For the Love of the Devil

I wrote "For the Love of the Devil" way back in 1998, when I was 28/29. The main characters are in their early twenties, so by definition it is a work of Young Adult fiction (and I bloody hate YA fiction - all those Kindle books about vampires and zombies falling in love, "written" by Indie "writers"). But let's not forget that although I do conform to conventionality with my alternative history novels, I am, at heart, a writer of transgressive fiction. And even back then, when this book was first published in 1999, those nascent transgressive emotions were evident. This was a book which features erotic scenes, and was sent for review, but ultimately rejected (the reviewer said that although they were enjoying it, one scene early on in the book turned their stomach). A little bit unfair, but as someone who read it said to me, "That scene with the imps chewing off a guy's cock was a bit much." So I guess the criticism was justified.

So why am I talking about a book that I wrote ages ago, and which was first published ages ago as well? Well, it's been republished with a new cover - the one you see above. I might be biased (the cover was created by my talented stepdaughter) but I think it looks fantastic. Just great for a re-release of an old novel. Obviously, the book has been (slightly) updated - I mention smartphones rather than ugly old cell-phones - and some of the less palatable paragraphs have been removed. The book was originally around 150,000 words long - now it's been pruned by about 6,000 words (I've never been through so many red pens).

But what is FtLotD about? Well, basically it's a love story about a young woman and a young demon (see, Christ, I was ahead of my time, what with all of these YA books written by 50-year-old, sexually-frustrated cat-ladies about young women falling in love with vampires and zombies). But that makes it sound a bit shit. What I love about this book (and it's not because I wrote it - there are some scenes that, when I read it recently, I thought were very twee, but I didn't want to rewrite the entire book) is that I created this vision of Hell (and eventually Heaven) that hopefully captures the reader's imagination. Here is a demon who is just "doing his job" in a hellish factory of torture. But the demon desires nothing more than to be human again. This book, I actually played it out in my mind, listening to music (and in particular, "Sympathy For The Devil") and imagining how it would look if it was turned into a film. There are some very dark characters, and some very troubled characters, but hopefully it sucks the reader into its world.  Style-wise, I was still finding my feet, my writer's voice. Actually, it's difficult for a writer to have a noticeable voice when writing in the third person (that's why I generally write in the first person now), but in a book like this, the writer's voice is less important than the story, the tale, the thing that keeps the reader reading. But I planned this novel before I committed pen to paper (actually, it was fingers to the keyboard of an ancient IBM-compatible 486 PC). Nowadays, I let my characters lead the story from beginning to the middle to the end. If nothing else, if you've read anything I've written recently, FtLotD is an interesting insight into how I wrote "back in the day" (really, back in the day, I wrote "die Stunde X" on a Commodore Amiga, using a word processor called Wordworth - they couldn't call it Wordsworth, because apparently that was the name of a famous wordsmith. Somewhere, I still have the first manuscript of that novel printed using a dot matrix printer).

I guess I'm rambling. That's what writers do. Sometimes, we hope that we write something profound, but I don't think this is going to be the post when that happens. Let me just conclude this one by saying that I'm proud (and embarrassed occasionally by the stylistic naivety) of this novel. It's a cheap "buy" for the Kindle (hey, if old cat-ladies can flog their vampire love stories on the Kindle, then I can sell this), and hopefully you'll be entertained for a few hours. Maybe you'll instantly forget it (I can't recall the plots of any John Grisham books I've read, so meh ...) but hopefully you'll be briefly touched.

The Kindle version is here.

The paperback version (for proper readers) is here.

(Disclaimer - apologies for any typos in this post. My proof-reader went to bed ages ago!)

Muslamic Ray Gun

My next novel, Muslamic Ray Gun, is currently being proof-read, the final stage in the publishing process. I'm hoping it should be out on 1 September 2016. What I'm also hoping to do, over the next couple of weeks, is publish on here the original opening chapter to this novel, a chapter which has since been dropped.

Muslamic Ray Gun is a coming-of-age story featuring the life of Andy Huxtable, a former member of Combat 18. As you can imagined, it's not for the fainthearted.

Hopefully, the week before publication, I'll be able to give you the cover, the blurb and the dropped chapter as a pre-publication gift. Keep watching this space.

A Fistful of Euros

A FISTFUL OF EUROS

The Sequel to Blood Money, starring Alex Savage.

Alex Savage is an asset. He’s been an asset all of his life, usually carrying out jobs for the British government. Jobs that they ultimately want to deny responsibility for. A former SAS corporal, and one-time operator for the Firm, Alex is now burnt out, jaded, with a whole truckload of baggage, and he doesn’t care what he does or who he kills for money. For the last few years, Alex has branched out into the private sector, where the pay is more lucrative, and the risks are less. 

