A 'Pretty Useless' Sale!

Just had an email from editor/publisher of Dred Magazine, ( www.dredtales.com ) Bill Hughes. He's accepted my story of online-game sniping 'Pretty Useless Says'. I am of, course, pretty chuffed.

Demented Nursery Rhymes

My mate Gerard sent me a couple of his demented Nursery Rhymes, which he has submitted for publication. I was pretty imoressed and set out to have a go myself. Below is as far as I got. It's doing my bloody head in. Please, if anyone should so wish, feel free to add/finish it off.

 

Humpty Dumpty bought a hotel,

(Formerly called the Bates Motel).

An all-round good egg, this tale is sad,

For who would have guessed, Humpty would turn bad?

 

There checked in a female guest,

In need, she said, of plenty of rest.

Humpty gave her the key to Room 3,

Rushing off to use the spyhole in 3B!

 

Rumpy pumpy was not on the cards,

Tumpty tumpty da da dada (this line escapes me)

So chagrined he was, to find his view marred,.

By a curtain and steam as dense as brocade. (not sure about this either)

 

‘Damn and bother!’ He rushed to Room 3,

‘I will sneak in, she will see nor hear me.’

At the hurry-up, tripping on a towel,

Humpty gave himself away with a howl.

 

Lady maybe, but no fool was her,

She whisked him up, with a loofah.

Till all the best cleaners and all the best staff,

Would never get rid, the soufflé in the bath.

Cloud Nine

My novella, 'The Reconstruction of Kasper Clark', has been accepted for inclusion in The Butcher Shop Quartet. Any regular readers of this blog will know, without being told, how chuffed I am to announce this.

Immortality

On The Gadget Show this week, one of the presenters was chatting to a futurologist who works for BT. Basically, this guy's job is to analyse current trends in science and technoogy and advise his company which ones are viable and worthy of time and investment, and which are probably dead ends.

BT are interested in the way we interface with our computers via Qwerty keyboads, speech and controllers like mice and sticks... An alternative to these methods of imput is being sought. Electrical impulses pass through the skin, so by laying the hand on a sensor-pad and training the computer-user, a system of commands can be built up where certain thoughts trigger certain electrical impulses which are then transmitted through this sensor pad. This already with us and under development. Okay, the next step would be a direct interface with the brain -- that's about about 25 years away according to this futurologist. In about 40-50 years we may well be able to download our minds onto storage devices. Make a back-up copy of your brain! The next logical step would then be downloading this personality into... what? Vat-grown bodies cultured from your own cells? Androids?

I watched this with Heather sittting beside me and thought, "Wow", she might never die, never pass out of existence. I've often marvelled at the changes my grandma mist have seen, being born at the start of the twentieth century and dying in the twenty-first. But it looks like the next few generations are in for some amazing stuff too.

My Left Eye

I handed my sick note in to work today, to no one's great surprise. I'll go back in seven weeks time to pick up my redundancy cheque and that will be that.

Chris Hall is revamping my site for me. www.mylefteye.net was something of a rush job. Chris wanted more time to work out a design whereas I wanted a site up and running before the Bew Year so I could shout about some good news. But now I'm a man of leisure and he's had more time to think about it we're looking at some alternative themes to run with, and some of the ideas look pretty damned good. Far better than the current one.

I've popped THE LIGHT KNIGHT RETURNS in the queue at critters.org. It's not really finished, but I have plenty of time to fix that before it's due for critiquing. 7800 words (I cut a helluva lot out this morning), and just an epilogue to add. I'm pleased with it.

Early finish

This morning I went down the doctor's to explain how work is getting on top of me. He didn't have the most recent reports from the hospital regarding my eyesight, but once I brought him up to date he seemed to think that a factory is not a safe place for me. And I agreed. So that's it. He signed me off the remaining seven weeks and I no longer have to serve out my redundancy period. I turned my last mould out on Friday without even knowing it. If I'd known I would have ... well, it wouldn't have made any difference, I suppose. Just feels odd, turning my back on a job after 22 years. There should have been some sort of little 'farewell'. Tomorrow I might don a flat cap and scarf and visit my old workmates, tell em how well  I'm coping with retirement.

Anniversary

Today is my twelfth wedding anniversary. Presents? I made Jill a cup of tea and she gave me a pair of pyjamas. Hmm. I think we've drifted into that relaxed comfort zone where you don't need to state the bleeding obvious like 'I love you', swap cards or buy flowers. Maybe I will next year, just to surprise her, but I imagine I said that last year.

