Tag: short story

Iron Man faints at the gym!


A bizarre title you might say but it was a bizarre series of events if I’m honest.

I’ll make this a quick one as I have already blogged today, but this made me laugh so here you go.

I have a suit of armour in my front lounge. I say front lounge as though I have more than one but I don’t. I have a tiny lounge, and my knight stands in the corner glaring at people as they enter the room. I’m seriously thinking of fitting a little microphone thing inside his helm and saying ‘NONE SHALL PASS’ to whoever comes to visit me.

He was almost menacing. Almost… until you spot the rubber gloves.

That would be cool right? But I digress.

A friend and his autistic son came and visited me today to drop off some goat food (Yes, I have goats.) and the young lad was in awe of my suit of armour. He kept poking it which causes my eye to twitch in what I presume is irritation and barely restrained gorilla rage. He keeps poking until it starts to sway at which point I feel the need to ask them both to leave. The father was somewhat embarrassed and I kind of feel bad, but hey… nobody pokes my knight in the groin.

A little while later I receive a text message from the father, firstly apologising and secondly telling me that his son thinks I am Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. Now I found this to be hugely cool. I have never been a hero before, even in my dreams. (Yes, I have been a Jedi.) To make things even cooler, my wife also bumped into them and the son asked her if I was a superhero. Ever up for a practical joke she simply replied, ‘Oh I wouldn’t be allowed to answer that. Superhero’s need to have a disguise, don’t they?’

She said his face lit up as though he were the only one in the world to know my secret. Priceless.

So, I am now a superhero in the eyes of an autistic child. Now, superhero’s need to look pretty super. They have to look all muscular and strong so that the baddies know they’ve picked on the wrong guy, and so I went down the gym. Now it’s important to remember a few facts here.

  1. I am now an approved superhero.
  2. I have not been to the gym in at least six months.
  3. The Olympics is on and they play it on huge screens in the gym, egging you on to greater feats of endurance and godliness.

I only did half an hour and boy did I feel as though I’d run for a week and lifted every rock and stone of Hadrian’s Wall. I left the gym and I have to say I was feeling pretty good until I stepped outside. My wife met me (as she had been swimming) and said that my lips were grey and that I had less colour than paper. I have to admit to feeling rather ill. We drove home as quickly as possible where upon getting in the house I promptly collapsed. My wife tells me I had no pulse at my wrist at this time and had it not been for my pitiful cries I could have been dead. Not a good look. Thank god the autistic kid didn’t see that.

Yes, I realise this is not Iron Man.

Right, that’s it for today. I need my rest. Hopefully my dignity will grow back as I sleep.

M J

On Writing – Support


 

‘Are you coming down the farm?’ She asked the question in a tone that expected I had nothing else important to do.

I hesitated, aware of the precarious situation I was in. After all, a refusal could be construed as rejection on my part.

What to say? I was desperate to write, but in truth, and even though she didn’t say as much, I really had nothing important to do. I certainly hadn’t got anything important to write. And yet, I knew I had to write just for the sake of writing. Writing is of course a craft and one can’t expect to ever get any better if one does not practice his craft with fanatical fervour.

In the end my hesitation won the battle for me before battle had even begun. It warped itself into a palpable aura of sulk that proceeded to melt my face into that of a petulant child. I did not do this on purpose, rather my whole being seemed to respond to the threat of not being able to write by my regression back to a child like state. I call this my Level One writing fit. Level Two sees my regression go even further whereby I enter a primate like state, raging and hopping about like a maddened gorilla. Unfortunately for me, Level Two is completely ineffectual against my wife who is able to slay petulant gorilla men with a single stare – a stare that threatens pain and suffering on a scale untold unless one calms, sits and enters peaceful negotiation. This negotiation is I swear both victory for her and a punishment for me as not only do realise I have become an arse, but I am losing writing time by the second until I acknowledge my current arsehole status.

