Huckleberry Hax's Blog, page 50
January 21, 2012
Your clothing is still downloading (2012) by Huckleberry Hax
Did the internet, I asked myself, really expose hidden, but pre-existing identity? Or did it create brand new identity that would never have happened without it? Or was its ultimate function just to take whatever identity you'd managed to build and to tear it into tiny, unexaminable pieces? Was Benjamin Burton just an evolution of his younger self – the guy I'd met at university who'd once told me he regarded marital fidelity as one of the most important pillars to the meaning of life – or was that man no longer in existence, replaced by a new human being who only happened to share a few of his memories?
What's a guy to do when his best friend asks him to impersonate him for an evening in Second Life? What if the person he wants fooling is his wife? And what if the impersonator has fallen in love with her before the week is over?
Available formats
Paperback: £8.99 Ebook: Free
PDF: Free Online (Flash): Free
Listen to Huck read chapter 11 here.
I would be delighted to hear your comments on 'Your clothing is still downloading', if you have read it. If you would like to give feedback, please leave it as a comment to this post (anonymous posting is enabled; you do not have to sign in to anything in order to leave a comment). Ratings/reviews on Smashwords and/or Lulu if you've bought ebook or print versions also help me enormously.
What's a guy to do when his best friend asks him to impersonate him for an evening in Second Life? What if the person he wants fooling is his wife? And what if the impersonator has fallen in love with her before the week is over?
Available formats
Paperback: £8.99 Ebook: Free
PDF: Free Online (Flash): Free
Listen to Huck read chapter 11 here.
I would be delighted to hear your comments on 'Your clothing is still downloading', if you have read it. If you would like to give feedback, please leave it as a comment to this post (anonymous posting is enabled; you do not have to sign in to anything in order to leave a comment). Ratings/reviews on Smashwords and/or Lulu if you've bought ebook or print versions also help me enormously.
January 20, 2012
Connectives
As Michael Rosen is currently pointing out, ten and eleven year olds in the UK are currently entering into SATs revision. I say 'entering into'... in fact, their whole educational life thus far has been in preparation for taking these tests. 'Literacy' has become about the analysis of short exerpts of other people's writing and the learning of rules and syntax. And we wonder why people are scared of writing...
Here's a poem I wrote almost exactly a year ago.
Connectives
by Huckleberry Hax
He has homework about connectives. *Connectives*.
He has to lay them out in a table. Time connectives,
additional connectives. Causal connectives. And I
have to bite my tongue so that I don't say, "What
the FUCK do they think they're doing? Instead, I say to him,
"This is boring, right?" and he nods. And shrugs, says,
"Still, it's got to be done." I say, "When was the last time
you got to write a story?" "Write a story?" he asks.
"A story," I repeat. Just to write one out." "Well,
we never get to do that," he replies, "not ever." "Not
*ever*?" "Not ever," he replies. "Sometimes we get to
write a plan for one. Or to describe a story character."
I despair. I want to scream. And he finishes his table
and starts work on the non-fiction paragraph they've
prepared with spaces for connectives to be inserted.
Literature will one day die because of the strangulation
of that which can be efficiently measured. How's that for
a connective, you bastards?
(c) Huckleberry Hax
23/01/2011
Here's a poem I wrote almost exactly a year ago.
Connectives
by Huckleberry Hax
He has homework about connectives. *Connectives*.
He has to lay them out in a table. Time connectives,
additional connectives. Causal connectives. And I
have to bite my tongue so that I don't say, "What
the FUCK do they think they're doing? Instead, I say to him,
"This is boring, right?" and he nods. And shrugs, says,
"Still, it's got to be done." I say, "When was the last time
you got to write a story?" "Write a story?" he asks.
"A story," I repeat. Just to write one out." "Well,
we never get to do that," he replies, "not ever." "Not
*ever*?" "Not ever," he replies. "Sometimes we get to
write a plan for one. Or to describe a story character."
I despair. I want to scream. And he finishes his table
and starts work on the non-fiction paragraph they've
prepared with spaces for connectives to be inserted.
Literature will one day die because of the strangulation
of that which can be efficiently measured. How's that for
a connective, you bastards?
