blood broils out in vast red-water rapids. And all this without breaking wind; wind is precious, don't break it, wait for the forces of nature to carry you aloft.
Mad Ideas 3:
An Eastern European couple book a two week holiday over the Internet. The destination is the delightful Happy Inn at Membleton Services. The holiday is spoilt by the high prices and lack of quality of the cuisine. The only food of any worth they could get at their branch of the chain in Oskcovorad. They are impressed by the industrious nature of the British, whizzing here and there and making no complaint at the terrible standard of food and the rip-off standard of billing.
There is more to this mad idea but I am not sure I can be bothered.
There is more to this mad idea but I am not sure I can be bothered.
Monday 21 June 2010
Mad Ideas 2:
Don’t ask me where this came from; it dropped out of the Idea Tree and glanced off my peach-like, pineapple-like head, nearly making my ear cauliflower-shaped. The story, if it had legs, would be set in a hotel run by terrorists. But these are not your every day terrorists, oh no, they belong to an organisation called Make War Subtle. The movement, a cobbling together of retired warriors and serving artists, advocate peaceful terror. Fighting by means of minor aggravation; water drip, drip, dripping can forge great canyons.
I could not be bothered to think of the filling for the sandwich.
But the end piece of bread is buttered by the fact that the ‘team’ who specialised in appalling service, dog-grade cuisine and manners to sicken the most insensitive of guests had not been informed of British customs and standards. The aggravation was turned on the would-be perpetrators when Shellhampton Council awarded them the Golden Promenade Award for most popular hotel. Insulted beyond repair they opened up a restaurant: ArabAnglo Fusion: the food was great but unappreciated.
I could not be bothered to think of the filling for the sandwich.
But the end piece of bread is buttered by the fact that the ‘team’ who specialised in appalling service, dog-grade cuisine and manners to sicken the most insensitive of guests had not been informed of British customs and standards. The aggravation was turned on the would-be perpetrators when Shellhampton Council awarded them the Golden Promenade Award for most popular hotel. Insulted beyond repair they opened up a restaurant: ArabAnglo Fusion: the food was great but unappreciated.
Saturday 19 June 2010
Blongo
My, my, what have we here, another clipette?
This is from a tale about a confused person who escapes a hospital bed but cannot escape the hospital.
The smell of dinner, a Brussels sprout-like odour, was my prearranged signal. Welcome to the ‘in-the-moment zone’: the only mind-place you can make consistent and correct decisions from. Until that moment you know nothing. But I was not surprised by my actions. The faithful staple of all bipeds the ‘amble’ took me under the noses of my persecutors; the ‘trundle’ took me away, until I was safe to make the transition to a slow, ‘western Asian quarter-skip’. Then I was free, on my own, in the vast, life consuming hospital.
Wow, what's going to happen next?--the tension is vile and uppity
This is from a tale about a confused person who escapes a hospital bed but cannot escape the hospital.
The smell of dinner, a Brussels sprout-like odour, was my prearranged signal. Welcome to the ‘in-the-moment zone’: the only mind-place you can make consistent and correct decisions from. Until that moment you know nothing. But I was not surprised by my actions. The faithful staple of all bipeds the ‘amble’ took me under the noses of my persecutors; the ‘trundle’ took me away, until I was safe to make the transition to a slow, ‘western Asian quarter-skip’. Then I was free, on my own, in the vast, life consuming hospital.
Wow, what's going to happen next?--the tension is vile and uppity
Friday 18 June 2010
Teaser--Be Teased, Teasee.
Here is a snippet from one of the tales in the book. It elbows convention in the ribs and shouts loudly from deep within the human psyche. This tale about coming of age in a brutal age begins like this:
He was told that the tribe only had one story, but it changed with every generation. The one and only story told of a young man who, when he got to a certain age, had to leave the tribe and join the group of bachelors where he would dwell ‘half-lived’ until the day came when he had to find and negotiate the ‘Path of Least Resistance’. It was just a story to Bob until he was a tree frog’s finger into puberty, when he was made to leave the tribe and go and live with the bachelor group. The story, it turned out, was about him.
Tantalising? You decide. I’ll drape some more morsels in the shop window soon. Be here or be queer—your choice, no pressure, and relax …
I'll put the table cloth on and ratchet up the old stove--biscuits?
Bob’s Progress
He was told that the tribe only had one story, but it changed with every generation. The one and only story told of a young man who, when he got to a certain age, had to leave the tribe and join the group of bachelors where he would dwell ‘half-lived’ until the day came when he had to find and negotiate the ‘Path of Least Resistance’. It was just a story to Bob until he was a tree frog’s finger into puberty, when he was made to leave the tribe and go and live with the bachelor group. The story, it turned out, was about him.
