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Monday, 19 March 2007
DANNY 101 - A Depressive's Guide to Recreational Sex Therapy
Just came by to show my face.
Just finished the third edit of DANNY V2. Enjoyed it more this time, apart from the fact that it sunk me into a depression so low I could barely climb out it.
I seem to have some notion that on a recent blog I said that I had never found it a depressing book. What the hell was I thinking of? Not DANNY V2 anyway, I can tell you. Obviously I haven't been paying enough attention.
This book is black. Actually those italics don't put enough emphasis on how dark this book is. Like pitch. If you thought the first one was relentless wait till you see this baby.
Of course it's a different kind of relentless. Volume 1 is more about relentless violence, with that Jacobean pall of impending disaster hanging over it. Volume 1 is rather like a Shakespearean dark castle with the plotting and scheming going on behind closed doors till someone is fatally run though behind the arras.
Volume 2 is different. You start out with what looks like a reformed Danny who's managed to pick his life up and turn it around, then you watch him make decision after decision that takes him down new roads to the same old place with the inevitable disastrous results.
What makes it worse though, is it doesn't look as if he is doing something wrong. If you're one of those people who likes to go back, visit old friends and places, keep in touch, you will be even more unperturbed by what he does, and the pernicious way he does it. Subsequently you might be left wondering quite how it takes such a wrong turn.
If you're like me, of course, and are phobic about never going back to people or places, you might be a little more wary of Danny 'returning to the fold'.
It has such a dark (I keep using that word, but I can't think of any other), gloomy pall over it. It doesn't take you long to realise that Danny is not as 'well' as you might first think. After that, Danny being Danny, you wonder if he actually knows what he's doing. Is he up to something and, if so, what?
Understand, it's not depressing in a Nil By Mouth or Monster's Ball kind of way. Although you might expect it to be nihilistic, it isn't. It's depressing as in a decayed, mildewed, blackened, overpowering sense of grief and loss kind of way. And, at the risk of firing up my ever-watchful critics, it is done so subtly by such tiny increments, that you don't even notice it till you're in the middle of this screwed-up mess wondering how the fuck you got there.
I'm a case in point, boldly asserting to all and sundry on here that it isn't depressing, and I wrote the bloody thing.
Maybe it's because up until this last edit I had been concerned about the 'lack' of plot.
Because it doesn't have the same level of dramatic events as V1, and because Danny is kind of free-falling in it (with a vengeance), I was always very focussed on its imaginary shortcomings.
I think I was also nervous about its reception because it's my weakling, my vulnerable one. But, as I think I said before, I am more convinced than ever that some people will love this one. If tales of grief-stricken loss and sad souls trying to fuck themselves into happiness are your cup of tea you will love it. Guaranteed.
Another plus point – although maybe only to me who's sick of hearing this drivel – is it's even further removed from being "porno". Not because it has less sex (it doesn't) but because it is so joyless and peculiar, and kind of desperate and sad, that you would need to be an even more tragic fuckwit than my past collection of tragic fuckwits to imagine it could pass itself off as pornography.
If porn generally makes you want to top yourself Volume 2 will do it for you.
My moment of satori about the true nature of 2 came when I was watching an 'art' film called Eros.
I was about half way through the third edit at the time and this film had come from my on-line library. It was a collection of three short movies on the theme of eroticism. I put it on, grumbling that if it was crap we weren't watching it through.
At the moment I don't really like anything heavy while I'm editing, preferring comedies and actioners and standard horror fare. Mainstream all the way. I don't want to think or be made to experience any emotions.
For some reason I hadn't noticed this as a phenomenon (I didn't experience it working on Volume 1). If I had I might have been alerted to the fact that Volume 2 was having quite a different effect on me.
I was driving Himself mad hiring TV (although he forgave me Lost), watching my way through all the O.C., The Reading Group, Black Books, kids movies, even animated features which you usually have to bribe me to watch. I was taking out Disney films.
I just apologised, said, "Don't want to watch anything heavy, edit's taking up all my brain" and thought no more about it.
So Eros comes on and the first film up is The Hand by Kar Wai Wong.
