Sean Donoher

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THE ROSE GARDEN

By Sean Donoher, HM Prison Garth

Ampitheatre of aroma.

Burning dew, intoxicating vapour.

Offering to sensations,

Floral breakfast.

Paranoid bench seats one.

Angst ridden heavy coat.

Pocket Lao Tzu mocking.

Eden with personal serpent.

Guardians on natural valium.

Motes in sun, dance.

Birds hushed by cathedral.

Worlds breaks through in whispers.

Busy bees enter brain,

Designing interior nightmares.

Sunburnt mark of Cain.

Bootlace redemption screaming.

Mist filled sunken garden,

Memory an ethereal see-saw.

Nirvana stained with monsters.

Karma offers knife or cloud

The blog just realised that this year’s best Koestler artwork (and still my screensaver) had an accompanying poem of the same title in the written works category. Sean Donoher really owned this year’s competition, and although this effort was kinda overlooked, it had probably the best line of all: Paranoid bench seats one. Alicia Stubbersfield (poet and judge) had no time for this though, saying he should have started the poem from there. Garth is a lifer’s prison by the way, so that’s quite sad, but take nothing away from his talent. He’s been man enough to put his name on his work publicly. Anonymous rings alarm bells. Personally, anyone going by the name anonymous should not win. And a poem should not win over prose. But there you go. ATD don’t make the rules. I just [try] to judge. Sean, at time of writing, has no idea he is featured here. Much like an author has no idea when someone reads his or her book when he or she is brown bread (dead).

Below is verse from a long and disturbing poem done 5½ years ago. See the similarity between Donegan and Donoher? Writing like this is where it all began. Quick-fire ideas, three-word lines, 4 word verses, bam.

At market stalls

In shopping malls

Upheavals in cathedrals

Demons wonder medieval 

Easily defeated

From inside unseated

A single word ‘Nooo!’

Conquers it so

But once in its grip

The balance is tipped

Foreseeing years ago

Our destiny’s flow

Good Vids

Here's a video attempting to lay out the truth for you in simple layman's terms. It's awfully kind of someone to bother trying to do this for us. We're born and we live and we work and all the rest of it but when was the last time anybody stopped to tell us what the purple plague is going on, eh? Any instances come immediately to mind? All we want to know is the story so far. That's it. Not a lot to ask. Who we are, what we've done, who's in charge, and so on. Add some powerful male narration, stirring animation... and bingo, you have a recipe for enlightenment. Not hard, is it, and yet there is sooo much ambiguity out there that sometimes we can watch an advert and not know what is being advertised. ADVERTS DIE!!! Why teach us geography in school when you could be educating us about the dangers of gambling addiction? The point is this: In a world of contradictions and blurry fuzz, sometimes all it takes is a few minutes of  awe-inspiring reason, skilfully depicted on screen to rebalance the books. Funny how even atheists can't help getting a few cheap shots in at religion though... Everybody whose anybody knows the absolute truth and the absolute truth is that it's nothing but a grand scale slanging match. Take Tom Jones as an example and "listen to nobody but yourself".

“And if I gotta die tonight, if this weight is gonna kill me tonight, then so be it.” Somebody commented that this was the most inspirational quote in Bodybuilding History. Er—no, don’t think so, it’s actually corny as hell. Okay? This kind of thing would sound bearable if spoken by a Green Beret behind enemy lines, not a heavy-duty bodybuilder in a cushy gymnasium. No disrespect to Kai, mind, because he has arrived from nowhere, can’t really imagine him doing a Jay Cutler and showing you around his crib, bragging his head off. Listen, some of these guys need a whopping 300 pounds plus of muscle just to house their world-beating egos. They are bloated and proud and awesome. Kai, artist and body-popper extremo, is undoubtedly the most talented of the bunch when it comes to jaw-dropping antics on the stage, although Marvellous Melvin Anthony and Darren Charles deserve a mention also. As for classical no-nonsense posing, manly posing, Nasser El Sonbatty and Dennis Wolf get hollers. Some of them dance around and shake their ass. C'mon guys. When you're wearing citrus-coloured knickers on stage, it's not a wise thing to do.