When Alex carries out the audacious assassination of a man in a French prison, it brings his skills to the attention of a Parisian gangster who wants him to execute the daughter of the director of the French security service. The gangster is prepared to pay a fistful of Euros for it. It all seems like an easy way to make money, until the French security service demand that he carry out a job for them at the same time. It’s not the first time Alex has faced a conflict of interests. 

And even with his girlfriend planning a trip to see him, Alex begins to realize that there isn’t much love in the city of Paris. 

Kindle Version

Paperback Version

For My Mother

Today, I tried to think of the things you did for me When I was young, the times when I needed help
When I couldn’t do things for myself I thought of the times when you told me off
Because I’d done something wrong
And sometimes it was because you was angry
But sometimes it was because you didn’t want me to get hurt
I thought, as well, of the times when I was older, when I should’ve known better
When you still looked out for me, even when I made mistakes
Even when it was all my own fault, you still looked out for me
I remember the time I was on the floor, hugging my knees
And you called the doctor, and you made sure they came and cared for me
And they ensured I didn’t die
And still you looked strong, you stayed strong, and even though I’d done wrong
You tried to blame yourself for my crimes, like it was all your fault
When clearly it wasn’t
Throughout all of this, I buried my head in the sand
Or maybe I was just self-obsessed
Or maybe I was an optimist and ignored all of the signs
I never saw you become weaker overnight
It was more of a gradual decline
And still I refused to accept it as reality
We would joke about the inevitable, about the things I would do after the inevitable happened
And you would laugh
But perhaps neither of us realized the inevitable would happen so soon
I’m a writer, and I have an imagination, and I live my life in a world of creation
So reality, when it hit me this time, it hit me hard
It made me think the reality is that I will struggle to cope
When the inevitable happens
Today, I tried to think of all of the things you did for me
When I was younger and when I was older
But there are too many to mention and our time is too short to mention them all
The reality is that we would run out of time
Just know that I appreciate them all

Writers and money

Let me start by saying that the majority of writers don't earn a lot of money. There are the ones who probably sell a handful of copies of their books to family and friends. There are the ones like me who sell lots of copies to complete strangers. And then there are the ones who sell fucking shedloads of books in Waterstones.

But I don't write books to make money (although, making money from writing is great).

I can tell you that a few years ago, I was earning nigh on £30k a year in the civil service, but successive changes of jobs and drops in pay meant that the last job I was doing, I was earning less than £10,000 a year. It was then that I decided it really wasn't worth remaining in "work", mainly because the pay was shit and it was sucking the life from my creativity. Now, I won't tell you how much I earn from selling books, but I can tell you I don't earn £10,000 a year. I do earn enough to pay a few bills and keep me in beer money, pay for petrol for my car, and get my car taxed and insured. And I don't have to worry about the rat race anymore. I'm a true bohemian - underpaid, undervalued, but still happy.

But people look down on me. "You don't work?" Well, actually, writing is working. "Is it though? I mean, how can it be if you're not in Waterstones?" Well, because I'm making a bit of cash from it, I sometimes spend 60+ hours a week doing it, and I-- "But you don't make enough money to pay a mortgage - you drive a rubbish car. Have you thought about getting a job?" Hmm. Well, you see where I'm going with this. People expect other people to earn lots of money or spend 35 hours a week chained to a desk, or else they don't respect them. The classic is, "Perhaps you should give up trying to chase your dreams and get yourself a job." For Christ's sake, writing is a job. I write books, some people enjoy reading them, and I get paid for doing it. It's not a dream I'm chasing. I've long since given up the dream that I'm gonna be number one in the Waterstones' charts. That simply doesn't happen.

Here's the thing - and this is the truth. Only a handful of writers get a major publishing deal. It's not worth the risk paying some new writer £250,000 for a book deal, not unless you're 100% you've got another "Harry Potter" on your hands - and those types of books are as rare as rocking horse shit. Publishers like famous people - they're more bankable. So that leaves most new writers with just a couple of choices. Self-publish, or try to get a deal with an indie publisher. The indie publisher will push your book a little bit, but they don't have the budget to compete with the major publishing houses. Effectively, if you're a small-time writer, you'll be lucky to earn more than a couple of grand a year selling books, even if you have a deal. But remember, that still makes you a writer.

Me, I'm a writer. Am I a full-time writer? Sometimes, I am. But some weeks, I don't write at all. I'm a bit lazy like that. Do I earn a fortune selling books? Well, no, but are we judged on how much we earn? Is that the most important attribute a person can have?

Those bad review blues ...

