M.T. McGuire's Blog, page 15

What on God’s green earth am I doing?

This week I have mostly been, well … to be honest, I’ve been on a bit of a downer. It’s probably just the Christmas blues getting to me, as you know, I loathe it all with a passion and this year, it’s my first one as a demi-orphan, which makes it worse.

On top of that, I think the combination of a moment of extremely bad judgement coming home to haunt me, plus a bit of reality check threw me rather. Also, there’s nothing like a general election campaign to show us humanity at its ugliest. And of course, that makes me miss my dad. Not sick Dad, but the man he was. Who I’m grieving for even more now, it seems.

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Eventually, I got so low, I reached the point were I had to open my mental baggage and have a good old rummage about to see if I could work out what the fuck was going on. It culminated with a long chat with my Mum on Wednesday. She’s feeling a bit down, too. I’m going to share the results with you, because as a creative bod, I found them quite illuminating, and quite helpful. Even better, said rummaging complete, I feel several orders of magnitude better about life, the universe and everything this morning. So there we are, I’ve done the thinking so you don’t have to. Fellow creative types will get this, I think, the rest of you may not. It’s difficult to articulate it well, so apologies if I come over as a pretentious prick. Unfortunately, I am. I just hide it well.

Doing any kind of arts, while often a very public act, can also be an intensely personal one for the artist involved. On a more general note, it’s also why artists of all types need self-belief and strength of character in spade loads to keep doing their art, year in, year out. It might even be why some of them suffer from depression. That said, even the successful ones suffer from that. When it comes, validation in the form of popularity, may not necessarily make the artist feel any more fulfilled.

The lovely Dan Holloway wrote a brilliant book about writing and being happy without selling your soul called ‘Self Publish with Integrity: Define Success in your Own Terms and then Achieve It. If you haven’t read it, I can thoroughly recommend it. It is the most lovely book.

In it Dan talks about working out what you mean by success and what your goals are. Know these things, he argues, and you will not be quite so gutted if ‘success’ is more about producing art you are proud of and which speaks of your soul, than art which sells. He talks about the need to get down to the nitty gritty of why you really write so you know, and so your whole business sits on this solid foundation of goals and expectation.

For many years, my rationale has been that I write because I have to. Confidence isn’t a problem. I’m good at something, really not bad, and I want to do that thing. I am a bona fide Authorholic. If I don’t get my fix of writing or writing-related action each day I get pretty crabby, like an addict on the brink of cold turkey. But it’s only recently I realised that, ‘I write because I have to’ isn’t really the answer, because what I need to know is why do I have to write?

Amazingly, it appears that the main reasons are because I have THINGS to say. Sure, I only ever set out to tell a good story and make it funny. I never set out to put the THINGS in, but whatever I write, they are always in there; love, kindness, people being decent to one another, burying their differences to work together, the cost of unkindness, greed, selfishness and the pursuit of money and wealth at the expense of all else. About the danger of treating people as things. I have something to say about the difference between physical and moral courage. About how doing the right thing is really hard the first time but how, no matter how difficult the actual mechanics of acting with integrity are, the more you do, the easier it becomes. I have stuff to say about tolerance, and the nature of true strength of character – which is rather more complicated than just being bolshy or shouting down the opposition with a loud voice. I have things to say about imagination, and how important imagination is to maintain a civilised society where people treat each other the way they’d like to be treated. And of course, I want to make people laugh, because nobody’s going to hoist in that sort of bleeding-heart, love-thy-neighbour, Christian clap-trap unless it’s funny. And anyway, I can’t do serious.

Those things are all quite personal to me. They go deeper than I realised. I think watching my dad ravaged by Alzheimer’s, dealing with the way others behaved towards him, has completely changed me. Perhaps I underestimated the importance of imagination, and using it to put yourself in the place of others. Dad’s suffering also changed the way I view people or social groups with whom I share little common ground. Maybe I can see a bit more clearly where ‘them and us’ tribalism takes us now that I’ve spent a lot of time with one of them. Some people were utterly lovely with Dad and some were utter cunts. Always, their ability to use their imagination, to empathise, was the only difference between the two.

Obviously, all of us creative nutters care about what we do, we wouldn’t do it otherwise. I’d guess, we all have those days when we look at our work and think it’s crap., and other days when we feel we’re on top of the world – and so is our stuff. Then there’s that horrible bit when you send it out into the world for the first time. That moment when you think, ‘Lordy, what have I done? Is it shit?’ That’s a natural part of the creative process. I’d bet my life anyone who does anything creative, ever, will have felt that. But I suppose what I was trying to get to the bottom of with all this introspection, really, is, when I make something I’m happy with, when I think it’s about the best I can do, why am I sad when the world disagrees? Why do I give a toss what the world thinks? And if I do give a toss, what on earth is it that’s driving me to keep spending money I don’t have putting out books only a tiny handful of people want.

And what this has shown me, I think, is that I care a lot more about my writing than I thought. It means that what I do is not just an addiction, but a vocation. I need to write this stuff. All of it; this blog, the books, the non fiction stuff I’m working on. I need to connect with people. I need to try and spread the light and I need to do it especially badly now Dad has gone, because before his illness, he did all that, effortlessly. And maybe, what this also means is that, when I write a book and it doesn’t sell, it’s the complete indifference of the world to my efforts that hurts. Because I need to make these people understand. Then again, there’s always a flip side; if no-one gives a shit, it’s unbelievably liberating because you can write anything you like, right?

With that better understanding of the unconscious emotional investment I make in each of my endeavours, I think I finally get why that rejection is painful. Why it’s hard to shrug off the heartache when, on another level I’m genuinely not bothered. And maybe understanding this simple fact is, sort of, the essence of producing art. Whatever it is; be it drawings, writing, music, dance, acting … you name it. Because that’s what people do isn’t it? They get good at something. And sometimes, they get noticed. But for every one who does, there are thousands of completely invisible people churning out art because something drives them on, or because they believe in what they’re doing and enjoy doing it, and that’s all they need. A lot of it is fabulous stuff. A lot of these people are amazingly talented yet they receive little or no recognition. But it doesn’t stop them. They don’t care if no-one else gets it. After all, they do. So they keep putting themselves out there, for nothing, because they want to, or have to. Weird isn’t it?

Strangely, a big reason I want to earn cash for my creations is my wish to create faster, and to diversify; large print, hardbacks, it’s all missing because it costs money. Money I don’t have. I save up, when I’ve enough cash, I spend it releasing a book. It takes ages because there’s no time in my life for a real job. It would be amazing if I could earn enough from each release to pay for the next one. It’s a modest ambition and my consistent failure to achieve that is galling.

Now, I have to point out that everything I’ve said about creating stuff is pretty much moot on the eyebombing front. Eyebombing actually is something I do, solely, to make people laugh. It’s light and fluffy. I get to pretend that I’m edgy and street by calling myself a street artist. In truth, I’m just a fifty something mum who likes to prick the bubble of the pompous and has failed, spectacularly, to grow up. It’s taking the gentle piss out of the world and myself. I don’t take it seriously. I’m not putting my soul out there or anything.

However, on the back of the positive reaction to the pictures I post, and to the handful of calendars I had printed for family and friends last year, I genuinely believed the calendar would sell. That it would bankroll my next release, or some of it, and raise some money for charity as well. If the calendar sold well, it meant an eyebombing book would sell. It meant that my publishing efforts might become self-financing.

In the event, I have made half the cost back, and managed to raise a few pence for the things I’m supporting. I can chalk this one up to experience, but my pride is definitely dented. And, of course, I’ve made a piss poor judgement call, not to mention a complete fucking idiot of myself, which is always a bit of a bummer.

It was a bit of a blow to discover the truth a time of year when I’m a little more maudlin than usual anyway. Add in the whole demi-orphan aspect and it certainly explains why I was so utterly down for the first part of this week.

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, though. By making an absolute tit of myself and pissing my ill-gotten winnings up the wall I have, at least, learned that a book on eyebombing will not sell. I’ve also learned it for a LOT less than the cost of a book on eyebombing. Sure a book would have a longer shelf life than a calendar, and longer to earn out but I fear the shelf life in this instance would be about the same as that of nuclear waste.

If I had enough eyebombing books printed to sell to shops with a decent discount for them and profit for me, apart from bankrupting myself, I should think my descendants would probably be trying to flog the last few in a couple of thousand years’ time. So yeh, calendars-wise, I made an expensive mistake, but it was made with cash I wouldn’t otherwise have had and it could have been so, so much worse. So while I am gutted that my judgement is absolutely fucking miles out, it’s probably just a case of how you look at these things. It was an experiment after all, and it didn’t work out. Dust the sand from your feet and move onwards and upwards.

With the books … well … it’s weird. When I released Small Beginnings it was four years, to the day, since I’d released the previous book. K’Barth is a slow seller (except to a select few loyal fans) so I’d been trying to write other things, but the Real World was doing my head in and it just wasn’t possible. In the end, writing something was better than writing nothing. If that meant more stuff about K’Barth until Real Life calmed down a bit so be it. Anyway, a series of shorter, cheaper books for the haverers to try for less cash made sense, you know, to ease them in. I expected very little from Small Beginnings. I was hoping against hope that I might shift a few more of them over the release period than I had of the previous release but that’s about all.

So did I? Er, no.

Do I care though?

Yes, a bit, but not nearly as much as I did about the calendars. It’s not been a success. But it’s K’Barthan so I haven’t expected it to be. Yes, I feel a bit disheartened in some ways, but people bought it, lovely people who read it, liked it and some even reviewed it. It didn’t completely die on its arse, unlike the calendars.

Furthermore, though I’d planned the launch, it wasn’t the smooth affair I envisaged. For starters, it was suddenly in the middle of an election campaign which is never helpful when you use social media in your marketing. Since the election was announced, most of the on-line groups I frequent have been post-apocalyptically quiet. The cost of advertising has also risen sharply – out of my range – so nothing doing there. Finally, several other authors I know released books at the same time and I missed an opportunity to organise something with them. Teaming up and pooling resources on this kind of stuff always works well.

On the up side, I’ve discovered I can sell books reasonably successfully face-to-face. Conventions and events are clearly the way to go. As my lad gets older it’ll be easier to follow that path. I’ve met a lovely bunch of local authors now as well so who knows, maybe we can work together on that – the cost of a table split between four is much easier to absorb than one on your own.

There’s also been a bit of a change, this last few months, in the way I do my social media interaction, email marketing and Facebook advertising. There’s a K’Barthan Jolly Japery facebook group now, which is a gas. It might be this up-close, personal contact with my lovely readers that fooled me into thinking I was turning the corner. Because though it’s a small group they are hugely supportive. Perhaps I won’t really know if anything’s happening until the group gets bigger. I mean, my books are only ever going to be cult, but if these lovely nutters found me, I can kid myself that others will. Who knows. I’m just glad they’re there.

Perhaps, that’s the secret of happy creativity then; keeping your expectations realistic. Believing in what you do, yet being pragmatic enough to prepare for the worst – even if you are idealistic enough to hope. I’m think I’m, sort of, almost at peace with myself on this. Almost … it’s just that … sometimes … earning the production costs back would be good.

