The Novel Is Dead

Inspiring Book & Paper Sculptures

Entertaining article listing all the times the novel has been pronounced dead since 1902. That's thirty times, in case you're wondering.

I can go one better than that. Here's a guy who predicted the end of books (wrong), losing out to television (right) even before television had been invented! Octave Uzanne, back in 1894.

Can we all just agree that novels are about as likely to die as reality TV shows? And I'd mourn the latter far less. 

Why We Write

HMRC Grammar Gripe

When I'm not getting grumpy-arsed over customer services via Twitter, I'm helping to hold the hands of newly formed charities as they run the gauntlet of gratuitous paperwork involved in registering and tax exemption.

Oddly, I quite enjoy it. Brings a sense of order to my otherwise chaotic and unruly mind.

The other day, however, something happened to shatter that peace.

One of my clients received a letter from HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) with the most appalling slip of grammar I'd seen since the whole Matalan debarkle. And this is a public office. Her Maj ain't likely to be impressed by such butchery of her English.

The letter was in response to the submission of a Cha1 form, which basically just provides confirmation that, yes, a charity is tax-exempt. However, they replied requesting more information:

How utterly snidey does that sound!?

Hah, Sir! You may well call it a "charity," but we call  it trash! Not worthy to wipe an orphan's snivelling nose with your, frankly, Primark-quality sleeve.

Or, perhaps it's even more sinister than that? Perhaps both my client and HMRC know that it's not really a charity, but this is a euphemism for something far more covert? Perhaps 'charity' is code word amongst the spooks for undercover operatives, like 'cleaners'...

I'm going to submit it to this beautiful blog for further inspection.

Either way, one thing's for sure - the possessive is screwed.

Either of these would be correct, and far, far less patronising:

...supply examples of the charity's activities

...supply examples of your charitable activities 

What sickens me is the thought that if HMRC actually went and collected tax from Amazon, Starbucks and Google, they could probably afford to hire a proofreader.

Fairwell Terry Pratchett

Can't think what to say that isn't a cliché: such terribly sad news, we've lost a literary hero, he made the world a brighter place, he brought laughter to so many, he allowed us to laugh at ourselves, he was a brilliant, bright, beautiful human being who stood up for the dignity of others even as his own strength was failing.

All of the above.

I'm rather teary at the moment. 

We knew it was coming, but it's still sad, nevertheless.

Terry Pratchett was the first time I really decided to test my luck with authority (which I've been fighting ever since). I remember the teacher and the classroom, so I must have been about nine or ten. I used to visit my dad every second weekend in London, and one of our greatest pleasures was book shopping. Think it was still Dillons back then.

I was into Fighting Fantasy at the time, and I guess I must have been shambling about the Fantasy section when I saw the cover. It was a Discworld novel. I'm fairly sure it was The Light Fantastic, as it had a picture of a woman with huge boobs on the front. 

That's why I bought it. I wanted to take it to reading time at my primary school and 1) prove just how good I was at reading 2) from a book with a big-boobed woman on the front. I was also secretly hoping for some swear words, because you can swear if it's literature, right? That's allowed. 

I could read it, when I wasn't sneaking sidewards glances at my teacher to catch her expression, but I didn't fully understand it at that age.

All the same, I came to love the cover art of Discworld, and when I was eventually old enough, I devoured most of them. My favourite being Equal Rites. It again appealed to my sense of challenging the established status quo, that a girl could do anything a boy could, and often better.

Close behind that were the stories with Death. HOW COULD YOU NOT LOVE HIM? (he whispered). Mort, Soul Music... every time you saw those capital letters, you knew you were in for a special treat. 

I was so privileged to get to hear him speak at Cheltenham Literature Festival back in 2012. One of those people you're really glad to have shared the same lifetime as. Defined an age, at the same time ageless.

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.

- Terry Pratchett in quotes

I shall be raising a wee dram to him before beddy byes, as he rides off on Binky to that great writer's room in the sky.

Damascene's House Update

Thank you again to everyone who donated to rebuilding Damascene's house. Construction is well underway. A (slightly blurry) photo above of the reconstruction process. Below, Damascene with his wife and son - a huge 'murakoze cyane' (thank you very much).

[UPDATE: Damascene's house is almost rebuilt. I went to take a look and meet his family.]

Gaijin

Just finished reading a short erotica story by Remittance Girl (@remittancegirl) of Red Phone Box fascination.