On the writing front, for anyone following my path to superstardom (ha!) -- THE LIGHT KNIGHT RETURNS is near completion. Give me a week, it should be done. 10,000 words. Another biggie. I can't really call it a first draft as this is a reworking of a story I wrote nearly 3 years ago, one of my first actually. I thought it was great at the time, but once I'd gathered a bit more experience, I realised it was pretty rough. Loads of flashbacks and POV slips made it a confusing jumble of scenes. (Having said that, my mate Russell still regards TLKR as his favourite story.)

A couple of years ago I decided to make THE LIGHT KNIGHT RETURNS the basis of my second novel, a sequel to the unpublished LEMON. Since then I've decided to rewrite LEMON, working THE LIGHT KNIGHT RETURNS into it, rather than as a standalone sequel. And now, here I am writing it as a short story again. I'm still harbouring the fantasy of making it a novel, but I see this as a way experimenting with certain characters and settings before wasting tens of thousands of words going down wrong roads with the novel. Also, I can get some feedback on the short story, find out whether the idea floats or not. It is far-fetched, even by my own yardstick of far-fetched, which is more of a milestick really.

Sickie

Today I got up at 5.40am as per usual, had a wash, got dressed, put the kettle on, switched it off, got undressed and climbed back in bed. Yep, I took a day off work. A sickie. No excuse except I had to chisel the fireplace out preparaory to a load of decorating/improvements to the lounge and I wanted to do it this morning so as to disturb our neighbour, Beryl. Thoughtful, ain't I?

On the publishing front my story NO DOGS ALLOWED is out now in 'Twisted Cat Tales', available on Amazon. Also out there is RAISING ARCHIE at www.electricspec.com, SHEEP at www.dredtales.com and a few other print ones. See the full range of my success at www.mylefteye.net Thank you.

Pigeon-holed

I haven't updated for a few days. I've got as far as logging on but stalled at the thought of spouting what's on my mind. Y'see, I've had a load of stuff in the post -- forms, letters, certificates and the like -- relating to my new 'blind' status. And it's getting me down a bit. I daresay all this stuff is to my benefit in the long run, but . . .

Take yesterday, for example. I had a visit from a social worker who demonstrated all the various aids I can have to keep me safe around the home and outdoors. Touch dials for cookers and washing machines, beepers that tell me when a cup I'm filling from the kettle is full, daylight bulbs, dense glasses, the white cane . . . A phrase she was fond of was 'keeping your independence'.

I don't need any of these things yet. I know I will do one day, and sooner than I'm willing to admit, and I do appreciate these kindly souls telling me they're there for when I need them. But not just yet, eh? I don't want to claim this, that and the other -- become a statistic. When I do, that's when I lose my independence as far as I'm concerned.

'Kasper' still hanging in there

I got an email last night from one of the editors of Butcher Shop Quartet. My story, novella, novelette, whatever-you-wanna-call-it, is now definitely short shortlisted. My story, says Boyd, is stupendous, a real thinking man's story. He loves it. But....

(Now why did the But have to come along and spoil the show?)

But there's one sticking point: he can't envisage Kasper Clark's deformity, the whole mouth in the forehead business isn't quite gelling for him. And I can't say I blame him. I hadn't properly envisaged it myself, so what chance the reader? So this morning, with a heavy sigh and a profound sense of deja vu, I plunged into 'Kasper Clark' again. And d'you know what? I think I've nailed it! I started to think about the physical attributes such a mouth would have to have, the muscle and bone structure, pictured lips like a sphincter and bang! 'Kasper Clark' is another 1000 words longer and, I feel, finished. No really, it's finished. I know I've said that before, twice at least. But this time it is definitely finished. Well, apart from a few line edits it's finished...

Kasper critiqued

My novella, novelette, whatever you wanna call it, 'Kasper Clark' has been critiqued no less than four times in its week online at critters.org. I usually get something in the region of 25 critiques, but clearly most folks -- and I'm the same -- see a wordcount over 15000, think Yikes! and move on to find something smaller. Still, I got some feedback and, I'm glad to say, it was overwhelmingly positive. And only three typos in all, which ain't bad going for 16k, although I have Jon Eyers to thank for that as he spotted several before I submitted the final draft to critters.org and the Butcher Shop Quartet. A few suggestions as to how I could change things, but nothing that struck me as pressing. I'm going to sit tight now and see what Boyd and Frank, the editors of BSQ think of it. It's their opinion I really want to hear right now.