There is a choice, I think. I can try and be an outlier, do something different, or I can write to market. Writing to market will earn me cash, being an outlier won’t. Not unless I’m up there with Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams or JK Rowling. But the thought of trying to find a way to make shape shifters and vampires interesting. Or writing a new slant on manly men fighting other manly men in space – or thin women in leather jumpsuits who are basically, manly men fighting other manly men in space, but with boobs and a high voice … I know it’s what the market wants, and what I should be doing, but the thought of following standard tropes makes something inside me want to curl up and die. I can’t even bring myself to take the piss out of them. I tried with Deirdre Arbuthnot, but I got too interested in her back story and it all went to pot.

I always knew that, if I wrote the books I like, it’d be a niche. I mean, I can’t remember what the actual letters in my Myers Brigg profile are, but it’s 8% of the population. That’s a small niche. Sure 8% of the world’s readers has to be a big enough chunk, but in marketing terms, it’s still like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is going to take ages to find them.

What all that means, is, I have to get real or get over myself. I must decide if the joy of creating these lunatic worlds is more important than earning a living at it. And when I look at it, deep down, I know I have. Well … for starters, it makes my tax returns a lot less complicated to do.

As for the calendars. Well, I’ll just chalk them up to experience and keep on publishing books. Books I like, for the handful of fellow nutters who enjoy them. It really shouldn’t bother me if hardly anyone else gets them. After all, I do and the nutters do. Our own secret in-joke.

Let’s talk about things …

Wow, I have a whole gamut of stuff washing around to talk about this week. I’m not sure if I’ll get through it all or do it justice but off we go.

First of all, last week, you’ll have noticed there was a break in transmission. Yep. No blog post. I meant to do one but then it was time for the Christmas Fayre I was getting all my shizz ready and … er hem … I forgot.

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In my defence, my father’s memorial service took it out of me. It was wonderful but blimey I was knackered afterwards. Lots of emotional stamina required. Which reminds me, I should write and thank a lot of people. Yet more stuff to add to the gargantuan, War And Peace-length list of Shit MTM Hasn’t Done. Gulp.

The fayre was kind of a mix. It was the first time in a new venue and it took a while for people to realise we were there. Friday was quiet, Saturday reasonably busy, and Sunday a lot busier. The books sold well, although differently, a lot of people bought two; a copy of Escape From B-Movie Hell and a copy of Small Beginnings. The EyebombThereforeIAm calendars, which I thought would sell like hot cakes and bankroll everything, they didn’t sell at all. So that was bizarre.

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The ill fated eyebombing calendar

The consensus among friends and family is still, ‘oooh I’d buy one of those,’ and some even have, but they clearly left the general public cold. I am selling some for charity, which might help. I had to sell 30 at £9.99 to pay for costs, I sold five at £9 and I have sold three to a lovely friend for £9.99. I picked £9.99 after researching them in local shops and discovering they were mostly £9.99 – £15.99 so I went for the lowest price. However, McOther tells me a pop up calendar shop has opened in the new shopping centre with prices from about £7.00 to £9.99 so perhaps I’m now at the high end.

Never mind, onwards and upwards. If you think you’d like one you can find out more here.

Dad’s memorial went well. It’s always interesting going back to Lancing because for the first sixteen years of my life it was my home. I also had another home, kind of a two sheds Johnson, that was me, because we lived off site in the holidays. But Lancing means as much to me, in a different way, as the other place I grew up, which Mum still lives in now. Going back is like having a little squiffy in your old house, seeing how the new owners have changed the decor! Although I haven’t been in our actual old house.

It was a glorious celebration. Really lovely. I cried my eyes out at the end in a way I hadn’t at the funeral, which was a bit embarrassing but also kind of cathartic and easy enough to hide because I was wearing a big hat. Just look down and hey presto! Nothing to see here. I suppose I felt it more because this was the last goodbye and the last thing we can do for Dad … well … except inter his ashes but we are going to … er hem … batch him and Mum. The eulogies were great, really funny, the way Dad would have wanted. Lots of stories about his antics. Some good shouty hymns. Really well chosen readings and the readers and speakers did a grand job. I even managed not to cock mine up! Woot! Although I was last up so I was shitting gargantuan bricks for most of the service. Listening to audiobook proofs all week helped in that respect as I just followed the little voice in my head that said ‘read it the same way’ and did. Minus the funny voices, of course.

Highlight of the readings they chose an excerpt from 1 John Chapter 20, which included verse 4:

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

A perfect summation of Dad’s attitude, since he was the embodiment of love thy neighbour in a way that many of the loudest Christians on the internet – especially the mentalist, old-testament-thumping, gun-loving ones in the US – are not. Yes, if you think anyone is Satan’s own spawn because they think differently from you and say you love Jesus, you’re a liar! Love that.

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Desmond Tutu stood here and so did I.

Huge amusement afterwards when we discovered a plaque bearing the legend, ‘Desmond Tutu stood here to dedicate this window to his friend Trevor Huddleston.’ Much incredibly mature ‘standing here’ where Desmond Tutu had stood ensued, from me, Bruv and Eldest Nephew, Good-King-Wenceslas-‘heat-was-in-the-very-sod’ stylee. Mwahahahrgh! Phnark.

With the election on, I think I am feeling Dad’s absence a lot more, mainly because of the race the bottom that is the election campaign. I’m one of these weird, old fashioned people who thinks that lies, soundbites and dirty tricks, just make a party look like a bunch of twats. I think fake news is a danger, not something to be embraced. I’m one of these old fashioned people who thinks dishonourable and shoddy behaviour, unkindness, opponent smearing, hypocrisy and bare faced lies, you know three year old caught with a hand in the biscuit tin and denying it, Scottish Spaceport is nearly built, let’s change our twitter name so we look like an impartial not for profit organisation disseminating facts rather than one of the contenders, kind of lies, and a general complete lack of integrity, are actually bad things. I still believe elections should be fought on issues although I’m not 100% sure if the labour site I’ve found is their real site or a conservative spoof. Sigh.

When it came to the day to day discipline of running his house, Dad had zero tolerance for three things, drinking hard spirits (he’d Not Catch boys drinking beer, wine or cider, so long as it wasn’t too out of hand but he would catch the spirit drinkers) drugs and bullying. Even so, nearly every boy my Dad expelled was expelled for bullying. One, who was expelled for doing something particularly stupid but which wasn’t bullying, was finally reinstated after three days, at my Dad’s behest. He didn’t stand by and let something go if he believed it to be an in justice.

[image error]Maybe that’s the trouble with this election; the glaring lack of statesmanlike behaviour in pretty much every one of the high profile politicians. The trouble is, there are decent people beavering away on the back benches for all parties. They just never seem to make it to the front.

To me and many others, the NHS is a good thing, and the death of a thousand tiny cuts to which the current and previous governments (of all colours) have subjected it is a bad thing. Successive governments have been breaking it so they can say, ‘look this doesn’t work’ and contract it out.

Take dementia care. My father paid tax all his life but until he was down to his last £14k he was not eligible for free health care, and even when he was, because he had a work pension, he actually paid for it, they just charged a lower rate. If he’d had a frontal lobe tumour it would have presented the same symptoms, but he would have been half a million quid richer when he died. Half a million quid of life savings which he’d earned and already paid tax on. You know tax don’t you, the stuff you pay so you get things like free healthcare from the NHS? At the point where he was weakest, most vulnerable and most in need of help, Dad was betrayed.

The thing is, hanging out with my Dad, as he became more and more mentally disabled, has turned something round in me. My Dad said and did some pretty grim things during various phases of his disease. Partly because there were no filters, partly because his world was warped and distorted by his disability, and I guess partly because his disability also warped his efforts at self expression. Sometimes he was horrible and that hurt because he was always my dad. And I knew that somewhere inside that inappropriate, screaming exterior was the gentle, kindly soul I knew. He just couldn’t reach us. A lot of the time, all he needed was the right word, the right help, to bring him back. We couldn’t always find it but we tried and I think he was aware of that.

But now when the conservatives talk about scroungers and tell disabled people to get jobs, when they foster the zero tolerance, claw-it-all-back attitude to social care and disability benefits I begin to wonder if I’ve jumped timelines or something, I’m so out of kilter with the way other people think. When they shame and vilify disabled or chronically ill people as scroungers, I feel sick. When Social Services ask my friend’s daughter, with achondroplasia, when she expects to get better I am unimpressed. This, a bright, very bright, intelligent human being, someone with a great deal to contribute to society, who was also in with a chance of becoming a future Olympic athlete. So not a scrounger or a free loader then. I’m beginning to understand what Sir Terry meant when he talked about holding onto the anger. It’s not angry ranting, well not always, it’s just righteous ire that burns the whole time. That’s why I have to write it out, it’s doing my head in.

The anguish of Dad’s last half year or so still haunts me and it probably always will, but it has also profoundly changed the way I see my fellow humans. I now realise, more than anything, that imagination is the most important gift we possess. It’s imagination that makes us able to see the other person’s side. It’s imagination that enables us to find a way through. It’s imagination that helps us understand that, if our enemies saw people’s heads off with a kitchen knife and post it on YouTube, the thing that raises us above them is that we don’t. It’s imagination that allows us to understand that torturing suspected torturers, ‘because they do it to us’ merely makes us one of them, possibly worse, because while they’re brainwashed and uneducated, we have the tools to know better and have made a conscious choice. It’s because we have imagination what we can realise that an eye for an eye merely debases all the arguments that our way is better than theirs at a stroke.

It’s imagination that makes us think before we wade in. It’s imagination that tells us when taking sides is necessary or merely petty. It’s imagination that allows us to step outside the bubble, accept and enjoy friendships with people who have different political viewpoints to us or are friends with people we don’t get on with. Politics is about issues and problem solving, it’s not a competition to see who can tell the most lies or paint their opponent as the biggest shit, although anyone looking at it now could be forgiven for thinking it is.

Another thing I have learned from the experience with my Dad is that everyone has a value, everyone is of some importance, everyone has something to contribute. I’m even beginning to see how Corrie Ten Boom’s sister, in Auschwitz, was able to feel sorry for the guards because they were so cruel. She thought their lives must be so empty, so without empathy, love, compassion and all the other things that make living so wonderful. I thought she was nuts at the time, now … I dunno. I am beginning to think it must be truly terrible to be as pompous as vainglorious as desperately in constant need of ego affirmation as Trump or Bojo. And yet I’m also beginning to see the humanity in the psychopaths, the killers, the mentally ill; those who I would have dismissed without a second thought as evil before I watched my father go insane. Perhaps I’m beginning to understand that many of them are just unwell. Mental illness is horrifically complicated but I seem to be able to extend them a courtesy I am finding it very difficult to give Boris, Trump and their ilk.

Dad always held the view that to get anywhere or do anything, you had to be a decent human being. He believed that being decent and honourable gets you quietly, unobtrusively, where you want to go. Because if you are straight with people and stand by them they will love you, and people who love you will move mountains for you. Not necessarily at the times, places or in a manner you expect but they will.