Koestler Art 2012 Winners

What? Are you kidding me???

 These 2 were right up there in the prizes, and with apologies ATD does protest quite vehemently. There's no way these pair are beating some of the other entires who didn't win squat. Sorry, but no way Jose! These might have been knocked up with pen and crayon during a short journey in the Group4 sweatbox. Congratulations and all that, not taking anything away from these, the lower one has an angle about it, but there were better. Much better. A scribble with a pen is just that, and never beats a planned, time-consuming composition. Which proves that if another person's judgement of your work means more than it should to you as an artist, then you should either consider another passion/career path or get used to a world of hurt, unless you're lucky and your work is adored for some unfathomable reason, because judging, even when done by experts from a range fields, is prone to, well, barking mad decisions, you could say.
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What is it with art? Why do we have these types who read into it so much? Those who think an unmade bed or a shark cut in half is worthy of a place in a gallery? Get a grip of yourselves! It seems that the general rule is this: If it goes on a canvas and hangs on the wall, it's art. And they're not shy with the mark up, either, when it comes to pounds and dollars. 
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For cost, if you're an artist, add up your time in hours, expenses in materials, travel fees incurred to acquire those materials et cetera, double it for some profit, then add a couple of noughts for good measure. This last part, with the noughts, is the most important part of the whole process. That's the way ATD sees it. 
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Eat a shish kebab with salad cream. Spew it up on some silk in a frame. Mix it around with a bog brush. Let it dry. Hang on wall. Attach price tag. Voila. You're an artist.
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Pricing it is the easy part. You're thinking a 100, maybe a 1000 buckaroonies. That's you're 1st mistake before you even got going. It's either rip them off, or get ripped off yourself. Somebody is deffo gettin' ripped off, that's for cocksure. So you wanna charge at least 10 bags of sand (grand), if not a 100 bags. Yes, 100k. On eBay. Today.
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Again, no disrespect to the winners above, but they are like totally poo. And, in all jest, it's fun to make fun out of the winners, because they won. It's the ones that get overlooked you gotta respect. 
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AND, finally, criticism of your work is not a criticism of you. It's when someone criticises both you the person AND your work which means you got serious problems. Man up your thick skin and be your own judge. Diversify. Prove them wrong. Ignore them. And keep truckin'. 

ATD: piebald77

Koestler 2012 - Main Bunch

Only 1 of these was given a highly commended badge for being best of the rest.

 Made in Ibiza by Matthew Peart, 

Kemple View, On Sale For £100

 Untitled by Lee Smith

HMP Manchester, On Sale For £40

(good to see biro says Piebald77)

 Dawn Eagle by Anon

HMP Risley, On Sale For £80

 Oliver by Steven Beattie

HMP Kirkham, Not For Sale

 Still Here by Sean Donoher

HMP Garth, Highly Commended

Special Piebald77 mention  

for outstanding multiple entries 

Others

Jigsaw Man

 Jigsaw Man, Lee Rigby 

HMP Liverpool, £80

Joint 1st and 2nd place for ATD. Can't quite decide. One of the art judges had just a single word to sum this up, and that word was "No." As they moved along the paintings, all you could hear was "No, no, no, no..." What do you expect though, from experienced set-in-their-ways critics who have to quickly sum things up on the spot? Judging anything is so goddamn subjective. Still...that judge don't deserve eyes! Ya hear! ATD will say again now to you what he said to them then... "I'll buy it!"

Good jobbie, Lee. Take no notice of your official Koestler placing.

