Jane Thomson's Blog: But I'm Beootiful!, page 15

That’s enough dystopia thanks…now for something more cheerful!

Dystopia.

There’s a lot of it about. Did you see those women dressed up in Handmaid gear hassling the new Supreme Court Judge? And Climate Change Fiction. Apparently it’s now a thing. We’re all going to die. Or end up in some version of Mad Max crossed with 1984 and a really boring wedding reception.

What we need isn’t more blueprints for apocalypse, but visions for a better future, and how to get there. In this context I just love this song by crippled (and now dead) singer Ian Dury.

So in the spirit of Cheer Up Mate, Worse Things Happen at Sea, I’m going to offer you a pre-taste of just one out of many possible utopias…feel free to join in.

“Oohh,” says Clara, craning her neck. “What IS this place? It’s creepy!”

Jack snakes his arm cunningly around her waist. He can just touch the underside of her boob. Things are looking good.

“Yeah,” he says coolly, “there’s supposed to be ghosts. Can you see them?”

She shrinks against him. Better and better. He can smell the herby smell of her hair, tickling his nostrils, her body in sweet, cruel proximity to his.  She stares around, bug-eyed.

“No…? What ghosts?”

Should he kiss her now? No, better to wait.

“They say if you come here at midnight, you can hear the screams.” Better not make it too gruesome, she might want to go home. “They don’t do anything, they just look at you, with their big, brown, dead eyes.”

“Big brown…what are you talking about?” She twists about to face him, her tight jeans brushing in an agony of desire against his groin.

“Cows.” Jack looks down into her face. At this distance, he can see the tiny soft fuzz on her upper lip. She’s so damn cute with her big brown eyes, lashes as long as a calf’s. “They used to kill cows here, lots of them. Hundreds. Thousands, even.”

She draws in her breath, makes a face. “They did not. Why? Why would anyone kill a cow? You’re just trying to scare me.”

“God’s honour, I’m totally not. They used to call this place an abattoir, it was for killing cows so people could eat them. Pigs and stuff too.”

Her brown eyes travel around the vast empty shed, with its long iron railings and silent, mysterious machines.  Then they drop to the stained concrete floor at her feet.

“Eww! So those are…”

“Blood stains!” Jack says in the kind of voice they use on TV crime shows, an octave lower than his usual. 

“Yuck. That’s disgusting. I don’t even believe you. Eating pet cows? Go on…”

“They weren’t pets then. We ate them. Like, steaks and chops and…” 

Now they’re on familiar ground. “Steaks,” says Clara, with the certainty of someone who knows, “aren’t made of cows. They’re made in laboratories. My uncle works in one.”

He’s gone too far, he knows he has. She’s beginning to withdraw. Any moment she’ll say she wants to go home. There’s a fine line between nice scared and nasty scared. So Jack moves in for the kill.

“You know the last cow ever to come here…my grandmother adopted her. She was one of them activists back in the day. Anyway, she was called Buttercup. The cow I mean, not gran. I’ve got a photo at home, I can show you if you like.”

“Really? I love cows, don’t you? They’re so sweet..”

“Sure are.” Jack knows what should be said next, and he says it. “Not as sweet as you.”

Clara turns her face up to him, smiling, and that’s his moment. He kisses her, right on those grass-soft, cloud pink lips. She tastes just as he imagined she would, like crushed thyme. As he breaks from the kiss, both arms around her now, holding her tight against his tee-shirt, he hears a deep, soft moan. It’s not Clara.

“Let’s get outta here,” he says, taking her by the hand, hoping she didn’t hear. Because he knows what it is, and he’s scared, now – really scared. The ghosts crowd around him, lowing, panicked. He can almost smell the iron stink of their fear: the pain pounds in his chest like the trampling of a thousand hooves. He pulls Clara, so roughly that she squawks, out into the daylight. The feeling of uncomprehending dread leaves him. The abattoir looks back at him, an empty reminder of things better left forgotten.

So that’s my first try at a short utopian story.  Anyone else got a story or an idea around a better world? I’d love to put your short story up on the blog, or alternatively weave one of my own around your rose-tinted spectacle.

And while I’m on the subject, Storiesbywilliams has tagged me in the Ten Day Book Challenge to nominate a book that’s influenced me greatly in my life. So in keeping with this post, I’ll pick The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. For every heartwrenching appeal to donate to medical research, there are hundreds of laboratory animals that never signed a consent form. Maybe curing a child’s cancer is worth it, but I’d like to see the guinea pigs at least rate a mention in those TV ads. Save little Annie – and don’t forget to say thanks to a thousand white mice. I don’t give to medical research for that reason, but then, my child isn’t ill and (thanks no doubt to those beagles, mice etc) neither am I. Feel free to disagree. In turn, I’d like to tag Sharon, who’s kind, erudite and always interesting.

 

What is it about you and death, mate?

Ever since I turned 30, I’ve had this fascination with death.

I’m the kind of person who’s always running around trying to find out what it’s all about. Sex? Let’s have lots of that then and see how it goes (note to self: you’ll get over it, believe me) Love? (note to self: ditto.) Travel? Only trouble is that I can’t seem to just tick places off. Like a murderer, I have to go back to visit the scene of the crime…again, and again, and again. Except for Tasmania. I’ve truly DONE Tasmania.

