Scenes From A Life

Scene: A New Years' Party. In a bar in the centre of town - in the run-off, undesirable part of the city - a group of friends, known to each other through the sort of gigs that ruin your hearing, are talking. Two are propped up against the bar, beers in hand. They are trying not to get in the way.

Quiet, unvoiced thoughts of self: Wow, look at all these people. I wonder if they go out all the time. I bet they do. They probably talk to each other, and everything. Not like me, spending all my evenings glaring fiercely into a laptop and jabbing at the keys. Those lucky, socialising bastards.

Self, to old friend: Hey, Neil! How's it going?

Old friend (trying not to get beer on floor): Hey! Great, thanks!

Self: You up to much this week - after this madness is over?

Old friend: You know, I am. Guess what I'm doing on Thursday?

Quiet, unvoiced thoughts of self: He has Thursday off work? Wow, I know what I'd do if I had Thursday off. I'd go and hang out in the library. Best not say that, though. That's a shit thing to say at a party.

Self: No, what?

Old friend: I'm off to Madrid. I've been invited to play a solo set over there - me, and Seb Rochford from Acoustic Ladyland. We're getting flown over there, and flown back. Not bad, eh?

Self: That's ace! Hey, congratulations Neil. I bet you'll have a brilliant time. And it'll be warm, too. You lucky sod.

Old friend: Yeah! I know! I'm really excited.

(Pauses; drinks beer).

Old friend: So what about you, anyway? Haven't seen you for ages. What you been up to?

Self: Oh, you know, not much. The usual. Working. Writing. Writing. Working.

Quiet, unvoiced thoughts of self: That is no good, Bradley. Jazz it up a bit. Try to make it more interesting and dramatic.

Self: You know. Making things up in my head and then typing them down into a blank Word document.

Quiet, unvoiced thoughts of self: Should I tell him about discovering the Navigator function in Open Office last week? I wonder whether people, in socialising situations, are interested in that sort of thing.

Self: I've been working on some short stories. This and that. You know. I've been working on a novel. It's er - it's about ...

(Friend nods; smiles politely).

Self: You see, the trouble with a large document like a novel is that it's quite unwieldy. You might want to rearrange the chapters - say, if you realise, a part of the action would be better moved to an earlier or later section. Because these things don't just organise themselves, you know. And that's why I was so excited last week when I discovered a new function in my word processing software...

Quiet, unvoiced thoughts of self: ABORT ABORT DO NOT SAY ANY MORE WORDS

Self: Hey listen, the band is starting.

(Glasses raised; people cheer; the band begins to play).

Currently reading

Stone Junction Jim Dodge 
A brilliant present from Ian Pepper, one of my Fictions of Every Kind co-conspirators. Thanks, Ian!

Highlights from the day: a summary

Began the day by proof-reading a submission. Slightly upset to find said submission contained a number of errors in the areas of: subject / object agreement, syntax, verb conjugation, and repetition. Filled with horror at the amount of work said story still required. Had a little cry.

Continued the days' work by searching hard drive for a synopsis. It was a good synopsis, that synopsis; I spent 2 hours on it on Christmas Eve. Synopsis nowhere to be found. Realise must have accidentally deleted synopsis in my haste to get to the sherry. Had another little cry.

Left library to go to bus stop. Searched purse for bus ticket. Could not find bus ticket. Chin wobbled like Claire Danes' chin in every episode of Homeland. Had a little cry. Find bus ticket between coffee shop loyalty card (two stamps) and card reading It's OK, I'm An Anarchist (never used). Had stern word with self re: crying in public. Felt very ashamed of self.

In summary: hormones.

Currently reading

The Long Run Mishka Shubaly
In The Country of Last Things Paul Auster
McSweeney's 38 (A Christmas present, well done, boyfriend)
My Friend Dahmer Derf Backderf

Fictions of Every Kind

Fictions of Every Kind is a quarterly DIY writers' night based in Leeds, UK. It has been running for 2 years now and is run by a small group of writers, including myself. Our aim is to provide support and encouragement to anyone involved in the lonely act of writing. You can find out more about our planned events by following us on twitter (@fictionsoek), on facebook, or going to our website.

It has recently come to my attention that the Fictions Of Every Kind website doesn't show up in web results, and I'm not really sure why this is. I spent a bit of time trying to find out, but it turns out that when you type "Why doesn't my website show up in Google" into Google, the answers you get back are all a load of two-year old gobbledegook. I couldn't make any sense of any of them.

As a shortcut, knowing that this blog does show up in search engines (oh, sweet mysteries of the internet), I've decided to put a link to the Fictions of Every Kind website here. You can add it to your RSS feed or blogger feed or whatever it is you young people do to stay abreast of things these days. Our next event, themed 'Apocalypse', is on December 11th at Wharf Chambers with the singularly marvellous Anneliese Mackintosh. There will be games, prizes, the writers' open mic (true stories, short and flash fiction and novel excerpts all welcome; please keep your contributions at 7 minutes or under), a DJ, and a short film screening. Entry will continue to be a recession-friendly £3.

Switch off One-Click ordering

Last week, a kind person at work pointed out that there are only 6 weeks to go until Christmas. Crikey on a plate!

If you're anything like me, you prefer to do your Christmas shopping the non-hellish way; i.e., completely online. This way, you can shop in your pyjamas, and without needing to sharpen your elbows before attempting to go through any doorways.

For Christmas 2011, I took myself to Amazon.com. It was cheap and sold everything I could possibly want, and I got presents for everybody (including the cat) for less than £100. What a bargain, eh?