The Rose Garden

Koestler 2012

The Rose Garden by Sean Donoher, HMP Garth, 

Not for Sale

This is ATD's screen saver. Need ewt else need be said on the matter? A majestic mixture of strokes and patterns. Looks like DNA circling blue brickwork with finely balanced interlocked blades in the centre.

Village Life

Koestler 2012

Village Life, by David Cragg, HMP Altcourse

Highly Commended

"Highly Commended" is more or less a pat on the back for what Art Till Death believes is a much more deserving effort. Don't know where he got Ba Baa's The Barber's from, but that's a stroke of genius right there. The only connection that comes to mind is the outro to 2Pac's Troublesome 96' song, in which he repeats the words la laa, ba baa, like a sheep. It's good.

This artwork make's ATD's Top 3.

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. 

More Noteworthy Characters

by A.J The Anonymous Journalist

Robocop had top-drawer villains. 

District 9's finale was as good as anything.

T-800, red-eyed to death. Flosses twice daily.

The psychic aliens in A.I are light years ahead.

Hannibal is misunderstood. He's a scholar at heart.

Shin-stabbing Chucky was even worse than a gremlin. 

Bolo Yeung. A baddie and proud of it.

Best Characters Ever

1. MEDUSA

2. GHOST RIDER

3. PYRAMID HEAD 

A.J THE ANONYMOUS JOURNALIST SAYS: I was impressed with Iron Man. Overjoyed, in fact. Iron Man opens the mind. It reminds you of technological possibilities. Spiderman is cool, love the romance with Kirsten Dunst, she’s perfect, although any girl would find it hard not to look pretty in that role. Batman is a joke, especially when played by Christian Bale, you only have to watch the old TV series to know he and Robin are both goofs. Superman wears his pants outside of his trousers, less said about him the better, although to be honest he is probably the hardest of everybody and would nail all the rest hands down. All the X-Men are planks apart from Gambit because he’s a legend with cards and can probably deal himself full houses, straight flushes, and 4-of-a-kinds at will. Not forgetting the sexy one with blue skin. Wolverine? Hmm...doesn’t he get like totally owned by Freddy Kruegar? Freddy could invade Wolverine’s dreams as a big-ass snake and make him kill himself with his own claws. The first Wolverine would hear about it was when he woke up dead.

Not very clued up on comics. Haven’t seen Watchmen yet but they all look like gimps. Hellboy is a bell tip although credit where credit is due, Ron Pearlman is a class act. Jeepers Creepers is a fool. I'd hammer that swine all day. Computer games are where it’s at. When I first saw a trailer for the game Silent Hill, that was the point when I realised the computer game industry and the movie industry were moving closer together. The game was actually scary! Can you buh-leeve that sheet? A scary game? Then, when the film came out, I was like, wow, this is one serious flick, outstanding and unique, the only let-down was Sean Bean (pronounced Seen Been, as in have you seen Mr Bean, say it how you see it, there’s no way Sean = Shaun), who doesn’t do accents.

Pyramid Head in Silent Hill was a nasty piece of work, horrifyingly impressive. He pulled a woman’s skin off in one swoop with one hand while holding her in the air a-kicking and a-screaming in his other. And as for his knife, huh, forget Crocodile Dundee, that’s a toothpick compared to old Pyramid Head’s. Forget Pumpkin Head as well. And forget anyone or anything from Harry Trotter or Lord of the Geeks. All that sci-fi fantasy wizard and spells codswallop don’t count. Griffins and Gruffaloes and Centaurs and all that other shish is for kids man. Gremlins are OK however. Anything that gives you nightmares gets a tick of approval (can you think of a better reason to not let your feet hang out over the edge of the bed?). That includes the Hulk, bodybuilder style, as Lou Ferrigno in the hit TV shows, no expensive computer generated imagery (CGI) needed, thank you very much, just a lick of green body paint and we’re good to go.

