My writing
I like writing books!
It's certainly the most creative ...
and arguably the most satisfying ..
thing I ever do.
I have finished four books and am working on my fifth.
The order in which they were written is:
1 - Without the Essential Loves
2 - Astonished
3 - All That You Touch (published)
4 - Pyder and the Lost Rainbow ( a children's book)
5 - Gender (work in progress)
*
'Astonished'
is currently unpublished. Here's the opening few lines, which went down a storm at the
2011 Oxford Literary Festival
Chapter One - Oh My God it’s full of stars
Now wasn’t that the most
incredible sexual experience in the history of the human race, Picksome asked
himself in a self-congratulatory froth.
Pity I’m all by myself, he added a moment later. He lay, spread-eagled, naked on the
bathroom floor. Panting. Vibrating, in fact, or rather
experiencing wave upon wave of micro-spasms like in some kind of fit. It was as if his entire body was
suffering from a series of after-shocks from an earthquake whose epicentre was
his penis. Just as well the door
was locked and his girlfriend couldn’t see all this.
It had begun normally enough. Twenty minutes earlier he had suddenly
felt the urge, and after rapidly rejecting the thought of suggesting to his
girlfriend that they should immediately make crazy, passionate love – she
hadn’t been in the mood lately, or at least for the last decade – he had opted
for the bathroom floor option.
Picksome was as aware as any of us
of the qualitative differences in these experiences, and was indeed painfully
alive to the fact that they were, for him, declining both in quality and
quantity. It just wasn’t that big
a deal any more; he could, and did, quite literally take it or leave it and he
normally left it.
So when he had felt his urge,
completely out of the blue, he was more excited in the reassurance that he was
still capable of the sexual urge than he was in anticipation of the pleasure of
the outcome. He made his normal
excuse, took a copy of ‘Wisden’ in with him for good measure, locked the door,
spread a towel out on the floor, took his clothes off and lay down.
He had learned, over the years, to
handle the disappointment of having a small penis but he had not fully
conquered it. So he looked down at
his erection first with disdain, then with self-pity, and finally with negative
capability. But he touched it all
the same, and this time as he did he actually arched off the floor the friction
was so intense. Jesus, thought
Picksome, this is going to be a good one.
Thus he continued what was a staggeringly pleasant episode until the
final moment arrived, at which point there was a flash of golden light and he
was lifted slowly off the floor.
Hovering there, torn between experiencing the ultimate proto-orgasm such
as had not been felt on earth since the fourteenth century, and the shock of
finding himself floating on thin air, he cautiously opened his eyes. The hole at the end of his penis seemed
to have expanded to at least an inch wide and was still growing wider. The pleasure was growing at the same
rate, and was now so wonderful that he thought he was going to faint, and then
there was another flash of golden light and inside
the hole he saw, for a fraction of a second, millions of tiny points of
light.
“Oh My God it’s full of stars”.
Then it happened. A final flash of light and he fell to
the floor with an almighty crash.
It was in this state, with the after-shocks, that he became aware of a
banging sound getting louder and louder.
“Are you alright in there? Picksome? What was that noise?”
He tried to focus on the situation
at hand, but found it difficult.
“Er, what noise? Yes, I’m fine, thank you, I, um, fell
over.”
“How can you fall over on the
toilet? Are you sure you’re OK?”
“Oh yeah, absolutely. Sorry. Give me a minute and I’ll be out.”
He heard his girlfriend’s
footsteps retreating and breathed deeply.
What was that all about? He looked about him but there was no
sign that anything had happened, other than that his arms and legs were
twitching uncontrollably. He lay
back again and smiled. Now that, he said to himself, was what I
call good sex.
'All That You Touch'
was inspired by the music of Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett.
You can find everything about the book, and order it, at
Here's the short first chapter to reel you in ...
The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
I’m not sure when I grew up, or if I grew up, or if it matters. When I’m with children they certainly put me in the “grown up” camp, assuming I’d rather talk about machines and money than read them stories. Sometimes that’s true (although not always) so perhaps I am.