Now death – that’s a destination you only go to once (as far as we know). So in a gruesome, not very much sort of way, I kinda look forward to it. Finally, I’ll know (or not know, as the case may be). So naturally I was interested in a book by Susan Paul titled ‘The Afterlife Coach’. What, you mean even after death we can’t escape that irritating guy exhorting us to ‘be the very best we can be’? Well, no, apparently: Susan’s heroine Claire spends her time providing post-death counselling to people who, for their sins, are stuck ‘in between’ rather than being shunted straight to Heaven or Hell. Here’s my chat with Susan about this interesting concept…

Rose: Death is the last great adventure, and The Afterlife Coach is a take on that eternal question ‘What happens next?’.  When you end up in the great beyond – Up, Down or In Between- what do you think your own afterlife coach is going to focus on? Less chocolate eclairs? More early morning jogs? 

Susan: Claire (the heroine of the book) is somewhat allergic to exercise so I would imagine there will far be more eclairs than jogs. Being In Between’s star coach, I imagine she’ll soon see the likes of Steve Jobs and Joan Rivers which will make for quite a ride. She won’t be looking for it, but love will find her again (hide, Claire, hide!) and she’ll constantly be dodging Karen’s (the lush best friend, see below) shenanigans.

Rose: The coach’s best friend, Karen, gets pregnant and isn’t sure who the dad is. That’s refreshingly unusual for an uptight literary scene which insists that every likeable female character keeps her chastity belt locked until Mr Right gets out his throbbing key. What’s your view on female promiscuity in life and literature? 

Susan: I try to live my life in a thoroughly non-judgmental manner. Unless, of course, we’re talking about my 17 year old daughter. That said, I like the power women are asserting in all areas in their lives and that includes the power over what they do with their bodies. With the exception of the aforementioned 17 year old. My own 21 year old daughter is disappointingly chaste (and not so disappointingly gay). 

Rose: In your book, three flawed but famous – and dead –  individuals turn up unannounced at our heroine’s house and proceed to invade her life. Why’d you pick Napoleon, Dracula and Janis Joplin – out of all the possible candidates for afterlife chaos?

Susan: When I first imagined the book, it was focused solely on Napoleon and the juxtaposition of him being a little old lady made me laugh. I won’t get into a missing body part (true fact), but I loved the idea of a highly skilled emperor in the garb of a little old lady and how he needed to learn humility.  As for Janis Joplin, I didn’t know much about her, yet through my research, I admired and grieved for her and wanted to pretend I could help this troubled woman. As for Dracula, I am simply terrified of vampires and used his persona as a way to try to deal with the fear. Astonishingly, it kind of worked! I’m sorry for Janis too, mainly because she and I have both been accused of not exactly delighting the eye…and yet, our frizzy hair and bumpy noses are about as relevant as Tolstoy’s makeup routine.

Rose: So, the afterlife’s divided into sectors for the Good, the Bad and the In Between. I’m curious about what’s in the Bad Place…not flames and devils, I take it? I’m guessing armies of expert psychologists doggedly trying to explain to Pol Pot why you shouldn’t shoot more than ten people at a time?

Susan: Because I only eluded to the “bad” part of after, I didn’t really have to envision what it was like. But in my mind, every nightmare, horror and fear is exaggerated and you’re stuck in the worst existence imaginable. Forever. Dracula was a one-off. Bottom line: do good… I think I believe that hell and heaven are on earth, and such things fade into irrelevance once we cross that final border.

Rose: And your next book? Tell me what we have to look forward to? 

Susan: I love surrounding myself with funny, wacky characters (me too, although I wouldn’t describe The Man this way to his face) and I’m always saddened when I have to say goodbye to them at the end of a book. So I’m working on another tale that turns traditional ways of viewing well-known concepts on their head. Stay tuned!

You can find The Afterlife Coach here on Amazon, or find out more about Susan here.  A few final thoughts on the idea of an afterlife coach. If I had one, I think she’d tell me to work on my honesty (I’ll say anything for an easy life) and stop writing people I don’t like into my novels (or, for that matter, blog posts).

What would your afterlife coach say?

 

Democracy’s broke. Here’s how to fix it…

Dave’s the guy we all want for President. He’s a down to earth, ordinary guy who wouldn’t know a power play if it swept him into its strong, muscular arms and kissed him. He gets things done.

But in real life, Dave has zero chance of getting anywhere near politics. Instead, we have Trump, and Australia’s answer to Voldemort, Peter Dutton.

That’s because to get anywhere in the Big House, you need to be a power-hungry piece of shit, generally speaking. So here’s what we should do.

Instead of setting up a cut-throat competition where only the brazen narcissist survives (otherwise known as an election) and then expecting said brazen narcissist to give a fuck about the rest of us, we should set aside at least half the seats in Parliament (or Congress or whatever you call it) for random nobodies.

Yep, random nobodies. Who would never ordinarily get within whispering-sweet-nothings distance of a decision on tax policy, or about how to spend government money, or how to help the homeless. Of course, the average random nobody knows zilch about governing a nation – what, you think these morons who currently sit in the red and green chairs do?

And how would we pick these randoms? By lot – that is, randomly, of course. Worked in the birthplace of democracy, ancient Athens – why not here? We pick juries out of a hat, and let them decide whether to electrocute people. So why not pick our government the same way?

It’s a thought. What do you think?

Oh, and you have only 6 days to ENTER TO WIN a free paperback copy of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, Oh and That’s Another Thing by Fallacious Rose, and other great reads.

Regular lovemaking essential to a good relationship!

With your cat, I mean. Obviously.

Maintaining an intimate relationship with a cat is a delicate combination of nurturing, seduction, and mutual passion. Not forgetting food.