I, very strangely because I watch a lot of Asian cinema, didn't know his work. What's more, both of us had forgotten why we wanted to see this film in the first place so we had no idea what to expect.
The Hand was an absolutely stunning exploration of love/erotic obsession. So good, in fact, that I'd go so far as to say that if I could make a film as good as this I'd die happy.
It's intense, despairing, tortured and breathtakingly beautiful.
The premise is a tailor in love with a courtesan he can't have. He takes clothes to her flat and that's all he sees of her.
She gives him a hand-job in the opening scene, which is a wonderfully understated piece of erotic domination/humiliation far more poetic than the delightful phrase 'hand-job' would lead you to expect. What's more it manages to be understated while it's quite explicit, and that's all the 'sex' in the entire film.
Nevertheless, that one ugly little 'hand-job' seals his fate and he becomes addicted to loving her from afar – all see and no touch.
It reeks of forbidden love and repressed sex. It's Danny and John/ Heathcliff and Cathy in spades. It is forbidden love, par excellence.
But, to cut a long story short, my moment of satori came at the end when the wellspring of their frustrated 'love affair', which never really is, comes out in this one scene of frantic, almost fetishistic, touching wherein they cannot kiss. And I howled. And howled. And howled.
As someone who only cries when the dog dies I was both deeply disturbed and completely thrown by this (not to mention profoundly embarrassed).
I couldn't fathom it. What the fuck was wrong with me? I mean, it is a superb piece of film-making but it did seem to be over-the-top. And it was then the satori light-bulb went off.
The film had just plugged right into the huge backlog of feeling Volume 2 was generating in me. It was like a backwash of grief and overwhelming loss that almost floored me. These two poor sods: one beautiful, worshipped, callous in a work-hardened way; the other devoted, silent, suffering and then this loss as, at the last moment, the thing that he loves is taken away from him and he can't even really touch her, hang onto her.
And there was Volume 2 – staring me in the face.
My emotional deluge aside, The Hand segment of Eros is worth the price of the film forty times over.
Don't expect anything other than smooth entertainment from the Soderbergh segment and nothing but brick-throwing confusion at the last segment by 1960's Italian film maker Michelangelo Antonioni. But, if you like lush Asian film-making (it's not opulent, it's green and gloomy, but has the stunningly beautiful Li Gong and a wonderfully strained, highly-strung male lead) and tales of doomed love with a subtext forty foot thick you will not better this. It's something you could watch over and over and never get sick of it. And I can only think of a handful of films I'd say that about.
By the by, if any of you do watch it let me know if it makes you cry too, then I've got a sliding scale of just how deeply depressing Volume 2 actually is.
So that's it. My life in art.
Other news.
Took a mad turn a week or two ago, when Google turned up someone referring to anti-fans, to put the word on the Urban Dictionary. Decided if people were going to nick my creation I could at least define it. Forgot all about it and discovered they had not only accepted it but posted it on-site in all its glory.
So anti-fan is now an official word. Check it out at Urban Dictionary and cast your vote.
I don't think I've ever mentioned that Mr Scratchmann can be heard "readin' some of 'is pomes" as podcasts on our film site. You'll see the link down below.
And if you enjoy watching people take the piss out of (Americans?) people who can't understand sarcasm or watching people take the piss out of the growing phenomenon of internet haters (aka anti-fans, see the Urban Dictionary) then can I recommend the two gems from Paperlillies which you'll find on my Youtube favourites (link below).
Watch the Video About Sarcasm first then the follow-up on haters. I'm thinking of recommending fandom adopts her as their patron saint. Unpopular Idea 809. Watch her – if you hate haters you'll enjoy her.
Lastly, Mr Scratchmann has finished a new book.
Entitled Downshafted, it is a non-fiction account of our time on Orkney, taken from the point of view of how downshifting is sold to us nowdays as an 'Alternative Lifestyle' and just how sadly wrong that can be.
I have, today, been give a copy of the manuscript which I will be reading before I go into Edit 4, known as The Green Scene edit. I'll explain that one to you in due course.
As at right now Poison Pixie is not being given an option on Downshafted. He doesn't want to take on yet another marketing campaign, and who can blame him?