A lot of would-be writers - and published writers as well - are mortified when they get a bad review on Amazon. I know I used to be. But the thing is, bad reviews fall into two distinct categories. Those which give you constructive feedback and those which are just totally unconstructive. Take my last review for "die Stunde X". Apparently, the reader found it to be "outstandingly bad" (I feel the same way about most books by Martina Cole and Andy McNab, though I still read their stuff). He goes on to state that the book is banal and the characters are two-dimensional. In fairness, I wrote the book twenty odd years ago, and my characterizations weren't that strong back then (I was still learning to write - give a guy a break, and all that). Now, it could be said that I take the guy's criticism on board - though I do tend to disagree that the book is "banal" or "outstandingly bad" (such negative superlatives have no place in reviews written by nobodies). The book sales alone for its sequel would tend to disprove that (if you think the first book is shit, you certainly won't buy its follow-up). But delving deeper into the review, which only took a few seconds, I found that guy had reviewed only two other books and had described both of them as being pretty rubbish as well - he's a regular Mr-One-Star reviewer. It's one thing to write reviews, but surely this guy must have read at least one book that he actually likes? And there's the thing. People usually only write a review if they absolutely loved a book or absolutely hated it. The fact that this guy can only criticize negatively speaks volumes. At first, I was upset - for about 60 seconds - but the review came on royalties day, so I just cracked open a bottle of champagne and forgot about it.

What I'm saying is this. If you're a new writer, you're going to feel really depressed if you get a bad review. Don't be. Take on board any of the criticism you manage to find within the review, consider whether the reviewer has a point, and perhaps learn a lesson from it. Then consider the fact that reviewer is probably just a bog-standard reader who has never written a book (readers are fantastic people, but they're not writers), and your book probably just doesn't appeal to him or her, and it's really nothing personal. And if you're a prolific writer, a) you will learn more about writing with each book, each short story, that you write, b) you will start to make a few book sales and earn a bit of cash and c) you will get to the point where you just don't give a fuck about banal reviews by people with nothing better to do with their lives than rubbish the hard work of others. Remember - there are no monuments to critics ...

How to fucking concentrate

My mind is a mess. Constantly, I'm thinking of too many things at once. It gets worse when the manic part of my baby bipolar kicks in. I stay awake for hours, I start working on one book, switch to another, before leaving that to consider a fresh, new short. I take a break to change the playlist on Spotify, and then become embroiled in a debate on Facebook. Then I'll spend an hour lying on my bed thinking of new problems for my characters to face.

It's no secret that I can write fast. I can write 5,000 words in an evening, more so if fuelled by alcohol in my local pub, where no one ever talks to me. My record is 10,000 words in an evening. Of course, that's a first draft and sometimes subsequent drafts change drastically. But I could, if I put my mind to it, write a 100,000 word thriller in 10 days. And yet, I don't spend all day, every day, writing. I wish I could. But there are myriad distractions. If I write on a computer, it may ding to tell me that some wanker has disagreed with my politically incorrect post on Facebook. A friend might email me, and I'll have a chat with them. When I've had a mind to, there is the distraction of Internet dating sites, where I have learnt a new tactic - to view someone's profile without contacting them. That's like a cat shitting on your doorstep. You know he's been there, he's paid attention, but he can't be arsed to do anything other than take a shit. Someone might text me. I might start to sing along to a song and decide to get up and dance. The TV will catch my eye and I'll have to watch another episode of Spartacus - just because. I could be writing one book and think to myself, "I'm not feeling this." And if I'm not feeling it as the writer, then the reader definitely won't be feeling it.

I need to concentrate.

And here's the irony. The majority of my income comes from writing. Sure, it's not enough to live a decent existence (they'd never give me a fucking mortgage), and common sense would tell me that I should spend more time writing - especially if it's my "job". But then, because it's my "job", I like to skive off every now and then. And because I'm the boss, I can actually do that. But when I skive, my salary stays the same. If I work, there is the potential for it to increase. But then, because I'm not motivated by money, I'll skive off a bit more. And that vicious circle just keeps going round and round and round ...

I do need to concentrate.

I need to concentrate on just one book at a time, and get it finished. I'm working on "One Eight", I think about "Dark Satanic Mills". Both are halfway complete, yet "One Eight" will be around 70,000 words, whereas "Dark Satanic Mills" is already 150,000 words. And then, to compound things, I started to write another novel, "Smuggler's Blues" - very personal to me. And that doesn't even include the ideas in my head, the books for which I've yet to put serious pen to paper.

The thing is, most writers will churn out a book a year, and I used to think that was pretty poor. Three months to write, three months to edit, six months to publication. So surely two a year is better? But sitting in the driving seat, it's not so easy. And let's not even mention the apathy of the "public" to my serious books, ones like "Besotted", "Putrid Underbelly" and "Maggie's Children". The stuff I enjoy writing. My "public" likes "die Stunde X" and "nach Schema F", so then I feel compelled to write another book in the series. But writing to order is a difficult thing to do. I do want to write the third in that series, but I need to be in the zone.

Shit. It's not easy being a writer ...

And yet, I've just written these last 700 words in about 5 minutes. Mindless cock-babble.

