Category: writing

Tuesday Tunes: The True And Complete History Of Cerise Sauvage

NewImageI like my playlists to tell a story. It’s important for them to have an ebb and flow, almost a three act structure.

Today’s playlist is the soundtrack to a short story I wrote a couple of years back. It was an attempt to write about a nemesis, a totally over-the-top, unapologetic female villain. If you haven’t read it, give it a go while listening to the playlist, which features tracks from St. Vincent, Rilo Kiley, PJ Harvey and Fever Ray.

I present the True And Complete History Of The Harlot, Seditionary and Murderess Cerise Sauvage.

Cerise Sauvage: A History

(The pic is Cherry Bomb by DeviantArt user LekiLuv. Check out the fullsize pic here.)

New Short Fiction: JUBILEE

Regular members of The Readership may recall that I celebrated the Royal Wedding last year with a tale that embraced the idea of the Windsors being extraterrestrial lizards that ruled in disguise. If not, it’s here for your delight.

The Wedding Day

As The Jubilee is upon us, I thought it might be nice to revisit the family, and see how they were enjoying the long Bank Holiday. You may be able to deduce some idea of my feelings towards the monarchy, but I’ll leave it as an inference. No point in giving everything away.

Here then, for your holiday enjoyment, Excuses And Half Truths is proud to present: JUBILEE.

(Advisory for profanity and references to lizard sex.)

Continue reading New Short Fiction: JUBILEE

Nanowrimo – A Sad Announcement

I wanted to make it work this year, I really did. But the pressures of three blogs plus re-write duties on Habeas Corpus and other pipeline works means that something just had to give.

That something, alas, is Nanowrimo.

I will be buckling down and writing, sure, just not on a new 50,000 word project. It will be interesting, I think, to try and do 1700 words a day across all the projects I have on the table this autumn, and this is certainly not goodbye forever.

This will be no break for me. If anything, I will use the Nano excuse to up my game in solidarity with all the word warriors out there. Expect some big posts this November.

To everyone, and especially the Oxfordshire Nanos, good luck and be magnificent. Let’s be verbose out there.

A New Phase part 3: UKZDL

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In a fine example of what TLC likes to call my tendency to overextend, I have signed up as writer to yet another website. At this rate, I will be doing the whole internet by this time next month. We are apologises in advance for the subsequent droop in kwalitee.

The new endeavour is a gig on a new zombie site, UKZDF. Stands for United Kingdom Zombie Defence League. There’s an element of ARG and role-play in here – head of the League, “Sarge” Rob May (an X&HTeam-mate of long standing, I might add) has spent a long while working out the best places to set up a defensive perimeter should the zombie plague hit Reading (hint: don’t do a Romero and hide out in the Oracle). But the site also seeks out and celebrates the best in zombie culture.

Up on the site at the moment, we’re looking at the upcoming launch of Dead island, which looks to be the zombie game of the year. There’s an interview with the producers of the Walking Dead, and a review of the first two in a great new series of books by Mira Grant, Newsflesh.

Oh, yes, and a brief history of the zombie in popular culture pre-Romero, which is my first contribution. Sarge has been good enough to give me my own section, so keep an eye out for weekly blather from me. It’s early days, but the site already looks good, and there’s some interesting people lined up to contribute. If anyone’s interested, let me know and I’ll forward your names onto Sarge.

In the meantime, read and enjoy. It’s a dead cert.

UKZDL

The Beast is Loose

By all the gods, it’s been a week. Engaging catch-up mode, as I try to, you know, up-catch to events.

The second issue of Dirty Bristow landed at X&HTowers on Wednesday, and oh my, it was worth the wait. This is one gorgeous package. The Bristow boys have always been upfront about making the mag as collectible and lovely as possible. They’ve outdone themselves. The double tracing-paper/card cover looks and feels great, with a matt finish that purrs luxury at your fingertips.

Inside, the open call for submissions under a theme has led to a gloriously all-over-the-place chunk of editorial. With no adverts, there’s a lot there to read and enjoy, and the quality of illustration throughout is a notch above top. If you want an idea of the tone, then the editors Jon Bounds and Danny Smith tell it like it is in the intro:

arty and unashamedly intelligent, no pretension or division between high and low culture and not governed by the Crown.

So, the second issue contains a cookery page that begins with the slaughter of a whole pig, a report from a My Little Pony convention, reprints of the work of acclaimed music scribe Dirk Collins, an entomology of the imaginary beasts of the West Midlands and, and, and I could go on for ages. I should perhaps mention a piece on the contribution yeast has made to the hungry drinker, especially as I wrote it. Even if those clever Bristows came up with a better title for the article than I did. They’re far too talented for their own good. I’m not sure I like them.