Tantalising? You decide. I’ll drape some more morsels in the shop window soon. Be here or be queer—your choice, no pressure, and relax …
I'll put the table cloth on and ratchet up the old stove--biscuits?
Thursday 17 June 2010
Mad Ideas 1:
I have a mad idea I think might work: a series of posts about mad ideas that just won’t work. Like one I just toyed with and had to put chewed and broken into the bin. It was about a world where all food and animals are removed and humans can only eat other humans. They take a while to work it out. They take a little longer to figure out what they need to do to survive; in the meantime they are getting hungry; but how long until hunger brings the first murder and how long until murder becomes an act of human survival, unupholdable in any court in the land, any land, or at sea?
Mad; never work. I have about six hundred and ninety such ideas; I keep them in a bucket beside my head. Some people eat cars; I keep buckets of ideas that will never work by the side of my head, in a bucket. If you want me to stop posting email, I’ll see what I can do.
Mad; never work. I have about six hundred and ninety such ideas; I keep them in a bucket beside my head. Some people eat cars; I keep buckets of ideas that will never work by the side of my head, in a bucket. If you want me to stop posting email, I’ll see what I can do.
Wednesday 16 June 2010
Click on this image and you will receive a dish washer, six buckets of 'previously experienced' cloth, nine plastic thing holders, and a month's worth of dead aliens (from sector nine--they might not be dead, quite, if not, make sure you despatch them with something nuclear or your life won't be worth maintaining. Be warned: adventures can sometimes go horribly, painfully wrong.) Okay, let's go, when you hear me squeak, press the mouse button and hold on .... 'SQUEAK!'
Titled Parsnips
I had many ideas for titles but settled on Shorts You Will Never Wear. All the titles had reasons to dismiss them with a guffawry wave of the arms. I could just have easily called the collection any of the following:
The Horse Who Couldn’t do Algebra--No horses to my knowledge do algebra. I'm not a horse but I can't do it (whatever it is).
Twelve Couples Cut a Dash at Sainsbury’s--Who cuts dashes these days; they'd have to have been wearing swords.
Urk--too irksome.
Bloomfontein High Street from a Faulty Web Cam--What can anyone really see from a faulty camera?
Beaches, Dams and Madame Krsatskas’s Trowel Sharpener--Trowels don't need sharpening if used for the purpose they were designed for.
Four weddings, Four Funerals and Two Barrels of Gunpowder--Too Swiss, too formulaic
Screaming for the Sake of it--I like it--screaming for the sake of it--but not as a title.
Entering the House of the Subconscious, Humming a Dissonant Tune and Legging it--it has good parts but in the end it was unwieldy and weirdy.
Swinging on a Branch That Will Snap or Not--too much what if, we want snappings not the promise of what a snapping may bring.
Doctor Manifest the Goon Japist, of Lower Hutt--Might to well in the antipodean market but not north of the equator.
Tales from Nowhere--Trying too hard to be clever and heading for an orificy end, so to speak.
When Does the Dropping Stop?--Good title but had little relevance to any stories in the book.
Squirrels, Squirrelers and Squirrelophiles--Too squirrelly.
Pyjama Hems Frozen in Jelly--Reminds me of a nightmare I once had and can't forget.
Daytime and Night-time: the same thing but different?--Cheap shot at Outer Mongolian Footwear (a funk band from Broadstairs in Yorkshire).
Shorts You’d Wear if Pushed--Perfect we'll go for that. No wait; straining, one last push.
A Collection of Tales--Damn it; lost. Think, you bastard, think!
Shorts You Will Never Wear—bingo let’s go down the pub.
This was my circuitous route to a title that feels, looks and smells okay to me. What do you think? Can you think of a better title?
The Horse Who Couldn’t do Algebra--No horses to my knowledge do algebra. I'm not a horse but I can't do it (whatever it is).
Twelve Couples Cut a Dash at Sainsbury’s--Who cuts dashes these days; they'd have to have been wearing swords.
Urk--too irksome.
Bloomfontein High Street from a Faulty Web Cam--What can anyone really see from a faulty camera?
Beaches, Dams and Madame Krsatskas’s Trowel Sharpener--Trowels don't need sharpening if used for the purpose they were designed for.
Four weddings, Four Funerals and Two Barrels of Gunpowder--Too Swiss, too formulaic
Screaming for the Sake of it--I like it--screaming for the sake of it--but not as a title.
