Tag: publishing

The Damaged One

“The royalty must die like common beggars and petty thieves.”
– Rody Walker

Part of being a writer involves consuming large quantities of literature so as to forever be broadening your horizons and increasing your knowledge. Most of the time this means you get to actively search for brilliant authors and ingest rich texts. But sometimes you find yourself trawling through blog posts, manuscripts, journal articles, and everything else thinking what the fuck is this shit? You respect the author; they’re one of your favourites. But the work is just sub-par. It’s too familiar; too comfortable. You finish reading and you sit there with this fucked up taste in your mouth and a mind full of disappointment. One of your favourite writers missed the mark because they erred on the side of caution and played it safe, producing a manuscript without any real heart.

We’ve all been through this moment. A script just doesn’t feel right. A movie is just OK. A song leaves you feeling a little let down. The work the author produced before this was brilliant, but this just feels… Blah.

One of the greatest risks to any author or artist is the threat of becoming creatively stagnant. You are in a drought, desperate for a wave of pure inspiration; so you start dredging through failed ideas, or even worse, past successes in a desperate attempt to replicate some minor success. You create a script that is palatable or marketable in the eyes of the literary world and you start flogging it to anyone stupid enough to accept your second rate dribble.

It seems like a good idea at the time. And I know that every successful author bangs on about the idea of consistency, but if the best you can do is rip off your own shit, it’s time to take a break. Walk away for a bit and allow yourself time to recharge and refocus, then come back when you are ready and write your fucking heart out.

Lately I’m becoming a little disillusioned by the shear amount of second rate shit that is flooding the market. It’s incredibly disheartening to be busting your arse to try and carve out a niche within an industry notoriously difficult to enter, only to see those on the inside churning out page turners with a lacklustre plot and an achingly familiar protagonist. I’m aware that I sound like a prick here but I really don’t care. When you find yourself rife with boredom page after page you need to start asking some serious questions of the once great authors who are now plodding through their high concept action thriller like a fucking aging Clydesdale ploughing a field.

But who is at fault here? Is it the author who has found their formula for success? Or is it us as fans who become so conditioned to accepting their work as brilliant based solely on reputation that we fail to call bullshit when they start slipping? The truth is that it’s probably the latter. We’re at fault; every single one of us. Our failure to call out second rate trash has allowed an industry to fall into a rut.

But it’s not too late to turn things around. There are still some phenomenally good writers producing magnificent scripts every single day. But if things are going to change authors across the globe have to learn how to embrace their inner mongrel once more. To paraphrase an old expression, if you want to change the world you can’t do it through peace. You need do it with a knife. If peace is what you desire then you need to fight for it with every inch of your soul and you need to fucking earn it. Brilliant writing is the same. If you want to be the best then you have to fight for it. You have to spend time crafting out scenes that leave the reader shell shocked. And when you become the best; when you have usurped everyone else and stand atop of the best sellers list you have to fight twice as hard to stay there. Your success has drawn a target on your back.

I often refer to the author in me as a wolf. I’m vicious, I’m raw, cunning, and a bit of a prick. Sometimes I own that analogy, and sometimes I feel emotionally crippled by my own desire to savage any other author within my reach. Give me a chance and I’ll sink my fangs into the throat of an opponent and shake until their vertebrae snap and their blood fills my throat. I’m a wolf. And I’m the damaged one. I want to hurt, and I truly believe that’s what this industry needs right now.

We need aggression, we need raw passion, and we need writing that forces us to re-examine exactly what it means to produce brilliant work. Right now the royalty of the industry have a stranglehold over what is considered to be great, but it’s time for the royalty to be challenged and for a new wave of conquerors to rise. I’m not necessarily talking about myself here either; I mean, I’d love to see myself succeed, but I’d also love to read a fucking book that isn’t predicable dog-shit too.

So where to from here? Because I’m speaking out of place aren’t I? Let’s be honest, it’s so easy to stand on a soapbox and talk shit when you have nothing to lose. And maybe if I was standing in the shoes of a successful author I’d be singing a different tune. Sadly, I’m not. So I’ll keep screaming my lungs out until I’m heard or someone dares to silence me.

From here there are two paths for me to follow. I can keep going down this path. I push myself through passion and determination in an effort to become a force to be reckoned with within the literary industry. I’m young and I’m a cocky son of a bitch, so it could happen. Time is on my side. Or I can step down off of my soapbox, pick up a trashy page turner and concede to a life of struggling to see my work in print while a bunch of fucking has-been’s and copycats produce a bunch of shit….

….But I’m a wolf. And I’m the damaged one. I don’t want to settle. I want to fight. The royalty must die. New heroes must rise. And then in time they too need to fall. This industry will crumble unless each new wave of talent moving through it pushes the envelope of great literature just that little bit further. Show me an author with raw talent and a hunger to succeed and I will show you fifty best sellers he or she can out produce. It’s not disrespect that has been saying this it’s love and admiration of an industry. The royalty must die.

Two Weeks

“Fuck what you know. Fuck what you believe. I am the architect of my destiny.”
-James “Buddy” Neilsen.

With language like that in the epigraph, I think that it’s fair to say that this post won’t ever be making an appearance on the freshly pressed page. But then, my language is abrasive at the best of times, so I guess I’ll have to live without the vindication of being a pressed writer for a little while yet. Nevertheless, let’s kick this off and get down to why I’ve chosen to feature the lyrics of a post-hardcore band in my epigraph, and what it has to do with a page dedicated to the trials and tribulations of my writing career.