Dirty Bristow is available online at the Dirty Bristow website, logically enough. If you’re lucky, your copy might come with a cover-mounted cassette featuring songs and a ZX Spectrum game. Yes, a cassette. Yes, a Speccy game. Glorious, isn’t it?

Buy Dirty Bristow: Beast here.

Smells good, too.

 

A New Phase pt. 2: The View From The Pier

The item below has been crossposted from my other gig. I write three days a week for Pier 32, a promotional clothing company. The twist is that they do everything to a set of strict ethical and Eco-friendly guidelines. My work on their blog reflects that, so I write about ethical and green issues from a fashion perspective.

Readership, I know what you’re thinking. I agree. I am a very fashionable chap, and this is therefore a perfect fit for me. And as X&HT is such a focussed and well-regimented blog, then the concept of writing regularly to a tight brief should cause no challenge whatsoever. Right again. This isn’t giving me any sleepless nights at all. Not a one.

However. You all know I like a challenge, and the Pier 32 gig is pushing my writing in new and unexpected directions. So, do feel free to check both the blog and the main site out. I post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Mostly, anyway. Here’s the most recent post…

We’ve seen over the past week or so that sustainability and ethics need to be baked into the core of a company’s mission statement. If they’re not, then accusations of box-ticking and complacency are always going to be waiting around the corner, and a brand that can’t quickly respond to those accusations has a PR disaster on their hands.

It’s tough to get big complex corporate structures to understand why it’s so important to make sure that their suppliers are run ethically and responsibly. Child labour and inhumane working conditions can seem like abstract concepts or easily explained away as a different cultural trait to a company whose focus is purely on the bottom line. Not everyone can have Pier32’s ethical guidance, which comes from the very top of the corporate structure.

So, how do we put the issues involved in this complicated subject into a simple and easily understood form?

Well. Shall we play a game?

Channel 4 have just released Sweatshop, a game where you run a clothing factory staffed by skilled workers and child labour. Based on a simple tower defence model (think Cooking Dash, Plants Vs. Zombies or something similar), your job is to fill the orders as best you can while keeping profits high.

The clever thing about the game is how easy it becomes to make the wrong choices. It’s quicker and easier to fill the production line with unskilled kids, and skimp on the essentials like cooling fans and toilet breaks, especially when a big order comes down the line.

But as you make those choices, your karma meter will begin to skew, and it soon becomes clear that by making the wrong choices you’re losing the game and becoming a monster in the process.

Sweatshop is subtle and extremely clever at making the player think on the consequences of their actions, and slips in plenty of informational nuggets along the way. The game is aimed at a teenage audience, but I see no reason why a lot of high-ups in the fashion chains that use sweatshops as a matter of course shouldn’t have a go at it. Who knows, it might just change their thinking.

You can read more on the thinking and design behind Sweatshop here, and play it for yourself for free here.

Pier32’s blog: The View From The Pier

Pier32

Dirty Bristow

I’m pleased, proud and excited to announce my involvement in one of the more interesting magazine projects around at the moment.

Dirty Bristow is, as the clever buggers who thought it up say, a project dedicated to resurrecting the magazine as a fetish object. That is, as something to both covet and collect. An object of desire. Beautifully printed on premium stock, DB is designed to be proudly displayed on your bookshelf.

Each issue takes a loose theme as the subject, which the contributors explore as they see fit. Issue 1 fittingly takes on the subject of birth, with articles on (to thinly scrape the surface) overpopulation, free-running, the creative process, architecture and stand-up comedy. Impeccably designed, deliciously illustrated, the thing is a joy to own.

Yes, of course I’m overegging it. Vested interest, donchaknow.

Aart from the cover price, the mag is funded through merchandising and live events, to make sure that you get a product free from ads. There’s no compromise, no sellout. Everyone who contributes to Dirty Bristow is free to say what they want, how they want. It’s an open forum, mixing the freedom of the small press with the production values of the glossies. The closest thing to it on the  news-stands is probably Little White Lies, which has the same themed approach, attention to detail and love smeared thickly over every page.

Finally, finally, issue two is on sale. The theme is BEAST. Eighty pages of articles, thinkpieces, illos and fiction. And somewhere in there: me, with an article on the smallest and most important beast of them all. I’m chuffed to bits to be asked to contribute, and can’t wait to see how it looks.