So, being grown up, allow me to make you a proposal. We do not grow up gradually, with every day much like the one before but with a little more wisdom, but we grow up with an event. A specific moment which we may not notice at the time. For example, when we first realise that we cannot conquer death. Or when we lose something or someone that we can never get back, like a pet cat or our virginity.
I think I can pinpoint my moment. It was a world before MP3’s and even before CD’s. My hi-fi was my proudest possession. I’d saved up for it for months and with some help from my parents had finally bought one a few months before. Wiring it up was sheer joy – it’s a slight pity looking back that I never carried that forward to other practical matters in later life. Never mind.
Because I’d spent all my money on the hi-fi itself, I hardly had any money left to buy any records to play on it. My parent’s records, I figured, were too scratched and would somehow damage my perfect diamond stylus, which I cleaned constantly with a tiny soft brush. So I had only had a few albums, and possibly a few singles. The first album I ever bought was “Kimono My House” by Sparks, and the first single “Down Down” by Status Quo. I had then (and still have) a love of the Beatles, and I think I already had most of their stuff, plus maybe some of Paul McCartney’s solo work. Apart from that I don’t remember what else I had, although I suspect it was an odd mix. I suggest I may have stored Harry Nilsson’s “Nilsson Schmilsson” in my room – one of my parent’s rarely played and thus relatively undamaged LP’s
I know I also had “Who’s Next?” by the Who (although I have no recollection of how that came about) because that’s what I was playing when Rick {Appendix 3.1} came round with an album he’d borrowed from his older brother. (I have much to thank Rick for. We’ve been friends for over twenty five years now. I was best man at his wedding, which is the highest respect you can pay a friend. He is the only person I know who still writes letters. He bakes bread. He and I used to lie on Plumberow Mount wondering what we would do if aliens visited. One of us said we would go with them, the other said they could stay. I can’t remember which though).
We carefully took off “Who’s Next?” and put this album on. One thing about albums, lost in the CD world, was that you had to turn them over. I remember how, when I first got “Band on the Run”, I never played the second side. Every time I came to turn it over I thought, what was the point? It couldn’t be as good as the first side! So it was ages before I did, and ironic that now my favourite track on that album (‘Nineteen hundred and eighty five’) is on the second side. I digress. We put Rick’s older brothers’ album on.
First side. This is a bit hazy, I can’t quite remember what I thought of the first side. I’m sure I thought it was different. All I know now is that I liked it enough to turn it over (or, thinking back to “Band on the Run”, didn’t like it enough not to). This is when it started to get interesting. You have to bear with me for a little longer. Side two, track one. OK. Track two, I may be imagining this but I’d like to think we stopped talking, and that I said something like “this is nice”. Track three, an instrumental. OK. One minute I’m listening to an album I’d never heard before. The next, I am transformed. I can still picture the scene, and still remember what I felt when I first heard side two, track four. To this day, after the unimaginably many times I have listened to that song, it’s beginning still transforms me, takes me to a different place, and quite often brings tears to my eyes.
Years ago, and I’ve lost it in all my house moves and life changes, I found an article I think by Plato where he described why music has the effect on us that it does (just think – he never heard side two, track four of that album!) It went something like, “we are at peace and harmony when we are in the womb, and our molecules are perfectly aligned. When we are born the trauma leads to a misalignment and we are forever after trying to realign, to recover that primordial peace and harmony”. Plato said that music somehow helps with that realignment, and so acts on us at a far deeper level than simply a sound we like to hear. Perhaps each of us has musical triggers that realign us, that touch our soul, that put us at peace. The trick, then, is to find your triggers, as I did mine.