Well, the simple answer as to why I chose Neilsen’s lyrics is this: I like them. And I like hardcore music, so I thought that I would feature them just as I have before with artists like Adrian Fitiplades and Max Bemis. But the more in depth answer, the one that actually makes this whole post worthwhile is that right now those three little phrases resonate with me more than anyone could ever truly understand. In fact, the lyrics of the entire album the epigraph was chosen from resonate with me to such an extent that I spent the better part of two hours today deciding between the lines I chose to use and the following:

When you look in the mirror
Are you proud of what you see?
When you look in the mirror
Are you the person you thought you’d be?

The truth is that I’m not quite the person that I thought I’d be right now. I thought that a few things in my personal life would have panned out a little differently than how they have. I’ve been a little emotionally fragile lately, and thankfully I’ve had something constructive to focus my time on…But on a writing front, I’m more than I ever thought possible. That’s right; with less than two weeks to go until I head to New York, I’m so fucking confident in myself and what I have created that I can’t wait to pitch my heart out. Right now when I look in the mirror, I’m damned proud of what I see. I’m a writer with passion and a goal. And regardless of whether I secure a contract in the USA, I know that I’m taking positive steps in the right direction for my career.

Just as Neilsen growls in the song Canine, I am the architect of my destiny. Every single time I sit down and put pen to page I am constructing the blueprints of not just a tale of fiction, but of my life and how I want it to be. When I submit those blueprints to an editor for revision they are given the opportunity to improve and come one step closer to being completed. And when I pitch my story to agents in a foreign city I’ll have the opportunity to see those blueprints come to life. All I need is for one person to say yes and the foundation of my story and my vision will come to life.

But if I’m feeling so confident, and so enthused, why did I chose lyrics that are so explicit? Well, because that’s just who I am. When I’m confident I feel indestructible. And in true Chris Nicholas fashion I have constructed a novel and a pitch that defies what is considered the norm within the publishing industry. When I start my pitch I don’t want to be perceived as just another aspiring author; I want to be seen as a force to be reckoned with. I want to be seen as a man capable of rising above the slush pile with a story to tell and the fire in his stomach to do it. So fuck what you know about publishing. And fuck what you believe is acceptable within the industry. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

Two weeks. That’s how long I have to wait until I can pitch myself against the best in the industry and see how I compare. And for all of my bravado I am fully aware that I could walk away from the whole experience with nothing. But even if I do, just by making it this far I have achieved something incredible.

Take Two

A little while ago I posted a snippet from a scene that I had been working on. What I posted was fairly rough, including all of the spelling and grammatical errors one would expect from a rough draft. Despite its flaws I wanted to post the scene to show the dismal number of followers I had at the time what I was working on. So, after many months and a little bit of polishing I thought that I would provide a ‘take two’ entry of the same scene. Please excuse the formatting, it’s gone a little crazy during the conversion across to WordPress. Nevertheless, I hope that you like it…

The spring sun had set over Marseille, France’s second-largest city and its largest commercial port. Though the daytime temperature had been a mild eighteen degrees Celsius, the trade wind known as the Mistral blew through the valleys of the Rhone as the day diminished, unleashing its bitter assault on the city as night had fallen. The harsh, cold wind was an unwelcome change from the warm early spring days the city had experienced over the past week, and many residents had locked themselves indoors for the night. High above the city sat the Notre-Dame de la Garde, a huge basilica positioned on the city’s highest natural point, a limestone outcropping on the south side of the old port. The de la Garde looked grand against the moonlight, the cold winds lashing over its stone surface, leaving a faint smell of limestone in the air. The basilica was a tourist mecca and a local place of worship for Marseille’s religious population, but right now the holy building had been closed down for the night, abandoned save for the four men standing on its limestone balcony, gazing out over the city below. Lights glistened in the windows of houses, and streets cut an intricate maze through the buildings as far as the eye could see. To the south, the moon’s light reflected off the deep blue surface of the Mediterranean Sea, its usual calm broken by small whitecaps rolling silently towards the shoreline.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were brothers by blood, but their appearances were startling different, even when concealed by the heavy robes they now wore, just as their namesakes would have worn. Pestilence, the eldest brother was tall, his features dark and handsome, his hazel eyes endless and deadly. His body was lean, yet surprisingly muscular; his age was indeterminable beneath his priest’s robes and hood. Concealed beneath his robes were two pearl-white handguns, held in pancake holsters against his ribs.

The second brother was huge. Taller and broader than his siblings, he physically dominated the foursome. His shoulders were wide and his chest shaped as though Da Vinci himself has chiselled it from the finest of stone. His hair was dark brown and his eyes a fiery emerald green. He wore a beard, thick and woolly, poking out from within the hood of his robe. In his right hand he held a small flick knife, the blade three inches long and cast from blood-red metal. He spun the knife effortlessly between his fingers as he watched the skyline. Although he was known to his brothers as War, he had once been known in intelligence communities as The Surgeon, such was his abilities to flay open the flesh of his prey. To his left stood the third born son of Chaos—the quiet one, his gaze cast down at the floor.