PS - I've not edited it. I'm sure there are mistakes ...

Swearing in boozers

I dunno when it happened. When someone decided that it wasn't acceptable to swear in pubs. But it seems as though that's the way things are now.

I started drinking in pubs when I was 15. Now, I can't remember being hugely foul-mouthed at that age, but the older I got, the more I swore. And in my early twenties, all through to my thirties, right up until about the time I hit forty, I would swear in pubs. All of that cunting, bollocking, cunty, shithousing, wanky, fucking cunt-mouth twattery that you could ever imagine. And then sometime, I dunno, about four years ago, one landlord said, "Can you stop swearing?" Of course, I was pissed, so I slipped on my best shit-eating grin and said something like, "What the fuck?" The reply was, "I'm serious." And there was some allusion to there being other customers in the pub who didn't appreciate swearing.

Now, perhaps this disapproval of swearing in pubs coincided with the downturn in people using pubs, which coincided, probably, with the smoking ban and massively cheap beer available in supermarkets. And perhaps the landlords who disapproved of swearing were desperate to keep hold of their middle-class "drinkers" (in very inverted fucking commas, if you please) because they had more disposable income than us plebs. But let's honest. Let me spell this out in as simple a terms as you can understand. Back then, when the swearing ban began, it was swearers who kept the pubs alive. These guys who drank perhaps 10 pints a night, and whose language became more coarse the more pints you drew, they were the ones paying to keep pubs in business. And the middle-class, poncy twats who turned up once a week to have a Guinness surge and a vodka and tonic for their missus, together with a cheap meal on your menu, well, they were never going to be there every night of the week, were they?

But here's the thing. Like the smoking ban, the swearing ban has diminished the appeal of pubs for many people. People stopped going to pubs, because they could get cheaper booze at home and they could smoke in their own houses. And now more and more people like me are drinking at home, because they can swear in their own house. Me, I can drink cheap booze, I can slip into mockney and say, "Fackinell!" and nobody frowns at me because I'm "working class" or because I've used a word they don't approve of.

My local village pub decided they didn't want to have copies of the free magazine The Literary Commune available to its customers because it featured bad language. And when I was told this, I just thought to myself, "What the fuck? Why am I sitting in here spending, I dunno, twenty quid a night to drink alongside poncy, middle-class wankers who probably don't even fucking read anyway, when I can drink at home?" The local boozer is all very posh and la-de-da now, and I feel like a complete piece of cheap shit whenever I wander in there.

On the plus side for pubs, this tactic seems to have worked, because the local boozer is full of people who eat food and who drink barely fuck-all, whilst at the same time, not swearing. That's a nice earner for the boozer, admittedly. Posh people seem to have taken over pubs, and us riff-raff really aren't welcome. But it won't last. There will be another revolution. Perhaps next they will stop us from drinking alcohol completely in pubs?

But whereas the smoking ban was something enforced upon landlords by the government, the swearing ban was something which landlords themselves introduced. I even saw one pub in a town called Oakham where the owners had seen fit to place a sign to the effect that people who swore would be asked to leave.

I dunno. Pubs, beer, lairyness - it all lends itself to swearing. But the swearing ban? It's the death knell for me.

Being a writer ...

Someone much more famous than me, and probably a much better writer than me, said (and I'm paraphrasing here, because I can't remember the quote) that you can call yourself a writer when you use a royalty cheque to pay for your electricity bill. Well, in 2014, I achieved that a number of times. So officially, I can call myself a writer.

But in all honesty, is that what writing is about? Are we only judged to be something if we make money out of it? Can we only apply that label on ourselves if we make enough money from writing to pay our bills? Now, don't get me wrong. I like having a bit of cash. And making a tiny amount of money from writing is actually a fantastic feeling - all of those strangers, paying to read something you've written - but that's not why I write. I write because I love doing it. I love sitting in a pub, cranking open my little laptop, and churning out a few hundred - or even a few thousand - words. I love taking out a notepad in a library and scribbling down as many words as possible until my hand aches. Hell, I've even written stuff on a post-it note when I've been bored during training sessions in a workplace. That makes me a writer. Wanting to write. And even on the occasions where I've backed myself into a corner in a story, and I'm suffering from writer's block, the fact that I have "writer's" block, well, doesn't that make me a writer also?

I've even had people who know me say to me, "Well, you're not really a writer, are you? Because you work at such and such a place." They don't comprehend the shitness of what they have just said. What can I say to that? Well, have you read any of my stuff? Can you write a 100,000 word novel? Have hundreds of people paid you to read something you've written? In all honesty, I don't expect every person I know to buy or read one of my books. I know a few musicians (I'm honoured to call some of them friends), but if they released a screamo-based CD, the chances are I wouldn't buy it because I'm not into screamo. I might give it a listen, out of courtesy. But what I wouldn't do is say, "Yeah, but you're not really a musician, because you just play local gigs and you've only sold a few CDs."