He's trawling through potential agents and publishers looking for someone who might go for his bitter, black, cynical view of a rural idyll.
This could be fun. Already he's been dirty-mouthing publishers in a quite spectacular way and he hasn't even approached any yet. I'm quite looking forward to this.
Illustration 101 continues to sell at a truly awesome level. It managed to get up to 9,034 on Amazon a week back and we supply them in bundles of ten with barely a week going by without an order, and sometimes two from them. All this, I might add, with absolutely zero publicity. He doesn't even have reviews on Amazon – God damn him to hell.
Not that I'm jealous. Oh no, I am above such lowly behaviour.
Unfortunately he has nothing to offer that I can steal other than maybe putting How to into DANNY's title. How To Achieve Orgasm Without Really Trying, perhaps. Or How to Have a Successful Incestuous Relationship. Or maybe 101 Ways To Top Your Relatives.
Ah, hyperbole, is there nothing it can't do?
To subscribe to this blog without divulging your email address click on the Newsgator button on the left-hand sidebar or simply post the following text into your RSS browser: http://www.poisonpixie.com/chanceryblogfeed.xml
Not yet read DANNY? You can check it out now at Poison Pixie where you can read a BIG extract for Free! Or grab a copy on Amazon here.
You can also see me in person on my YouTube site (as well as DANNY's various trailers and ads)here or you can see the same material on the Poison Pixie film site where you can also hear our Mr Scratchmann read his delightful comic verse in his podcasts. Don't say we don't spoil you.
Lastly, there is an independent Live Journal DANNY Discussion Board run by fans, C Stone's DANNY where anyone is welcome to go along and chat about the book till their heart's content.
22:00 Posted in Blog , Books , Film , Leisure , Shopping , Web | Permalink | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Sunday, 11 March 2007
Mediocrity, Make Me Rich!!!
WARNING!!!! The following short story is sexually explicit – OVER 18's ONLY. It is also copyright me and can't be reproduced without permission etc, etc, etc – you've heard it all before. Don't steal – it's wrong. Right. Done.
Need to put a blog on, just to remind the world I still exist, but really do not feel inclined to share what's on my mind with the world right now so thought I'd put a short story on out of my old archive.
Some background.
Back in the nineties, when I was living in Manchester, I returned briefly to journalism. I mostly did theatre/cinema/ballet/opera reviews so that I could get free tickets, but I decided to try out writing porn for profit and pleasure. This was a piece that was done for a newly-formed Spanish fine art erotica company who (I think) were called S.A. Ediciones.
It was run by an Englishwoman called Henrietta and she had, very flatteringly, picked my work as being "head and shoulders above" the hundreds of submissions she had received. She commissioned two pieces from me and she was paying indecently large sums of money (£600 per 1,000 word piece).
However, it may not come as a surprise to you when I tell you I had problems with the short word length – although it came as a surprise to me. DANNY was, of course, already written at this stage and I was actively engaged in typing it, so it seemed like a marriage made in Heaven. Here was someone who genuinely loved my work, was willing to pay me indecently large sums of money and who was turning out classy editions which would look nice in anyone's 'portfolio'. But, best of all, she wouldn't get in the way of my 'real' work. A thousand words – piece of piss.
I turned out my first piece, which was called "Candy", but it was around three thousand words long, and I had to get it down to a thousand. There were three edits done altogether and I managed to get it down to 1500 words, but I began to balk after that.
There were a lot of heated letters to and fro and, in desperation I wrote this piece "Cameo", which had far less texture, or true eroticism, and was just a simple porn story. Unfortunately she had been spoiled with "Candy", a far better piece of writing. She hectored me to keep reducing "Candy" in size, with a wonderful disregard for what it was doing to the very things she loved about it. It felt like pulling teeth and I realised that I would never be able to write the work as it wanted to be written if I was looking over my shoulder all the time for the 1,000 word deadline so I wrote and told her I wouldn't do it.
That hurt. I always wonder if I made the right decision. Would I be a stinking rich pornographer by now with books of my classy magic-realist porn turned out by Penguin?