The quiet one was also the smallest of the foursome, standing at an embarrassing five feet nine inches with thin, sinewy shoulders. Many myths surrounded him; a bastard child with origins unknown. Famine had spent an entire lifetime concealing himself from the world, his face hidden behind a facemask complete with breathing apparatus that could be seen hanging from beneath the hood pulled over his head. Even his brothers had never seen his true face. Some said that he was a prominent military figure who shielded his identity from his kin. Others said that he had no face at all, that he was a ghost capable of moving through walls. His movements had the precision and fluency of a dancer, and he wore full military Special Forces combat attire, all black.

The youngest of the brothers stood apart from his siblings, his face tipped upwards towards the moon. The hood of his robe had been pushed back and draped across his shoulders and neck, revealing a beautifully hideous face to the world. His head was shaved smooth, his features made sharper by the pale green tattoos that covered his face. His entire skeletal system had been tattooed onto his skin. Cheekbones, ribs, phalanges and metatarsals were replicated in soft green ink. He was tall, six feet three inches, and his eyes were a translucent grey. Death incarnate.

The Four Horsemen were the sons of the infamous assassin Chaos; the former United States of America’s “confidential enemy number one”, a man who had been executed eight months ago in Berlin by a unit of MARSOC operatives. Named after their biblical namesakes Pestilence, War, Famine and Death were a closely guarded secret within intelligence circles. There were just a few hundred people across the globe who could accurately say that they had direct knowledge of their movements, only those with the highest security clearances were ever made aware of the vicious reputations the brothers held. Governments had fought tirelessly to keep the atrocities that the brothers had committed out of the public’s eye, just as they had done with Chaos. But the brothers thrived in the secrecy of their actions. Pestilence and War cold move freely. Famine could live another life without his mask, and Death often used makeup to cover his skeleton and move unnoticed throughout the world.

“My brothers; tonight is a momentous night,” Pestilence said, dropping down the hood of his robe. “Tonight marks the eight month anniversary of our father’s death and the last time we will meet.”

“Such sentiment,” War mocked, thrusting the blade in his hand towards Pestilence to mark his point. “I have no time for petty bullshit brother. Tell me why you bought us here. Tell us why you killed the arms manufacturer.”

“I had no use for him. Gerard was a turncoat who was planning on ratting us out.”

“We needed him,” War said, trying to keep his voice to a whisper, belying its true thunderous volume. “Gerard had worked for us for years. He worked for our father. He was invaluable to our cause.”

“And yet he was going to betray us,” Pestilence snapped. “He had seen what I was planning and he was weak. He was going to rat me out so I put him down like a dog.”

War fell silent, offering no response. The four brothers were not close on any physical or emotional level, rarely seeing eye to eye. Their only mutual affiliation had been their now-deceased father. Each man would have been perfectly content to operate independently of his siblings, and for a long time they had done so. But right now they needed one another if they were to fulfil their father’s plans and bring the world to its knees. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were inseparable for the moment, no matter how badly they wished otherwise.

“Tomorrow marks phase one of the Rapture,” Pestilence said, taking a moment to scan the faces of his three brothers, lingering a fraction of a second longer on Famine, the brother without a face. “Our father was slain eight months ago today, and the governments of this God-forsaken world are still yet to feel our wrath for their actions. The soldiers responsible for the attack were neutralised, as were their families; but now we must set forth and fulfil our destiny. We must bring about the Rapture, and bring our enemies to their knees just as our father would have wanted. We will tear down every corner of the earth and reduce it to rubble and we will rebuild the world in his image. Chaos and anarchy will reign.”

“Not all of the soldiers were killed,” War spat, casting a glance at the youngest brother, Death.

“Did I ask for you to open your mouth?” Pestilence hissed silencing the brothers before Death had a chance to respond. “We will do as our father has asked of us and we will divide the world into quarters and conquer them. Europe will fall underneath a cloud of disease that will cripple its people and leave its governments powerless to help. The rich will protect themselves and the great unwashed will rise and destroy what remains of them. Then my brothers, your time to rise will come.”

Hail Mary

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Relax. It’s not a religious reference, but rather homage to American Football. For those of you unaware of a Hail Mary Pass, it is an extremely long pass made in desperation that has only a fraction of a chance of success. The pass is usually thrown late in the game when a team offers its last stand in an attempt to win the match. Anyone who has ever seen the Hail Mary Pass thrown will be able to relate to the momentary trepidation that strangles the heart as you watch the spiraling ball in flight, carrying the hopes of the team and its fan base on its pigskin body, usually to no avail.

Yet when a Hail Mary finds its intended receiver the crowd erupts and the entire match spins on an axis and forces the opposition into a play to win situation they hadn’t been anticipating.

So why the football reference? I’m a writer. And let’s be honest, writers aren’t usually great sports people. Yet here I am trying to explain an infamous play in a sport that is foreign to my own country of origin. Well the reason is that right now I feel like I’m standing on my own ten yard line staring at an end zone blocked by my opponents, who will do anything to see me fail. But this isn’t an ordinary end zone. I’m not gunning for a game winning touchdown, I’m eyeing off a far larger dream. On the far side of the field located in front of the grandstands and marching band, is a publishing contract and a life changing moment of triumph.

Right now it’s time out and my opponents are milling around in a loose huddle counting down the minutes until they’ll form a line of scrimmage and attempt to rush me and strip my dreams from my fingers. I say minutes fairly loosely, because the reality of the situation is that my window of opportunity won’t actually appear until eight weeks from now when I touch down in New York City in preparation for my Hail Mary Pass.