And here's the crux of it all. People who create - be they artists, musicians or writers - they generally stick together. They recognize the hard work of their fellow creators and even if they cannot fully appreciate it, because it's not to their own personal taste, they wouldn't seek to diminish what that person has done.

There is too much snobbery in the creative world. People who play the guitar, sing songs, write their own stuff or even perform in a covers' band at the weekend, do we consider them to be musicians? People who paint pictures or come out with some fantastic pencil drawings, do we consider them to be artists? The fact that these people are not "full-time" musicians or singers or artists, does that really make any difference? They are all doing something which other people cannot do. The label applies, irrespective of how much money they make. When you go to see a band churning out a cover version of "Sex on Fire" in your local boozer, you don't turn to your friend and say, "Yeah, that factory worker in the band, he sounds great." You say, "The singer sounds great."

I'm currently involved in a small project called The Literary Commune. They've published a couple of things by me. The magazine, which has a tiny readership, is given away free to those who would choose to read it. The contributors to the magazine, they receive nothing, but they do have the satisfaction of knowing that their stuff is being read by interested people. I would say that if you're interested in writing or if you're interested in reading fresh, original and gritty stuff, drop them a line. They're on Facebook here - https://www.facebook.com/theliterarycommune.

And remember - being a writer is not about how much you write, it's not about how much money you make. It's about the fact that sometimes you sit there and curse because you have no pen or paper and you have to write sentences, paragraphs and plots in your head, and hope that you'll remember them by the time you get home.

Bad Reviews

Had my first bad review the other day.  It was for "die Stunde X", an alternative history novel I wrote when I was 24/25.  Incidentally, I've just finished writing the follow-up to it, but that's a whole different story.

Now, this bad review affected me because, as a writer, all I have is my ability to put words down on paper in an exciting and sensible order to create something readable.  But this person, well, to cut a long story short, he said that I switched tenses and that somebody like me, with no grasp of grammar, shouldn't be writing books.  I pondered on his criticism.  No, scratch that, I raged on his criticism for a few days.  And then I read his other reviews, and realized that he'd said pretty much the same thing about every other Indie writer he'd read.  The crux of his criticism are these.  Firstly, he doesn't like "Americanisms".  Well, friend, get with the modern age.  Notwithstanding the fact that I wrote "die Stunde X" twenty years ago, the majority of British writers are going to be affected by "Americanisms".  We're living in the 21st century.  It's how things are.  The second thing he has a problem with are continuous tenses.  In particular, he doesn't like people writing, "He was sat over there," or "He was stood right there."  Now, of course, everyone who has studied English even just to secondary school level will know that these are grammatically incorrect.  One would not say, "He was ran over there."  Rather, you would say, "He was running over there."  However, for reasons that can only be explained away by local dialect, by use of the vernacular, people do actually say, "I was stood right there ..."  It's the way people speak.  Though it most definitely frowned upon by the Oxford English Dictionary, even they recognize that its usage is rife not only in UK newspapers, but also on the BBC.  Call it slang, call it a bastardization of the English language, but that's the way things evolve.  Incidentally, I'm presuming that this critic of my work would also take umbrage to me using "-ize" rather than "-ise".  God knows I've been pulled up so many times for this in the past, but a simple bit of research will demonstrate that not only is "-ize" acceptable British-English, it is also how we used to write things.  Indeed, this is one case where the Brits have got lazy whereas the Americans are sticking to the original spelling.

But in any case, back to the original topic.  This critic.  Now, not only has he stated (and I'm paraphrasing here) that I'm a useless writer, mainly because, as a self-elected member of the grammar police, he has decided that I don't follow certain rules, he's also done the same to many other Indie writers.  The thing is, these guys have sat down and written books.  They're Indie writers and we all give them a certain amount of leeway.  Unlike like Grisham and Rowling, they don't have a fantastic editorial team behind them to spot these transgressions of continuous tenses and the spelling mistakes (I actually spotted eight in Stephen King's last novel, but what the hell, people shrug because he's a famous writer).  What they have done, however, is sat down and written a book.  And to those who have never done that, I would say this.  Don't criticize mercilessly until you have attempted to write a book yourself.  I've written ten, and I think I've learnt a lot since 1994, when I wrote "die Stunde X".  Now, I write generally in first person, where I can definitely say, "I was stood over there," because that's common vernacular, and that's the way my lead character would speak.  The thing is, the people this guy writes off, maybe they're just starting out, and what they do not need is some banal, three-sentence review telling people that they're basically shit at writing English, and they should go away and do something else.  To this person, I would say this.  If you want to read something which is finely polished, but ultimately soulless, then purchase books by writers who are published through mainstream publishers, rather than Indie writers or those published through smaller labels.  That way, rather than spending £8 on four books which you will absolutely criticize (but would probably actually enjoy if you ditched the grammar police spectacles), you will spend £8 on one book which is so finely crafted, you won't have to criticize it.