It’s a beautiful thing to have a little furry creature – who could very well survive on its own, if push came to shove – choose YOU to be its special companion. It will offer you, not slavish devotion, but measured affection. It will judge you, of course – but it will say nothing. It will lie beside you purring as you cry into your pillow, and you will find that more comforting than any well-meaning friend.

Yes, it will have its own quirks. It probably can’t take a joke. It will not find it amusing when it falls off a chair and you laugh. It will demand dinner – stridently – less than an hour after it has already been fed. It will eat endangered species with all the gusto of Kim Jong-un inspecting weaponry. It will sometimes be sick on the mat.

But nevertheless, your relationship will grow in depth and delight as you age together – your cat gracefully, you, not so much. I’ve never understood why women are afraid of growing old with cats. With cats is the nicest possible way to grow old. Granted, maybe one or two rather than scores, but…it’s something I look forward to, personally. Cats don’t hog the TV remote.

And my own cat – this cat is the Queen Victoria of cats, elderly and greatly cherished by all her subjects. I count it a privilege that I’m able to make her warm and comfy and loved in her later years. It’s sort of like the ‘one starfish’ principle. If I can make one cat happy – well, there was a point to me being here after all, right?

 

I hate to be the Baron of bad news, but…

Or, to put it another way, I’m playing double’s avocado. 

Conrad Ho is an aspiring fashion designer with an incomplete grasp of English idiom. Dougie is an IT minion with dreams of becoming a hit man. Well, wouldn’t you want to shoot people too, if you worked on the IT helpdesk? They’re both characters in A Fistful of Collars, Mark Farrer’s finely crafted, excellently written romp of a page-turner. It’ll make you laugh, it’ll make you…go, really, is that how they make haute couture? And you can win a free print copy at the bottom of this post. Meanwhile here’s an interview with Mark on his (honestly, hilarious) work.

Your books betray a suspiciously in-depth knowledge of Scotland…In the immortal words of Australia’s Pauline Hanson, please explain  

I am an Englishman living in Scotland. I was born in Liverpool in the sixties, moved to London after University and worked in South-east England until 2001 when I moved up to Edinburgh. Two years later I moved south of Edinburgh to the Scottish Borders – lowland country. Think the Shire. I love it here – the countryside and hills but close to the facilities, culture and glory that is Edinburgh (one of the finest capital cities in the world, in my view). Rose: Went there once…Sexy accents. Great fringe comedy. NASTY wind-tunnels!

All my books are intentionally set in Scotland and have a Scottish theme. I have a spreadsheet (I’ve seen it – I was awestruck!) full of plots dealing with salmon, whisky, North Sea Oil, Hogmanay, Forth Road Bridge, sheep-farming, textile mills, bio-sciences, wave & wind energy, Edinburgh Festival, Rangers/Celtic, etc. Each book will have one (or more) of these as a backdrop – for example, the novel I am just putting the finishing touches to now involves Rugby Sevens and the Scottish Legal System. So, I love Scotland, but I am definitely, irrefutably and will forever be, English. And when you die, a piece of Scotland will be forever England…which will seriously piss off the Scots, right?

Do you actually like that gut-wrenching, puke-inducing, medicinal-tasting substance known as whisky? 

No, unfortunately I hate it. When I moved up to Scotland I wanted to try and integrate fully into my new home, intending to become a whisky aficionado and adopt a Scottish football team (I’m a Liverpool supporter). However, I found that I can’t even bear the smell of whisky and the taste makes me retch. And having watched some Scottish football (imagine a ginger-haired winger in front of a half-empty stand battling ineffectively into the teeth of horizontal sleet) I decided that I had failed in my efforts at integration and had to settle for liking shortbread and using the word Aye a lot.

How the hell do you know so much about high fashion production, and salmon farming, and cheese? I’m guessing you either do a shit ton of research (wrinkles nose. Hard work! Ugh!) or you’re a Renaissance man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of, well, just about everything. 

I have to say that I don’t think I actually do know a lot, so am pleased if it seems like I do. My first book, Where Seagulls Dare, was set in the world of salmon farming. At the time I had been working (in IT) for a salmon-farming company for several years and had picked up a lot of information and knowledge about the business, the terminology, visited many fish farms, hatcheries, vessels, factories, etc. So the only research I had to do was about Orkney (where the book’s climax is set and where I have never been).

When I started my second novel, A Fistful Of Collars, it came as a shock to realise how much research I needed to do (since, as a middle-aged heterosexual white male I, obviously, know nothing about fashion) and how much I had taken for granted my knowledge of salmon farming for book #1. So I visited several textile mills around Scotland, googled madly about London Fashion Week, read up about the Church of Scotland, went to Stobo, and so forth. I’m not sure I needed to do as much as I did, and I hope I have deployed what I learnt lightly, rather than ramming it down readers’ throats.

I didn’t have to research any of the IT stuff in that book, but I did research, for example, where Dougie would be perched when he tried to shoot someone, and I went to Easter Road stadium to watch a Hibs match just so I could find this information out. I wasn’t interested in the match at all! If Mark decides to shoot me as a result of this interview, I have every confidence he will plan it meticulously.

I look at maps to make sure that a character can get from A to B in the time I have given them (my employers do that!), check weather facts, scout areas for likely locations and use real ones if they suit what I’m looking for – if not, I have to make them up, but I try to avoid that if possible. I don’t know what research other authors do Personally, as little as possible. I figure my readers have never been to Budapest or Byzantium, and if they have, they won’t have been making notes. But I’m lazy. But I do make an effort to find out whatever I can as I always feel that someone, somewhere, will one day pick me up for a mistake I have made and I’d like to pre-empt that if at all possible. I also go out of my way in my Author’s Note at the end of each book, to point out what is true/research and what I invented, just in case!