Nevertheless I’m using the time afforded me right now to size up my opponents and assess the threats that they pose when they try to blindside me before I break into open ground and race to the end zone.

I can see that arsehole called Finance; the big line backer with the bull-neck and ham-sized fists that grunts as he stares at me. He knows that my money situation is fucked and I’m desperately trying to scrape together any kind of defence I can against the heavyset prick who will attempt to chop me down at the knees.

Beside him is Location; the bastard who has displaced my dreams many times before. He plays dirty and chooses favourites on the field. If he doesn’t like you then he’ll hit you hard at every opportunity; and so some reason the bastard seems to loathe me.

And so the list of my opponents goes on as I run my eyes over the huddle. The other writers are there, arsehole agents too. Fear is smiling and patting self-doubt on the back as they make eyes at me, formulating a plan to hit me simultaneously. But as I stare at the congregation of damned bodies watching me through their helmets and grills, there is only one man who I feel actually has the power to intercept my Hail Mary and destroy the opportunity I’ve worked so hard to create; and he looks a lot like me.

As an aspiring writer my greatest enemy is not the industry, my competitors, publishers, editors, agents, nor my displacement from the larger markets of America and Europe. My greatest enemy is myself, and it always will be. See I’m fairly confident in my abilities as a writer. I wouldn’t have won the competitions I have, or seen my work progress so far through screening processes if there wasn’t some level of skill in what I produce. But I also know that I am a bit of an extroverted introvert sometimes and I just hope and pray that when it comes time to throw that fucking pass and chase down my dreams that I have the balls to give it everything that I have.

It’s a confusing contradiction isn’t it? How can someone be an extroverted introvert? And how can they really hope to ever achieve anything if they can’t figure out something as simple as their own personality traits? Well, the thing is that I am incredibly introverted. I like my own company and tend to shy away from others. I don’t have an abundance of people who are close to me because I don’t want to. But for those that are, I aim to protect them with bloody hands if they ever need it. It’s not that I am necessarily shy though. I used to be. Now I’m the complete opposite. I’m confident as hell in myself and my abilities. But I don’t feel the need to take that confidence and turn it into arrogance by shouting it from the rooftops. I’m your quiet self-assured type that doesn’t feel the need to justify myself to anyone… And there in my own mind, lays my problem when I hit the streets of New York in eight weeks’ time.

I have to justify myself. I have to prove to publishers and agents and that I am worth their time and I have to stifle my own ego no matter how much it tells me to revert back the arrogant arsehole I can sometimes be.

So here I stand waiting for the moment when I’ll throw my Hail Mary Pass and try to score a book deal. The clock is winding down and the arseholes in their huddle before me are watching my every move. Finance is watching as I turn my small change into small fortunes. Location scrutinizes my movements as I book flights and accommodation. The other writers gawk at how I present myself and my scripts laden with ruin and woe. The agents watch as I prepare to slide into the chair opposite them and pitch my fucking heart out. And the man that looks like me stares back with an impassive curiosity, knowing that all of his teammates can be beaten and the only man who can defeat me is myself. He watches and waits, knowing that if I am to succeed I have to learn how to be humble and how to grovel. He watches with a sly smirk that says the game is mine to lose.

I may be a superstar in my own mind, but I still need to prove it to others. In eight weeks time when I throw my Hail Mary I need to do so with as much confidence and bravado as I can muster. But I must also do so with a sense of humility that can sometimes be foreign to me.

Edit

Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress; working hard for something we love is called passion.
¬-Simon Sinek

About twelve months ago I wrote a post in which I referred to the editing process as the bane of my existence. And at the time it was. I went through a phase where all I wanted to do was create. It didn’t matter if what I was producing wasn’t the best quality, I just wanted to pump out pages and pages of my thoughts and lay my soul bare for the world to see. I would write stories that had no purpose or point; they would simply waffle on and on until a cataclysmic event bought the story to a close. I never wanted to edit. The very idea of tracking back over my work and ratting out the imperfections filled me with a sense of foreboding so great that I would do just about anything to avoid it.

But lately I’ve been working back through one of my pieces with the help of my editor to smooth out the finer points of my plot lines and layout, and I’m actually really enjoying myself. I think that the reason behind my sudden over-zealousness for editing stems from an idea presented in the header above by Start with why author Simon Sinek. The concept of Sinek’s quote is simple. If you are passionate about something, and by passionate I mean you truly love what you are doing, then you immerse yourself completely in the task at hand and enjoy the hours of hard work required to reap a reward. If on the flip side you really don’t give a shit about what you are actually doing, then all that hard work that you are putting in manifests itself not in positivity or achievements, but in stress.

At the time of writing my previous entry where I responded so negatively towards the editing process I was viewing it with a slightly immature mindset that was forcing my works to fall well short of their true potential. I had taken the viewpoint that editing was a tedious, unrewarding task that did nothing but serve as a distraction from what I actually wanted to do: write. But now I’m starting to learn that there are so many wonderful benefits to the editing process, and that if I do want to excel at my craft, then I need to learn how to not only embrace the concept of editing; I need to learn how to fucking own it.