In conclusion, I'd say this.  Just read and enjoy.  Stop worrying about being a member of the grammar police.  And sentences can start with "and". Sat over there is a copy of my latest book.  But I just remember, you said that sentences can't start with "sat" or "stood" or "but".  But why not?  Rules are meant to be broken.  And the greatest writers in the world break those rules for literary effect.  And unless you've actually written a book, perhaps you should just sit down in your accepted role as "reader", and read, rather than edit and criticize.

And remember - there has never been a monument to a critic.

PS - I apologize for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.  And (I shouldn't start a sentence with "and", but for effect (being that this is a forgotten addition to the previous sentence) I have done) typos (was it worth the wait?).  Please don't pull me up on them.  Once I stopped being a member of the grammar police, I enjoyed myself a lot more and people hated me a lot less.

Characters

When I write a character, I generally have this person in my head, what he looks like, how he acts, what his personality is like.  They usually become my best friends.  Rob Murgatroyd, Benjamin Beerenwinkel, Saul Castle, even Alex Savage.  Some say that there is something of me in every one of the lead characters I've written, and perhaps there is.  But here's the thing.  Though I create these lead characters, I have no idea how other people will perceive them.

Benjamin Beerenwinkel, for example, was one of my favourites.  He was a writer with cancer.  His coping mechanism?  Alcohol and self-destruction.  But the feedback I got was that he was this selfish guy, self-obsessed, someone you could really get to like.  He did bad things and he blamed everyone else for them.  Me, I thought he was a nice guy, but maybe I was biased.

Danny McIllvoy, who was obsessed with one of his work colleagues.  Did people think he was pathetic or was he a man madly in love with a beautiful woman?  Did he just want to save her from the troubles she was going through or was he a sad case?

I wonder what people thought of Rob Murgatroyd, the investigative journalist who'd lost his family in a horrific car crash.  I suppose he was on a mission of self-destruction too.  But no one ever told me what they thought of him as a person.

Alex Savage, the ex-SAS soldier, now a hitman.  Divorced, two sons.  Ruthless and yet flawed.  Did people like him?  No one ever said.

And now Saul Castle, a former teacher now down on his luck, addicted to alcohol, seeking redemption.  Saul doesn't blame anyone for the mistakes he's made in the past.  He's very open about what he has done.  Maybe he's too open.  He's seeking redemption, but what do people think of him?  Is he weak?  Does he deserve to be where he is?  Does he deserve to be judged, or should be give him a chance to make his life better?

See, when people tell me they don't like one of my characters, I'm slightly offended.  But I'm not offended because they dislike somebody I've created - that, in itself, is actually wondered, that someone I've invented can generate an emotion from someone who reads about them.  I'm offended because I see these guys as my friends.  I like them, for all their flaws.

But how about you tell me what you think of these guys?  I'd be intrigued to find out.

Maggie's Children is out and I'm sober.

You can now buy Maggie's Children in either Kindle format or as a paperback.

A link to the Kindle version which is available at Amazon.

This book wasn't as tough to write as Besotted, but it was still a drain.  Right now, I'm working on nach Schema F, the sequel to die Stunde X.  This is an alternative history novel, and is completely different to the transgressive stuff I've been writing for the last few years.  I like to think of it as a bit of a yarn, a romp, something you can read, be entertained by, and then toss to one side and forget.  It's no secret that die Stunde X is my bestseller, and I suppose it's only natural that I should write a sequel, though it has been 20 years since I wrote DSX.  Call it a shrewd marketing move, but I like to think that I'm writing a book that some people have been asking for.  From a writer's perspective, it's also a fun book to write.  I reckon I'll have the first draft finished by the end of October, and it should definitely be out in time for Christmas.

I'm also going sober for October, for Macmillan Cancer Support.  Last year I raised almost £200, but this year it's slow-going.  I'm guessing that a lot of people are doing charitable things, and everyone's fed up with it.  But if you could see your way to donating something, I'd be grateful.

You can go here to make a donation - https://www.gosober.org.uk/profile/shaunmartin.

Maggie's Children

Well, the first draft of "Maggie's Children" is finished.  This here is the first version of the cover.  The book has taken me about 4 months to complete, but there's still a long way to go.  It'll go through second and third drafts and then it'll get proof-read.  As it is, it's not ready.

I wrote it with a pen in some Moleskine notebooks - two of them, in fact. 230 pages, 90,000 words. Writing longhand is a very honest way of writing.  Plus it's easier than lugging a laptop around.  I found that I just threw sentences down onto the paper, and I'll decide at the second draft stage whether they're worth keeping.  I really want to know what people will make of this novel.  It's a strange one, stranger even than "Besotted".