Such a very short story, so very much to say about it. 

Let's start with sex. I've never read much erotica before. Literary snobbishness? Ah, perhaps. There's a plethora of it self-published and free online, and most stuff that's self-published and free online makes for dubious reading at best.

This wasn't free, I did actually buy it. I bought it because I'd read a short snippet (non erotica) by the writer and found myself hooked. RG has an ability to take short-term characters (in RPB a woman smoking a cigarette in a café) and make them wholly rememberable. Vivid, even without saying a word. That's a talent. Many writers write much longer books and their characters start to fade soon after the last page. 

I'm not sure what it is. Don't think you can teach that. It's something some writers just have. 

I was recently doing a round of interviews for my day job, picking through people's CVs. About twenty CVs, and one leapt out at me. The applicant was describing a short trip he'd taken to Morocco. It read less like a CV and more like a beautifully written piece of literary fiction. I mentioned it to my colleague and he replied "I know!" If someone hasn't already told this guy he's an author, they really ought to. I hope to get that chance myself if I meet him later this year.

It's the X-factor of writing. Sometimes people just have something, a way of writing, that sings to you. This is what I found with RG's short story in RPB, which spurred me on to explore further, following her into a genre I wouldn't say I could talk about with confidence.

Back to sex. Gaijin is a rape fantasy (won't go into the morals of that, check the manifesto). Firstly, I was highly impressed by the inventiveness and diversity of sex acts. 

You might be sitting there thinking 'have you never watched PornoTube?' But, let me tell you, as someone who has written steamy scenes in most of her books - it isn't easy. Or, rather, it ain't easy not bein' cheesy. Each year there's an award dished out for the worst sex scenes in a book (the Bad Sex Award). That's just for one scene in a book. Imagine - with erotica - having to write continuously satisfying scenes, one after the other... That's an art, it truly is.

The other interesting tie-in was that RG was reading Rosy Hours at the same time, unbeknown to me. There's a nice feeling about impressing someone you're impressed by:

I notice we both have an eye for the erotic in the ugly.

Made me blush more than her prose. 

Non-sex related, this book took me by surprise. One moment people are boning, the next there's a deeply poignant observation on the nature of existence, or a darkly humorous line that raises a chuckle in the midst of something so wrong yet enthralling. I wasn't expecting to find an intellectual connection, yet, in retrospect, I'm not so sure why not. After all, sex is the most primal of all driving forces as human beings. Sex, birth and death, aren't they the things we all share a personal link with? It makes sense that in exploring those things we'd uncover some fairly cutting truths about ourselves.

On a random note, the picture was so cleverly painted that at times my mind's eye couldn't decide between real-life characters and manga.

One of the shortest stories I've read in a while (I'm mostly reading Game of Thrones at the moment, for comparison), but one that's got me thinking more than most. After all, it's not size that counts. 

Loved every minute of it.

Red Phone Box

I've just finished reading Red Phone Box. It's a 'story round' by my publisher Ghostwoods. It took three years to complete, and involved twenty-eight different authors. 

Shatter a mirror, and rearrange the pieces. What shapes will you find in the splintered glass? Sinister forces roam London's streets, skulking through the neon-lit rain. 

Everything centres around red phone boxes, a recurrent theme throughout. They link alternate realities. If you hear the phone ringing, you'd be wise not to answer.

What drew me to this book was pure curiosity. It includes stories by my editor, Salomé Jones, Ghostwoods' head honcho Tim Dedopulos, Rosy Hours' cover designer Gábor Csigás and fellow Ghostwoods author Kate Harrad. I know the first three professionally, so it was a real pleasure to get to know them creatively. There's something tingly about reading the work of someone you know.

Another bonus was discovering the work of Remittance Girl (@remittancegirl). I think she only wrote one story for it, but, for me, it really stood out. Every now and then you discover a writer whose style just sings for you. Apparently she's an erotica writer. I'm definitely checking her out. 

More than anything else, I want to tell you these stories. I want to rub these words against you, smear you with the pollen of possibility, infect you with nostalgia for places you’ve never been, experiences you’ve never had or have forgotten. That is what books have done for me since I was old enough to read. They made me a carrier of a strange sickness and now I have to pass it on. (keep reading)

I also appreciate her promotion of smaller booksellers ahead of the big boys on her sales page.