On the whole though, I have the support I need. I am blessed with a wife who understands the importance reading and writing are to me. I feel immense sorrow (pity?) for those writers whose partners are not supportive. Knowing how much reading and writing means to me, I am not sure I could be in a relationship without the level of support I have. I read about writers who have shut themselves away from the world. They’ve cut themselves off from friends and family and they hide behind closed doors, and all so that they can gain a piece of that solitude we as writers all crave. I can understand why they would do that. I really can. It is for this reason that I bless my luck at having a wife who stands by me as I stumble on down the path of the writer. My concerns are heard with a ready ear, my hopes caressed and my dreams encouraged. When I fall, my wounds are soothed, my pride eased and my ambition stoked.

You would be wrong to think my wife simply pours honey in my ear and gives false hope for she is also my chief critic and advisor. Nothing gets passed her that would not be better burned. In fact, my previous post talks all about this and so read that if you can spare another few minutes. It saves me repeating myself.

Having read back through this post I am amused by what it has become. It was supposed to be all about how important support is to writers, but what I appear to have written is how important my wife’s support is to me. But then, I suppose I have achieved my goal after all as without her support, I wouldn’t be writing very much at all. Support in my eyes is not just that which someone gives so you can go off and play writer while they do the dishes or walk the dog. It’s something they give even when you’re down and don’t feel up to putting your thoughts and feelings out there. That’s real support – the ability to give you a bloody good kick up the arse, and make you chase that dream you’re always harping on about.

 

Criticism


My earliest memory of receiving praise for a piece of writing I had done comes from my first year at secondary school. Obviously it was part of an English lesson but I remember it because of that. English was always my favoured subject. I always looked forward to it. Our teacher used to say to us,

‘Class, you have until the end of the lesson to write a story, off you go.’

On this particular occasion I had been having a relatively dry patch, creatively speaking, and so I was thrilled when the teacher came back to me and said,

‘Mark, this is really good stuff. I really enjoyed it. This is the kind of stuff you used to write! Write more of it.’

I do remember thinking, what do you mean ‘used to?’ Still, it was a bold move on my part. Most other people would write variations on Robinson Crusoe or other well-known classics. I wrote something about a Mermaid-man ( a Merman?) and I can remember describing his movement through an undersea tunnel, his great battle axe scraping the worn stone sides.

Another memory, a much more recent one this time, comes from a piece of fiction I wrote a couple of years ago. It was about a paramedic and his patient. I think I wrote that as some sort of cathartic release from feelings I had cultivated at work. Basically, it is very easy to make a snap judgement of someone based upon the most minuscule piece of personal information; it’s even easier to be wrong about that person. So I wrote that piece and I handed it out to a few friends. In retrospect, this was a mistake. They were all nice with their comments but not one offered any real criticism. To me, this highlights the problem with handing your cherished work to a friend, especially one who does not want to tread on that friendship.  What could they say? I mean I believe them when they say they enjoyed it, and I don’t believe they would have said so if they hadn’t. Yet, I don’t think they would have offered any criticism in a negative light for fear of damaging relations. I understand that now and I shan’t be passing my work to friends again in a hurry. As much as I am grateful for their taking the time to read my nonsense, they were just too nice damn it!

My harshest critic is my wife. She’ll tell me straight if something is god awful and to be binned at once in a fiery bin. Once I gave her a sci-fi story I had just finished. I was immensely proud of it and was about to submit it to a publishing house that afternoon when I had the brilliant idea of asking her to take a look. I’m not sure what I was expecting really. I mean I loved it. I thought the plot was tight, the characters were believable and it even had an underlying theme. Yet, I still felt trepidation as I handed her my precious few pages of creative genius. She sat down and read the first page. I tried to feign disinterest but it was impossible. In the end I just sat cross legged on the floor and watched her reading. I scrutinized every expression of her face, followed her eyes as they moved across the page, imagining I knew which sentence she was currently on. Oh… she’s near the bottom of the page, I thought. She must be nearing that part where Mal the Slayer announces his big secret. She’s turning the page… and… What is she doing? She’s turning back to the first page! I’ve made a mistake?? I’ve obviously handed her the story with the pages all out of sequence. Her expression is now puzzled, confused even. She shakes her head and plods on through the second page. My insides have turned to mush. My heart has dropped out of my arse and my eyes have begun to burn in a most unmanly fashion. She doesn’t even finish the second page. She puts it all down, looks at me.