Here's what's going to be difficult - writing the blurb for the back cover.  What can I write without giving too much away?  Well, the book is about a man called Saul Castle.  We meet him when he's in his forties, is an alcoholic, and is just about to attend the funeral of a friend.  It seems as though Saul Castle's life has been dotted with tragedies.

This book didn't affect me the way "Besotted" did.  Of course, I used some events of my life to pad this story out - what writer doesn't - but I didn't have to become Saul Castle in order to write it.  In that respect, it was moderately easy to complete.  But the next huge step is the most difficult one - letting people read it.

It should be ready around September time, so keep watching this space.

I Like Reading the Daily Mail, See ...

I like reading the Daily Mail, see

It tells me how things in the world are and how things in the world should be

There’s people out there who don’t like it

They find it offensive ‘cause they don’t agree

But the things they like, the things they say and read, perhaps they might be offensive to me

That’s why I like reading the Daily Mail, see?

It tells me that these immigrants are over here stealing all of our jobs

It tells me the Lithuanians and Bulgarians, the Albanians too, are always on the rob

And then it goes and tells me that all us British blokes are just workshy slobs

And at the same time, all of our politicians are just toffee-nosed snobs

I suppose some people might call it journalistic hypocrisy

But I think it’s just like those journalists are talking to guys like me

And I still like reading the Daily Mail, see?

It could be because of the Union Jack and my British nationality

Or maybe it’s ‘cause I love our dear old Royal Family

I mean, they may be rich and privileged, but they’re British, just like you and me

They have their Sunday roasts and they’re always drinking cups of tea

The Daily Mail says it, so that’s the way it must be

And then sometimes I wonder why I like reading the Daily Mail, see.

Why England Loses

I like playing football, but I like driving Bentleys too

See, I like getting paid lots of money too

I used to kick a ball around for me school

But back then, it were a different kind of rule

Back then, we used to play for fun

We didn’t used to play for money

We used to like the glory

The idea of getting kissed by the girls from the school

But that don’t happen now

Now, we have WAGs

We have birds who ain’t just common, council estate slags

Well, they might be, but they’re more classy

But then, that’s the problem, ain’t it?

I’m not thinking about football

I’m thinking about all these other bits and pieces

Which probably explains why England always  loses.

This Fashionable Man

These clothes, designer labels, tee-shirts, by Bench, by FCUK, by DKNY,
These shirts by Dolce & Gabbana, by Ben Sherman, by Yves St Laurent,
These jeans, these trousers, by Jack and Jones, by G Star, by Diesel,
The contents of this wardrobe, expensive, no money spared,
Indicative of someone who cared.
These creases, these ruffles, these collars, cuffs and hems all frayed,
These colours faded, pink not red, no longer black but grey,
These jeans once new and fashionable, threadbare now,
Worn by a man once loved, a man now dressed by people paid to be there,
Now hidden away, forgotten, by those supposed to care.

Being lazy ...

Being lazy is not good.  I'm currently thinking up any old excuse to not write.  Writing this blog post is one such excuse.  Before that, it was the trolling I was doing on my Facebook page with regards the recent elections.  Then it's typing up the handwritten draft of my current novel, "Maggie's Children".  Then it's research.  Then it's working on the screenplay for "Besotted".  Then it's writing toxic poetry.  Any old excuse to not write.

I'm at that stage with "Maggie's Children" where I was with "Besotted".  I don't think it's good enough, I think the characters are shit, etc etc, but then people told me "Besotted" was a very good book, so I guess I may well just be suffering from self-doubt.  I'm about 47,000 words into the book (having to estimate, because I haven't finished typing up what I've currently written)and it's about halfway through - well, perhaps it might just scrape past 85,000 words.  "Besotted" was a behemoth of a book, almost 130,000 words long.  I don't think "Maggie's Children" needs to be such a thick novel.

The thing is, writing this book is emotionally draining.  Whilst I'm not "becoming" Saul Castle in the same way as I virtually became Benjamin Beerenwinkel, the subject matter is depressing.  I'm hoping that, like some people's real depression, the mood will sink low, and then be followed by a euphoria as the book reaches its climax.  Or will it?  See, I haven't really got an ending for the book.  Not yet.  I know what's happened in Saul Castle's history, but I don't know what will happen to him in the future.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Well, if I can stop being lazy ...

Judgementalism

See, this is how it is.  At the heart of it, my next book, "Maggie's Children", is about people being judgemental.  It's about people forming opinions of others based upon the minimal amount of knowledge.  I know that people will read it and form their own opinions.  But what I'm trying to do is make Saul Castle, the lead character, such a nice, engaging person, that I'm hoping you, the reader, won't be shocked when "it all comes out".