Have you ever wanted to be a hitman? If not, what WOULD be your dream job – I mean, the one you’d do if you could do any damn thing you liked?

Lol. I’ve only ever wanted to be a hitman for those few seconds when I’ve found myself immensely frustrated by something life has thrown at me, some intransigent jobsworth who is being (in my view) unreasonable and unfair. The chance to just take them out flashes through your mind and then is quickly trampled by the thoughts of the consequences. In reality, it may be one reason I invented Cullen – a character who is more resourceful and able to extract justice where, in real life, I would have to just sit and tut (being British). My dream job is to be a successful writer! One day…

Tell me more about the man behind the books…

I worked in IT for 30+ years, most of that time in middle- and senior- management positions. I found myself frustrated by the politics, ambition, game-playing, bureaucracy and inefficiency of almost every place I worked. You should’ve tried the Australian Public Service. Makes even jail look appealing. I was also unable to keep my opinions to myself and this usually ended up with me being fired, made redundant or enduring some other form of involuntary departure from a job. Better out than in – opinions, I mean. Don’t you think? Eventually, aged 53, I was made redundant one last time and decided enough was enough. I had been bored and frustrated in my job for a number of years and wanted something which would excite, challenge and stretch me… so I decided I would try to write a book! I wasn’t actually convinced I could do it until I had almost finished it, but once I had, I immediately set about plotting book #2. The idea of being someone who writes and makes a living from it really attracts me. Also. And if nobody pays me, I’m going to damn well write anyway!

I have difficulty describing my books and usually settle for crime comedy or crime farce (although I am never sure if there is enough crime in them to justify this description). My aim was to emulate the likes of Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey and others who write lunatic tales of incompetent and amoral losers and villains in Florida. I wanted to do a similar thing but in Scotland (and am fortunate that at least one Amazon reviewer has referred to me as a Tartan Hiaasen which is hugely flattering and delightful) and realised that, whereas Florida is larger-than-life, neon, dayglo, American brashness, Scotland would be more muted, sarcastic, down-at-heel, pastel-shaded British understatement. So I think this pretty much sums up my books. I do get a lot of US readers and this surprises me because I think the language, settings and humour are all very British. But then Top Gear has a huge international following and I think a typical Top Gear viewer is probably someone who would really like my books. Yes. Only they might want more cars in them.

I am logical, systematic and believe the devil is in the detail. All my books are plotted out, in Excel, before I write a word (even though the plots will change during the writing process). This gives me confidence that there is a 90,000 word novel there before I start and allows me to write the scenes out of order so that I minimise writer’s block – if I am in a grumpy mood I can pick a scene from the book which suits; if I’m feeling playful I can pick a light scene and scatter sarcasm and witticisms all over it. One of the main things coming late to writing has taught me is patience and faith. Being able to achieve a large goal by the slow accumulation of small steps. This was something I didn’t personally possess in my younger days and I think it took my first book to show me that it would actually work like that. It does!

I am essentially retired now, so am able to devote as much of my time to writing as I like.  I look forward to the day when I can say to someone “I am a writer.” It might seem strange, given that I have already written 3 books and am finishing a fourth, that I feel uncomfortable being described as that, but I do – if someone is introduced to me at a party with “This is Mark, he’s a writer” I tend to say “Well, I suppose so. Kind of.” My personal definition of a successful writer (or, at least, a professional writer) is someone who is able to support themselves on the income they make from writing – something I can’t yet do. But that is my goal and I plan to get there at some point. I guess an interim stage is to make a net profit from writing (even if it is insufficient to support me) and once I have achieved that (which, again, I have yet to do: I make less money from writing than it costs me to get covers done, advertise, etc) maybe THEN I would be comfortable in describing myself as a writer. But I won’t consider myself successful until I am earning my keep. I tell everyone I’m a writer, in case they think I’m a cleaner. Which would be understandable, as I’m usually vacuuming their floors at the time.

I will keep plugging away for another few years but, if I don’t make it, there will obviously come a point where my savings have dwindled such that I have to get a proper job and abandon (or at least, dilute) the focus I am currently giving to writing. So, fingers crossed, and ask me again in 2020!

I’ve always felt like being a writer is core to being me – my reason for being, if you like. How do you feel about being a writer, and what are you writing FOR?

I increasingly think of myself as a writer, though, even when I am uncomfortable saying that “out loud”. If I was forbidden to write I’m not sure what I would do – I dabble in music (playing piano and guitar), go hill-walking, play boardgames and love cooking so I have plenty to occupy myself if I was unable to write. But I would certainly miss it.

Ultimately, I see my books as entertainment. I want to write books that people enjoy and are happy to pay a few quid for. I focus on story – creating an intricate plot, telling it well, trying to make it funny, interesting and immersive. If I can do that, I have succeeded in my aim.

And what’s your main challenge as an indie?

Oh boy. Self-promotion. Oh yes. We ALL hate it. Anyone who doesn’t hate it should be in marketing, not writing. Without doubt. I suck at it, hate doing it and resent the fact that it even needs to be done. In my ideal world, books would be successful on their own merit and having to advertise, network and promote would only be required if your books were no good. Alas, that is not the world we live in.

