David Antrobus's Blog: The Migrant Type, page 30

Safety Deposit

I placed something valuable somewhere hidden.

They didn’t know what happened to you. Everyone speculated about where you’d gone, wide-eyed and wildly wrong. As if acknowledging the most likely truth would allow something irrevocably dark into their own lives, god forbid. I was the least likely to say it, yet I did say it. You were gone. Chances are for good. You burned bright yet short, which is better than some longlived nobody never even sputtering into life at all. You were somebody. Somebo...

Use Your Imagination

Life is busy at the moment, so please forgive the short post. One of the earliest pieces of writing advice I ever remember reading arrived courtesy of Stephen King. It was three simple (if slightly crude) words: “ass in chair.” Okay, fine. Thanks for that, Stephen. It can’t be argued with, though. But the next question occurs once you have molded said body part firmly onto the furniture in question: how do you keep it there? How do you stay motivated and focused enough to type out the allotte...

A Cautionary Tale About Cautionary Tales?

While discussing the great nation of Scotland recently, I was reminded of something. Undoubtedly, Scotland has bestowed upon our world some fine gifts, including the telephone, television, penicillin, caber tossing, Billy Connolly, the Glasgow Kiss, the Bay City Rollers and the words “bampot”, “stoater”, “drookit”, “hackit” and “blootered”. (I discern a visit to the Urban Dictionary in your future, dear reader.)

But along with such distinguished cultural contributions, Scotland also produced t...

Phoque It

This is an early draft of a sales pitch. Please correct and edit before release. Under no circumstances should this be allowed to see the light of day in its current state.

Dear readers, writers, book industry people,

It’s become a cliché to claim there’s a veritable Pacific Ocean of crapola out there in the indie book world. But that cliché is not even a good analogy, really, so we’re going to turn it on its head. No, instead of an ocean, what we see is a vast floating island of ugly unbiodegr...

Screw You Guys

I just want to clarify something about my modus operandi as a blogger and as a person. I am not a mean guy. I really do try to avoid hurting others. But I also have a wicked sense of humour, and like many of my original compatriots (the Brits), it is based on a kind of sardonic mockery with lashings of wordplay. Plus, it runs pretty gallows, too. Sorry, not gonna apologise for that. I just want to put it on record that, if I poke fun at something you feel is uncomfortably close to a personal...

Beachhead Elegy

And they were never seen again.

Cold dark waves like chocolate shavings, assailing the frosted grainy icing of a winter beach. Anemones and urchins know. The herring gulls think they know. Sea monsters might possibly know. We are utterly betrayed by the pretenders to the royal court of Happily Ever After, within the cruel kingdom of Some Day Soon.

I remember the two of them – arm in arm, sweetly curious, as if fresh-weaned kittens had developed hard science – combing the lacerated beach, scruti...

Close

As unclear dreams go, we gassed up a few miles back and are now pulling into town. Town. An untidy strew of decrepit and peeling clapboard buildings. Okay, a town. After paying for a room – off-white décor, sticky carpet – I step out behind M. into the main street.

“Wonder where’s the best place to eat.”

“May only be one place,” says M.

We gaze vaguely eastward over a sunburned field, absorbing the clear blue brilliance.

Without warning, the unthinkable. A thick column climbs like a tumorous limb...

A Nurturance Deficit

Stand well back, writer about to brag...

"What a beautiful and touching piece. You have a gift for creating vibrant images and feelings. I was swept away by your physical and emotional journey after the devastation of the 9/11 attacks and appreciated your keen observations about the landscape and the feelings of the people around you. We are very excited to offer Dissolute Kinship a Grub Street Reads Endorsement and to add your work to the official Grub Street Reads library."

So writes Jessica...

Build Your Wings

When I was maybe 12 or 13 years old, one of the first stories I ever wrote was about an old man wandering the streets in a dystopian future. He was so old and forgotten that he couldn’t even remember his name, going by the initials RDB. Those initials, of course, stood for Raymond Douglas Bradbury, and the man at the time was my literary hero. My very obvious stylistic mimicry of him back then, in that and many other proto-stories, was excruciating yet necessary; all part of a writer’s journe...

My God, It's Full Of Stars!

This week, I’m going to be a little more serious than usual. No idea why. I just am. And I want to talk about star ratings. No, I don’t want to discuss the relative merits of Justin Bieber or Katy Perry, fascinating as that might be; I’m talking about the graded star method many websites use to rate various products, but specifically as it pertains to indie authors, that aspect of the review system used by the mighty Amazon.

Sometimes feeling like I’ve accidentally wandered into a cosmologist...