K. Morris's Blog, page 843
January 5, 2013
Introducing myself!
In December 2012 I published my second collection of short stories, The First Time. The stories explore why young women enter the world of prostitution while other stories look at what happens when the worlds of sex and technology collide.
In “The First Time”, the first story in this collection, we meet Becky a young graduate who enters the world of prostitution in order to clear her debts. The story looks at the effects of prostitution on Becky and her fellow escort and friend Julie. In “The Pain Behind the Smile” Issie presents her friend, Peter with a birthday cake, however things are not what they seem.
In “Lucy” the acquaintances of a crusty old bachelor speculate how he could attract and retain the affections of a beautiful young woman. As with “The Pain Behind the Smile” things are far from what they seem.
“Hemlock” explores what happens when machines attain the capacity to appreciate high culture. The story is both humorous and deeply serious. For The First Time please visit http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-First-Tim.... For my blog please go to newauthoronline.wordpress.com.
Over the coming weeks I will add to this blog. Bye for now!
January 4, 2013
Mind Your Language
I have an intense dislike of foul language. To me the casual use of swear words conveys that the person indulging in such behaviour is either immature or possesses an extremely limited vocabulary and can not comprehend how to express themselves other than by swearing. Of course I am no plaster saint. I do, on occasions swear, however my use of four letter words is, almost always confined to instances such as when I stub my toe painfully on furniture and is, almost always an involuntary response to acute pain.
While I loathe the unthinking use of foul language for the reasons set out above, characters in my most recent collection of short stories, The First Time do use language which I, personally find offensive. However the employment of foul language is an integral part of that characters response to an extreme and highly stressful situation. For me to avoid the use of such language because I find it offensive would be a betrayal of literary integrity, it simply wouldn’t represent a credible response by the people in The First Time to the circumstances which confront them. For example take the following passage from The First Time in which Julie, a prostitute is faced by a client who is determined to have unprotected sex with her despite Julie’s determination that the man must use a condom
“The client rolled on top of Julie and opening her legs thrust forward attempting to penetrate her. “What the hell are you doing? I don’t have unprotected
sex” Julie yelled pulling away from him. “I’m clean, I don’t have anything”! “”Either we use a Durex or I’m out of here”! The man swore vilently but submitted
as Julie rolled a condom down over his erect penis. He mounted her and began to hump away.
Some sixth sense told Julie that something was not quite right. She could feel the guy’s hand fiddling around with the condom. “What the fuck do you think
you are doing?!” Julie jerked her body away but she was to late. The client shot inside her leaving the condom lying like a deflated balloon on the matress.
“You selfish bastard, what the hell do you think you are doing”. “you’ve been paid now just fuck off out of my flat”.
For Julie to have said “excuse me but would you mind terribly using a condom as it will protect both you and I” rather than reacting as she does in the above passage would not be credible. In fact it would be risible. No, Julie’s response is authentic in that it is how one would expect a sex worker to react given the same set of circumstances. The language employed by prostitutes and their customers is often peppered with four letter words. Clients do not say “Can I make love to you?” they are more likely to say as nick, a minor character in my online novel, Samantha says, “I want to fuck”. Nick’s desire for sex is wholly unconnected with tenderness or love, consequently it would not be in character for him to say “I want to make love”.
In summary the casual use of foul language merely as a means to shock is to be deplored, however its employment in the context of literary integrity can (and should) be vigorously defended.
(to purchase The First Time by Kevin Morris please visit the Kindle Store on amazon.co.uk or amazon.com).
January 3, 2013
gravatar.com
I have updated my profile on gravatar.com to include links to my books, this blog (newauthoronline.wordpress.com and my Twitter account http://en.gravatar.com/drewdog2060drewdog2060
January 2, 2013
My Page on Goodreads
I have recently signed up with Goodreads. I’ve just updated my profile which is, however very much a work in progress. I’m still getting to grips with the site, however you can find my admittedly limited profile (as of today) by going to http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/15615537-kevin. Over the coming weeks I will update and add to my site on Goodreads.
January 1, 2013
Samantha Part 9
Below is part 9 of my story Samantha. For Part 8 which links back to earlier chapters please visit http://newauthoronline.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/samantha-part-8/
At around the same time that Sam and Peter where taking their seats in the Ying Wah Billy pushed open the door of the Richard John Blackler, a Wetherspoon pub in Great Charlotte Street, situated some little distance from Liverpool’s Lime street station. He ordered a pint of Sam Smiths bitter and took a seat at a corner table in the heart of the busy pub. Billy hated Wetherspoons. They signified all that was wrong with modern society. As with the giant supermarkets which where driving the corner shops out of business the ever expanding Wetherspoon chain was forcing local pubs to the wall. Your average local just couldn’t compete with the low prices charged by J D Wetherspoon.
Billy glanced around the Richard John. At 6 pm on a Saturday evening the pub was packed to the gunnels. The customers ranged from work colleagues enjoying a cheap pint after work to men with blank expressions who looked as though they had spent most of the day drinking. Wetherspoon was, Billy new a haven for alcaholics. One could get drunk with only £20 in the Richard John unlike many of the trendy places where two pints would set you back by £8 or £10.
In spite of its many drawbacks the place had one great advantage. Its cavernous interior and ever shifting customer base was conducive to anonymity. One was extremely unlikely to run into a friend or acquaintance in such a place and, unlike your friendly local pub people did, on the whole ignore their fellow drinkers.
A balding man in his mid to late fourties approached Billy’s table. “Evening” he said taking a seat directly opposite to Billy. “Evening sir” Billy replied. Both men spoke in low tones although it would have been almost impossible for anyone to overhear their conversation given the hubbub of many conversations going on around them.