More and more, now he’s gone, I find myself sticking my head above the parapet, not because I care that much even, but because Dad’s not here to do it. Even if it’s just to joke about being the token bleeding heart liberal in some of my friendship groups and put a different point of view. But the thing is, despite half my friends having voted Brexit, which is a bit of a downer, we still all have so much common ground and we are still friends. Maybe this country will heal, if the politicians and the loud mouths will stop using the divisions to score points and entrenching them further; ie, shut the fuck up and give it time.

I can’t wait until this bloody election is over.

 

Alarums, excursions and jolly japes

[image error] This week, I am speaking to you from the past by the wonders of scheduling, as I do from time to time. When this post goes live, I will be at Dad’s memorial service, which, incidentally, takes place in a building that, with a few tweaks, became the High Temple in the K’Barthan Series. Here it is. It looks a bit frillier in this picture than it really is. I think I wrote in prettier chandeliers though.

This is where I went to church every other Sunday in term time, from eight weeks old to when I was a teenager. We sat in a stall; one of those raised seats at the sides, the second one on the left in this picture. As a small child, I remember playing in the Chapel (that’s its name) while Mum did the flowers. Running up and down the aisle under the kind auspices of Mr Kendall, the verger who would warn me not to run past the altar rail for fear of setting off the burglar alarm.

Once he gave me one of the hosts to eat. It was delicious! Just like a flying saucer only without the sherbet. I also remember playing with the hassocks, but they were blue leather, like cushions rather than the traditional home-embroidered, sorbet-rubber brick, so they couldn’t be stacked into walls or towers, and weren’t nearly as much fun as they should have been. It was a school, so they were probably designed like that deliberately. Therefore, I usually eschewed hassock-related japes in favour of running around. Sometimes I went down the stairs into the crypt, although, not so often after I fell down them and cracked my head open (3 stitches).

Later it wasn’t as much fun. If you will, imagine sitting raised up on high like that as a shy gawky teenager, looking out over around 500 or so boys who were sitting in the seats below. I was a shade of puce throughout the whole hour and it felt as if every single one of them was staring at me. I liked the music, I sang in the choir of the other church we went to and I enjoyed listening to most types of music (still do). The hymns helped, in that they were usually tub-thumpers and it was fun to listen to the boys and try and work out what their alternative words were; Glory, glory Brighton Hove Albion, with a small contingent trying to shout Glory, glory Man United more loudly, etc. But apart from that, mostly it was a pretty cringeworthy experience.

If you do that every other term Sunday, and get as many regular bollockings at your own school as I did (a different institution to the one attached to the chapel in the picture) you come out the other end almost unembarrassable … if that’s a word. I was so glad when I finally went to the school I actually lived in (girls were only allowed in the sixth form in those days) and I was able to leave the stall and disappear into the anonymous mass of pupils below. Actually I sat in about the position this picture was taken from.

Anway I’m wandering off topic terribly here, what I was really going to say was that I’m actually writing this from a few days in the past. It’s been a busy week but all in all, things seem to be going reasonably well.

First up, Mum. After discussing it with her financial advisor, we have decided it’s time to get Mum’s enduring power of attorney for her finances activated. I looked out all the paperwork we’d done on Dad’s and dropped the solicitor a line, by email, explaining what we were going to do and asking if she could send me the original document of Mum’s enduring power of attorney. I did it first thing but got one of those weird, ‘your message couldn’t be delivered so we’ll try again’ type things. Not an out-and-out bounce but a kind of, might have, maybe bounced.

After a bit of thought, I decided that the best thing to do would be to ring the solicitor, explaining what had happened and apologise for pestering her by phone as well if it had got through. The lady who answers the telephone there is great, we had a chat, I explained what had happened and I gave her as much info as I could. She asked the date Mum and Dad signed their powers of attorney and I reckoned it was 2004 but I had all the paperwork in front of me.

‘Give me a sec, I have Dad’s here, I’ll look it up,’ I said. I grabbed the document in front of me. ‘Oh … hang on,’ I said as I read the name on the front, ‘Um … this is Mum’s. Oh … I must have got you folks to send it through when I did Dad’s. That was … surprisingly organised of me.’

‘I bet it’s a nice surprise,’ she said.

‘It is but I still managed to forget, phone you lot and make a monumental twat of myself,’ I said.

She laughed, which was lucky. I doubt she gets many people telling her they’re twats. She told me she’d tell the lawyer I’d emailed that I didn’t need her to do anything and I thanked her and hung up. Then I made some toast by holding a piece of bread against my red face. No. I didn’t make toast actually even though I was quite embarrassed and my cheeks were burning. NO! The ones on my face you dirty bastards!

And there we have it. Three years ago, while sorting Dad’s enduring power of attorney I had been prescient, not to mention organised, enough to get them to send me Mum’s as well. It was heartening to know that I am capable of such giddy heights of organisational prowess, but it would have been more heartening if I’d remembered, or at least discovered my uncharacteristic attack of forward planning before I’d made a tit of myself.

Ruthless efficiency, and yet also, gargantuan twattery. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.

Meanwhile McMini is enjoying his new school and is as nuts as ever. Lately, he has introduced me to the joy of ttsreader.com This is a site which allows you to type text into a box and it will then read it in an electronic voice. For some strange reason best known to ourselves, McMini and I find this unaccountably funny. Obviously, we don’t use it as it is intended. Although we do happily conduct whole conversations using it in about six times the time it should take were we speaking; laboriously typing what we want to say into the reader, highlighting it all and clicking play. Clearly we try to do more than talk with this thing, I think McMini has come closer than I to getting it to produce a realistic raspberry but that’s not for want of extensive effort on both our parts. All the while, as we pursue this ridiculous game, tears of laughter stream down our faces – because we’re really mature. Well, OK to give him his due, McMini is only eleven, after all, and probably is quite mature for an eleven year old. He already displays a great deal more maturity than I but then, I guess that’s not difficult.

Even McOther started giggling the other day, though, when McMini finally scored a realistic sounding raspberry.

On the books front. They’ve managed to squeeze me in at the Christmas Fayre so I am busy ordering books etc, which reminds me … Even better, the date of the new release creeps ever closer. Anyone who has pre-ordered it should get the ebook on Monday 29th. Woot. The paperback is coming later. I have also been doing lots of research into audio books. It’s kind of doing my head in because there have been a lot of changes to the audiobook scene just recently, with evidence that Findaway Voices might be edging ahead of ACX as a provider. I might post more about that as I discover it, or at least, some pros and cons if I can. But my own experience is going to be atypical because Gareth The Voice and I have done pretty much the opposite of what you’re supposed to! Mwahahahargh!

Anyway, that’s enough of that, here is a quick reminder about my two new releases … on about to come out and one out already. Pipple toot!

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Shorts, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1

[image error]Available for preorder. If you are interested there is a page which gives you link to the main book vendors. Just click on the picture or follow this link here …

http://www.hamgee.co.uk/infosb.html

There will be print links, to follow. The print version is out on 23rd November.

Here’s the blurb:

Terry Pratchett meets Dr Who … sort of. When your very existence is treason, employment opportunities are thin on the ground. But when one of the biggest crime lords in the city makes The Pan of Hamgee a job offer he can’t refuse, it’s hard to tell what the dumbest move is; accepting the offer or saying, no to Big Merv. Neither will do much for The Pan’s life expectancy.

Future Adventures Box Set … Gorge yourself on free sci-fi!

[image error]This features full length novels from eight science fiction authors. I can vouch for the quality of the books in here, even more so now that I’ve read some of them!

But, if any of you haven’t read my first full length novel, Few Are Chosen, and would like to, it’s in this book, which is free, but more importantly it comes with all these other brilliant stories by seriously accomplished wordsmiths who really know what they are doing. So, you can grab a copy of Few Are Chosen with seven other books by authors who are seriously gifted and of whom I am, frankly, a bit in awe. And all for zero pence. If you want to pick up a copy, just click on the picture to visit a page of links to find it on all the major stores … or click on the link below:

http://www.hamgee.co.uk/infofa.html

 

Guest post: Silent Justice, by Tallis Steelyard

There are new releases a plenty over the next ten days, not just from me, so rather than bang on about mine, let’s talk about Jim Webster’s new … whoop? … of books this week. There are three. Yeh. I know, he’s clearly been busy. Either that, or he’s like me, and works on more than one thing at a time, finishing them all at once! Mwahahahahrgh. Anyway, here is a story from Tallis Steelyard, Jim’s alter ego, to start us off!

Silent justice

It has to be confessed that there are times when the courts here in Port Naain are overloaded. This tends to happen at times of celebration when people drink too much. Or when the University announces just who has achieved honours this year. Or perhaps it is after a really large wedding, or funeral. Indeed it has been noted in some circles that in those periods when the ban on sedan chair racing has lapsed, the courts tend to see a sudden rush of cases.[image error]

Now within the city there is definitely a feeling that justice delayed is justice denied. So it was felt that we needed a system which was capable of weeding through the minor cases, administering salutary punishments (or occasionally rewards) and allowing the more serious cases to go through to the magistrates. A number of systems were tried. The watch was asked to do something. The problem with this was that the minor offender who had insulted a watchman was obviously a graver delinquent than somebody who had insulted a mere bystander. Also because they knew some offenders too well, the watch might not weigh the current offence lightly enough.

Then somebody thought to ask Malanthon. He had been a lawyer but had retired and joined the Order of Illuminated Seditionists. It was felt that if somebody of his vast experience and essential humanity could be called back to help occasionally, things could move faster. He agreed to assist, but there were still problems. After all, the Illuminated Seditionists are a silent order sworn to poverty. They don’t speak, they tap out their messages to each other using little hammers. Obviously this would make pronouncing sentence a little tricky.

Still the general feeling was that it was something the city could cope with, and a silent judge did have the advantage that they were unlikely to pontificate interminably upon the failings of the younger generation. (Indeed between ourselves, this unfortunate habit found so widely within the judiciary is one reason for the courts having such long waiting lists.) So Malanthon took up his new role whenever he was asked for.

As somebody who has had dealings with him in his official capacity I am entirely qualified to describe the process by which justice was arrived at. Malanthon sat in a small office rather than a court. The accused was led before him and a clerk read out the charges. The accused was then invited by the clerk to state their defence. Malanthon would listen to both parties and would then scribble something down on a piece of paper. The clerk would then ask the accused to say what penalty they felt they deserved. After some thought the accused would suggest a punishment. Malanthon would then reveal what he had written on the piece of paper. That was the penalty you paid.

Now whilst that seems simple enough, it was in reality more complicated. If Malanthon felt that you had suggested a penalty that was reasonable and fair, he might merely sentence you to that. If he felt you had been a bit harsh on yourself, or you seemed to be showing contrition, then he would put forward a much less punitive penalty. If on the other hand he felt you had not grasped the seriousness of what you had done, the penalty could be exacting indeed.