My backwards history is littered with such extravagant 'missed opportunities' and, believe me, in the wee, dark hours when you're struggling with making something like DANNY work, or you get retards writing to share their writing 'wisdom' from Pondkeeper's Monthly, you really sincerely wish, from a place way down in your soul, that you had said, 'Fuck it' to the personal passion stunt and followed the 'every writer's dream' horseshit path to being conventionally published and a mediocre household name respected by millions.
And rich. Don't forget the rich.
Someday I'll tell you about the contract I turned down to write sadomasochistic novels (three of them) for a fabulous (and respected) indie press, with a gorgeous back catalogue and great covers. What's worse is I really liked the guy who ran that outfit, and I can't say that about many publishers. In fact, I can't say it about any of them. Sigh.
Yep, we'll title that blog Chancery Stone's Failures.
Anyway, the following story was called Cameo. It offers nothing more than a run-of-the-mill porno but has some nice ideas. It has never been edited and, reading over it, there's quite a bit I'd change, but it will never see professional publication – I don't like it enough – so you'll have to take it as is. Enjoy.
"Feel, M'sieu, the texture of the piece."
Robert Rostock rubbed his thumb softly over the delicately carved surface of the watch he held in his hand.
The old man, like some awful Dickensian realisation of a French Jew, leaned across the desk at him, his breath typically stinking of garlic, his hair oily, his nails unclean, and whispered almost stickily, "She feels real, non?" He lowered his voice still further so that it was a stinking breath on Robert's cheek, "She is warm? Mm?"
Robert put the old fob down on the counter, almost with distaste. "How much?"
"For you, M'sieu...." And he bent forward and whispered a sum as obscene as the carved object that lay between them, eerily, fleshily pink in the late afternoon light.
Robert shook his head but then a strange thing happened the old man moved away saying, "I am so happy that M'sieu takes my little pearl. I cannot keep such as she happy, and see? She loses her colour."
He had turned back and was wrapping the watch in an outlandishly spectacular piece of gold tissue paper that you might expect in Tiffany's, not here in this backstreet dive, this shrunken fleamarket. "M'sieu will soon restore her. M'sieu has the flesh of a young man." And all the while he was carefully wrapping the watch and chain.
Robert found himself outside the shop in the bright, sweet light of day holding a heavy gold tissue package with a wallet considerably lighter. He did not look back at the shop as he moved away. He had no desire to see something else that might confirm he had just taken part in some awful Hammer Horror scenario. Nor did he wish to be reminded that he, the top salesman of the world's most innovative digital microchip watch, had just been tourist-trapped, without a receipt, into buying a mechanical watch - an antique for Christ's sake.
Back at the hotel he pushed it in his drawer and forgot about it. He went downstairs and sat with the rest of the salesmen and he ate and he drank and commented on the passing women and was a bloke on holiday in France, except he kept thinking about the watch, and come eleven o'clock he found himself making his excuses with an unmistakable sense of relief.
Upstairs, he delayed taking it out till he was undressed and ready for bed. He settled down in the sheets with it, almost like a guilty teenager on a school trip sneaking porn into his room.
He unwrapped it with a dry mouth, ludicrously preserving the tissue paper like his mother would. What for, he wondered? In case it came in handy?
The watch was finally unwrapped. It lay in his palm looking and, yes, feeling practically alive. It was warm, fleshily warm. He rubbed it with his thumb again, just as he had done in the shop, only this time he ran it up and down the girl's thigh. She seemed to shiver at his touch, so real was she.
The curious thing was her clothes, what little she had on. The old Jew had said it was Napoleonic but he had to be lying. The girl had long straight hair and stacked shoes like something out the seventies. Nobody dressed like that. He had said so to the old Jew but he had just smiled and said, "My little bon-bon, she is a fantasy, M'sieu, and even stopped clocks tell the right time once a day." And what the fuck that was supposed to mean no-one knew. Oh, he'd been done alright, but it was gold, and the workmanship was undeniably good, and she was beautiful... and sexy as fuck.
He became aware suddenly that he was lying there rubbing her thigh over and over and he had a raging hard-on. This was bloody sick, that's what this was. He almost threw the watch down on the bedside table and clicked off the lamp.