Here’s the important bit. You can order Beast here. While you’re at it, Birth and badge and sticker sets are available too. And the call is now out for contributions to issue 3: BREAK. I plan to submit to that, too.

Further, the launch party for Beast is on July 23rd, at the Edge in Digbeth, Birmingham. Six quid gets you entry, a copy of Beast and all kinds of music and general frivolity. If you’re in the area, you should give it a go.

Dirty Bristow. The fetish object that you can show to your mum.

 

 

Going Dark

TLC and I are off into the west this week. I don’t think they’ve heard of the Internet where we’re going, and phone signal is sporadic. So updates this week will be intermittent and tersely worded at best.
Instead, I will be settling down to some good old fashioned reading and writing, without the distractions of yer TwitTwoos and Facebonks and an RSS feed that don’t ever seem to quit.

Serenity or madness await.

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Why I Blog

X&HTeam-mate Rob May asked me one of those questions last night.

http://twitter.com/robwmay/status/70598204093235200

I replied with a flippant fob-off, but my blood ran cold. It was too closely related to one of The Big Two Questions That All Writers Hate. One of which is “Where do you get your ideas from?” (stock answer for that one – “there used to be a guy operating out of a lock up under the rail bridge by St James St station in Walthamstow, but now I just do what everyone else does and get them online, ideas4u.ru). The big one is “Why do you write?” And there is never  an answer to that one that won’t make you sound like a self-absorbed arsehole. “I knew when I was a child.” “I had to find somewhere to put all the stories.” “It’s a calling.”

The swine of it is, all of these are true to a greater or lesser extent. I’ve written since I was a scrawny, speccy runt. I was always good at it, and I always enjoyed it. Even now, drifting into the fugue state where a tale just seems to present itself and all I have to do is write it down is one of my greatest pleasures. I must have been put on this earth to tell these stories. It’s my mission in life.

See. Told you. Cain’t hep masel. Self-absorbed arsehole.

Of course, understanding the grunt work that comes out of polishing and repolishing my words until they shine is another story, There is a world of difference between the first draft that can be banged out in a six-week period if you’re disciplined (braces for howls of outrage from the Nanowrimo crowd) and making something that people would actually want  to read. A story without plot holes, clunky dialogue, cookie-cutter characters, screeds of needless exposition and the hundred thousand little details that can derail a tale if you don’t get them right. Changing eye colour is a good one. Or everyone having the same eye colour. I’ve had heroines that change their age from page to page. The basic misunderstanding of Newtonian physics that sends the engine of your plot off-track and into the trees. I’m writing this on a train, you can see where the metaphors are coming from.

None of which answers Rob’s question. Bear with me.

The thing with writing is that it’s a monstrous, time-eating task that will gobble years like a sugar-starved tween presented with a handful of Haribo. Blogging is very much the opposite. It’s a quick, sharp hit, an espresso instead of a venti moccochoccolattechino with extra whipped cream and sprinkles and three flakes. It’s first draft, front-lobe spillage. It’s 4-track demo, rough sketch, workshop level output. It’s also pragmatic. I can clear out brain cruft that needs to go somewhere, I can work up ideas, try things out. It’s a place to react, to rage, to vent, to roar. It’s the mouth of the gushing hose. Twitter’s great for a lot of things, but it doesn’t let me bend the language in the way that I like. I can’t roll out a run-on sentence in 140 characters. And I LOVE run-on sentences. Blogging is as close to I get to an honest, true immediate response to the world and everyone in it. (As close as I get? Well, take a look at the title of the blog you’re reading…) Broadcasting at the click of a trackpad.

And of course, it’s an exercise in vanity. How could it be otherwise? I’m labouring under the assumption that there are people out there that want to read my views on the AV referendum, on horror, on comics, on beer, on food, on every little thing that pops into my tiny head and gets me to fire up Marsedit. Writers are egoists. They have to be. How else could you blare your opinions at the world if you didn’t think they were worth the world’s attention? Why do it if you didn’t think someone was listening? The blogger that doesn’t check their stats after every post isn’t really a blogger at all.

Rob, I’m sorry, I’m still not sure that i’ve answered the question. X&HT is a huge part of my writing life. It’s a home, a platform, potentially a shop window, a shelter, a stage. It’s me, in some ways, and a weird simulacrum of me in others. It’s a distraction and a workspace. It’s me and the cartoon rabbit-eared, fluff-tailed version of me all at one.  It’s an excuse, Rob. It’s a half-truth.

Why do I blog, Rob? Because I can. Because I must. Because.