Schmoe Sequel

SCHMOE 2 is complete and done, ready for print. For so many years all Word documents have been double-spaced after each sentence, with enormous indentations via the TAB key and too much white space in the margins. Correcting the layout of a long piece of writing can take absolutely ages. It’s a basic level of formatting. You should try reducing each and every double-space after each and every sentence to a single space in a 50,000 word document using only the crappy square touch pad on a laptop. Wowcher. You’re talking the patience of a saint right there. It’s pretty much like writing the whole thing again. Good job there’s a little trick/cheat for it. Hint: Find and Replace.

Yeah, Schmoe 2 was started early 2012, on and off as is everything now, but flowed very smoothly otherwise. Often, if there was no ending to one flash story, it made sense to move onto the next, and then halfway through that one, an ending for the previous one would come to mind. There’s no reason to be hanging around thinking up what to happen i.e If you are stuck on chapter 2, go back and edit chapter 1 until something comes to you.

It’s more fictitious than the first one. There are less stories, but they are slightly longer. It’s more about the characters who go the gym rather than the gym itself. But it’s still comically educational and offhandedly slapstick. It’s been combined with Schmoe 1 for a longer read. They’ll be printed together. Schmoe 3 will be added on, and Schmoe 4, and so on. At some point they will be redrafted with perhaps a single character running throughout instead of many different ones.

When will Schmoe 3 come along? Dunno, but it’s the future, long term, so one a year is not too much too ask. They are only 10,000 words long remember, a blessing of a length to work with, so at least 4 are needed before novel length compilation, with 40,000 words being the magic qualifying gauge for so-called novel status.

Schmoe will do down a storm with certain people. There’s simply no doubt about it. It’s niche. It’s for someone. It’ll resonate. Need help from Dragon’s Den though. There’s enough shite on the market in the fitness industry. Surely there’s room for this. COMING TO A SHOP 3,000 MILES AWAY FROM YOU SOON.

Sand In My Face - An Extract

I never had a face to pin my anger on. Just a barn door back and calves like upside down pyramids. The next day I bought myself some plastic weights and a bench from Argos. Then I bought a copy of The Beef magazine. At first, putting weight on and getting big seemed like an impossible dream, something only to be achieved with drugs, but one night I studied myself in the mirror after a workout and had a revelation. I was staring at my chest, my shoulders, and my biceps. I wondered to myself what could be so darn hard about increasing the size of these three muscle groups? There’s no exam to pass. There’s no secret or mystery. The evidence is in front of my eyes. I can see the tools I'll be working with. And suddenly it all seemed so simple.

from Schmoe 2

About Schmoe

SCHMOE is a brand of fiction exclusively for weightlifters, bodybuilders and gym goers. It is a form of flash fiction at the moment, which means small segments of self-contained stories, scenes or sketches ranging from a couple of hundred to over a thousand words. This means that you can digest it in small bite-sized pieces, just about anywhere.

Not everyone likes to read chunky fat novels. They can take weeks if not months to finish. These short morsels can put a smile on your face in minutes. Think of SCHMOE as a fictional magazine. Apart from glossy pictures, what do the best magazines offer? Education? Entertainment? This too. And told by a storyteller, not some journo (will all due respect). Never mind you can't beat it—you can't find it. Not like this.

There are people out there who this content will really resonate with. You might be one of them. If you love training and you love reading fiction then this is for you, no question about it. You’ll find inspiration and laughter throughout.

Heard of a film called The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke? Art Till Death predicts a film called The Bodybuilder in the not-so-distant future.

Don’t fear if you are not an iron-pumping freakazoid with tons of muscle. There is something here for anyone who steps in any kind of gym for any reason too. Keeping fit and being healthy is a mainstream preoccupation. We all have bodies to keep.

SCHMOE 1 was conceived right here from 2010 onwards. It is also available all in one place for download onto Kindle, where it can be read seamlessly. SCHMOE 2 is brand new material and will not be viewable here at all unfortunately. There will be no more fiction here actually, apart from occasional samples maybe. But plenty to look forward too.

This ‘niche’ challenge has the odds stacked against it but is quite exciting all the same.