He fell asleep like a man falling off a log.
It was the first thing he saw in the morning - the gold chain hanging over the side of the table. He pulled it, dropping the watch into his palm. He held it close to his face studying the carving of the cameo closely. This close you could see it was shell. The workmanship was incredible. The levels of transparency, the graduation of the pinks. He studied her body minutely, feeling each bit as he went along. Her long silky hair, the fine bones of her chest, the sleek plump breasts, the tiny hard nipples, her soft curved belly and then... He was aware of holding his breath as his fingers slid over her tiny exposed vulva, the little finely-worked muff, the tiny little lips, the intimate layers of her exposed as delicate, almost transparent, shell pink, down her long thighs to those anachronistic platform shoes. God they looked weird. Napoleon was a time-traveller if this fucking piece of porno was Napoleonic.
He sighed and ran his thumb up her arm whispering, "Well baby, wanna fuck?" And then he felt it, a wrist watch on her supporting arm, the arm that held up her supine, arched body with its spread thighs and open lips.
A fucking wristwatch.
He couldn't believe this. He'd take the fucking thing back if he wasn't so shit-scared of the little creep. It was probably a modern Itie job stuck on an old watch - shit.
He shoved it back on the night table and threw back the bed clothes. Fuck the bloody thing, he'd leave it there. With any luck the chambermaid would steal it.
It was no good. No matter what he did, where he went his thoughts kept going back to the watch. Even the inspirational speaker on motivation that Digiton had shipped in at great expense from the U.S. of A. had failed to stop his attention wandering back to the watch.
He managed to escape back to the hotel just after four and locked himself in his room. The watch was there. No-one had stolen it. He stood for a moment or two with a slow, sinking anticipatory knowledge of what he was going to do, what, somewhere inside, he'd been planning to do all day, forever.
He slowly moistened his lips and undid the zip on his incredibly expensive Hugo Boss suit. He'd probably get stains on it, but it didn't stop him.
He slid his hand inside his Calvin Kleins and felt the long hard length of himself. He closed his eyes luxuriantly. God what a hard-on she'd given him.
He even pretended he'd just been desperate for a wank, tried to convince himself to toss off right where he stood but he wasn't fooling anyone.
He crossed to the bed, cock out the fly of his trousers, slowly masturbating it, somehow relishing it. "Wanna fuck, baby?" he whispered, kneeling up on the bed, spreading his legs, able to see her for the first time, keen for her to see him.
He touched the watch slowly, reverentially, pulling it down the bed towards him from the table like a lover pulling a silken rope, until she was there between his legs, her tiny little cunt spread open to his eyes.
"Gonna give you my load, baby." And he spread his legs wider, pushing his penis, vast and curving, up over her tiny body. "Biggest fucking dick you ever saw," he grunted. "Biggest fucking prick in Paris. Fifty times bigger than your whole body. Going to drown you baby, going to fucking.." He grunted again. "Going to..." And again. "Going to..." And this time he did. A huge jerk of it that spun out like thick white rope, that made him gasp with shock, sheer exhilaration.
It seemed to hit her in slow motion. And in that split moment, while it sailed through the air, he didn't want it to touch her, reach her. He even shouted, "No!" But it was difficult even for him to know if it was pleasure or fear. It did hit her, soaking the watch, making him laugh an odd shaky breathless laugh, his body still clenched in climax.
He reached out a hand, suddenly greedy to feel this tiny woman bathed in his spunk. He rubbed it up and down her spread slit with his pinkie and felt the incredible excitement of it. Incredible, fantastic, God, great, he had to do that again, yeah...Oh God, oh that felt... better...that was...oh God. Look at me, look at me, going to do it again, going to give you my load again. Is this...oh God... big enough for you, baby? Christ look at my dick...Christ I'm going to...Christ.
And he came again, after a short hard wank that was way too quick, like he hadn't done since he was thirteen, not even then. It hit her again. He laughed, loud. "Not even trying.." He cried out, "Oh boy...could I?
He picked the watch up and rubbed it up and down the underside of his shaft. He was still hard, he couldn't believe it. Two orgasms, the second even stronger than the first and he was still hard. Amazing.