Right now this whole editing thing is quite cathartic. It’s allowing me to really go back and re-evaluate a piece that I spent years creating, as well as analyse myself as a writer. And while my previous edits have been ego-filled affairs in which I’ve poured over my work and told myself just how fucking great I am, this time it’s been an incredible journey of self-discovery, aided by the kind and sometimes brutally honest words of my editor. I’m sure that at some point I’ll fucking hate the editing process again; it’s just how the world works. But writing is my passion and editing is a large part of being a great writer. So far all the hard work and hours that I’m dedicating to polishing my script is already reaping great reward. I’ve just to starve off that stress until I’m satisfied that my script is all that it can be.

New York, New York

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‘The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.’
-Jordan Belfort.

So there’s this opportunity that has presented itself. It’s a chance for me to actually grow a pair of balls and take my roadshow of misguided tales and prose across the world in the hopes of securing a contract with a publisher or agent. Imagine that: no longer would I be that disgruntled writer sitting at his kitchen table penning his inner most thoughts onto scraps of paper or punching them into a word processor. I’d have made it. I’d be a star…

…Well maybe not a star. But at least I’d finally be taking some serious steps towards my dreams.

This opportunity is the kind that comes along once in a lifetime. An opportunity that would see me sitting face to face with the men and women that could make my dreams come true. I would be afforded the chance to pitch my scripts to them in person; I would be able to field their questions, capture their interests and (hopefully) inspire them to believe in my visions as much as I do. It sounds fantastic. And believe me when I say that I’d do anything for an opportunity like this. There’s just one little problem: that opportunity is in New York City in July of this year. As of right now I’m over 9,600 miles away from where I need to be in roughly five months’ time.

At first this sounds like quite the hurdle. How the fuck does one travel almost ten thousand miles in order to chase his dreams? Well, all I can say is thank God for Orville and Wilbur Wright and their rag tag crew who made their own vivid dreams a reality. I don’t want to sound like a jukebox cranking out tired old clichés, but after taking a few words of inspiration from Mr Belfort above I’m telling myself that where there’s a will, there’s a way.

So rather than do what I would usually do and throw my hands in the air and curse at the world that such an opportunity should arise on the opposite side of the world, I’m trying to take proactive steps to reach out and grab my dreams by the coat tails. My theory is that if I can manage to make that momentous leap and grab the fringes of my dream’s cloak then then I should be able to claw my way forward from there until I’ve got the fucker pinned to the floor.

Right now my novel is undergoing another round of editing. This time I’ve enlisted the help of an editor located in (surprise, surprise) the USA. It seems to make sense to me that if I’m going to take a gamble and try and spruik my wares in the American market then I should get a little insider knowledge from someone already on the scene. While that happens I’m plugging away at my job; busting my arse to ensure that when the time comes I’ve got enough money that I don’t find myself sleeping rough in the streets of New York as I try and hunt down success.

And while all is that is happening I’m still trying to focus as much time and energy on the one thing that keeps me sane in times like these: my writing. I’m still putting pen to paper whenever I can, admittedly I’m currently doing so with a little more direction than usual; which is a small victory in itself. Whether or not I can make this small sliver of an opportunity work remains to be seen. But even if it does fail I’ll know that it wasn’t through lack of trying. For the first time in my writing career I’m prepared to cast aside that bullshit story that I tell myself is stopping me from achieving my goals and give this my all.

Pushers & Pseudo-Philosophers

Imagine that you’re a heroin addict. It’s probably a bizarre thought, but just bear with me for a moment. Imagine that right now you’re not sitting over an illuminated screen reading the words of a frustrated writer. But rather you’re turning tricks on a street corner trying to earn a couple of bucks to chase down your next score. You’re entire being aches for another hit; your head is pounding and your stomach feels like it’s tearing itself in two at your unintentional starvation of that needle full of cooked rock that you so desperately crave. You’d do pretty much anything for the opportunity to shoot strings of happiness into your veins and after a few hours of lifting wallets from unsuspecting victims you’ve amassed enough cash to buy a little rock, so you hotfoot it over to your local dealers house.

The place is a fucking dive. If you were to try and take a shit and mould a house out of it you’re pretty sure it would look better than this. But you’re not here to admire the décor. You’re here to tap that vein in the crook of your elbow until it bulges and you can slip a needle full of H into it. There’s only one problem. It’s not your vein that’s tapped out. It’s your dealer. He’s run dry and you’re left staring at some useless piece of shit who can’t satisfy your needs. But he likes you. You’ve been a steady client for years so he gives you two options. There’s a pusher down town who has some of the best shit in the district. Only problem is it’s double the price of what you’d usually pay for a hit. Otherwise there’s a halfwit kid peddling a cut up version of the drug you crave around the corner. He’s known for his shitty wares that are usually spliced with a little washing powder or battery acid but with the money in your pocket you’d probably walk away from the deal with a hit and some change.

So what do you do? Do you feed yourself the watered down shit that may potentially kill you and will have you leaving unsatisfied? Or do you start turning tricks again to double your money and go score some quality shit when you can afford it? It seems obvious that if you were a heroin addict you’d try to double your money and hunt down the drug that isn’t going to leave your needs unsatisfied and potentially kill you. Yet when we trade out that heroin addiction for an admittedly less dangerous infatuation with literature we seem so ready to take a gamble and consume the watered down trash rather than track down better quality shit.