Lancet and I appeared before him because we had (or perhaps more accurately, I had) painted, ‘Buy your copy of Lambent Dreams now to avoid disappointment’, in letters as tall as a man on the side of the Sinecurists’ building. Lancet had come along, regarding it as a piece of performance art, and had held the ladder for me.

I suggested a five vintenar fine. Malanthon had written down the comment that, as we were so keen on painting things, we could each spend a day painting the houses of two widowed ladies who’d fallen upon hard times. Lancet suggested that rather than do them separately, we were allowed to work together, as the work would then be more competently accomplished. This was agreed, and the city ended up buying paint for us to apply to the houses. The fact that Lancet added an extra digit to the quantity of paint we were entitled to order, meaning he had adequate paint for his next project, was nothing whatsoever to do with me.

On the other hand, some came off badly. Eaton Tindal was arrested by the watch for stealing a coal cart as a student prank and driving it recklessly through the city as he tried to avoid arrest. Unfortunately he caught a passer-by a glancing blow with the cart which sent them sprawling and left them off work with a broken leg.

Tindal insisted that the unfortunate wasn’t a victim, because it was their own stubbornness that led to their accident. If they had moved with alacrity, they wouldn’t have been struck. Thus with considerable condescension he offered to contribute to the doctor’s bill. He suggested that he paid half.

Malanthon on the other hand merely wrote that Tindal should serve four months in the freezing waters of the Houses of Licentiousness, sorting between male and female shore clams. On the other hand, if he apologised to his victim, then Malanthon was willing to reduce the term to four weeks. Apparently Tindal exploded in outraged fury and ended up serving six months. Eventually he was in point of fact held for seven months. It appears that his fellow students, shocked by his incarceration, decided to break him out. Unfortunately for Tindal’s chances of freedom, his putative rescuers were neither competent nor brisk. They communicated the plan to him, but were forced to postpone it numerous times. On one occasion the attempt was aborted because somebody forgot to bring the ladder. On another occasion it was cancelled because those organising it hadn’t realised that it was a public holiday and everybody had intended to attend the Summer Ball. Eventually, the authorities, who had been waiting for the much publicised rescue bid, lost patience and just released him anyway.

Personally I thought Malanthon’s genius was captured perfectly by the case of Little Arhunt. Little Arhunt was a tally clerk down on the docks. His problem was that he was an honest tally clerk, didn’t take bribes and didn’t make money on the side. He was a small, harassed, and scrupulously honest. He had digs in a house owned by Floria Mumpt. She was perhaps the mirror image of him. If you took the pair of them and spread things about a bit, it should have been possible to come out with two average people.

Arhunt got behind on his rent. This wasn’t really his fault. It was winter, fewer boats came up the river to be unloaded, thus was less work for tally clerks. When spring arrived things should have improved, but he slipped on a wet dock and broke his wrist. He kept working, writing with his wrong hand, but it was painfully slow. By the time he was working normally again, there was the jackers strike in Prae Ducis which meant fewer boats arrived to be unloaded in Port Naain.

At this point Floria Mumpt pointed out that he owed her so much money, the courts would probably sell his indenture to help her recover it. She did give him one chance to retain his freedom. She was willing to accept matrimony in lieu of payment. Desperate, Arhunt agreed.

In reality, his life didn’t change much. He still worked ridiculously long hours, eating all his meals at work. Also he still slept on a bed improvised out of an old door in his small attic bedroom, except on those occasions when he was summoned to the matrimonial bedroom to fulfil his conjugal liabilities.

Fortunately or unfortunately the marriage was blessed with a stream of children. The patter of little feet soon evolved into the clatter of medium sized clogs. Given that Arhunt was somebody who only really wanted a quiet life and the chance to sit and read in peace, his home life deteriorated. Not only that but children need feeding and clothing, and Arhunt worked longer hours still. On one occasion he did not return home for eight days, he’d been working both day and night boats and had slept on the dock, wrapped in canvas, as one boat warped out and another was warped in.

Finally, when he arrived home late one night, his wife, Floria, presented him with a bulky document. When he opened it Arhunt learnt that it was a bill. There were perhaps a score of neatly handwritten pages. To his shock he discovered that not only was he still being charged for the rent of the room, he was being charged for the food and accommodation taken up by his children. Then he came to the ninth sheet and discovered that he was being charged for ‘erotic services,’ at what can only be described as the courtesan rate. Indeed each occasion was not merely recorded, it was dated, timed, and itemised.

This was the last straw, Arhunt snapped. When the watch finally caught up with him, he was foaming at the mouth, brandishing a carving knife, and was pursuing his wife along Ropewalk, screaming blue murder.

Malanthon happened to be sitting, so Arhunt was hauled in front of him. The clerk recounted the charges and Arhunt, sobbing, told his tale. Malanthon asked the little man what he felt was an appropriate penalty, and Arhunt merely sobbed. After some thought Malanthon sentenced him to spend a year as a member of the Order of Illuminated Seditionists. When the year was up, Arhunt somehow neglected to leave, and as far as I know, he’s still there.

______________________________

And now we’d better hear from Jim Webster.

So here I am again with another blog tour. Not one book but three.

The first is another of the Port Naain Intelligencer collection. These stories are a bit like the Sherlock Holmes stories. You can read them in any order.

On the Mud. The Port Naain Intelligencer

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mud-Port-Naain-Intelligencer-ebook/dp/B07ZKYD7TR

[image error] When mages and their suppliers fall out, people tend to die. This becomes a problem when somebody dies before they manage to pass on the important artefact they had stolen. Now a lot of dangerous, violent or merely amoral people are searching, and Benor has got caught up in it all. There are times when you discover that being forced to rely upon a poet for back-up isn’t as reassuring as you might hope.

Then we have a Tallis Steelyard novella:

Tallis Steelyard and the Rustic Idyll

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07ZKYMG1G/

[image error]

When he is asked to oversee the performance of the celebrated ‘Ten Speeches’, Tallis Steelyard realises that his unique gifts as a poet have finally been recognised. He may now truly call himself the leading poet of his generation.

Then the past comes back to haunt him, and his immediate future involves too much time in the saddle, being asked to die in a blue silk dress, blackmail and the abuse of unregulated intoxicants. All this is set in delightful countryside as he is invited to be poet in residence at a lichen festival.

And finally, for the first time in print we proudly present:

Maljie, the episodic memoirs of a lady.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07ZKVXP24/

[image error]

In his own well-chosen words, Tallis Steelyard reveals to us the life of Maljie, a lady of his acquaintance. In no particular order we hear about her bathing with clog dancers, her time as a usurer, pirate, and the difficulties encountered when one tries to sell on a kidnapped orchestra. We enter a world of fish, pet pigs, steam launches, theological disputation, and the use of water under pressure to dispose of foul smelling birds. Oh yes, and we learn how the donkey ended up on the roof.

All a mere 99p each

To read the preceding and following story in this series, follow the links:

Yesterday’s story:

Cartographically challenged

Tomorrow’s story:

Knowing your profiteroles

 

Shiny things and other news!

[image error]Apologies for my sudden absence last week, I was on holiday – woot. I meant to write something but when the time came, I wasn’t so inspired. Portugal was lovely, as always, although on the down side, I failed to score any Don Rodrigo this year, which was a blow. I should point out that Don Rodrigo is not a bloke or drugs but is, in fact, this weird Algarvian pudding. Imagine Baklava, you know, the ones that look like shredded wheat, but the shredded wheat bit is made with egg. Egg they’ve extruded and done odd stuff to, good stuff, but odd nonetheless. That’s Don Rodrigo, it’s like … I dunno … deconstructed custard, but it’s Oh so much more than that! It is one of my favourite things. McMini and I have even made a rap type song about it because we’re both nuts.

We had some fantastic pork and clams, fish stew, piri-piri chicken, and other general om-nomess, the sun was out, and I did loads of work. Work on holiday? I hear you cry. Well, yes, but then, my job doesn’t feel like work, so it was more of a case of it being a holiday from Real Life to have some fun. Indeed, I managed to finish the next short in the series, which was weighing at a measly 10k and needed to be 15 or more. It’s now up to 19 with an added twist. I managed to sort out one that was done but … you know, not done. Although that went up from 20k to 26k. Then I tidied up the one between.  McMini was hugely pleased when McOther gave him his old flippers. So pleased that for the first couple of days he wore them as slippers.

[image error]Also, I was delighted to find I was able to eyebomb the Zamboni at Faro airport. McOther refused to wait, initially. Then as we sat outside on a bench outside the terminal while McMini finished his lunch he relented.

‘Just five minutes, and if you get arrested, we’re not coming to bail you out.’

Anyway, I meant to post something a bit more meaningful today but things have overtaken me and I’ve got distracted by shiny things again. Mind you, since I’m here, I feel I may as well share some of the shininess with you.

First up; the audiobook, MTM starts fidgeting and jiggling about with poorly suppressed excitement and glee. Last night Gareth The Voice sent me the recording of Few Are Chosen to listen to. It’s the weekend, and I have things to do and Real Life to interact with but I managed to get to chapter 17 as I wandered round the market. The first appearance of Humbert made me laugh out loud and the good burghers of Bury St Edmunds  around me stepped gingerly away from the mad woman guffawing to herself! My early first impression is a good one. I still can’t quite believe that a person with a voice that’s so totally right for the story has popped up out of nowhere, unbidden. Then again, Gareth is a bright bloke and he’s probably smart enough to pick something that his voice fits. I’m just delighted it was my stuff.

There could have been a lot of auditioning, even if I’d had anything approaching the money, and it had been on the radar. And while it could have been a lady or a man, I would have spent ages trying to find the right person. Instead, he finds me. I have been an unbelievably jammy bleeder in this respect.

It feels as if, finally, when the unicorn farted, I contrived to be vaguely downwind. Mmm. Go me. Phnark.

It’s a really intriguing process, and kind of nerve racking in a way, so, for example, Gareth’s Lord Vernon is kind of a cross between Donald Pleasance doing Blowfeldt, with a dash of Peter Cushing saying, ‘you may fire hwhen ready,’ in Star Wars. It’s quite strange because it’s not quite how I imagined it, but bloody hell it works. He sounds so fucking evil! Mwahahahahrgh! Several folks who have listened to Unlucky Dip since I posted it here thought Gareth had Big Merv and The Pan bang on, too.

Second, yesterday, I managed to sort out this year’s, or at least, next year’s EyebombThereforeIAm calendar. I’ve used the prize money I won in the photographic competition and had 100 copies printed. So far, I have offered to sell it and split the profit with three separate entities. Hopefully that should account for all 100. Having them printed up front does give me a chance of actually getting somewhere with them because it’s cheaper so I can sell them for £10.99 rather than having to sell them for £16.99 to make 99p profit. I think I may have misspelled instagram in the blurb on the back though. Such is life. It wouldn’t be me if I got this stuff 100% right it seems.