This year, knowing what I do now about their frankly shonky business practises and general global evilness, I won't be doing it again. The creeping reach of global corporate supervillains is bad for our economy, and will eventually come to be bad for writers and the literary scene in general. Let me explain.

Like other globalised corporations, Amazon is committed to aggressive expansion and market domination. Driven by a need to generate exponentially increasing dividends for its shareholders, it does whatever it takes to generate billions.

Everybody likes a bargain, myself included, and Amazon's bargain-basement prices attract shoppers by the million. Like the supermarkets, Amazon works with an endgame in mind. Driving prices down will eventually kill its competition - and after that, book-lovers' choices will become limited. You will only be able to buy from Amazon, and nowhere else. We have no way of knowing what this will do to prices, or to what kind of books you'll be able to buy.

For many publishers, deciding whether or not to deal with Amazon is a non-choice. It's the world's biggest bookstore, and many readers don't shop anywhere else. If your books aren't on Amazon, you miss out on selling to those who only shop there. One of the ways Amazon operates is to flatten the supply chain, buying at wholesale prices from publishers, and selling at retail price to customers. This generates a healthy profit for itself, and little for the publisher. It's no stretch to see that operating on such narrow margins could drive some indies out of business. A day may come when Amazon demands exclusivity from its publishers - that they sell only through its storefront, and not through their own. Little publishers, often the houses who publish the most exciting and innovative work, may be forced to the wall; and all will be left will be the big publishers, churning out the kinds of books they know will be a hit. Laugh now, while you may; you'll be crying into your library cards when all you can buy are Katie Price biographies and shit books about vampires.

There are many nefarious strings to Amazon's bow when it comes to cheap pricing. These include (but are not limited to) union-busting, using precarious or temporary employees to avoid providing employment rights, and bullying publishers into breaking anti-trust laws. These tactics alone are good enough reason to stop giving them your money.

But for British writers, the biggest reason to boycott Amazon must be for its tax-avoidance scheme. Last year, Amazon generated sales of more than 3.3 billion in the UK. It paid no corporation tax. Let me repeat: into the UK tax system, Amazon - despite having generated enough sales to build six hospitals and a dozen schools - paid not one penny.

With an austerity drive in full effect on our public services, and the axe swinging over our libraries, we should be concerned about this. The narrative in the mainstream media is that the UK is in debt, and that there's no alternative but to cut back. Yet single-issue protest group UK Uncut suggests that corporate tax avoidance has cost our state up to £95bn a year. In crude terms, you could say that if Amazon paid its taxes, our libraries wouldn't be closing their doors.

Writers working a day job in the public sector might find themselves doing the work of two people due to cuts in their departments, and coming home at night too exhausted to work; they may be appealing a benefits decision, for themselves or somebody else, with all the attendant stress and man-hours that such a thing takes; or they might find that local NHS or social care services have closed down, leaving them bearing the brunt of caring, and thus with less time to write.

These things aren't isolated from the tactics of corporations like Amazon. They're very much intertwined. Were Amazon to pay their taxes, perhaps we might be subject to fewer cuts and less stress. And for that reason, I'll be going independent this Christmas. Why not join me?

Currently reading
The Country of Last Things Paul Auster
The Quiet American Graham Greene

Frightfully free halloween giveaway

Photo by Ricky Adam

"We didn't talk about Auntie. Her name never remained on my parents' lips long. If by accident she should be mentioned Mother and Father glanced side to side, like criminals, and swiftly drew their lips closed..."

'Tis the season to be gory, and to celebrate I'm giving away a story completely FREE!
Bad Blood is a gory tale of family secrets and concealment, all wrapped up in mordant black humour. It's perfect for reading in a darkened room on a night of dark spirits and horror...
I'm distributing the story on DRM-free ePub format (which should work on your Kobo) and PDF format (which should work on your Kindle).
The story is free but I do welcome donations. Details on how to donate are at the end of the book.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the story.
Bad Blood DRM-free ePub (Kobo)
Bad Blood PDF * (Kindle / Kobo)

* Fonts used in the PDF version are open source Double Pica, digitised by Igino Marini at Fell Types Revival fonts; and Junction by Caroline Hadilaksono at The League of Moveable Type.

Type: A Collection

Type: A Collection is a micro-anthology of stories and poems by the writers Claire Massey, Nasser Hussain, Zodwa Nyoni, and Saul Franks. The result of many months' hard labour in the print room, Type brings together stories and poetry connected to the title. Genealogical types. Literary form types. Biological specimens. "Your sort".

The writers involved each asked to contribute specifically to this little 'zine-style chapbook. It was really exciting to see their contributions come in. Four diverse viewpoints range from the homely to meta, highbrow and fantastical - all within the space of six pages.

The run has been extremely limited, with only 75 having been made. The body text is set in Perpetua and Goudy Italic; with second-colour text in Gill Sans Bold and Bembo Roman type, all set letter by letter in movable type and printed on a Peerless platen letterpress at The Print Project. There won't be a second reprint of this book, ever - it's totally unique!

You can get one from the Print Project's etsy shop.

Legendary Wakefield Bands

I was recently invited to make a series of postcards to celebrate the work of legendary Wakefield DIY bands of yesteryear. A series of letterpress postcards featuring the lyrics of bands such as Dugong, and Pylon are to go on show at the Wakefield Orangery between 17th September to 2nd November as part of Wakefield Literature festival.

Currently reading

Junot Diaz Drown
David Gaffney The Half-Life of Songs
Charles Bukowksi Post Office