See I’m a Pusher. I’m that guy down town who’s peddling wares that are a little harder to come by but are admittedly of a far better grade than the halfwit trying to compete with me. But unlike a regular pusher you won’t find me standing in a back alley surrounded by hired muscle peddling high grade heroin onto junkies. Instead you’ll find me threaded throughout the online community of WordPress surrounded by pop-up ads and other pushers peddling my own inner thoughts onto you, my ever faithful literature junkie. See you’re not here because you want to shoot strings of happiness up your arm; you’re here because you want to fire strings of carefully woven phrases into your mind. It’s that desire to feel intellectually satisfied that keeps you returning to this blog and many just like it. You crave knowledge and perspectives and know that there is no better way to satisfy these urges than to open your mind to the world of literature.

But there’s a plight now facing the new wave of emerging literature junkies that are just starting to venture out of their comfort zones to track down the substances they so desperately need. The halfwit pseudo-philosopher masking himself as a pusher and peddling his cheap, poor quality shit onto the unsuspecting and the unaware. Bullshit stories on social media sites that play on human emotion are the new players on the scene in the writing world. They are shit quality, totally fictitious and often poorly written, but they focus on a simple formula that affords them widespread circulation: create some heart-wrenching story of human triumph and the baser human emotion of the reader’s compassion will do the rest.

But it doesn’t stop there. See that’s just phase one of the pseudo-philosopher’s cutting of the product. The tear-jerking stories are the washing powder. The battery acid comes in the form of the woefully uneducated trying to emulate the washing powder tales for themselves. We live in a world where everyone has a voice, which is great. But if you’re not a writer don’t try and pass yourself off as one. If you’re not a philosopher then stop trying to create insightful status updates or posts that are rife with poor spelling and grammatical construction. You’re battery acid is diluting the better quality shit for sale down town.

So now you’re educated. But you’re still a junkie and your dealer has nothing to offer you. So you need to make a call. You’ve got a pocket full of collateral earned from turning tricks on the corner. But this isn’t any ordinary collateral. You haven’t got a surplus of cash at your disposal, but rather time. You’ve got an intellectual itch that needs to be scratched and you’ve got just two options; keep turning tricks and chew up some time hunting down that elusive high quality pusher. Or start swallowing down the diluted shit readily available at every click of the mouse and risk an infuriating rush of blood to the head as the lesser quality product leaves you nauseous with disgust at its lack of originality and skill.

So what are you going to do? Well, just by reading this blog you’ve chosen the road that is unfortunately a lot less travelled. You’re hunting down pushers plugging a product they give a shit about and turning away from easier option of the pseudo-philosophers. There’s no reward for this. You’re still a literature junkie and you’ll forever have a need to be satisfied through the phrases of others. But by choosing your pushers wisely you’ll actually have moments where those urges of yours are actually sated. Moments when you can sit back in your lounge chair and close your eyes thrilled by the knowledge that a writer has opened up their heart and mind and found a place within yours.

Authors note: If you were to take ten writers (and I use the term loosely) at random and put them together in a room and dissect them, your break down would more than likely consist of this:

o 1 dealer (A writer who has cracked the big time)
o 2 Pushers plugging their wares in writer’s circles
o 7 Pseudo-philosophers who are standing around with nothing of value to contribute yet oddly preaching their worth to anyone within reach.

Literature is a drug. And like any drug, great literature is hard to find. But believe me when I say that it does exist, you’ve just got to be willing to spend the collateral to acquire it. So spread the word: pseudo-philosophers are on the way out, the rise of the pushers is here. We’re taking our wares to the digital street corners of the web, giving junkies everywhere a buzz that no halfwit piece of shit script or writer will ever be able to emulate.

Bench Players & Flowerbeds

As an aspiring author there are times when it feels as though you’re sitting on a bench in a school yard with your peers watching as the cool kids stand in front of everyone and pick teams for a game of hoops. You sit patiently with your hands in your lap, knowing that you’re all but a sure thing for an early pick. Everyone knows that you can play with the best of them. Sure there are people on the bench who can steal or block better than you, some can even hit a three pointer over a defender better than you can. But you’re consistent; you work hard, and are a solid all round performer who on any given day can showcase a stellar effort of skill, and most importantly, determination.

The cool kids start picking teams, you’re not their first choice but that’s alright. You don’t mind if someone else nabs the coveted number one pick, as long as you are eventually recognised for your talents. But the picks keep coming and the decent players all take sides and you suddenly find yourself seated on the bench with a bunch of ballers that aren’t fit to step on the same court as you. Ok you think. Here it comes, there’s no way that I won’t be chosen next. All that hard work you’ve put in honing your skills are about to be rewarded. The next pick comes, but it’s not you. It’s one of the fucking desperados sitting beside you; a guy that you know you can run rings around on a bad day. The move blindsides you. What the fuck just happened? What could possibly compel someone to bypass you when you are clearly the most deserving? Then the picks keep rolling and suddenly you’re sitting alone staring up at a team you really deserved to be a part of wondering what the hell went wrong.

Writing is often a harrowingly lonely process that is seldom filled with the kind of human interaction that our species so feverishly craves. As an aspiring author you spend hours honing your crafts, pouring through novels or text books, devouring poems, films, music and manuscripts as though watching the playoff performances of your opponents. You admire and you aspire, but at the same time a yearning to better them at their own game fuels a hunger inside of you that sees pens scrawl in frantic cursive across notebook pages or fingers tap relentlessly against keys. You learn everything there is to learn, you find faults in your craft through your constant examination, and work harder at perfecting what you do until you know that if you were given the shot, given the opportunity to enter your own playoff game, you’d blitz the competition and leave behind a legacy that will outlive you.