When I finished my first book I sent it out to agents and so on only to receive (naturally) lots of rejections. I have avoided doing this since but will consider doing it again next year if I am still struggling to break through. I may be one of the few who feel that paying someone 15-20% of my earnings to take all that stuff away from me is totally worth it. The irony would be that, perhaps by the time I reached the point where an agent would take me on, I might have broken through on my own anyway!

But honestly, if anyone had told me that, after the long gestation, persistence, self-doubt and grinding slog of writing a book I would then find that the writing was the easy bit, I think I would never have started. My take: The hardest bit about promotion is getting people to take you seriously. Hands up everyone who when they download an ‘indie’ book almost EXPECT it to be bad, or at best, amateurish? And then, if it’s actually good…well, the use of the word ‘actually’ says it all, really.

Who is your audience?

Identifying my audience is a big problem for me, and always has been. I don’t feel my stuff fits neatly into any genre and as I mentioned earlier, I struggle to describe my books to others in a few words. And I think it is mostly down to the fact that I am trying to be funny. Humorous fiction is a useless, wide-ranging genre which frankly doesn’t help someone like me find readers. I don’t think anyone goes to Amazon and types in “funny book” and if they did they’d come up with those non-fiction things about 101 ways to use a dead cat. And if I try and pitch my books as crime novels – well, they’re not gritty or down-to-earth enough, I think…crime novels are usually dark with an image of a shadowy figure down an alleyway, or a knife glinting with blood on it. These sorts of images just don’t mesh with my stuff, so I have created a rod for my own back really. So, right now, the only way I have of finding an audience is to advertise on Amazon for people who search for books by other authors in a similar vein (Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey, Christopher Brookmyre, etc) and cross my fingers! Won’t work for me – I search for Funny Books!

But I have had to learn so much, do so many things, become so capable across so many disciplines, develop my own brand. The writing soon looks like a smaller and smaller part of the job – which is compounded when you read books much inferior to your own which are much more successful than yours  (bastards!) – and I do wonder sometimes why I keep on with it. Because your stuff is seriously good…and laugh out loud funny. And the answer is, I suppose, stubbornness. And hope. Hope that one day I will make it. But it’s the hope that kills you. You gotta do that thing, you know? Every time I get on a plane I tell myself I’m going to die today. Then when I don’t, it’s an unexpected gift! Likewise with fame, fortune and gazillions of fawning fans hanging on your every word…

You can pick up a copy of Mark Farrer’s Dirty Barry for free here, or you can win a paperback of A Fistful of Collars (along with 8 other witty books) here. And here’s an audio of Mark talking about his next book, The Good, The Bad and The Rugby (as a passionate football non-enthusiast, I LIKE this title)

Protected: TBC

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.

Advertisements

Tired of the ratrace?

Look at us.

I mean me, really. Trudging along on the great grey highway of life, face forward, eyes front, doing my best to be good, fit in, work hard and obey the rules…and then YOU come along.

By you, I mean Mike B Good, the author of Breaking Good and other subversive texts. According to Mike, there’s Another Way to Be. At least, there was in the 70s, when even cheesecloth flairs were kinda ok. So just for a little while, I allowed myself to fall under the spell of Mike’s seditious but oh so seductive wiles…

Rose: So Mike…you and your main character share the same name. Which leads me to wonder (without totally dropping you in it, given that your hero is engaged in a business which, not to put too fine a point on it, is against the law) how autobiographical is your writing? Are you actually a mild mannered accountant in real life, or…?  

It’s no coincidence that the main character shares my name, Rose, and the autobiographical element is all too real. I really did grow up like a veal (I’ve never heard this phrase!) in the 50’s and 60’s, raised by arch-conservatives and big fans of the evil President Nixon. I listened to folk music, I played golf, I was totally lame. (Not as lame as me. I can’t play golf, even.) I was academic, a nerd on the fast track for law school and the American Dream. Then I started college, turned on, and saw the light. There was more to life than working overtime, overextending credit cards and paying my bitter ex-wife alimony. With my enhanced worldview, I aspired instead to a life of fun and adventure. Unfortunately, I had no talents, no direction, and no juicy trust fund to make that a reality—it looked like the dreaded American Dream for me. With only a couple months to go before graduation, I was freaking out. But then my college pot connection came back from Hawaii with Kona Gold, “the world’s best pot.” Also, to drop out of grad school, grab his stuff, and move to Kona to grow da kine. Just like that, I saw a way out of my dilemma. If Lizardo could follow his dream, why couldn’t I? Well, there were those pesky drug laws. Was a life of fun and adventure worth a little risk? I had to find out. So, to finally answer your question, yeah, my books are based on real life misadventures, and were originally written as journals during my travels.

Rose: I think both of us have written books that reveal a lot about us, not all of it would pass the ‘respectable enough to work at IBM’ test. So how do you feel about the potential for your readers to make judgements about you as the author, as opposed to reacting simply to your fictional characters? (My readers, for instance, might think that I’m a self involved, promiscuous liar, and they would be right). What are the key differences – in personality, lifestyle, attitudes etc – between you and your hero? 