Dracula? One swift elbow from any old cowboy or alien would knock them fangs down the back of his blood-lined throat and what’s he gunna do then, gum you to death? If he turns into a flock of bats, fair play to the mother. Werewolf? The ones in Dog Soldiers (2002) are truly-fooking-terrifying! Catwoman? No. Wonderwoman? No. Miho in Sin City (2005)? Yes. Angelina Jolie or Milla Jovovich? Yes and yes. Predator? Abso-bloody-lutely! Top design. Alien? Don’t need mentioning. The ghost in 100 Feet (2008)? Arrgggghhh! YES! YES! YES! 

H.R. Giger's Bar - Mine's a Bud

Steady Destiny 2+

DB TINK SAYS: Practising and then recording the same song for hours and hours gets the tune stuck in your head. You end up nodding along when you are outside. You carry it with you out of the house. This song has followed me from keyboard to keyboard over the last 5 years. You would think I'd be sick of listening to it, after the repetitive playing of it when I'm actually putting it together, but once it's done and finished, that's when you listen to it the most.

~

The basic structure is important. There are common rules to be followed. One, it must start off strong. Two, it mixes things up to apply the brakes at some point. This I picked up from a band called Rammstein, who often turn off their drums in the middle of a song and have a little peaceful moment before it all kicks off again. They call this HALF TIME. Three, you must finish stronger than how you started. No point running out of steam and fading away. I learned this from Progressive EuroTrance. The clue is in the title. Things should be coming in, not going out, or if they do go out, then returning. You'd be surprised how many professional musicians fail to follow these handy hints.

~

You're only as good as your influences. And, unfortunately, your microphone...

Embarrassing Absurdia

VOICES FROM THE OTHER SIDE is a ‘black writer’ anthology, and good. Read it a couple of years ago and it’s almost time to go back. Mainly to reacquaint myself with Ricky Windell George, author of the contribution Good ‘Nough To Eat, about the touching and hilarious insecurities of a male stripper hung like a horse. Truly mesmerising content! Probably in my top 3 fav short stories ever. Couldn’t put it down, devoured in one sitting, yadda-blah-blah-yadda and so on (as you would expect with all short stories, I suppose).

Like all the best efforts, they kind of change you. They challenge you. They almost intimidate you. But, importantly, you learn from them. Because it's an education. And you're better next time. Perhaps you're better than them. Creative practitioners are constantly leapfrogging each other. It's the name of the game, and not important, because it's all about personal progress (never compare yourself to other people!). This story in particular was like the Dumb and Dumber of literature, like a stupid movie in the text of a book, but serious, sad and horrifying at the same time, making it a real adult gem. (A chipped gem, it must be said.) Chuckling out loud while leafing through pages is a reserved form of humour, and different to other laughs. It takes a lot of knack to make people do that. Or a natural funny bone (some comics have funny material, and some have funny bones). A book has no visual power whatsoever. All print looks the same. Black on white blocks. Line after line. Uniform. But within it is the author’s psyche (if he or she is any good), delivered into your brainspace, and that particular author’s psyche may be very visual indeed. The reader may be a visual person too, and when they both interact in this way, then a splendid meeting of minds might just take place...

Is Ricky Windell George really writing about this?? I thought to myself. It was kind of unbelievable. Like watching a laugh out loud comedy with no television. Reading can very much be like watching telly, except you choose all the locations and actors. You’re in total control of interpreting the writer’s message. The farcicality of bold stories like Good ‘Nough To Eat actually rub off on you. The funniest laughs are those laughs when you shouldn’t really be laughing. Embarrassment has a lot to do with it, you know. As an author, how far are you prepared to go? How much of yourself are you prepared to reveal? How red must your face flush before you have to think twice about where you’re heading? I believe there are no boundaries. On the screen, there are. But on the page, no (not on that illimitable screen in your mind). Push them. Break them down. But you have to know yourself first. Or maybe not. Perhaps knowing others is enough. When you mix yourself and others you get a new character.