He watched his cock, slick and wet, dripping, rub up and down her saturated body, her swimming cunt. She looked painted in pearl, her flesh seemed positively rosy. The wet, it was the wet and heat of him, he knew that, but God she felt so real, so tiny and plump and real. What he'd give to fuck her.
He began to thrust against it, desperate to penetrate this tiny living thing. There had to be a way, had to be. He stared at her, between her legs, could feel those tiny rubbery nipples riding up and down his fifty foot cock. He laughed, an odd little hysterical laugh that somewhere inside scared him.
He pushed harder, felt the soft yielding surface of the watch....inside the watch...he'd never even looked inside the watch...God I've been ripped off...tossed off...she's tossing me off...probably nothing inside...lots of pink inside...look at her, she's so pink.... wet... God she's so slippy...inside ...nothing inside...
His fingers gripped the watch feverishly, running round its case trying to find a way in.
Old bastard's sold me an empty... old bastard's... Jesus...God... I'm going to... I've got to...
And suddenly the case sprung open and he sunk into her. She was on him, round him, engulfing him, her whole body slippy with something white, sticky, her hair in his face, her wristwatch digging into his back, her heavy platform shoes bumping his arse as she ground and humped against him.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck..!" he cried out and went on crying out as he sunk deeper and deeper into her, more of her engulfing him, one huge vagina consuming his whole body. He was no longer the fifty foot cock, she was the fifty foot woman.
Oh God, no...no...no....no.
And his last orgasm obliterated him
"Ah M'sieu, a lovely piece, is it not? For those with...special tastes."
The American picked up the watch and turned it over. "Does it work?"
"Oui, but of course, M'sieu. It is Napoleonic, M'sieu. Some say his own."
The American smiled. Yeah, sure. The guy looked like he had Calvins on, for Christsakes, and a wristwatch. Still, it was a helluva piece of work. His dork wasn't bad either. "How much?"
"For you, M'sieu..." And the old Arab named a figure that made it the priciest piece of dick he'd ever bought.
"No way," he said, shaking his head. And then a funny thing happened. The old guy started wrapping it up in this fancy paper like he'd said, yes, like he was buying some goddamn priceless jewel or something, and he found himself saying, "You take MasterCard?"
And the old Arab smiled and said, "Of course, M'sieu, even a stopped clock tells the right time once a day."
And he found himself out in the bright sunlight, clutching some fake Napoleonic carved cameo fob watch showing a young man masturbating fiercely, body arched in pleasure or pain and he didn't even have a goddamn receipt.
To subscribe to this blog without divulging your email address click on the Newsgator button on the left-hand sidebar or simply post the following text into your RSS browser: http://www.poisonpixie.com/chanceryblogfeed.xml
Not yet read DANNY? You can check it out now at Poison Pixie where you can read a BIG extract for Free! Or grab a copy on Amazon here.
You can also see me in person on my YouTube site (as well as DANNY's various trailers and ads)here or you can see the same material on the Poison Pixie film site where you can also hear our Mr Scratchmann read his delightful comic verse in his podcasts. Don't say we don't spoil you.
Lastly, there is an independent Live Journal DANNY Discussion Board run by fans, C Stone's DANNY where anyone is welcome to go along and chat about the book till their heart's content.
21:55 Posted in Books | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
Thursday, 01 March 2007
PLR Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
News.
I got PLR!
Forgive my self-indulgence and the unprecedented use of an exclamation mark but, hey, I got PLR! (Can't get tired of saying that.)
I was still under the duvet on a horrible grey, wet Tuesday morning when Mr Scratchmann announced, "Hey, one of us got PLR."
What? says I, waking up with an alacrity also rarely precedented in my life.
And there it was, slap-bang in the middle of my bank statement – one credit, in pounds sterling, of PLR.
PLR - for those of you not initiated into the sad lives of authors, or who live in different climes - simply means Public Lending Right(s). This is the payment you get when someone borrows your book from a library. It's a pittance, pennies, but getting into libraries at all is a feat, to then get someone to read your book, without publicity, as an 'unnamed' author is just dinky.