Here's the thing.  The majority of us, we are judgemental.  We form our opinions on limited knowledge.  We don't want to give people a chance.  We'd rather base our opinions on what other people have told us, on what we've read.  I've been a victim of judgementalism.  I am a convicted drink driver.  Worse than that, I was convicted for a second time.  Now, anybody who knows me well will testify that I took my punishment with aplomb.  I don't seek to attribute blame elsewhere, and the report of my absurd behaviour on that particular evening makes shocking reading, but even the police officers who arrested me accepted it because I was drunk.  Alcohol does bad things to some people.  But people have consistently judged me for what happened on that fateful night, late December 2011.  I've kind of given up on arguing my case - it's a losing battle.  And in the grand scheme of things, people who don't know me, do I care what they think of me?  Not at all.  I was a twat.  My friends, my family even, will say that I was a twat (or something akin to that, if they don't swear).  But to be honest, I'm kind of pissed off with people judging me.  I had people saying, "You could've killed somebody."  Yeah, but I didn't.  And when a person is arrested for being drunk and disorderly and a little bit lairy in the town centre, nobody says to them, "Yeah, but you could've got into a fight and killed somebody."  It's all relative.  Call me a twat, call me a cunt even, but don't escalate my crime beyond what it was.

And then, back to my next book.  There is a lot of judgementalism in there.  And I'm not just talking about drinking and driving.  It goes far deeper than that.  When it comes out, read it, read about Saul Castle, read about what he goes through, and then think about that statement, which I'll have to paraphrase because, ho ho, I've had a couple of beers, but it's something about not judging a man unless you've walked a few miles in his shoes.

I'll leave you with that thought.

For charity

Not sure how much it will be worth, but it will be for Macmillian Cancer Support, a charity close to my heart.  But when I finish the first handwritten draft of "Maggie's Children", I will be auctioning it off for charity.  It may well only raise a few quid, but what you will be getting (if you're the winning bidder) is the raw first draft of a book.  You will be able to tell by my handwriting when I've been pissed (the handwriting gets bigger, the space between words larger).  You will be able to see the juvenile writings before a book goes into edit.  You will see the beer stains, the misspellings, the bad grammar, all of that stuff that occurs when a writer is "in the zone", just throwing the words and ideas onto the page.  It is kind of like letting you know what it's like to be in the mind of a writer desperately trying to just throw those words down on the paper.  Oh, I'm sorry - I think I repeated myself.

See, I'm not Stephen King, but I guarantee you that I sweat just as much as he does when he writes his first draft.  I become the people in my books, even if it's only fleetingly.  This first draft, I'm not prepared to give it up for a tenner, for twenty quid, for a pony even.  This is worth more than that.  This is a monkey, at least.  Keep watching this space, and then when the first draft is finished, and you're bidding for it, know that it's an important document, and more than that, it's going to be important to the people who will benefit from it, from the money it will raise.  This first draft deserves to go to a) a fan (that's a given) but also b) somebody who recognizes the importance of what their money will bring to people.

Keep fucking watching this space ...

The Frustration of a Writer

I get frustrated.  And I'm not talking about sexual frustration.  I'm talking about when it comes to writing.  I have these ideas in my head, and I have to get them down in paper, but it takes so long.  As I'm writing down the latest chapter, my mind is already fixated on the next chapter, desperately wanting to reach the climax.  But as with sex, that could be like experiencing a premature ejaculation.  Rush it, and it won't be so good.  Yeah, yeah, I understand that.  But I can only really begin to craft the story once the first draft is down on paper.  Then I can caress and stroke it until it becomes something really special.

But I desperately want that first draft down on paper.  Only then can I sit back and feel satisfied.  Only then can the story leave my mind.  See, at the moment, I think that "Maggie's Children" will be even more powerful than "Besotted".  I want to get it out there, I want other people to read it, to talk to me about it, to tell me what they liked, what they didn't like (and sometimes, the things they don't like about my books, they can be a surprise - other times, getting them to not like a certain scene, a certain character, was a deliberate act).  Oh there will be plenty of things in "Maggie's Children" that people won't like, but that's completely my intention.  Transgressive fiction should leave a nasty taste in people's mouths every now and again.

But right now, I'm frustrated.  Today, I've written perhaps 1,500 words.  Not a fantastic day so far, but I'm sat at my desk, Moleskine notebook in front of me, my trusty Parker pen at the ready, and I know I will get at least a couple more chapters done before I switch off the light.  But that's not enough.  I set myself a target of getting this book finished by June, but I want the first draft finished by the middle of May.  I'm not sure I'll achieve that, but I have to at least try - I have to try to get rid of this frustration.  I know that once I put down my Parker for the last time, I will have this big, fuck-off smile on my face.  I will achieved something special.  I will have finished a book.

And "Maggie's Children" will blow away everyone who reads it.