The most preposterous scene ich recall ever writing was a flash piece called Spell Pinocchio (1300 words). It took place on a plane. Among other strange goings on, a woman had kept the liposuction juice from her hospital operation and was squirting it from a water gun into the hair of other passengers, saving only enough to make pancakes for her husband.

It’s called absurdia, and it’s the future. Think of Jim Carey and Jasper Carrot in a script written by Harry Enfield and Lenny Henry. This is why the blog has a trick up its sleeve waiting for Mr. Ridiculous to come out. What’s the point in living without laughter? Soes anyway, well done Ricky, gunna read you again soon. Some things you just have to experience more than once. Like Michael Jackson’s Beat It video, and oriental sushi with coconut yogurt mashed together on a folded pineapple pizza...no other toppings, not even cheese and tom, just pineapple...like a Hawaiian without the ham. Spell Hawaiian. 

◊◊ right though aren’t I though ◊◊

Freaks

SUPER POWER:

The ability to make

oneself unseen to

the naked eye

INVISIBLE

If I stay totally still,

if I stand right tall,

with me back against the school wall,

close to the science room’s window,

with me feet together,

pointing straight,

aiming forward,

if I make me hands into tight fists,

make me arms dead straight,

if I push me arms into me sides,

if I squeeze me thighs,

stop me wee,

if me belly doesn’t shake,

if me boobs don’t wobble,

if I close me eyes tight,

so tight that it makes me whole face scrunch,

if I push me lips into me mouth,

if I make me teeth bite me lips together,

if I hardly breathe,

if I don’t say a word.

Then,

I’ll magic meself invisible,

and them lasses will leave me alone.

I found Nik Perring by accident on the web when I first started searching for suitable people to follow on Tweeter. You gotta start off by following somebody, right? Similar like-minded people and all that? Well here was a guy much like myself (just another writer on the web) trying to get ahead with his craft. To his credit Nik was already in print with Roast Books, but unusually it was with a collection of short-short stories. Now I gotta tell ya, I’m all for backing flash fiction ever since I fell into it myself back in 06-07, and will happily champion anybody who not only practices the endless possibilities of this gloriously dynamic format but manages to get published with it, because that’s good news for every fan and participant. Don’t forget, there’s absolutely no shortage of flash material on this blog. Sounds good, dunnit, saying ‘flash material’? Better than saying ‘manuscript copy’.

Any-old-hoo-hoo, the extract above is a short-short story from Nik Perring’s latest published paperback, FREAKS, co-written by Caroline Smailes and illustrated by Darren Craske. Check the usual places, like Amazon, for very competitive rates. Ebook there too of course. I like this sample because it kind of treads into poem territory, and reminds me of a scary broad daylight shape-shifting changing sequence in a horror flick…plus any book with a comic cover this impressive has gotta be good, hasn’t it? 

One more thing: The “Manchester Titan”, novelist Nicholas Royle, got caught up in a kind of smack-slam-slanging match with Nik on Tweeter a few months ago, arguing the toss over the literary credibility of novels and longer works and suchlike  over shorter bite-sized flash works. Now, Nicholas once judged a story of mine 1^st place in a comp, so understand that I’ll never say a bad word about him, but this public social network brawl was unequivocally enthralling for the casual observer, probably the best Tweeter moment ever in my book, with each stating worthy points of merit for either argument. I found myself agreeing with both, and would love to encourage ‘Round 2’, if both gentlemen are up for it! Not to stir things up, but I did enjoy some interesting banter for a change! C’mon guys, gloves off…

Then again, I also seem to recall Nicholas locking horns with a poet. Maybe he picks fights with anyone who doesn’t write novels. Or isn’t from Manchester…

Plans...and Da Jungle

Here’s an old hard copy title cover of the rewrite giving your host with the most such a headache at the moment, along with its predecessor, Glimpses Gone. Rewriting something old which is embarrassing in places can really test your patience, but you have to stand by it and see it through, cutting and chopping without changing the body into something altogether new, and resisting the temptation to put it in the bin. It’s fair enough being willing to simply check for spelling mistakes and leave it at that, but when almost every seven year old sentence needs reconstructing it's far easier to kick back and think about something else. Maybe watch something intellectual, or dip into a book, or think about some collages.