[image error]Third, the next instalment of the Hamgeean Misfit series of shorts should be ready for editing by the middle of next week. Indeed the only thing that’s stopping it at the moment is my usual chronic lack of cash. I’m hoping to have it ready for sale by January though, since it’s sort of, about Christmas really, but a midwinter-ish release date is fine.

Fourth, Future Adventures seems to be doing well, I am loving it anyway, but other readers seem to have enjoyed the book I put in and have bought the others. There’s been a significant uplift in income this month … or to put it another way, there’s been some, and I can’t think of anything else that would be responsible. Whoopeee!

On the home front, we are ramping up for Dad’s memorial service, not next week but the week after. It should be fun as it will just be a celebration more than anything. A group of people standing around telling silly stories about him. When I think about Dad now, I am just overjoyed to have known such a lovely chap, and unbelievably proud that he was my Dad. I do also feel that I have to step into his shoes, try harder at acts of random kindness and at being the voice of reason. I will post more about that soon, but I have to be in the right mood to write it up and at the moment I’m just too exuberant and excited about all the other stuff.

Yeh, another champagne week, I guess.

_____________________

If you’re interested and missed it before, you can find out more about Future Adventures and Small Beginnings by clicking on the links, below:

Future Adventures

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Shorts, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1

If you click the Small Beginnings link and scroll down, you can also sign up to be informed when the other books in the series come out.

Ham, Jam and Spam.

Woah! There’s a whole gamut of stuff to talk about today. It’s been a chuffing amazing week and I am feeling happier than I’ve felt in years, which I am enjoying thoroughly! OK, maybe I’m owed some Karma or something but even the scam phone call we received yesterday morning did us all a favour. First up:

The Audiobook Project

Aroogah! Aroogah! Pretentiousness alert.

OK, now I’m going to get a bit artsy fartsy here and talk about the business of creating … um … can I call it art? Yes, I’m going to call it art! Snortle. What that means, for you, is that this next bit’s going to sound a trifle pretentious. Look I’ll try and keep it funny, OK. But it is a completely fascinating process this and one I’m really enjoying so I wanted to talk about it.

The thing is, I’d thought about doing my own audiobooks, I did stand up after all. I even tried reading a bit of Unlucky Dip. But there’s a big difference between being able to do funny voices and being able to actually act. Acting is an underrated skill. Yep, there’s a reason why these folks who cross into acting from other careers can’t always pull it off. When I played my recording back, I’d managed to make my story so boring and so lacking in energy, and my attempts at the accents were so hammy that I decided that, if anyone did it, it would have to be someone who could do it properly. Which definitely wasn’t me. And that being the case it also, definitely wasn’t anything I could afford. Because you can’t really join audible and offer someone a royalty split when it’s only going to be a couple of quid a month.

And then, up pops this lunatic called Gareth who wants to record my books on audio, lord help him! And he’s brilliant. And extremely professional about it, but not in a boring killjoy I’m-a-professional kind of way. He just is. On a point of honour, I have made it very clear to him that we’ll only make a few pence each a month if we’re lucky, but he seems completely undaunted by this triviality. Well, he enjoyed the books so he’s obviously a bit of a nutter but it does lend this project a whole aura of, is this actually happening?

This week, we’ve been trying to set what the main characters sound like, which is great fun and allows for total geekery. It’s hilarious trying to describe how you want something to sound when you’re not a good enough mimic to demonstrate. And I’m not. Instead I have to go, ‘she’s a bit like so and so in x, y or z film but a bit more gruff,’ or, ‘General Moteurs? Steed from the Avengers with a bit of that clipped Richard Burton delivery in Where Eagles Dare,’ and then he adds a tiny tiny sprinkling of ‘you my fire h-when ready’ Peter Cushing in StarWars because General Moteurs is quite up himself, especially at the start,’ and so on. General Moteurs is quite tricky because he has to sound like an anally retentive neat bot, but at the same time, he can’t sound too elderly because he’s only in his mid 40s and he gets it on with Deirdre. I’ve really enjoyed trawling my memory of old films for the voices I want. It’s like a competition for who can think of the obscurest mainstream film character – Donald Pleasance doing Blowfeldt anyone?

And then Gareth sends through a sound sample in which he talks in his normal voice about what he’s doing and then does thirty seconds of extremely sinister Lord Vernon, and then he flips out of it again and goes, kind of, ‘is that the sort of thing you meant?’ and it’s like two different blokes on the same tape and it’s gloriously bizarre, and, of course, completely hilarious. So I’m sitting there laughing like a drain and McOther is saying, ‘what on God’s earth are you doing?’ And I have to explain and he gives me the kindly smiling-at-toothless-simpletons look. The one he does when McMini and I get giggly about the Arnold’s Produce vans.

And all the time, these characters are becoming more and more real and I am ludicrously excited to hear them taking aural shape (is that a thing? Mmwahahahargh! It is now). I can tell you, for nothing, that if anyone tried to buy the film rights of one of my books, or make a film, and I was remotely involved in any way, I would probably actually die from the excitement. Luckily Gareth seems to be experiencing a similar Tigger-like enthusiasm for it all, so at least we’re both as nuts as each other.

It’s also weird that I have the character voices quite clearly in my head, but when I look at it, it’s more the tone or delivery technique than the actual sound. Does that make sense? So then there’s this odd dichotomy between what I ‘hear’ and what readers might be hearing and what Gareth, who knows and likes the books, hears when he reads them. And also what is possible with one person’s voice – although we haven’t hit any roadblocks on that score yet. So, interestingly, he’s always imagined the Grongles with American accents, like the British baddie thing in reverse, which would have been hilarious, but ill advised in the current climate, I think. I do visit the States from time to time and it would be a pity if I got set upon for dissing the mother nation, especially when so many of them carry firearms.

But the other thing is that the voices in my head are a lot more similar than they can be in an audiobook because they’re basically all talking with my voice, except for the ones I’ve given comedy accents; the Mervinettes and the Parrot and Screwdriver contingent. They need to be different so there’s some re-imagining required, which is where having an actual actor on board changes everything. He did a voice for Sir Robin which sounded exactly like my dad, which is how it is in my head. But then he did this other voice, which is a bit of a cheeky nod at Sir Alec Guinness in Star Wars and obviously there was no contest and the Geek in me chose that one! Mwahahahahrgh!

What I love about something like this is the whole collaboration thing. Writing is a singularly solo pursuit, and now the involvement of someone else brings a different slant to it all and opens all kinds of doors (Lordy me! Pretension anyone? I know, I’m sorry, but I can’t think of another way of putting it). But it’s like having someone else in on the jokes! Also I’m a great believer that a collaboration is just that, and that a person looking at my stuff as a reader will see things I don’t. So, while I’m choosing these voices, some of them are completely new and different to how I thought they’d be and bits of the reading a little different to how it sounds in my head. On the one hand, it’s old ground, on another it’s totally new.

It’s a hell of a thing.

Other news …
[image error]

After you …

A while back, McMini and I entered a photography competition. It was themed around tall buildings, or at least things, because trees were acceptable too. There were two classes; under 18 and the others (I can’t remember what it was really called) and you could enter up to five photos so I entered five pictures into ‘the others’ section and McMini entered two into the under 18 class.

We were informed that three of mine and one of his had made the shortlist, which was very exciting as it meant they would be part of an exhibition and offered for sale to the unwitting public. We were asked if we could ensure that we, or a representative, came to the exhibition space for the prize giving on Tuesday. We duly turned up, me thinking that McMini had won something. I was dead chuffed when a mum friend from McMini’s old school got a highly commended, but then it turned out one of mine had come chuffing second!!! Fucking Ada I was floored. And then they handed me a big fuck off cheque, which means I can afford to print an eyebombing calendar this year at the kind of price which will give me a proper margin to sell it into other places. So I’m stoked.

For your delectation, the photo which won is the one on the right there.

McOther is also a great deal more relaxed this week, as we get towards a visit from his US-dwelling bro and our trip to Portugal so that’s grand.

Finally

Useful things come in odd guises. Yesterday morning some bunch of gitoids with an autodialler rang us early. The entire house was asleep and McOther leapt out of bed and answered. It was the usual recorded message, with a foreign accent, telling us that our internet would be switched off in the next 24 hours unless we pressed one to put us through to the help desk or whatever. Either way, it would be a premium rate line that would cost us £100 a minute or it would go through to someone who’d take a ‘payment’ to get our credit card details. Foggy with sleep, I looked at my watch. It was 7.57 a.m.

Shit!

‘I have some good news and some bad news,’ I told McOther as he returned to our bedroom. ‘The good news, is, that was a fantastic sleep we’ve just had. The bad news is we’ve both slept through our alarms and McMini is supposed to be leaving for school in three minutes.’

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Panic stations!

I ran downstairs and got his bag sorted, stuffing all the PE socks and other bits I’d washed and left to dry over night into it. McMini dressed in about seven minutes flat, McOther too, then with some cheese biscuits in hand (I’m not sure what normal people call those. Savoury crackers?) McMini and McOther fled to the car. McMini didn’t have time for a cup of tea, so he sniffed a tea bag before he left!

They departed ten minutes late and got to the school with five minutes to spare. Go McOther with your flash motor and McMini with your speed dressing prowess! Phnark.

Which just goes to show that even bad things can have good results! Thank heavens it’s half term next week I suspect we need it.

New releases and MTM twattery …

In which MTM has a somewhat mixed week … just call me Trevor (see illustration).

[image error]It’s Friday as I write this, as I think touching a computer tomorrow morning may bring trouble upon my head when there are things I am supposed to be organising.

This week I am a combination of thoroughly pissed off and insanely happy. Let’s do the whinge first so we end on a high note eh?

First up, Mum hasn’t been great. She was in great form on Wednesday, but she’d forgotten she’d ever read any of my books, which was kind of alarming because she absolutely loved the K’Barthan Series. But then we like a lot of the same things, so, since I wrote it for me it probably would work for her. She’d also forgotten a number of other significant events that happened in our lives, my cousin being epileptic, for example (I discovered she’d forgotten over the course of a conversation about how my niece, is doing, as she is epileptic too). So that’s a bit sad. Although Mum is still on great form at the moment, still happy and still very much Mum, but this is a whole post, in itself, so more on that next week, I think. Back to this week’s news.

A few days ago, I woke up with a cold, unfortunately it’s one of those ones which takes ages to come out, so I’ve been feeling gradually shittier each day since Tuesday. Last night, I had to make a very flying visit to metal detecting club which pissed me off because I was really looking forward to it. But I was running a temperature by that time and didn’t want to give anyone my lovely germs. I had to go to pick up a book I’d bought, and drop off some batteries to one of the other members – which I forgot to do (head desk) – but once I’d bought the book and donated a raffle prize I made a swift exit.

Just to piss myself off even more, I also sprained my ankle yesterday. Not badly but just enough to be an irritant and make walking hurt. On top of that, I discovered that all those codes for free set up on Ingram from the Alliance of Indepenent Authors, Nanowrimo and the like are not accepted by Lightning Source, despite the fact it’s branded Ingram for everything else. So I’ve still had to pay £50 to set up my book. Worse, through my own twattery, I pissed off McOther and now I have totally cocked up on the school front and pissed off McMini as well.