Funny that you chose IBM as an example. I remember my college guidance counselor telling me, “You want to get a job with IBM? You need to cut your hair, straighten up, and fly right.” The same thing my parents drilled into me, so no, I wouldn’t pass the IBM test. Nor did I want to wear a suit and tie and act like everyone else. As far as being judged, I’ve always enjoyed my own sense of humor, but then I’m biased, so I’m comfortable with my character resembling me in real life. Not everyone else has enjoyed my humor or my snarky comments, but those are mostly the conservatives that I’ve been battling all my life (Fox News viewers and such), so I don’t worry about them. I think the people who get past the first few chapters in my stories will be copasetic readers, people who enjoy a good laugh and a different perspective on the world we live in. Otherwise, they’ll have closed the book by then. (Let’s just say, Jeff Sessions, our Attorney General, is not a big fan of my crusade for personal liberties.) I’d say the key differences in my character and the real me aren’t in personality, lifestyle, or attitude—except for protecting the guilty, I tell it almost like it is—or was. I am just as irreverent and sarcastic in real life, but I am much less confrontational than in my books, where I’m able to speak the things that go on in my mind, rather than hold them back to avoid conflict. The freedom to really express myself is a big part of what makes writing so much fun.

Is the Hawaiian rainforest really dotted with covert marijuana plantations? 

Oh yes, it sure is, though much more so in the good old days. What with the helicopters full of flying narcs, things have changed, and a lot of growers have moved indoors. Which, to me, is a real travesty. To live in the Garden of Eden, and have to hide under a roof? That seems so wrong. They’ve finally approved medical marijuana in the Islands, but not recreational. Hopefully, things will continue in the right direction, but until the Feds get on board, I won’t be happy. Neither will all the people invested in the so-called legal pot business. Same with everyone who lives in an unenlightened state. In a world of overprescribed painkillers, rampant alcoholism, not to mention, heroin and meth epidemics, why is marijuana, proven to be so helpful for so many, still a scourge with some people? Here I’m talking about you, Jeff Sessions. You and all the spineless politicians afraid to do the right thing. Pot laws are crazy and need to change. Sorry, Rose, I feel strongly about this, so it’s easy to get on a rant. (Me too. How much is a plane ticket to Hawaii, again?)

Rose:  What’s the best joke you ever heard? Failing that, tell me about tweakers and your one-legged neighbour….do you happen to live in the Appalachians, by any chance? 

I love jokes, but I can’t remember them. Which is good, ‘cause when I hear them again, I get another laugh. At a dinner party with my Jewish girlfriend Betty years ago, her family was taking turns telling jokes. When it was my turn, I could only remember one joke, and only because I’d just heard it that day. Also, given the present company, it seemed kind of topical. It went like this: “What’s the difference between a Jewish American princess and Jello?” At first, I didn’t notice the narrowed eyes of her parents and sisters, but when I moved to the punch line, “Jello moves when you. . .,” Betty’s kick to my shin warned me my joke was inappropriate and to shut the hell up. Moves when you make love to it? But who makes love to Jello? I’m better with telling stories than jokes, but where do I start with my one-legged neighbor Jesus the tweaker (aka entrepreneur who steals electric lines for the copper!!) ? I didn’t realize he only had one leg till I saw him fall of his bike one morning. As he struggled to get up, I realized he only had one and a half legs. The other half was lying on the ground. Which seemed really weird until I realized it was a prosthetic. He stood there screaming at it before picking up, hopping back home, and attacking it with his machete. While he got revenge on his treasonous leg, another tweaker (from down the block stole Jesus’ bicycle. Now the two tweakers are at war. Jesus got revenge by reporting Tweaker #2 to the police, while Tweaker #2 responded by breaking into Jesus’ place and stealing his crutches. With no prosthesis or crutches, Jesus now gets around in a wheelchair, which he rides in reverse, using ski poles to move himself along. Find out more about the Tweaker Wars here.

I’m intending to get properly into drugs in my eighties…what do I have to look forward to? No really  - what’s on the menu, and what’s it going to do for me, and will I like it?  

Depending on what drugs you plan to get into, it’ll be great! Otherwise, I’d have stopped getting high decades ago. For a beginner, I’d go with pot. In fact, as a veteran, I’d go with pot. Some people don’t like the effects, they get too self-conscious, sometimes a little paranoid, but I call those people “unlucky.” For most users, the relaxing effects help you deal with life’s stress, see things on a more humorous note. Which is why it’s so much fun to read stuff like ours when high. All I can say is, why wait till your 80? Because by that time I will have worked out what to call it. Every time I talk about ‘dope’ or ‘hash’ my kids fall about laughing.

The war on drugs is the most idiotic thing since prohibition, in my opinion. I can’t see why it’s anybody else’s business what I put up my nose (only my finger, usually) any more than what I eat (a lot of vegemite, for your information). Agree or disagree?

I couldn’t agree more, which is why I’ve been fighting a war on the war on the drugs all these years. At least the one on pot. Don’t tell anyone, but my Uncle Dick (AKA: President Nixon) started the War on Drugs in ‘71 after catching me turning on my cousins Trish and Julie—something I deeply regret and feel obligated to correct. After all, until some ill-conceived legislation in the 30’s, pot has been legal since the beginning of time. Humans have used it forever. And really, if we weren’t supposed to enjoy marijuana, why do we have THC receptors in our brains? I gotta say, I find it ironic I live in the only era it’s been illegal—and not in a humorous way. Make doughnuts illegal, I say. Look at all the harm they do!

I understand you have a direct line to the President. Can you tell us anything about him the public don’t already know (apart from the fact that he loves watersports, porn stars, McDonalds, and has big, erm…hands). 