Schmoe 2 needs to be done, which is a totally fun release from normality. Schmoe is different because it has a niche audience, so it will get written with a purpose unlike anything else. It can get reeled off. Each instalment of the series will be about 10,000 words, in mini-anthology style, like the first.

Schmoe and Mr. Ridiculous, along with Escaping Hazel, are bound for print. The ultimate idea of a book signing is to have a spread of the entire works laid there for browsers or buyers or whatever to pick and choose, rather than hinge every hope on one title. That’s a lot of work away however, at the moment, but achievable within one or two years. Or five.

But you know, writers get sick of sitting at screens. Especially if that screen is in your home. Clocking in has its advantages. Office premises have their advantages. A woodland retreat has its advantages. Tight busy schedules have their advantages. The future is rising early to write first thing in the morning, when your creativity is peaking within the throes of dream hangover, or napping late to stay up and write in the night, with quiet nocturnal energy.

Be posting a feature about selected writing from prisons and secure hospitals soon, so please call again. 

SAW SOMETHING STRANGE ON A WILDLIFE DOCUMENTARY THE OTHER DAY AND FELT COMPELLED TO WRITE THIS SHORT RHYME ABOUT IT. JUST ABOUT SUMS UP THE JUNGLE, IF YOU ASK MOI, AND MAYBE JUST ABOUT SUMS UP LIFE!

Weird Jungle

A snake ate a Leopard’s cub

So the Leopard bit the Snake

Until it spewed the cub back up

The Snake slithered away

To fight another day

Then the Leopard ate her cub

Happy Anniversary

2 Today!

It’s 2 years to the day since I got started writing a novel. I’ve only just found out so I decided that this statistic, especially since it just turned midnight, warranted a blog post. Seriously, I gotta talk to someone about this. 2 whole years. It's been a year since I was bragging about how fast I was gunna storm through it right here on the Art Till Death art and writing blog. Huh! Don’t think so sunshine! My outline got scrapped. I made a new one. By outline I mean a 5 minute spider graph. I stopped for months at a time. I’ve just had over 2 months off now. 67 days to be exact. It feels like 3 weeks. It’s still fresh in my mind, and I haven’t thought about it since. Apart from the word SINKHOLE. There will be a sinkhole in the plot.

The idea started as a short story to be honest, originally titled MUDDY ANGEL: DARK DOMAIN. I always start with a title. The title is the first thing down. The conception. The first day writing was in MacDonalds, I think, which felt weird, and most of it has taken place in a cafe ever since, in the library a couple of times, a couple of times in bed, and once on a table outside my patio. Always with a black biro pen in tiny non-slanting joined-up letters. I type up chapter by chapter. 3 chapters are typed up in hard copy, Estrangelo Edessa font, size 10 or 11 maybe. It’s a big clear font. Headers are in...oh let’s not go there (although it is very interesting). I start from the back of the notebook and go backwards like a reverse clock...I don’t cross words out because it looks messy...I don’t use indents or any other blank space on the page...

2 years. 730 days. And you know what? I’ve had 694 non-writing days in all that time. Yes, you read correctly. 694 non-writing days. Only 36 days on the novel in 2 whole years today. What’s more, most of those days have consisted of nothing more than an hour sat in the cafe. Theoretically, I could have done my current amount in just over 1 month. I am now on the edge of the 4^th chapter (soon to be the edge of the sinkhole), and knocking on Mister Twenty Five Thousand Word’s door. 36 divided by 25? I’ll leave that one to you (it’s over 500 words a session). Not bad on a daily basis, but not so great on a fortnightly basis.