To make it even harder to earn PLR, only certain nominated libraries are counted so… if you don't have your book in those libraries, no PLR.
Now I have four copies of DANNY in Orkney libraries, which is a lot. Two are in Kirkwall, one in Stromness (the only two 'towns' in Orkney) and one on the mobile library. During the first year and a half of DANNY V1's life all four books in Orkney were on permanent loan. Never once sat on a shelf, waiting lists and all. However, no PLR, as Orkney does not have a designated library.
We don't know for sure where my PLR came from but we know Cumbrian libraries bought 3 – 5 copies so we're assuming it's there. We were able to work it back that the book/s were borrowed, in whatever library it was, approximately 54 times in the last year, so we're guessing it's two copies in one library, unless they are very fast readers.
Either way I don't give a fuck. I am endlessly thrilled that out there somewhere there is a small fan base borrowing my book from their local library.
I decided to spend the money on something memorable so I bought what is now called My PLR Earrings from a designer shop in town. Okay, I had to put money towards them but I don't care – I got PLR!
Other news.
You will see new links down at the bottom of the page. One to enable those of you who want to subscribe to this blog to use an RSS reader, such as Newsgator, and the other to my Youtube site. There's nothing new on it as yet (all the old stuff is there), but the Poison Pixie office now also has broadband so more films and vlogs (video blogs) are in the pipeline.
That's about it, I think.
A quarter of the way through the more creative third full-length edit of V2, where I get to rewrite lines, paragraphs, scenes, the whole book. Finally the little bastard is beginning to shape up and I've discovered useful stuff like a plot, motivation, subtext, underlying conflicts and even some very interesting supernatural elements.
Yes, I am taking on board criticisms of DANNY V1 and have decided to develop the storyline between Danny and Conley, making Conley a vampire (on account of the clothes) and Danny a succubus (a vampire without the teeth and less clothes).
I'm going to try and work some Chihuahuas and some more interior design into the book, and perhaps introduce a replacement mentor character for Henderson who could teach Danny what it means to be truly gay while staying close to his farming roots.
Stephen is being developed to make him more gay-friendly and thus introduce some polemics into the text. And I've been inspired by Brokeback Mountain to get some big words in, like ecumenical and ersatz and diphoricadulous. I hope that this will put DANNY in the running for the Orange prize, if not the Booker, while at the same time increasing its exposure in the more literary review magazines.
I'm also going to encourage fan fiction. I think I was wrong to discourage it. Not only that, but I think that I had altogether the wrong approach to my critics when I first started out and subsequently misplaced my (and their) energies.
Locked for the last month or so into editing, not really doing blogs, and no publicity work at all (have you seen how low my sales position is on Amazon? Jesus Christ, need to get that web site up and running…) has given me time to really think about the World Domination Masterplan. (Do you realise that's Weapons of Mass Destruction if you finagle it a bit?)
The Shock and Awe approach to marketing, we're calling it. Not inspired by Mr Bush or his generals, I'm afraid, but by The O.C.
Yes, watched both series of Lost on DVD, loved 'em, but had to look for something new. Tried Alias but found it too same-o, same-o, uninspiring TV, but The O.C. has kind of grown on me.
Into the second series now and, apart from wanting to kill Marissa and teach Ryan a new facial expression to add to his repertoire of one, I really enjoy them. I particularly enjoy the dialogue – hence the Shock and Awe label. It was used while referring to Julie Cooper and Caleb's up-and-coming nuptials as "The Shock and Awe approach to matrimony". Ah, how I laughed.
But yes, need more hater wisdom in my campaign. I need to cultivate idiots. They have big mouths and gargantuan egos plus they like to write – a lot. Probably too much, if the truth be told, but what the hell, it's their dollar and they can do what they like with it.
I'm visualing really bad fan fiction of DANNY , chronic parodies, gutter criticism, hate campaigns. Embrace the demon you know! Ah… (sighs wistfully) my first lot of haters were right. I had a lot to be grateful for.
Actually, I did have two parodies running at one time. I kind of miss them. I never really wanted rid of them, but unfortunately I lost them as a side effect of having to close down a bastardised version of 'fan' fiction that sprung up, which the perpetrators imaginatively entitled The Danny Project. (With that level of inspiration one can only flinch at the possiblities.)