I can tell you that almost everything he tweets is a lie, but you already know that. Let’s see, what dirt can I spill that won’t land me in Guantanamo? Okay, here’s something. It might not be big news on a national level, but the guy cheats at golf, gives himself every putt within six feet. At least his Secret Service caddy Dirk does. And yet, the Donald makes the rest of us putt everything out. Even 6-inch gimmees. That’s how big a dick he is. This drives me up the wall. Worse, the Donald insists I ride in his cart and listen to him tell me how great a golfer he is. On the other hand, he spills all kinds of dirt. Dirt I’d love to share with you, Rose, but I gotta hold it back for negotiating purposes if I want to keep the world safe from our president. Hang on a second, I think I hear someone knocking on the door. Oh shit, it’s Colonel Buzzkill from the NSA Goon Squad. Did I reveal too much? Sorry, Rose, gotta run, and I mean that literally. . .

You can find Mr Good’s works here. For the next month, I’ll be interviewing some funny but seriously weird authors who’ve joined with me to give away Eight Hilarious Reads and a Bestseller. The bestseller is Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman, and it ‘s just as good as Reese Witherspoon says it is, so if you want to win, head on over.

 

Yes I’ve tasted a hash cookie but I didn’t digest…

Ok, I admit it. I ate a hash cookie once.

I was 19, hopelessly naive and living in a squat in London with my much older brother and his immigrant friends. They all worked in menial capacities at a restaurant in Covent Garden, and would arrive home at around midnight wired up and ready to party.  Translation: they’d sit around in the third floor kitchen of our dilapidated terrace, smoking joints and exchanging what they evidently thought were witty and hilarious remarks.

I’d sit with them, wide-eyed, trying to follow the conversation, having very little to add. My first experience of inhaling anything was when the old guy next door offered me and my best friend a fag over the fence: it burnt my throat and turned me into a wowser for life. So I just watched, and listened – afraid to admit I was bored shitless. Witty? Hilarious? You’ve got to be kidding.

Still, I did try a hash cookie, eventually. No high, not even a tingle. My next drug experience was when I took up with a magnificently built African American guy at the age of about 40. Still hopelessly naive. One day, we went to visit a friend of his, and he closeted himself in her room. Annoyed, but not particularly jealous, I barged in, only to find them both skulking by the window, smoking crack cocaine. Until then I’d had no idea that my lover’s constant hovering on the edge of bankruptcy, and bouts with mysterious illness, were anything but innocent stupidity.

Seeing him standing there, shamed but hopelessly enchained to this hateful substance, I remember feeling a surge of fury, disgust and pity. So this, I thought, is what it comes down to – you barter your own, admittedly mundane, perceptions of the common reality for a chemically enhanced, infinitely more palatable version, and then there’s no going back. Admittedly, my brother’s hash was a long way from Robert’s crack – one became an executive, the other died. Even so, I’ve noticed that long term weed afficionados tend to process thoughts with the speed and focus of a wisp of smoke coiling up into the atmosphere…my mental processes are vague enough without adding any extra handicaps, thanks.

My head is a library, a studio, a thrift shop, a museum, a dress-up box, a bowl of alphabet soup. The one thing I’m most afraid of in life (apart from harm to my children, who hold my heart in their hands) is to lose the key.

Given all of the above, am I the right person to be interviewing an author whose hero aspires to make a living cultivating weed in Hawaii? In my next post, you’ll find out.

Should kids’ books have lessons?

One of my favourite kids’ books is Roald Dahl’s Matilda. Or, well, pick anything by Roald Dahl, really. The best thing about a Roald Dahl book, I always feel, is the moral of the story.

That is, the fact that it usually doesn’t have one. Child genius dumps stupid parents for sweet and much better educated singleton? Ok…  Red Riding Hood saves three little pigs from the Big Bad Wolf – and ends up with wolfskin gloves and bacon for breakfast? Mmmm.

You can’t pick up a kids’ book these days without being battered senseless by some kind of improving message. Share your toys. Home is best. All things come to those who persevere. You’re wonderful just as you are. Maybe even more wonderful if you paid more attention to your parents’ wise advice. Etc. Etc.

I’m thinking about this as I pen a sequel to Bad Dog, the story of a disobedient dog, a bogan bully, a lawyer who likes tutus, and a beautiful Swedish vivisectionist. Bad Dog takes a kid to places he or she probably shouldn’t go – and yet, who says she shouldn’t? Like a theme park ride, maybe there should be a sign saying ‘You must be THIS high to enter’ – but perhaps there’s a place for stories that make a ten year old ask a few pertinent questions, too.

Or maybe not. You couldn’t really donate a pet dog to a laboratory, could you Mummy? Well, erm…yes (just not Spot, obviously, darling.). There are bad things in the world, and Roald Dahl, old-style fairy stories and (in its own, amateur way) stories like Bad Dog introduce us to them gently. Or not so gently, as in the case of the original Cinderella, whose ugly sisters had their feet amputated (or burnt off – I can’t remember which. Whatever, it was nasty).

The sequel, Bad Dog and Il Principessa, concerns the same very bad dog and his adventures with the Queen of feral cats, a sort of feline mob boss who forms an unlikely bond with a local bikie gang leader. Bikie gangs, the mafia, and…kids? I dunno. But it’s the story I want to write. After all, you don’t think kids’ books are really for KIDS, do you? Ha!

I grew up on the knights of the Round Table – and Regency Romance. At eight, I knew that my dream lover would be pure of heart and unfailingly courteous to ladies of all degrees. I also knew that he should rip the thin silk from my…

Moving right along….what do you expect from kids’ books? What did you grow up reading, and how did it influence you to be who you are now?

 

Why is there always a fly in your ointment? The answer to this question will surprise you…

Also the answer to the question ‘Why does this ninety year old pensioner look like a teenager’ (hint: it has something to do with gladwrap.).