Is there an advantage to getting it all done sharpish, in 36 days consecutively, compared to 36 days spread over 24 months? You betcha. Your continuity will be better. Tighter. And you’ll be less likely to repeat words. But the longer stretch wins in my opinion, because you grow and change with time, as does the book. Then again, having said that, getting something down and finished while you are still the same person is quite awesome too, because the completed product will be like a snapshot of you as that one person, rather than an album of you in evolution. Hmm...it’s a tough one.

As far as story goes though, and sheer investment, the long haul reaps the harvest of your experiences. That’s why this novel is changing. I’m about to twist it off on a tangent (curveball!), and fly in this new direction for as far as it's sails will carry me. The main characters are sat around a camp fire and about to tell a story. A story within a story is a legitimate excuse to propel a novel. This is the beautiful thing about a novel, it's possibilities. 40k+ words is a helluva spread of playground to explore, and you know what, I don’t care if these main characters fail to feature much from here on in, because they may have already served their purpose by introducing the story they are about to share with each other. The story may even be longer than the preceding 25k words (although I doubt it). But if it was, why not?

One thing that genuinely impresses me is a novel or a movie that transforms into something different to how it started out. Ones that become something else (think chrysalis, think eureka moment, think cross-genre). And over 2 dozen lunar cycles is bound to alter your work. So. Now. I’m ready to take this thing into the unknown. The vaguely known unknown. Ethel Franklyn, a limping 6 foot tall (maybe more) left-handed woman who is addicted to lynching people; then a chase out of a church tower, across a canal, and into a sinkhole. A holographic female entity is doing the chasing by the way, and to avoid the HOW TO, I’m afraid it will have to be a dream. Then it’s back to reality, which might involve a twin on horseback fresh on a gun-toting rampage thru rehab. And that’s it, essentially. That’s my 3^rd outline summarised. But it’s all the filling in between that takes time. The padding tends to expand and bear fruit of its own. Ethel’s history, for one thing: She was stolen as a baby, survived a stoning and other execution attempts for multiple witch accusations, befriended a land owner...oh who knows what...

A CHASE SCENE WITH A HOLOGRAM: CHALLENGING TO EXECUTE

Just trust and believe that this is the last time I talk the talk about it until I make some good ground up. I feel the ink about to flow again sometime this week. The predominant feeling is relief. Somewhere I can go. Somewhere other than the restricted realms of my environment. In order to flourish in this world I have to investigate hers.

And how does a writer flourish? By sales? By numbers? By pats on the back? By signings and talks and leather-clad notebooks? By over-emphasising their bohemian aspect with a disastrous fashion sense? Or by writing? Or by writing. A writer writes, goddamn it. A writer goddamn writes.

Escaping Hazel

Coming, uh, soonish  

A Keyboard Song Remix

Das Truth

I remember one of the first CDs ever purchased (progressive Euro-Trance) had a track called 'The Truth' on one of it's four disks lasting about nine minutes long. It was a memorable tune but the disk unfortunately snapped so naming the keyboard upload above by the same name is my way of saying 'I Remember You'. I've twisted one word into German as a mark of respect to the influential Neue Deutsche Harte scene, which literally translates as New German Hardness. Many people hear foreign lyrics and switch off, but this particular branch of music has more female backing vocals than any other. By music I mean keyboards/synths, drums and guitars. Think of how many songs you have heard in your life, on the radio, on the stereo, in work, at the weekend and so on...then add them all up, and now single out the ones which have a man and a woman singing together at the same time. It's not a large proportion, is it? It's hardly a fraction. Usually, it's either or. Hardly ever together. Why is that? You never hear Latin male choirs backed by cockney teenage rap, for example. Maybe the perfect music doesn't and will never exist, it's just that some bands strive closer to your idea of it than others.
There's definitely an essay here somewhere. Isn't it great to discuss music? To talk about what makes you tick. 

DB Tink