Scores on the doors …

Chaos Fairies: nine million, eight hundred thousand and sixty three. MTM: one.

Shite.

McOther is usually an easygoing, cheerful chap but he is a perfectionist control freak, and stress gets to him, so he has trouble letting organisational malfunctions go. Because they do his head in. In life, he has to plan and double plan, and because he’s really smart, this works. He is not a being who busks it with much enthusiasm. Whereas I find that when I plan, I’m too thick to foresee everything that might happen, although in my defence, quite a lot of things happen to me that nobody would have any right to foresee. But things tend to turn out so monumentally at variance to the way I’ve foreseen them that it’s, frankly, a waste of time for me to plan. I’m better just equipping myself with everything I might possibly need and winging it. McOther finds that approach extremely stressful, so I have developed a method of making it look as if I’ve planned meticulously in order to keep him calm.

McOther’s job is a bit of a high-octain stress-fest. He’s high powered, people want to protect ideas or invent stuff, they come to McOther. Professor Sir Stephen Hawkins was a client. McOther’s invented stuff too, which is probably why he’s so good at helping other folks with their inventions. But it comes at a cost. He likes them, he takes it extremely seriously and … yeh, he finds it stressful. He has high blood pressure and he’s on beta blockers and while it’s a family trait, I could seen him finding, after he retires, that he no longer needs them. He is uncharacteristically dour at the moment – I suspect he’s reaching the point where they need to recruit someone else to his staff – so I know he needs things to run smoothly at home. He only works thirty minutes away, but he has clients all over, and he has to spend a day in London each week at the firm’s London office. He also has to go to Oxford a lot which is a pig of a drive from here. I just hope it’s not going to be the death of him, all this running about, and that he hits retirement age before things get even busier as post Brexit, when the massive recession hits, lots of scientists will be made redundant and they’ll decide to speak to a lawyer about doing something with that thing they invented in their shed …

Anyhow, with McOther at full stretch, and some, I try to do all the organising McMini stuff so he doesn’t have to. But there’s quite a lot of it, which has probably made him more nervous. And now, at the worst possible time, there have been some malfunctions.

The first one, I forgot to check McMini’s PE kit when he got home yesterday. In my defence, with my newly sprained ankle and shitty sinusitis with new, super-duper, improved added temperature I was actually feeling quite chuffed with myself for staying upright. I haven’t quite got the knack of the way McMini’s school functions on a couple of levels and PE kit is one of them. First he needs a lot of PE kit and after rugby on Wednesday I have to wash his kit the minute he gets home so I can dry it – well … principally, the socks – over night for him to use in PE the next day. It being Thursday yesterday, I’d been somewhat louche about conducting further checks, only to discover that there was PE on Friday, too.

That pissed McOther off, because it meant I’d done a whole half term without hoisting in that PE happened on a Friday (I knew football did but that’s an after school club). Worse, McOther had clearly had a really grim day at work (as demonstrated by our conversation as he arrived, did you have a good day? No. End of conversation) so he was not reassured by the fact I’d forgotten. He’s a control freak, so if he’s presented, too honestly, with the reality of how much stuff I forget it makes him nervous and stressed. I can usually manage to avoid any unfortunate encounters with the true depths of my muppetthood but yesterday the veil slipped for a moment* and it was all a bit grim.

* this is an understatement. Basically, it got torn off and is hanging on a tree about thirty miles away.

Unfortunately, I’m also still adjusting to the way the school communicates. Yesterday, they sent an email reminding me that it was harvest assembly today and I needed to send McMini in equipped with items for the food bank. Luckily, as we were putting McMini to bed, I read said email and, feeling inordinately smug, I managed to cobble together a nice selection of the suggested items and sent McMini in with them. Phew.

I woke from a strangely disturbing dream about McOther knocking down all the interior walls in our old house and covering everything in some very unpleasant pink and white paisley carpet to discover I felt worse than yesterday. Today was not a day to be late up, so I ditched dressing in favour of going downstairs and doing the morning school prep in my pyjamas so as to ensure I was there, doing the THING on time for McMini to leave – McOther takes him in on Mondays Tuesdays and Fridays.

Off they went with the bag of harvest stuff. Woot, in the face of total twattery MTM pulls it out of the hat at the last minute!

… Or not. There was an even bigger, more monstrous balls up waiting …

Yes. It was a home clothes day today.

McMini went to school only to discover that every other child was in mufti.

Fucking fuck.

The humiliation.

Poor little lad.

Turns out there’d been an email sometime last week, McOther told me, rather tersely, on the phone (although he may just have been tense).

There had? I hadn’t fucking seen it. Had McOther seen it, I wondered. He hadn’t mentioned it. In my defence, it was, apparently, lost among many others and one of the mums on the Facebook group had to pretty much force her son into home clothes at gunpoint, because he didn’t believe her. This school is much more laid back, which I like, but sometimes I miss the rather imperious text messages the other school used to send, reminding me that x, y, or z was happening the following day, because they were a godsend for those of us who are a bit dim.

McOther sent his version of the email to me when he got to work. In order not to bombard us with about a million emails, each dealing with a separate thing, the school sends them out as one long one. This is a good thing. The trouble is, I haven’t quite got my head round their propensity to do this. Yes, it turns out I did get the email, I just I read the first one, thought it was all there was and scrolled no further.

So it’s my fault. I’m not going to admit this. But I hope McOther’s forwarding it to me wasn’t his way of insinuating that he knows and I should have fucking read it. Gulp. If it is, we are in for a rather strained evening.

—————————

OK, it’s tomorrow now, but let me add the rest of the story. After writing this, I went to collect McMini from school. We went to get his sports bag to take home because he’s doing a rugby workshop today and so he needs his boots and kit. I waited with his other bags while he trotted off to get it and a few moments later back he came.

‘Mum, my bag isn’t there,’ he said.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

Both of us looked at one another and McMini put our thoughts into words.

‘Dad isn’t going to be in the mood for this,’ he said.

‘No.’ I agreed. We were so in the shit it wasn’t true. There was a short silence, while we both did a lot more thinking on that topic but neither of us said anything.

‘Right, let’s search every single place it could be, explore every option and cover off every avenue so we’ve done absolutely all we can to find it.’

‘If we do find it,  you won’t tell him, will you?’

‘Not until he’s less stressed.’

‘What if we don’t find it?’

Luckily, McMini had had an after school club last thing and so he was wearing his PE kit.

‘OK, look. You have your tracky bottoms, on I have a spare rugby top and shorts at home because I washed them this morning, I can whizz up to town tomorrow morning and buy you a boil in the bag gumguard, you have some school tennis socks so then we just need boots. We might be able to borrow some football boots from one of your old school friends. I’ll see. I’ll also email your PE teacher and explain and see if you can still play, you’ll probably pick up a lot from watching anyway.’

So we searched. We went to the school office, really just to see if a teacher had moved it and mentioned it in passing, we looked where it was supposed to be, where McMini had left it and we even went into the boarding house. The only upside was that there were two other bags where McMini had left his.

‘Where, exactly, was your bag?’ I asked him.

‘On top of that one.’

‘This one here with the red ribbons tied to it?’

‘Yes.’

‘On top?’

‘Yes.’

Hang on, red ribbons?

‘D’you think the chap who owns this bag might have taken your bag home?’ I asked. ‘I mean, looking at these ribbons, it would suggest he has form.’

McMini brightened, ‘Thinking about it, yes, he could have done. He’s in my year, I know him.’

‘Right, all may not be lost. It’s true that I might end up having to drive to Holt or somewhere tonight but sod it, let’s go home. We’ll check the sports centre on the way so we’ve covered off every single option here, and then, I have a spreadsheet of contact details for parents in your year, I’ll ping his mum a text and ask.’

‘I’ll email him,’ McMini said.

A quick word of explanation to anyone who hasn’t seen a British public school. They’re massive. I grew up in one, lived in it for 18 years and there were still places on the site that I had never been to. What I’m saying is, all this searching had taken us about half an hour. Still we knew now that the bag could only have been confiscated, which seemed unlikely given that there were two others there, or the lad with the bag with the ribbons on had taken McMini’s instead of his.

McMini goes to Boys Brigade on Fridays, which is a brilliant organisation, I can’t praise it highly enough. It starts at seven so the poor lad had about five minutes to eat a plate of hastily cooked sausages and peas when I got home, before it was time to go to that. Meanwhile, he’d emailed his friend and I’d discovered, to my horror, that the lad’s mum’s number was not on the list of parents contact details.

Bollocks.

McOther arrived with inconvenient timeliness and looked disapproving as he realised I was making McMini’s tea late. I suspect his disapproval was compounded by the fact I was tapping away at the screen of my phone while Mr Ticky, our kitchen pinger, counted down the minutes until I should drain the pasta. Little did McOther know I was putting a desperate plea for help on the school’s parents’ Facebook group and sending an email explaining our situation to the sports teacher, too.

In the face of McOther’s stern disapproval, I explained that we hadn’t got home until after six but not why. White face and tight lipped, he went to take his bag upstairs and stopped in the hall.

‘Where’s the sports bag?’ he asked.

Fuckity fucking fuck!

‘Ah. Um … about that.’

I explained what happened, being careful to list the extensive search we’d conducted and to outline the phorensic thoroughness of our investigation into the whereabouts of McMini’s bag. A couple of people had already replied to the Facebook post wishing me luck and saying they didn’t have the bag and after a bit of deliberation, I had named and shamed the child we thought might have it, adding that I didn’t have his Mum’s details and couldn’t be 100% sure it was him.

McOther was seriously unhappy but, thank god, demurred from actually going into orbit. He was just paler and even more tight lipped than before. He went upstairs to change and dump his bag in his office. I took McMini’s dinner through and apologised to him for the speed with which McOther had rumbled us. The PE teacher replied saying it was fine if McMini came wearing what we had, so that was a relief. Unfortunately, McMini’s friend hadn’t as yet.

When we got to Boys Brigade we were late and had to bang on the window to be heard so they’d come and let McMini in. After the day we’d had it was probably par for the course. Never mind, on the upside, I hadn’t had time to notice how utterly ill I felt so that was a bonus.

At home, still no news. I sat in the kitchen with McOther and he asked me why I wasn’t wearing my pyjamas. I explained that I had to go up to town to collect McMini from Boys’ Brigade. McOther said that he would go.

This was an Olive Branch. The worst of his rage had passed.

Then it happened. The mother of errant child replied on Facebook. Yes, she had the bag and yes, she was coming over right now.

Hallelujah! (You have to imagine that as the sung Handel version to get the full effect).

I want upstairs, had my shower and when the other mum arrived, I greeted her in my pyjamas. She looked a bit surprised but I just carried on as if wearing pyjamas at seven thirty in the evening was perfectly normal and she relaxed. I could see her thinking, OK, if you’re not bothered I’m not. Luckily she hadn’t had too far to come. Apparently her son has managed to come home with his friends’ back packs on several occasions and the red ribbons on the PE bag were due to the fact he’d come home with someone else’s already that week!