‘This makes no sense what so ever,’ she said.

I was utterly gobsmacked. I can remember staring at her in disbelief, becoming slowly aware of my own teeth grinding.

‘Your grammar isn’t very good either.’

I felt my fists clench involuntarily and thought that now would be an excellent time to leave the room. I can remember sitting down at my desk and re-reading every word over and over again. She must be wrong, I told myself. She just doesn’t ‘get’ sci-fi.  I must have sat there for perhaps three hours mumbling and gnashing my teeth in the direction of the study door every time I heard her in the next room. It was then that I came up with my master plan. I am a little ashamed to admit this but stay with me. The end justifies the means.

I was convinced I had to test the theory that she didn’t understand sci-fi and that therefore she wasn’t qualified to make judgements upon my own work. So I copied someone else’s work. Ah! I cringe when I even write such a thing, but I did it. I found a short excerpt off of a blog written by an author I admire (Aaron Dembski-Bowden). I copied it, printed it, and handed it to her and then… I pretended it was my own. I’m cringing so much as I write this. I had to prove that she was wrong though. I had to prove she just didn’t understand sci-fi. I mean, if she found his work rubbish then mine must be fine right? Right?

Once again, she sat on the sofa and patiently read the piece I had given her. I could discern no emotion or reaction this time on her face and inwardly I was preparing my victory speech. Ha! I would exclaim. This has been written by a very successful author and you thought it was rubbish. You know nothing! Nothing!

She’d finished reading now and sat back drinking her tea.

‘Well?’ I asked.

She looked at me in mock surprise, clearly enjoying my discomfort. I think she could see the strain etched inch deep in my forehead though and relented.

‘It was good. Really good actually. You should write like that all the time.’

I stared at her for a few moments before standing and walking back upstairs in total silence. I presume she must have thought I was just relieved. I closed the door to my study and sat down in my chair. Then I shouted at the top of my voice, ‘Bollocks!’

I learnt an important lesson that day. Criticism, be it good or bad is extremely important to an aspiring writer. I understand that now and I take any criticism on the chin, appreciating it for what it is. I don’t worry if I get something wrong now but instead learn from it, and I’m reminded of a good quote as I write this. It’s very apt I think and a good place to finish for today.

‘I’ve not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.’ – Thomas A. Edison.

 

I say, my head hurts awful bad…


I spent the whole day writing today. I had to really after stumbling across a short story competition the day before yesterday.

Ideally I would have liked to have spent a little while boozing and pondering an idea. Then I should of liked to spend a day or two bashing it out in draft before leaving it in a drawer to fester for a month or so.

That would have been ideal.

Yet life’s not fair like that is it? So, I spent all of today bashing out a random story, stressing and generally being rather unpleasant to be around. Got the damn thing finished and submitted though. Yeah biiiiatch!

So its in now and worrying about what I did or didn’t do won’t matter a damn. Sure I might re-read the submission I sent, probably several times. I may even find some glaring grammatical errors but so what? Practice is all it is at the end of the day.

I hold little hope for my effort but I’ll still watch the forum with interest to see who did do well.

I go now to mope and generally feel sorry for myself.

Bye for now.

M 😉

At Long Last….


I’ve done it. I’ve finally finished my submission to the Black Library.

It’s such a strange feeling. I have about as much chance of getting anywhere with it as anyone else I’d imagine, and may even never hear anything of it… but at least I’ve tried.

I feel really good at having finally completed and submitted something that I’m kinda pleased with. So good in fact that at this moment I really don’t think I care if it does well or not. Okay, of course I care. I’m just happy with the achievement as it is right now.

Anyway, its time to get back to the land of the living.

Bye for now.

M 🙂