(c) Huckleberry Hax
23/01/2011
January 18, 2012
Your Clothing is Still Downloading: Launch event
This Friday (20 Jan), I'll be making the PDF and Issu versions of 'Your Clothing is Still Downloading' available for free, and the paperback version available for purchase from lulu.com. A Kindle version will follow.
To celebrate this, the launch of my sixth novel under the name Huckleberry Hax (and the fourth to be set in SL), I'll be holding an event at my venue, the Nancy Redgrave Building. If you're free at 4pm SLT and fancy finding out about the novel, I'll be reading an excerpt from the book, a self contained chapter in which the protagonist recalls a real life meeting with his Second Life lover.
The Nancy Redgrave Building can be found here.
UPDATE
Thank you to all who came, listened to the end and gave such lovely feedback. The novel is now online and can be found here. I've also re-recorded the reading and posted it on YouTube. Picture below by Taralyn Gravois.
January 12, 2012
A Modern Lover
I'll be reading 'A Modern Lover', a short story by D H Lawrence (which you can read online in advance here), on Saturday 14 January at 3pm at Nordan Art. Hope to see you there, and be sure to spend a little time following the reading looking at some of the wonderful exhibits. The current exhibition, which runs until 23 January, features work from Alizarin Goldflake, Piedra Lubitsch, Robin Moore, romy Nayar, Scottius Polke and Stephen Venkman.UPDATE
This was a really great event, attended by more people than I'd expected. At one point, the sim was full and people were unable to get in. Thanks to everyone who supported the reading, and for your lovely feedback at the end. Picture below from Flora's review.
December 25, 2011
Christmas day poems
Happy Christmas, all. I'm in a poetry writing mood today. I'll add poems here as I write them. Let's see how many I can manage.
Forced tears
by Huckleberry Hax
When you can't cry,
squeeze your eyes tight and
cover them;
wail;
beat the table blindly.
If it helps, think of someone you loved.
Or invert your eyelids.
If nothing else works, focus
on what will happen to you
if your absence of grief is noted.
Christmas shopping
by Huckleberry Hax
On the way, a
red car cuts across me at the roundabout.
Engine over-revving, he flicks Vs at me
through the window as he passes. His
skin is white like thawing snow. His lips
make a frozen
F.
Praise
by Huckleberry Hax
To bring up at that point she did oft' disappoint was a case of exceptionally bad timing.
To push on ahead about poems not read was a hole dug that offered no climbing.
My brother might say that the mater's okay but a fool primes a fuse that waits priming.
In concession today, she did casually say she dislikes 'those new poems' which aren't rhyming.
Forced tears
by Huckleberry Hax
When you can't cry,
squeeze your eyes tight and
cover them;
wail;
beat the table blindly.
If it helps, think of someone you loved.
Or invert your eyelids.
If nothing else works, focus
on what will happen to you
if your absence of grief is noted.
Christmas shopping
by Huckleberry Hax
On the way, a
red car cuts across me at the roundabout.
Engine over-revving, he flicks Vs at me
through the window as he passes. His
skin is white like thawing snow. His lips
make a frozen
F.
Praise
by Huckleberry Hax
To bring up at that point she did oft' disappoint was a case of exceptionally bad timing.
To push on ahead about poems not read was a hole dug that offered no climbing.
My brother might say that the mater's okay but a fool primes a fuse that waits priming.
In concession today, she did casually say she dislikes 'those new poems' which aren't rhyming.
December 21, 2011
Your clothing is still downloading... final proof on the way
Look at this shiny cover! The edits have been made, the final text uploaded, the cover designed and the 'OK' button clicked. Along the way I learned that when paragraphs jump themselves completely onto the next page rather than leave a line all by itself at the bottom of the previous one, this is called 'orphan control'. Yes.
The cheery email from lulu announcing the final proof paperback's postage arrived today... so I can probably expect the package within the next three weeks, what with it being seasonal and everything.
Once I'm satisfied everything's in good order, I'll probably throw a launch event: read a few extracts, flip the switch on the web page which will let you download the PDF for free, and so on. It'll probably be some time in January, so keep an eye for notices if this in any way attracts the tendrils of your interest.