Think for a minute of all the truly great “first time” experiences in your life. The ones that really count. Your first proper kiss perhaps? I remember mine. Her name was Lorraine James and it was during a game of “Postman’s knock”. It was in the half-light of Rick’s bathroom (thanks again Rick). It was – sublime. Her lips were so soft. It seemed that it went on forever, but it was probably only a few seconds. If I concentrate hard enough I’m back in that bathroom after Lorraine had left, inside a poem. I remember the first time I heard a Keats poem. Read by my English teacher, David Light, at South East Essex Sixth Form College.
I remember the first time I watched England play rugby live. At Murrayfield. Scotland, in the old ‘Five Nations’. I think it was Jon Callard who scored a late penalty to win, and I leapt with joy amidst all the glum faces around me. I was hooked, and at the time of writing have been to, I think, seventy four live England games. I’ve seen us play away in Paris, Marseilles, Nantes, Lens, Rome, Dublin, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Toronto. I’ve seen home games in Manchester and Huddersfield. I have my own seats at Twickenham. But the all important first time was on that day in Edinburgh, many years ago.
I think I’ve digressed again. Plato on music. First time experiences. Side two. Track four. “Brain Damage” on “The Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd. I can feel myself aligning just writing this down. The melody, the sweet, enchanted melody. That guitar. The words. The chorus. The climax. The voice that says “I think it’s nice” towards the end. The possibility that, if things go wrong, if you got lost, if you lose, if your head explodes with dark forebodings, there’s a place you can meet. I’ll come back to that place right at the end of this book. It is very special for me.
I was so overwhelmed that I barely noticed side two, track five, “Eclipse”, beautiful and awe-inspiring as it is. One moment I was misaligned, the next I was aligned. One moment I liked what I guess would now be called pop music. The next moment I had heard the most beautiful sound, experienced the most beautiful experience of my life. One moment I was a boy, the next I was a man.
And there were so many possibilities, infinite possibilities. It was all ahead of me. I could have experiences like that, in fact I could have that actual experience, over and over and over again. (Strange then, that when Rick left that evening, I declined his offer to lend me his brother’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” while he borrowed my “Who’s Next?”. That’s a hard one to explain. Perhaps I was worried about his stylus).
In this brief growing up phase of mine, which lasted no more than five minutes, there was no in-between state. It was simply; boy then man. Misaligned. Aligned. Unenlightened. Enlightened. Asleep. Awake. Like an electron, I changed states in a discontinuous manner. I was only allowed to be in one state, or in the other, not in-between. Quantum mechanics at work.
And what of these infinite possibilities in this altered state? It was so – preposterously exciting. Ridiculous, even. I had a door to a secret garden. A window to another world. A subtle knife to take me to a parallel universe. A wardrobe which would take me to a magical land where I would be a king. (There are some good ideas here – I should return to them). Seriously, just like the mysterious chapter from “The Wind in the Willows” that is the title of Pink Floyd’s first album, it seemed as if a piper was calling me to a new day, a new beginning. This new man was a vessel waiting to be filled to, and then far beyond, bursting.
It turned out that by the time I grew up Pink Floyd had already released seven earlier albums, “The Dark Side of the Moon” being their eighth. Imagine the lookout’s face when he first set eyes on the New World. Imagine finding in a corner of an attic a pile of lost Van Gogh’s or Monet’s. Imagine discovering a new play by Shakespeare. Imagine digging up a pirate’s treasure chest. Imagine making contact with extra-terrestrial intelligence. Imagine finding a cure for cancer. Imagine travelling faster then light. Imagine learning to fly………………
Keats had something to say on the power of
imagination: “I am certain of nothing but
of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination - What
the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or
not - for I have the same idea of all our passions as of love: they are all, in
their sublime, creative of essential beauty.”
As I’ve said I didn’t have too much money, so I set about catching up with the earlier seven albums, plus of course “The Dark Side of the Moon” (I don’t know, but all abbreviations seem wrong somehow), bit by bit. First up was in fact a compilation, so not one of the seven, called “Relics”. And when I listened to “Relics” I came across a name I hadn’t heard before, a name that conjures up another New World. A bit like the world I’d just had a glimpse of but also different. The name was Syd Barrett.