Entering the House of the Subconscious, Humming a Dissonant Tune and Legging it--it has good parts but in the end it was unwieldy and weirdy.
Swinging on a Branch That Will Snap or Not--too much what if, we want snappings not the promise of what a snapping may bring.
Doctor Manifest the Goon Japist, of Lower Hutt--Might to well in the antipodean market but not north of the equator.
Tales from Nowhere--Trying too hard to be clever and heading for an orificy end, so to speak.
When Does the Dropping Stop?--Good title but had little relevance to any stories in the book.
Squirrels, Squirrelers and Squirrelophiles--Too squirrelly.
Pyjama Hems Frozen in Jelly--Reminds me of a nightmare I once had and can't forget.
Daytime and Night-time: the same thing but different?--Cheap shot at Outer Mongolian Footwear (a funk band from Broadstairs in Yorkshire).
Shorts You’d Wear if Pushed--Perfect we'll go for that. No wait; straining, one last push.
A Collection of Tales--Damn it; lost. Think, you bastard, think!
Shorts You Will Never Wear—bingo let’s go down the pub.
This was my circuitous route to a title that feels, looks and smells okay to me. What do you think? Can you think of a better title?
The sole purpose of this blog is to act as a marketing tool for my Amazon Kindle book, Shorts You Will Never Wear—a book of short stories literally belching with originality and bristling with danger: this is a new world, a new age-ish. A ‘marketing tool’ might sound cynical but if I said ‘we are all going to die’ it would not sound quite as cynical by comparison, would it, no, it wouldn’t, I wouldn’t think so anyway—email me if you think otherwise, I could do with a laugh.
I am still hiding the serious ‘under-the-counter’ stories from human eyes. The ones that strike deep at the heart of things we cannot admit to: the Skippy-the-kangaroo-meets-Lolita-in-a-nunnery-full-of-Sumo-wrestling-dwarfs material. That’s for the next generation of short story that is oozing its way down my creative pipeline to the unsuspecting shores of Amazon Kindle.
This is a ‘testing-testing’ post. I am not talking to myself (but, though, of course I am). I have a number of topics that will act as tasters for my stories in the hope someone will purchase my book (US Amazon, $ 2.94—introductory price). One person has already bought one. You could be the second. Though the first was probably the CIA, or FBI, or whoever has been tasked with keeping an eye on me, WI, maybe, Women’s Institute Internet Watch, don’t laugh; be afraid.
Topics I intend to cover in this blog are: squirrels; apocryphal back cover quotes and recommendations; failed and clumsy attempts at titles for the collection; mad story ideas that will never work but seem in strange light like they might. And the (lack of) limits of movie-making, given that spesh effs are so creepily realistic. Oh, and what will the world become now that some insane professor has invented synthetic life. Following these marketing ruses I intend to be insulting and angry, sulky even. Only as a last resort will I begin begging and inviting profound pity.
Many thanks to any wanderer in the blog desert who comes across my blog and decides to peek in for the next post instead of heading towards civilisation and safe ground.
Bon Bloggatito
I am still hiding the serious ‘under-the-counter’ stories from human eyes. The ones that strike deep at the heart of things we cannot admit to: the Skippy-the-kangaroo-meets-Lolita-in-a-nunnery-full-of-Sumo-wrestling-dwarfs material. That’s for the next generation of short story that is oozing its way down my creative pipeline to the unsuspecting shores of Amazon Kindle.
This is a ‘testing-testing’ post. I am not talking to myself (but, though, of course I am). I have a number of topics that will act as tasters for my stories in the hope someone will purchase my book (US Amazon, $ 2.94—introductory price). One person has already bought one. You could be the second. Though the first was probably the CIA, or FBI, or whoever has been tasked with keeping an eye on me, WI, maybe, Women’s Institute Internet Watch, don’t laugh; be afraid.
Topics I intend to cover in this blog are: squirrels; apocryphal back cover quotes and recommendations; failed and clumsy attempts at titles for the collection; mad story ideas that will never work but seem in strange light like they might. And the (lack of) limits of movie-making, given that spesh effs are so creepily realistic. Oh, and what will the world become now that some insane professor has invented synthetic life. Following these marketing ruses I intend to be insulting and angry, sulky even. Only as a last resort will I begin begging and inviting profound pity.
Many thanks to any wanderer in the blog desert who comes across my blog and decides to peek in for the next post instead of heading towards civilisation and safe ground.
Bon Bloggatito
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