“You got my report?” Billy asked. “Yes sergeant” Inspector Jim Rawls answered. He continued “Hushmail’s amazing the way in which you can encrypt data so that only the person with the encryption key can read it. They never had anything like that when I joined the force. Come to think of it they never had email!” he said with a smile. His smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Billy I can’t have you jeopardising the operation. What the hell where you thinking of intervening to stop Barry from beating that prostitute? You could have fucked up the entire operation!” “He could have killed the girl sir. She was high on god knows what, maybe Crack and Barry lost it. He was kicking the shit out of Tanya. He could have killed her”. “Sergeant you are there to observe and report back. A whore gets a beating. So what, it goes on every day all over the world. Your job is to make sure that we have a rock solid case to send Barry O’connor down for a good 10-15 years. No more getting involved, just report back. That’s the best way to help those girls, not by wearing your bleeding heart on your sleeve but by gathering the evidence to put Barry away for a hell of a long time”.
Billy bit his lower lip fighting back the urge to give vent to his feelings. He knew that the Inspector was right, good policing was about impartial gathering of evidence and remaining emotionally detached from the cases you happened to be working on. However when he saw girls like Tanya and Sam visions of Amanda his 17-year-old daughter with her laughing blue eyes and golden hair swam before his eyes. He loved Amanda and would break every bone in the body of anyone who so much as raised their hand to her. His little girl was only a year or so younger than some of the girls who Barry controlled. When Barry had laid into Tanya, a girl barely past her 18th birthday Billy had wanted to choke the life out of that excuse for a human being, Barry. Instead he had laid his hand on Barry’s shoulder and said “Stop mate, you’ll kill her and the cops will come sniffing around asking questions”. Billy’s words had penetrated Barry’s alcohol fuelled brain and he had left Tanya curled up in a ball on the floor, blood running down her pretty face.
“When can we bring him in sir?” Billy asked. “In a week or so I hope. The recordings you have made and the video foottage from the hidden camera will prove invaluable but I want to bring in Thomas Lewis at the same time. Harry’s doing good work on Tommo’s set-up and it makes sense to bring Barry and Tommo in together”.
The inspector finished his coffee. “OK Billy keep sending in the reports. You are doing great work but keep aloof, don’t get involved. You have the makings of a good senior officer, don’t balls up your career”. With a nod the inspector got up, headed for the door and disappeared into the autumn night.
December 31, 2012
Happy New Year!
Happy new year to you all! I wish you all the very best for 2013 and I hope that you enjoy celebrating the coming of yet another year.
All the very best,
Kevin
December 30, 2012
Three Men In A Boat (humour)
Three Men In A Boat is one of my all time favourite humorous books so I was delighted to come across the below clip on Youtube. The story recounts the humourous and, occasionally sad adventures of three men and their fox terrier as they traverse the Thames in a boat. The video is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Asm7iXjLHCQ
I am on Twitter
I am on Twitter. For my profile page please visit https://twitter.com/drewdog2060_. I mainly use Twitter to promote my blog, however I also tweet on other issues which interest me, for example artificial intelligence. I will reciprocate follows by following you in return.
The First Time by Kevin Morris availible as a Nook Book from Barnes and Noble
I am pleased to announce that my second collection of short stories, The First Time, can be purchased from Barnes and Noble as a Nook Book (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-first-time-kevin-morris/1113994183). The first story in this collection, “The First Time” explores why Becky, a young graduate enters the world’s oldest profession as an escort. Other stories look at what happens when machines attain true artificial intelligence. In “Hemlock” we are introduced to a beautiful robot woman capable of reciting Keats, however does she truly understand poetry? For further information about “The First Time” by Kevin Morris please visit the above link.
Does he take sugar?
I am registered blind and live alone in London. I frequently shop independently (the shop assistants locate the items I require and I pay using either card or cash). I am, almost always unaccompanied on shopping trips, consequently the interaction is purely between myself and the shop assistant.
I spent the Christmas festivities visiting my mum and her partner in Liverpool. While there I visited a branch of W H Smiths and purchased a book, as a Christmas present for my sister. I paid for the item using my debit card and given that the transaction was between myself and the sales assistant I was surprised when she attempted to hand my receipt to my mum! My mum is non-disabled so I can only assume that the assistant felt more comfortable interacting with a non-disabled rather than a disabled person. The incident was resolved with the assistant handing the receipt to me (my mum refused to take it and I continued to hold out my hand)!
Having experienced similar incidents I’m able to see the funny side and my mum and I laughed about it afterwards. Had I been alone the assistant would have had no alternative other than to hand the receipt to me, however due to the presence of a non-disabled individual she automatically attempted to pass the paperwork to that person rather than the rightful recipient, yours truly!
On the whole attitudes towards people with disabilities have (and continue) to improve in the UK. In 1995 the Disability Discrimination Act came into force outlawing discrimination against people with disabilities in the fields of employment and service provision. The legislation has been strengthened since 1995 and has been superceeded by the Equalities Act. However despite the implementation of legislation and greatly improved social attitudes people with disabilities such as myself continue to encounter misunderstanding and, on occasions prejudice as is exemplified by my experience in purchasing a book in W H Smiths. What is the solution? Greater integration of disabled people into mainstream society is vital. As a child I attended several schools for visually impaired children and it was only on attending university that I entered mainstream education. Today greater numbers of children with disabilities are being educated with their non-disabled peers. The exposure of non-disabled children to those who are disabled is to be welcomed and will assist in enhancing understanding, however the incident in Smiths demonstrates that more education is required.
(Kevin Morris is a writer. For his latest book, The First Time” please visit http://newauthoronline.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/the-first-time-by-kevin-morris-availible-at-waterstones-for-only-0-98/).