I thanked her profusely and off she went. McOther visibly relaxed as I rooted about in the bag, removed the dirty stuff and bunged it in the washing machine. And of course, it was very good for him to understand that he really is in the top five percentile of organisedness and that, while McMini and I are probably in the bottom 40% we are, by no means, as bad as it gets.

Moving swiftly to the up side …

Two completely chuffing marvellous things have happened this week.

Small Beginnings, K’Barthan Shorts, Hamgeean Misfit: No 1

[image error]This is now available for preorder. If you are interested there is a page which gives you link to the main book vendors. Just click on the picture or follow this link here …

http://www.hamgee.co.uk/infosb.html

There will be print links, to follow, but the print version probably won’t be through the hanging about stage until sometime next week. So there’ll be some more good news next Saturday, which is nice.

Why am I stoked? Because this is my first new release since 2015! And though my mother is standing at the top of the same hill as my father was then, maybe, in the short breathing space I have before it starts to hurt too much, I might get the next K’Barthan series of long books finished, or possibly sort out Space Dustmen. Anyway, I’m optimistic. Plan for the worst but always, always hope for the best. That’s my motto.

Box Set Release … Gorge yourself on free sci-fi!

[image error]What Box Set? I hear you ask. This box set! Future adventures.

This features full length novels from eight science fiction authors. And seven of them are really accomplished ‘proper’ authors and all. The other is me! Woot yes, that’s my name on the cover there and yes, I am way above my pay grade here. I haven’t read the books in this volume but I have read other works by these authors and I can vouch for the quality. This is what I shall be reading on holiday. Yes!

No new releases for three years and then two come along at the same time like badly scheduled buses, although I suppose this isn’t a new book, per se, since my offering in this one is Few Are Chosen, the first book in the K’Barthan Series.

But, if any of you haven’t read that, and would like to, it’s in this book, which is free, but more importantly it comes with all these other brilliant stories by seriously accomplished wordsmiths who really know what they are doing. So, you can grab a copy of Few Are Chosen with seven other books by authors who are seriously gifted and of whom I am, frankly, a bit in awe. And all for zero pence. If you want to pick up a copy, just click on the picture to visit a page of links to find it on all the major stores … or click on the link below:

http://www.hamgee.co.uk/infofa.html

K’Barthan Audio Books

So the third thing is that, despite all the forgetting things I’ve done this week, and the irritating issue of feeling like warmed up pooh, it really looks like K’Barthan Audio Books are actually going to be a thing, too. I’m listening to the third version of Unlucky Dip at the moment and it’s bloody brilliant! I can’t quite believe this is happening, it feels slightly unreal. I think Gareth (the voice) Davies and I are both feeling like that, even though we know we’ll only make pence on this project. Although with any luck he’ll make stacks of cash reading better selling books for other authors on the back of his work on mine. I hope so. The thing is though, it’s another income stream, another avenue through which to reach people. Blind people can read my books now, or at least, they can hear them read really well as opposed to by their kindles in the voice of Professor Sir Stephen Hawkins. So yeh, that’s all good.

My lord! I bring news!

This week has been quite a contrast to last week.

First of all a brief word about superstition and its place in society. Now there are some folks who say that butterflies are a sign that angels/dead loved ones are watching you, and ditto about white feathers. I have no idea if any of this is true, but if I can see a white feather bobbing down from the sky and use it to make myself feel less sad, I will.

Obviously, it would be lovely if it was a message of support from Dad. There have definitely been a few white feathers over the past few years, something I’ve noticed because John Lennon always told his son that he’d send a white feather drifting across the room as a message after he died. Julian Lennon said once, ‘I’ve always been looking for that white feather.’  So when I saw my first one, during a pretty grim time in Dad’s illness, it left an impression.

No, I didn’t think it was John Lennon, but I’d never noticed a white feather drifting down from the sky before and I thought that pushing fifty was quite late to notice my first one, so it did make me wonder, slightly, if some dead relly somewhere was sending me a message of support – look I’m a writer, OK? I imagine all sorts of weird shit, it’s my job after all.

The instances have increased dramatically recently, and they have definitely coincided with good days, not just because I can use them to pep myself up but because genuinely good things have happened on the days when I’ve seen them. Coincidence? Probably. They are white, so they’re coming from the gulls rather than our local pigeons, who are all grey. Perhaps there is a particularly scrofulous gull flying over our house every day, one with a dash of the gift,

‘Ah yes, I must drop a feather on MTM today, good things will happen to her.’

Mwahahahrgh! Or perhaps he’s just the gull equivalent of Humbert. Hmm… could be. I don’t really mind, I’ll even put up with them shitting on the conservatory roof if I can use this phase of vigorous moulting on their part to help me be positive.

It’s like the bit in Terry Pratchett where he talks about telling people stories, or at least, Granny Weatherwax does. Tiffany Aching is trying to use facts and truth and Granny Weatherwax contests that people don’t respond to facts and truth and that you must tell them stories.  Tiffany is at her wits end because a family in the village have dug their outdoor lavvy too close to the well and they keep getting ill. Despite her most earnest entreaties to move it, and despite her repeatedly explaining to them that the crap is seeping into the drinking water and making them ill Tiffany can’t galvanise them into moving their out door kharzi. They can’t be arsed. She seeks Granny Weatherwax’s advice. A few days later, Granny Weatherwax tells Tiffany she persuaded them and the two witches visit. Sure enough, the bog has been moved.

‘How did you do that?’ asks Tiffany.

‘I told them there’s goblins down it,’ says Granny Weatherwax matter of factly.

So another brief lesson about grief then, don’t be afraid to use headology on yourself! If seeing a white feather floating in the air makes me feel something good will happen, my attitude is going to be such that it probably will, even if it’s just something that mightn’t have registered on another day or in different circumstances.

But, that said, quite a lot of smashing things are happening! Here are some.

Big news this week.

[image error]Small Beginnings is now available for pre-order in some but not all places, I’ll post a proper link next week when it’s live everywhere. In the meantime, click on the picture for more information, or if you want to to, you can sign up to receive three email reminders around launch time. To do that, click the link below.

Receive a reminder when Small Beginnings comes out.

Ultimate launch date is 19th November. Feel free to tell your friends.

Eyebombing news

[image error] I have to fess up to being piss poor at posting my eyebombing recently, but I’m also hoping to organise the eyebombThereforeIAm calendar a bit more formally this year. It depends if I can get a stall at the Christmas Fayre though, and I won’t hear about THAT until Monday or Tuesday. More on that story next week.

And some even bigger news this week. Um … yeh.

So a while back a chap contacted me explaining that he was an actor and that while it was a grand and jolly life, he would quite like to do a project of his own.

[MTM waves] hello Gareth!

This being the case, he’d decided he would learn to read and produce audio books. He wanted to use something as a guinea pig while he got to grips with production skills, sound booth construction, etc, and for this purpose, he chose the K’Barthan Series.

However, he hadn’t just said he’d like to do it, he’d already recorded a rough outline of Unlucky Dip. Since then he’s recorded another one. So yesterday we had a chat on the phone about well … basically about the recordings he’d sent me, and the characters. It’s a pretty great project to be involved in when two people can spend over an hour on the phone doing silly voices at one another, and giggling, and then tell people, solemnly, that it was work. Mwahahahaahrgh! Yes he’s as nuts as I am but then, what would you expect? He likes my books!

If anyone wants a listen, you can do that by clicking the link below. It is a draft, so it isn’t nearly finished, and he’s reading it off his kindle, rather than a marked up script so he sometimes puts the emPHAsis on the wrong syllAble, but as an outline sketch I reckon it’s chuffing marvellous! He’s got Big Merv and The Pan of Hamgee, absolutely how I imagine them and he also knows how to put in the right kind of energy to bring it all to life … through the magic of acting he tells me with tongue firmly in cheek. Feel free to have a listen and let me know what you think.

Unlucky Dip Sketch Number Two

So yeh. All in all, a good week.

A snapshot of blue …

It isn’t always like this, but I’m feeling a bit blue today. Then again, it’s probably only to be expected because I have, as we might euphemistically say, the painters in. But I’m going to take a few moments out to bang on about grief again because I suspect the way I’m feeling is pretty universal, so it might help someone to read it and see they aren’t alone.

[image error]As a human, I’ve always approached my life, and my future, with an attitude of mild interest, a kind of, ‘I wonder how this is going to turn out.’ That doesn’t mean I don’t try and mould my destiny at all, but I am aware how many other riders there are affecting the outcome of anything I plan. I hope my actions make a difference. Fervently. But I also think I’d be a fool to think I can realign the stars and guarantee anything about my destiny through my own efforts … well … you know … beyond how I react to what happens.

So my dad died. It happens to lots of people. And I’m OK with that and, more to the point, he was. It was his time, he led a full and wonderful life, he was loved … it was, dare I say it, beautiful.

The thing I am having trouble with is what happened first.

Losing someone to Alzheimer’s is really hard. There’s a strange mixture of emotion at the end where you’re glad their suffering is over but really want them back. There’s always hope, until they draw their last breath, that a miracle will happen and they’ll come back to you, that the gradual extinguishing of the light can somehow be reversed, the damage undone, your loved one returned. That you’ll find them again.

It can’t, although you might find enough of them. Dad definitely came back to us a bit at the end, I am in no doubt whatsoever about that.

They say that you don’t get over some things but that you do get used to living with them. That makes perfect sense to me. I try to give myself gaps to grieve, and in between, I tell myself it’s hormones, and yes, I am looking forward to reaching the stage when I no longer have a cycle, when Psycho Week, Misery Week (which is probably where I am now) Extra Special IBS Week and of course, not forgetting Brain Fog and Constipation Week all come to an end and every week becomes Mary Week. I do have a Mary Week once in every five and it is literally like being someone else, someone I really like.

Anyway, I try to convince myself that I’m busy or tired or hormonal but the truth of it is, I’m just sad. And I guess I’m learning that I have the strength to carry that sadness, which is nice, but at the same time, unfortunately, I’m not quite as strong as I hoped I was. Which is a bit of a shitter.

One of the things you can notice about people, if you look hard enough, is that those who are suffering or damaged are marked. They have an intensity, a brittleness about the edges, a burning brightness to their eyes that acts like a huge neon beacon over their heads saying, ‘Damaged Goods.’

Sometimes, I have to tell people that my dad died recently. It’s cringingly embarrassing because usually it’s part of an explanation as to why I’ve forgotten to pay a bill that arrived around that time, or pay in a cheque etc. I find it difficult to keep my voice flat. The emotion always creeps in and evinces an outpouring of kindness from strangers that is only reserved for folks they are very, very sorry for. Which is lovely but quite mortifying. I also find it really, and I mean really hard, to keep it together in the face of sympathy. No matter how hard I try to be dispassionate, they hear the emotion. I am always hugely grateful for their concern. But at the same time, it’s also difficult and embarrassing because there’s only a finite amount of time about which I can talk about it before I cry. I wouldn’t want people to stop showing sympathy though, or stop being kind. Because for all the awkwardness I feel, it’s also a wonderful and uplifting thing.