No really, I’ve always wondered why some people’s lives resemble ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ while others are more like The Little Princess.  Is it circumstances? Luck? Attitude? A combination of them all?

Or is it – and this is where the surprise comes in – a Brazilian spirit called Saci, who just loves to drop a deceased arthropod in your smug little apple pie…

MJ Dees, the author of The Astonishing Anniversaries of James and David and Living with Saci, explores just that sort of issue – which is why I pleaded with him to come in and have a chat. Come in, I said, and make yourself comfortable in this beautifully contoured electric…I mean armchair.

Rose: In The Astonishing Anniversaries of James and David, twin boys are born with completely different approaches to life. James is always looking for the next best thing, and happy to complain when he doesn’t get it: David makes the best of everything, including a psycho wife who parks a bomb under their restaurant table. Do you really think that ‘innate outlook’ makes a big difference to how our lives pan out?

MJ: The idea for the story came from this idea that people are essentially satisfied or dissatisfied with what they have and that even if terrible things happen to people they will, before long, return to their happy equilibrium while unhappy people will eventually return to their default setting of unhappy no matter what wonderful things happen to them. But it is also about nature v nurture. Willy Russell wrote Blood Brothers to explore the idea of taking genetically identical twins and seeing what happens if you place them in different environments. I wanted to explore the idea that even genetically identical twins raised in the same environment could have very different outlooks and experiences.

Rose: You seem to have an amazing grasp of English working class life circa 1950s and beyond. (At least, it seems pretty darned authentic to me, as an Aussie). How’d you get it?

MJ: I was born in Hull, East Yorkshire in 1971. Hull had developed very little in the 26 years since the second world war and my parents both grew up in a period of austerity. My mother was raised by her grandmother and my father was the youngest in a large family so their upbringing was practically victorian. In addition, my parents did not have very much money when I was growing up so we could not afford the same luxuries as our neighbours. We were lucky in the sense that we could play in the streets because they were not full of cars and we played outside because their was little in the way of technology to keep us inside. In short, I just drew on my own childhood experiences.

Rose: Living with Saci seems to return to the theme of ‘what makes some people’s lives a success – and others a disaster’, but take a different perspective on it.  It’s a phenomenon I’ve often observed myself – for instance, the person who through no fault of their own, apparently, just goes from mishap to tragedy to the headwaters of shit creek without a paddle. In Saci, the underlying reason is a Brazilian spirit of mischief, a sort of South American Loki. Or…is it?

MJ: The protagonist, Teresa, could be considered to be responsible for some of her own problems (although the sequel I am writing at the moment will explore what factors contributed to her drink dependence, for example) but there also many factors beyond her control which complicate her life and she seeks excuses for these in the mischievous character from Brazilian folklore, Saci. When things go missing or wrong in Brazil people used to blame Saci but in the story Teresa seems to meet her own Saci although she doesn’t realise it at the time. I am very intrigued by the lives of ordinary people, not kings or presidents or those who are very poor or unfortunate, but those in between and Teresa fits this category. Like hundreds of millions of people she is struggling to get on with life no matter what it throws at her. The sequel will carry on following Teresa where Living with Saci left off.

Rose: You’re a talented author, and I’d love you to get picked up by Simon and Schuster. But if you don’t ever ‘make it’ in terms of Amazon rankings, etc (and don’t worry, I ask myself the same question), will the creative work of writing your books still have been worth it? To put it another way, do you write for the sake of writing itself, or does there need to be something more, for you? And if so, what?

MJ: I have always wanted to write, (me too!) ever since I was very small when I would fill pages and pages with scribbles before I knew how to form letters. However, for many years I could not find the discipline to finish anything until I won a poetry award and decided to do Nanowrimo even if it took me much longer than a month to write 50k words. It took me about six months plus another year re-writing during which time I also wrote my second novel. I then started to send the book out to agents and hadn’t considered self-publishing until I started to listen to the Self-Publishing Formula podcast. SPF convinced me that self-publishing was not just a way to get published but the way to publish. Obviously, I would love to receive the approval of an agent or a publisher or the Booker or Nobel Laureate committees, but for me, feedback such as your comment in the question is just as important if not more Important than the opinions of the ‘so-called’ publishing elite. So, in order to answer the question, I would like to be successful enough to make writing my full time job (me too) and give up teaching Drama to 7-16 year olds in Sao Paulo (cleaning toilets in Woop Woop, SW). I would love to make lots and lots of money and live a very comfortable life but even if I could not make a living from writing, I will continue to write and publish books for as long as there are people who say they enjoy reading them. Or until I die. (Yep. We’re soul mates)

Rose: What’s your greatest challenge, as a writer, and how do you overcome it? Tell me so I can copy you.

MJ: I find being able set aside enough time to write pretty difficult but the biggest challenge by far is imposter syndrome. This is the feeling that I’m not really good enough to be a writer and that at any moment somebody is going to reveal how truly rubbish I am. The way I overcome this is just to keep going regardless until the next compliment restores my faith in my work again. I have no doubt that I still have a lot to learn as a writer but, in the meantime, I believe that if people enjoy reading my books then the books are good enough to be published and why wait around for a publisher when I can earn significantly higher royalties publishing the books myself while maintaining creative control over content and marketing. Agree. The trick is getting people to buy them. I favour mass hypnotism, myself.

You can download a free copy of Living with Saci at https://bookhip.com/MDVJSL

So – how would YOU explain those people (they really exist) who have really, really bad luck. Like, marry a serial killer then get hit by a bus just after you’ve left your life savings in the supermarket trolley bad luck…