But still you find yourself stuck on that fucking bench. It seems like no matter what those cool kids calling the shots just won’t put you in the starting line-up. You’re the best damn writer there is and some fucking shmuck in a suit whose job it is to make or break an artist won’t take a gamble on you because there’s something different about you. There’s an unfamiliar element to your game that he fears to throw his support behind no matter how much his gut tells him that you’ll succeed. Your writing is different, brutal, unpolished, offensive, or not marketable. That’s not to say that it’s not good, but it just doesn’t fit inside the preconceived idea of what he is after. So instead of choosing you for his team and giving you the opportunity to run those assists or hit those deep three pointers, he chooses a safer option with less talent. Publishers and the cool kids are often terrified of the unpredictable or the truly unique, so they ridicule or overlook, passing up the opportunity to inspire greatness.

In this dilemma of the aspiring writer/baller lies a rather pressing question. Do I sell out and play it safe? Do I create a manuscript or a set play that lacks all real creativity and is devoid of any of the intricacies that make me who I am in order to be pulled off of the bench and into the starting line up? Or do I continue to be myself. Do I make the plays or the manuscripts that the team and the publishing industry don’t necessarily want, but that they truly need and deserve?

During my lifespan as an aspiring writer I have met many others just like me vying for the same ultimate dream of seeing their work in print. And in my time I’ve noticed that some of the greatest writers that I have met have been the ones most ridiculed or ignored by their peers. Oftentimes these men and women create pieces that are so beautifully unique that many fail to comprehend just how incredible they actually are, and although the author truly deserves to find recognition for what they have created they ultimately fail where others with lesser talent but larger lungs succeed.

I used to get upset when this happened. I’d kick and scream and tear my fucking hair out that someone so undeserving could be given an opportunity when another so talented could be left begging. But lately I’ve been thinking of the publishing industry in a different light. Maybe it’s not like a game of hoops at all. Maybe instead this whole crazy industry is more like a flowerbed. The cool kids are actually gardeners and the reason that they are picking other author’s over me (or anyone else truly deserving of success) is that they need to line the bed with a nice thick layer of shit before anything of substance has a chance to grow.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth…

lear

Wait. Slow down a second. Did this post really just begin with a nod to one of history’s greatest play writes? Do the illustrious words of King Lear really belong on the landing page of a blog based primarily around depression and my own artistic shortcomings? To quote an artist as prolific as the great William Shakespeare on this page seems to almost degrade the celebrated writer. But nevertheless for lack of a better title I thought that King Lear’s acid tongued dialogue directed at his thankless daughters seemed somewhat appropriate for where we currently find ourselves.

So why does Shakespeare’s delicately constructed dialect resonate so strongly with my own writing right now? Well… I think that I’ve been plagiarised. I think that someone has taken my works laden with my own flourishes and imperfections and tried to reproduce them and label the knockoffs as their own. I know that it sounds rather arrogant to assume that a writer would want to take what I have created and re-brand it as their own creative masterpieces, but sometimes shit just doesn’t add up and one can only wonder just how another aspiring author can suddenly produce a blog entry so similar to my own. The idea of plagiarism like this is a rather intriguing concept, and one that forces a writer to seriously contemplate the ramifications of such a dastardly deed.

If I have indeed been plagiarised then I certainly wouldn’t be the first author to ever have this happen, and I’m pretty damn sure that I won’t be the last. J.K. Rowling must have inspired plenty of Harry Potter knockoffs; and Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code would have undoubtedly sent writer’s desires to produce historical thrillers into overdrive. But what am I to make of this potential copycat? Am I supposed to feel jaded like King Lear? Am I to feel as though I have been betrayed by a thankless child? Or would a better title for this post have been the finest form of flattery?

Because there really is no finer form of flattery than to have a fellow writer attempt to reproduce your work. If a writer has actively gone out of their way to indulge themselves in the stylistic nuances that make your own pieces unique, then surely that means you are doing something right? Doesn’t it?

The article in question arrived in my emails a few days ago. I follow quite a few blogs and my Iphone is always pinging with arrival of another author’s works. But with this particular page I seem to have developed a bit of an unspoken mutual agreement with the aspiring author who produced it; it’s nothing too complicated. He follows my blog and I follow his. We have never met, never spoken, and in all honesty we never will. But we have found each other in the immense cosmos of online web logging through our mutual love of writing and desire to find acclaim.

This young writer is good. His pieces have always been fetching and unique. But our writing styles have always been inherently different. -Which would probably explain why his audience is roughly 50 times the size of my own- But recently he released a piece that was rather unexpected, unprecedented, and so unlike anything he had ever produced. Suddenly I found myself reading a post that had me seriously questioning whether or not I had been given a guest editors spot on another blog. I am fully aware that I still sound incredibly childish here. How arrogant it is for me to assume that anyone would wish to rip off the deranged fragments of thought that clutter the homepage of this site! But what if I’m right? What if I am King Lear and I’m being unwillingly usurped by an author who wishes to claim my workings as his own?

The truth is that I’ll never know for sure whether my writing has been reproduced. All I can base my theories off is the feeling in the pit of my stomach as I read an (unusually) sloppy post that sounded striking similar to my own story. And the strange look of my partner as she came to the same realisation and asked if I had indeed been the catalyst behind the unexpected entry. But I guess that is the world we live in. So often in life we are overlooked or outshone at something that makes us truly unique. It can be easy to take what you do for granted and to never find the recognition you deserve for your talents. It can be easy to give up and never push that little bit harder in order to be noticed. Yet feel defeated when a lessor opponent finds notoriety for doing so.