Yep, I really miss those guys. (The parodies, I mean, not the 'fan' fiction.) They were dull, repetitive and lazy but they were kind of sweet.
Hey, another idea for The Shock and Awe - I never thought of that. Anyone want to start a new parody? Knock yourself out. I promise not to shut you down.
Unless it's really bad, of course. Or says something that really hurts my feelings.
That's always the problem. Not my feelings, they're concrete. No, I'm talking about the couple of Bad Apples that always spoil it for the rest of the class. Look at the recent lot of trolls. I didn't even know they existed. And even when I did I was quite content to let them potter away forever, untrammelled by authoritarian interference. But could they leave it alone? Nope.
Still, I'm a reformed character now. I've gone commercial, chasing the almighty dollar. It's official: I now love all 'fans'. I'm even rewriting DANNY V2 to make it 'fan'-friendly (I'm thinking a wizard or two, maybe a girl slayer and a manga cover) and I'm going to have a much more open attitude to 'fan' input. I reckon that ought to win me some votes. What d'you think?
Actually, I reckon I could do Danny as a doe-eyed boylette no bother. That bloody scar he acquired at the end of V1 will have to go, unless that's got anime potential? He could scream more so that even when he's ordering food he sounds like he's starting World War III. He could have special powers and sit around having meaningful discussions with his friends who would be called Ariel and Ravenswood and Diphloria.
They could tackle The Forces of Darkness, which sounds like a S.W.A.T. team to me, but who am I to judge?
Maybe I shouldn't be doing this? Maybe if I'm going to embrace the 'fan' thing I should do it properly and actually post each chapter of DANNY V2 up here and ask for input.
This seems to be a very popular way of doing things in fandom. Writing by committee, as it were. I suppose the idea is you never take a misstep because everyone has pointed out your mistakes as you go along. Or is it to keep them writing?
They seem to run out of steam very easily. Ideas too. Or at least ideas for where to take their ideas, if you follow me. As DANNY V2 is already written we can't really write it by group consensus but we could edit it by consensus.
That might save me a hell of a lot of work. Actually, the idea is growing on me. Some notions for starters:-
Don't write a new Henderson, just bring back the old one. Special powers of rejuvenation.
I like where this is going.
And John could have a magic potion which made him nicer. Hey we could call it The Niceness Potion. Sometimes the obvious route is the way to go. And Ariel, Ravenswood and the one with the unpronounceable name could be… members of a reading group, say. That would let them talk around a table, in libraries, literary places like that, where they could exercise their dry wit. Dry wit is good. I like dry wit. That makes it A.O.R., as it were, which helps rope in all those twenty-seven to forty year olds reading, and writing, kids books.
They call it Fantasy. It's a genre, like anime and manga, that they stole from kids, but they had to give it a new name so they could pretend it was grown-up and not feel bad about themselves. Unfortunately Fantasy just makes me think of porn.
Speaking of which, the sex in DANNY (all four volumes) is a problem. I'm in two minds about this. (But I'm open to suggestions. This is the new me, remember.)
One – we can cut it, just nix it.
Two – we can fluffy-bunny it.
Now this isn't such a bad option. One of the things about our 27 – 40 year old fan base is they have adult genitals (mostly) and they find fumbling with them more rewarding if their fantasies (see? I told you) can be more fleshed out, as it were.
Boy-smut. That's what they call it, and that's what we can do. I seem to recall one of my past haters referred to DANNY as "Mary-Sue masturbation fantasy/ies". No idea what they are, not DANNY I imagine, but I'll bet we could replicate that as an idea.
Sweet - even saccharine, saccharine's good – tender, loving, sugary, limpid, cuddly, even more tender, coochy, feathery, smoochy, kissy, creamy, vanilla, puddingy, Ann Summersy, neon-glo coloured, rosy, pink, luscious play-sex. And lots of it. That's what we want.
Well, what they want. And what they want is what we want. Yay!
Yes, DANNY V2 is on its way – the all new, all singing, all dancing, 'fan' and gay-friendly HAPPY version.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
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