*
'Pyder and the Lost Rainbow'
is a book for children about a spider called Pyder
and the adventures he has trying to reclaim his pyderlings. It's good.
Here's the beginning:
My name … is Mohain.
You will now forget my name
and me
and I will pass out of your mind
until the very end of this story.
And then, when you hear the words
“I’ve missed you Daddy, so very very much”
I will return …
Chapter One – In
which Pyder is introduced
My
name … is Pyder. You have to be
very careful when you give someone your name. For one thing, if someone calls it out, and you’re not expecting it, and you
turn around, you could be in DANGER!
Especially if, like me, you are on a MISSION! So, when you read out my name please whisper it very quietly
so that no one can hear, like this
Pyder
The
first thing you need to know about me is that I am a spider. Whisper it - Pyder the spider. This means that I am small. Now it is very important that you know
a few more things about spiders –
these will be important later on.
First of all, we are not insects.
My schoolteacher told me that there are three big differences between spiders
and insects.
One
– we spin the most beautiful webs you can imagine. Before we start the story, why not go and look for one,
perhaps in the garden. If you
can’t find one, or if it’s too late or too dark to go outside right now, try to
draw one in the space below.
As
you can see, a spider’s web is one of the most beautiful things that you will
ever see. Don’t you agree? Humans think that we use them to catch
food. That is certainly one thing
that we do with them, but their real
purpose is so that we can collect moonshine drops to make our favourite drink,
called pid. Pid is the loveliest
drink in the whole world, and if you are ever lucky enough to try some – you’ll
know exactly what I mean.
Two
– we do not have what you call antennae, and what we call dridnits. That’s spider language, which is
Spidese, so unless you’ve read another book by another spider then you’ve now
read your first spider words. (All
the spider words will be on special pages at the back of this book, in case you
need to look them up).
Three – we can dance, very fast and very exciting dances called bugnuppies. Some insects say that they can dance – like my very good friend Wig – but have you ever seen an insect dance? I didn’t think so!
*
And finally 'Gender'.
My masterpiece.
Arguably the greatest work of fiction currently being undertaken by humanity.
Coming soon.
The web site is waiting:
and here is the beginning that will drive you UTTERLY WILD with impatience:
1
It was nothing o’clock on a nothing day.
Drood had neither the energy nor the inclination to get out of bed. He lay staring at the sky through the window. It was white, bland, featureless. Outside he felt that it would be too cold for a t-shirt and too hot for a jumper. Irritating.
He was way beyond bored. There was, literally, nothing that he wanted to do. He turned to look at the clock. 8:09. A prime number, he grimaced. Normally when he was this bored he masturbated, but he was too bored even to do that. He didn’t just need new experiences, he needed new newness. Everything within his experience, everything he could imagine, was dreary, repetitive, dull, boring. Boring like the white sky outside. It took an effort to close his eyes, and more effort to keep them closed. He thought, my eyes know what’s going on. They can see. My life is so fucking boring that even my eyes are bored. Drood dismissed vague thoughts of King Lear, and tried to doze off again. Perhaps I’ll have an interesting dream he hoped as he closed his eyes …
*
Drood awoke with a start. Something had disturbed him, he didn’t know what. He opened his eyes, and blinked in disbelief. This must be a trick of the eye, he thought, as he saw a grid of red laser-lights criss-crossing throughout the room, like you see in the Mission Impossible films protecting a priceless bioweapon capsule.
‘Move and you die’
a voice said. Not surprisingly, he jumped. Who was that? What was going on?
‘You are surrounded by a Molecular Reorganisation Matrix, set at maximum intensity. If any part of your body touches one of the beams, every molecule in your body will be instantly broken down into carbon dioxide and water vapour. Beyond the MRM is a Haze Field extending five kilometres in every direction, including underground. Your DNA has been coded into the Haze Field. Enter it and you will dissolve in agony. There are five Death Commandos positioned throughout the house, and thirty outside. Six Hunter-Seeker Drones are patrolling this airspace, programmed for Instant Response should you appear in their face recognition protocols. That response is set to disembowel, irradiate, and then decapitate you. And I’m pointing a gun at your head, and I’m pissed off. So, all in all, I’d advise you to do exactly what I say’.