The young man who reads my wares and (possibly) feels the need to reinterpret them and label them as his own truly is the thankless child that King Lear spoke of. He has taken my ideas and idiocies and claimed them as his own. But rather than feel anger towards him I can’t help but feel like there’s a lesson to be learned here. I now firmly believe that when our talents are laid out and compared, I am the stronger writer; however I do need to apply myself a little more to this whole social media thing and establishing (and maintaining relationships with) an audience. And while it does sting to see someone else finding fame through pieces that are questionable in nature, there really is no finer form of flattery than to have someone try to reproduce what I create on the walls of this very blog.

Dancing with Madam Anger

I think I’ve made a mistake. In fact, scratch that. I know that I have. Somewhere along my journey towards becoming a better writer and quelling the demons that plague my mind I’ve turned myself from a bubbling cauldron of angst and anger into a fucking robot that is devoid of any emotion whatsoever. It’s where I always thought that I wanted to be; a head space where I feel no anger, fear, frustrations or disappointment. But unfortunately it seems as though it is all those things that make me the man and the writer that I am, and that I’ve always wanted to be. Recently I couldn’t help but notice that as my apathy for everyone and everything around me flourishes, my ability to write and create subsequently diminishes. Lately I’ve been thinking that it’s time to cast aside the whole sensitive new aged guy bullshit and start to embrace Madam Anger and all the wondrous gifts she bestows upon me.

The very concept of embracing the darker impulses of my heart does run incongruous to almost everything I have ever written on the walls of this blog. Yet over the past couple of weeks as I’ve risen at the crack of dawn only to stare at a perpetually blank page on my laptop, I’ve come to the startling realisation that I’m simply better off when I’m angry. As an emerging writer everything that I have ever produced has been dripping with passion and anguish, yet in my desire to overcome a battle with depression I deliberately removed all forms of these delicate muses from my psyche, leaving behind a barren wasteland where emotion and creativity once roamed.

I now understand that my mind is like a delicate ecosystem inhabited by every thought and human emotion that it creates. When all of these thoughts and emotions work in perfect harmony my mind flourishes and my writing follows suit. My urges and impulses form the sediment that allows everything to grow. And my thirst for knowledge forms beautiful saplings that pierce the surface of my mind and reach towards the sun. The sun itself is made up off all the positivity that I strive to produce on a daily basis. Then, in order to balance out my peacefulness, my darker thoughts are the heavy rains that lash across the landscape. But just like the rains that lash the earth, these sometimes torrential storms are a necessity for the ecosystem. Without the rains all creativity would die.

Which leads me to ask me what the fuck was I thinking when I tried to remove such an integral part of the ecosystem that is my mind? In hindsight I should have realised that everything in life must be balanced; that without sunshine and rain working in relative unison, everything would fall apart. I took away the negative rains of my mind, and allowed the overpowering rays of positivity to rape the earth until all that remained was scorched and uninhabitable. Then, when the land was devoid of life I stood in the damaged sediment and wondered just why nothing could be created there.

So, without further ado; here comes the fucking rain.

At first thick droplets fall around me, splashing against the scorched earth, their individual strength unable to penetrate a crust as hard as this. But then, as the rains fall harder and I goad my mind for more, a figure materialises through the storm clouds in the distance. She moves closer, gliding across the earth’s surface with a step as delicate as her fine features. Madam Anger has arrived to aid me through this storm. We stand in relative silence, watching the rain falling around us before she invites me to dance. So I take her and hold her close and we move to the orchestra of thunder crashing loudly overhead. We sway and waltz, our movements always in time with the rise and fall of the orchestra’s crescendos, allowing the rains of anger and frustration to wash over us before falling to the desperately thirsty earth.

Our footsteps crack the earth’s surface, and the raindrops slip inside. And before I can stop and gasp, the first inklings of saplings arrive. So we dance around in circles, leaving behind a trail of fresh footprints teeming with new life. And after what feels like hours of dancing, I can now see that my mind shall survive. But the rains begin to pass, and soon the storm subsides. I stop now and stare out at all that Madam Anger has created, and release her from my grasp. She sweeps her hair behind her ear and smiles at me through crooked teeth. The once beautiful apparition that danced until life returned has faded; replaced now by her true form as a hideous hunch backed dame. I stand and watch her fade away, chasing the storm from my mind. Before I turn towards the earth with wonder and behold all that Madam Anger has left behind.

The idea here is not to return to my days of never ending anger and angst. But rather to embrace the idea that I can control the darker impulses of my mind and use them to fuel the creative fires of my soul. I don’t want to be angry anymore. That part of me is gone. But I’m also very aware that without Madam Anger I would never be able to write or continue to grow as a man. I’m throwing caution to the wind and abandoning my quest to turn myself into an emotionless robot. Instead from now on I have vowed to feel all that my life has to offer. Anger, angst, love, success or failure; my writing and my life needs all of these and more to survive. I understand now that within the microcosm that is man there is a macrocosm of emotions that we must experience in order to feel alive. So before I dance off into the sunset with Madam Anger once more, I would like to take this opportunity to let you know that I will be in touch again soon.