There’s very little time for sadness in modern life and even less in mine. Mum has dementia, someone has to run her financial affairs, pay the care team, make sure she’s OK. In some respects my weekly visits are a lifeline for both of us. It is wonderful to be able to talk to her about Dad. We discuss how we feel, how there was nowhere else for him to go, how illogical our sadness is when it was such a good death and when it was clearly a death he embraced. I think it helps both of us. Mum is definitely better than she was but she’s had a bit of a blip recently, which, I suppose, is  another reason why I feel the responsibility a bit more keenly than I usually do, and feel sadder.

Typically, now he’s gone, it seems that my life is full of events and problems that I would have discussed with Dad. Things he would have been able to advise me about so I could have made sense of it all and it would have been OK. Interpersonal stuff. It’s a loss I would have felt badly any time in the last one and a half, possibly two, years but it seems a great deal worse now. I think it would be melodramatic and downright wrong to say I’m sinking but it’s definitely a struggle. And I’m so raw. Oh blimey I’m ridiculously raw and so easily hurt about other things. Everything makes me cry, I reckon if I was walking round with a thistle stuck up my arse I’d cry less.

Politics hasn’t helped. It’s like the loss of Dad’s goodness and humanity, the compassion and empathy in him has taken it out of the entire fucking world. This week Britain has stepped up it’s efforts to make a monumental tit of itself on the international stage. The jury who found Boris Johnson’s proroguing of Parliament illegal have been warned to wear stab vests for fear of nutters who are also pro Brexit.

And the two sides bang on at one another, the left getting all drama llama about Jo Cox so they can tell the right that they are heartless twats who don’t give a shit in a way that makes the whole thing reek of faux. The right are totally unmoved, of course, since the majority of them are heartless twats who don’t give a shit and I really don’t understand why the left felt that point had to be made, since we are all already aware.

In the middle of all this, I’m still waiting to hear someone mention the good of the people. Not ‘the will of the people,’ as decided by a ridiculous sham of a vote to decide which side’s lies were less plausible (but sadly, a vote, nonetheless) not who should be in power, not how much better we would be if x or y was in power. Likewise, I don’t want to hear politicians spouting off in the media for the benefit of sending a message to other politicians via the press, rather than because they have anything meaningful to say to us.

Wouldn’t it be great to see someone in Parliament who genuinely seems to be there to try and make life better for the British people rather than to feather their own nest? Someone who isn’t a plutocrat foisting left wing sentiments they can afford to hold onto people who can’t, or conversely, someone who isn’t a hedge fund manager, wholeheartedly buying into the vileness of the party opposing them; a party which continues to demonise the vulnerable, the disabled, the chronically sick as scroungers and weaklings, quietly passing laws to punish people for their disabilities, or chronic illness, or having dementia like my parents, as if these people are to blame for their own suffering. A party pedalling the view that anyone who is vulnerable is weak and that those who are sick somehow deserve to suffer and are not worthy of our compassion. A party that puts the view that, contrary to the tenets of the Welfare State, those less fortunate, or who have fallen on hard times are somehow stealing for us when they are given help. A party which is punishing the elderly for having savings and being careful, stamping on the fingers of everyone working or lower middle class who has dared to put a foot on the ladder. A party which is quietly dismantling the welfare state and the NHS while everyone is too distracted to notice by the circus of shite that is Brexit and all that goes therewith.

We need normal people in politics. Now. Because at the moment, for the most part, it’s just a bunch of rich, entitled pricks doing what they like. On all sides. Their wages alone put them into the top 6%, the expenses some of them charge probably put them into Fortune 500*. Only 8% of Labour MPs are working class. We need a proper mix and we need to hold them accountable, the trouble is, voting doesn’t seem to work so I really don’t know how we do that.

* That was a joke even if it does ring true.

All I know is that watching the different parties competing to out do each other over the lowest depths to which they can sink I feel like something inside me is dying. It’s like grief has taken my reality filter out and I can see every crack and fissure and smell the foetid pus below.

But then something will happen that snaps me back.

For example, today I had to explain to the lady in the building society that I’d failed in some duty of admin because the summons arrived while my dad was sick and dying, or possibly while I was on holiday just before, or maybe in the six weeks previously while I was sick as a dog with a massive temperature and road testing different varieties of antibiotics to get rid of a persistent chest infection. The minute I fess up to her, I know she’s seen the rawness. My orange neon ‘damaged goods’ sign is flashing. She nips out back and comes back with a leaflet.

What to do in a bereavement, it’s called.

‘There are numbers in the back,’ she says. ‘And your doctor can help you too.’

My doctor? Shit.

Is it that bad?

Is it that obvious?

Am I more damaged than I think?

OK so watching my father go mad was pretty horrible, but I genuinely believed that once it was over I’d bounce back. It’s happening but it’s not a bounce and I’m aware enough now that in many ways I will never be the same. I thought it would be a lot faster than this and I thought I would get over it all. I’m not and it’s going to be slow. I guess the hard thing is having to keep going, having to carry on paying the carers and doing the pathetic amount I do to keep things running – the care and gardening team do literally ALL of it but I still find my few duties tough. I probably need to look what happened to Dad squarely in the eye but if I do that right now I’m undone and I can’t be undone, because … Mum.

Or maybe I’m just humiliated that another person has seen the extent of the damage, noticed my brittle cheerfulness and angular edges. I am worried and grateful in equal measure. As I try not to well up at her compassion and kindness I remember what Dad always said,

‘And this too shall pass.’

Maybe that’s the thing that’s so hard. Grief is amorphous. It oozes about inside you like a liquid and leeches out where and when you least expect. There’s no stopping it and no answer. You just have to ride the storm and wait until you are used to it, or it goes. It’s not as if I’m the first person who’s lost a parent, or the last … It’s just … hard.

On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble;

His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;

The gale, it plies the saplings double,

And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

‘Twould blow like this through holt and hanger

When Uricon the city stood:

‘Tis the old wind in the old anger,

But then it threshed another wood.

Then, ’twas before my time, the Roman

At yonder heaving hill would stare:

The blood that warms an English yeoman,

The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,

Through him the gale of life blew high;

The tree of man was never quiet:

Then ’twas the Roman, now ’tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,

It blows so hard, ’twill soon be gone:

Today the Roman and his trouble

Are ashes under Uricon.

Fockers and other things …

This week, I’m afraid my piss-poor organisational skills have bitten me on the bottom as usual and I only have half an hour to write this post – possibly a little less – so it’s going to be ill conceived, badly written and will, no doubt, contain a plethora of dodgy spelling.

Things are a bit hectic at the moment, plans are afoot for Dad’s memorial service so there’s that and McMini has started a new school which he seems to be enjoying enormously. However, it’s a school where he is expected to be vaguely organised, which is interesting. He has a gum guard, because they play rugby there, and this has caused him a great deal of excitement. He spent most of the first weekend he got it wearing it about the house and occasionally whipping it out and shoving it towards my face saying,

‘Smell my gumshield, Mum.’

I wore braces as a kid. I know what things smell like after they’ve been in your mouth for a long time so my answer was always a resounding, ‘NO!’ This week I thought he’d lost it.

‘It’s in my school bag,’ he told me.

‘With the text books and that?’

‘Yes.’

I picked up the box it is supposed to live in. ‘And not in its box,’ I said, just to check.

‘Um … no.’

Gak!

Looking at it, I saw that it has been pretty much eaten. I can only assume that he’s been wearing it in lessons, trust me, that would not be beyond him.

One of the things he has to do at school is be ready for any eventuality in phys ed. So he has indoor non-marking soled trainers, outdoor trainers, rugby boots, football boots, a rugby kit, a tennis/pe kit, a hockey kit and a tracksuit. In two and a half weeks he has lost one pair of rugby shorts – but luckily he has a spare – and one of the other pairs of shorts … the hockey ones, I think, but I’m not sure.

This is OK so long as he isn’t asked to wear them as if he is asked to put them on, and can’t, it will result in slightly draconian measures and trouble. He told me, cheerfully, that if he has the wrong shorts, except the rugby ones, he’ll just wear his tracky bottoms. I do hope he gets away with it. But being organised is not his strong suit. He managed to lose a drum stick between the car and his class room last week, so that’s in a car park basically. No sign of it. It’s bizarre. He is also perfectly capable of ‘losing’ things that he actually has with him, by not looking very carefully in his bag.

Last night at pick-up he hit me with a real purler.

‘I’ve lost one of my astro turf boots,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, I never wear them. Everyone else wears trainers so I do.’

Strangely keen to conform, McMini.

Gads! I shook my head in disbelief. Completely stumped. I looked in the shoe section of bag and sure enough there was only one astroturf boot and, worse, only one football boot.

‘How have you done this?’ I asked him. Yes, I the woman who took him to nursery in one scarlet trainer and one beige trainer and didn’t notice until I got into the car to drive home, asked him that.

‘I don’t know, but I think the football boot is in with my kit.’

We looked and sure enough it was, which was a bit of a relief but no obvious sign of the astroturf boot.

‘We’re going to have to check lost property before we go home,’ I told him.

‘OK, but if we don’t find it, please don’t tell Dad about the shoe for a bit. Give me time to have another look as I’m sure it’ll turn up.’

I heave a sigh. McOther is organised and doesn’t really understand about clueless airheads, even though he’s married one and spawned another. Neither of us likes to feel his wrath over the weekend so I agreed.

‘OK,’ I said, and the search began.

We looked in the Prep School lost property and there was nothing there so we widened the search to the sports centre, but they’d just sent a box of lost property back up to the prep school.

No shoe and no shorts either.

Bollocks.

So we drove home. The speed limit on the school site is 15 mph so I tend to grip the steering wheel lean right forward with an intense expression and do it in first gear. The car is definitely better off doing it in first but I like it too because I pretend that I think I’m driving really fast and the G forces are getting a bit much for me. You know, like that bit in Minions 2 when the professor discovers yer man Gru has been kidnapped says, ‘we must help him’ and leaps onto his invalid trike and drives off incredibly slowly, with the determined expression of someone who thinks he’s going a lot faster.

We arrived home and I emptied said kit bag of stinky kit ready to wash and was disappointed not to find the shorts but, on the upside, I did discover the other astroturf boot. In with the kit. Where we both looked.

So Hoorah! but at the same time, kind of, oops. Nice to know I’m setting a great example to my son, pity it’s how not to be though! Mwahahahargh!

Finally I’ll leave you with a completely hilarious story I saw this week about Sir Douglas Bader. I’ve no idea if it’s true but I so hope it is because it’s bloody funny. In fact, I know it would have made my Dad guffaw with laughter. I do hope I didn’t post this last week. Apologies if I did. The brain fog is still strong …

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Now to prepare for languages week. McMini has to go to school dressed as a European country. He has the entire outfit to go as Scotland but does he want to do that, and offer Gaelic? Of course not, he wants to go as Germany.

Give me strength.

A bientot!