Drood rapidly considered his escape plan, and while thinking about disarming the Drones he heard the voice again.
‘Alpha 7 to Host. Target acquired. Minimal loss of civilian life. Material recovered and in quarantine. Are we ok to proceed to Phase 11? Over.’
Short pause. Different voice. Sounded artificial, robotic.
‘Host to Alpha 7. Bring Target to Area 51 for comprehensive interrogation. Inject Target en route with X5. Relocate Material to Black Site as Priority 1. Integrity of Target secondary. Operation Status Amber. Over.’
‘Alpha 7 to Host. Is the Stealth Ship here? Over.’
‘Host to Alpha 7. My monitor shows it will be at Location Zero in 3 minutes. Dropping secure line in 3,2,1,0 seconds.’
There was silence. Drood heard an owl hoot outside. Then he heard another voice that he hadn’t heard before.
‘The owls are not what they seem’.
‘Quite’ said the man with the gun pointing at Drood’s head. He turned to Drood.
‘Right, you son-of-a-bitch. You understand that you can’t escape? I’ll take your silence as a ‘yes’. I’m now going to get you into the transport that we’ve arranged for you. Clearly it’s easier for all of us if you can walk there rather than my men carrying a dead weight, but that’s up to you. So what’s it to be, you get up slowly and walk quietly exactly where I tell you, or I break three of your ribs and smash your face to a pulp and get my men to carry your limp, bleeding body? You have three seconds to decide.’
Drood was, on this occasion, decisive.
‘Walking is fine, really. But there must be some mistake. Who are you guys? I’m …’
‘Shut the fuck up’ said the man with the gun ‘and save your lies for Area 51. The more you lie when you’re there, the more pain you’ll receive. In fact, those guys will help you re-define what pain actually means. If you’re really unlucky, they’ll put you in the Red Room.’ He sighed, seeming to have fond memories of the Red Room.
‘Personally, I’d cut your arms and legs off now and extract the intel, but I have my orders. Now, are you coming?’
He flicked a switch on a module on his belt and the grid of lines disappeared. Drood got up, and was immediately surrounded by four of the five what he assumed must be the Death Commandos in the house.
‘Move’
one of them said. He moved. He was marched downstairs, through the kitchen, and out into the garden, where four more were waiting. They tied him up in white tape, which stung his skin, and threw him to the ground. There was a sound from above, and they all looked up. There, about forty feet over the house, he could see a shimmering light which kept changing complexion and colour slightly, but which from certain angles he couldn’t see at all. The Stealth Ship, he presumed. A rope was lowered to the ground from the ship. One of the Death Commandos tied a harness round Drood’s waist, attached the rope to it, and yanked on it hard. He started to rise into the air.
It took about five minutes to reach the ship. It was excruciatingly painful, as the white tape tore into his flesh and started to sting even more. He could feel blood running down his arms and legs. The pain, the pain, he grimaced. Finally he felt himself being grabbed from above, and he was pulled aboard. The relief of the white tape no longer tearing his skin off was soon outweighed by the fact that he was head-clamped into a hot metal container. He looked up and saw a face looking at him, unsmiling.
‘You!’ Drood exclaimed. ‘What on earth are you doing here. How …’
Then he saw a woman in a white coat walking towards him with the longest needle he had ever seen in her hand. Someone grabbed and held his left arm, and without further ceremony the woman thrust the needle into it.
‘OH GOD’ shouted Drood, as agony seemed to spread out from inside his arm throughout his entire body. He felt like he was going to burst. Was this the X5? He felt like his insides were boiling faster and faster, he couldn’t stand any more, and then nothing.
☺
Bring it all on!
