Is it drafty in here, or is just me?

Ernest Hemmingway once (in a letter containing several other gems of advice to an aspiring writer) said "The first draft of anything is shit".

(Although I bet as he typed/wrote that he had his fingers crossed, knowing only too well that his shopping list for that morning would have probably won him a couple of Pulitzer fiction prizes)

The first draft of Recreant is now complete.  90,291 words (some of them really short ones) across 256 pages over 166 days of writing.  And Ernie Baby (as I'm sure he wouldn't mind me calling him, especially as he's quite dead) was fucking spot on.

Cue the internal struggles;

"That epic prologue that you wrote and were really happy with? That flash-forward that set the universe and the main characters up so perfectly? It's no longer appropriate because the plot ended up meandering off in another direction, meaning you've written a flash-forward that can never happen."

"Perhaps you could fuck about with it and make it a dream sequence? No! Bad David! Lazy, lazy, lazy! It's going to have to go." (Selects all text in Prologue and looks sorrowfully at the word count before hitting delete. That's 1,865 words gone).

"Okay, that hurt. But it was necessary. The rest reads okay though, right?"

"Well......"

"Shit. You've added a load of unnecessary backstory for a character who turns out, in the end, to be pretty unimportant."

"But that character history is good stuff.  I can just use it for somebody else though, right? Ah. No."

"Why are those characters suddenly the best of friends? You never even had them meet. In fact they can't possibly have met."

"You were so concerned about having too many male characters that you've just lazily changed one to a female and haven't changed the story accordingly."

"That character is awesome - I mean, really good. But then you just forget completely about them."

"The build-up to that final epic battle is really good, but you really need to learn some more words to represent explosions."

"That ending is really rushed. For some reason, you were really desperate to get that first draft done, weren't you?  And now look where we are. Working on a draft with a rushed ending."

"And you're writing a blog post when you should really be working on that second draft."

Oops.

Still, at least I can count the words in this blog post and put it into my word count for the day.  Now that's progress.

You put the Fun in Funeral

Image courtesy of Bizarro Comics

On the morning of your funeral,
it felt odd to dress in black.
The mood was celebratory –
You weren’t ever coming back.

"It's nice to see so many here,"
the chirpy vicar said.
Little did she know that we were there
to make sure you were dead.

I look round at all the faces there,
at your only legacy.
The hurt, betrayed, the cheated -
All combinations of those three.

Your family stand there all serene
and eulogize some lies
about a warm honourable soul -
It’s nobody we recognise.

My florist, she refused to make
a wreath out of nightshade
so in the end Forget-me-nots
were at your graveside laid.

You would have seen the irony
had you had any sense.
We'd love to forget all about you
and all you represent.

The only tears we shed that day
were strictly crocodilian,
All hoping it was true what the eulogy said, that
you were one in a million.

I wish you were a zombie,
so you could die again.
Although it'd be a tricky shot,
to shoot you in the brain.

If only you'd been cremated,
we could have robbed the Urn.
We'd queue to piss into it -

Everyone could have a turn.

The worlds a better place with you gone,
your loss feels like a win.
Whenever you left a party,
It was like someone nice walked in.

The grievers leave now, still aggrieved,
all thinking what no-one said.
"You were a cunt when you were living,
you're still a cunt - just dead."

David Court, January 2017

That was the year that was (the year that was)

Greetings one and all! Here's hoping that you had an excellent Christmas, and that the new year to come is happy, healthy and productive for us all.

It'd be way to easy to sum up the year we've had, exactly how I put it on Facebook...

But, to honest, although it doesn't seem that way, there's been a little more to it than that. On a writing note, it's been a good year - not quite as busy as 2015, but good nonetheless. A few more short stories have seen the light of day, namely:

"Saviour Machine", my story from this very blog, appeared in "47-16: Inspired by David Bowie" from Penny Dreadful Publications,  "Blasphemous Tumours", the everyday tale of the unlikely friendship between a man and his sentient cancer, appeared in "Unleashing the Voices Within" from Stitched Smile Publications and  "The Digit That Was Death", a comedy horror tale about a most unusual possession, appeared in the third volume of "Strangely Funny" from Mystery and Horror, LLC.  A couple of my stories also appeared on various online story websites.

September also saw the first Big Comfy Bookshop Literature festival, in which I was lucky enough to be a part of. More details can be found here.

"Scenes of Mild Peril" is still being worked on, but the new novel "Recreant" (or rather Book One of it) is now very nearly complete, is due for release next year and is available to read in serialised first draft format over on Wattpad - click the link here to read it.

Probably one of the best things to happen in the year is getting more involved with the lovely people at Stitched Smile - They're a great bunch, and I hope to be working with them and releasing things through them for the foreseeable future.

On a final note, if you've any Christmas spirit left, the regular Christmas Show that my wife and I do for Coventry Hospital radio is available for your listening pleasure by clicking here.

Happy New Year, and catch you in 2017!

Paris, November 2015.

This post is a bit of a diversion from the usual (although I will mention that I've just put the finishing touches to a new short story "Macrocosm, Microcosm, Macrocosm, Microcosm, let's call the whole thing off").

One year ago today, Tara and I were in Paris. We were on the second leg of our holiday which had seen us in Amsterdam earlier in the week, and we were about to spend a day at Disneyland Paris.  We'd been there before for our honeymoon, so it seemed rude not to pay a visit to Mickey and his friends whilst we were in the area.

After an exhausting day of rollercoasters and junk food, we decided to get off a few stops before our hotel and find somewhere for a drink. A short distance away from the Republica Metro Station, we stumbled into Flann O' Brien's Irish Bar (you can take the girl out of Ireland, etc.).

Having been out of the house all day, our phones had run completely out of charge - especially with the sheer number of photographs we'd taken. We got given free bags of Tayto crisps by the landlord solely thanks to Tara's Irish Heritage ,had a few pints and watched the football.

The whole night is described far better than I could manage in my wife's blog. To cut a long story short, this was the evening of the Paris attacks. The evening when three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade De France, when hundreds of people were killed or injured at the Eagles of Death Metal gig at the Bataclan, and when there were mass shootings and a suicide bomb at cafés and restaurants in the area we'd been in.

We found out what was going on at a bar nearer the hotel. The streets were chaos, sirens blaring and nobody sure what was going on. We got back to our room as soon as the news started breaking, stuck our phones on charge and switched them on.

At my most miserable, whenever I'm feeling low or useless or unwanted - something we all experience from time to time - I remember that night. Literally hundreds of SMS and Facebook messages and missed phone calls, all from friends - some of whom I haven't really spoken to for years - checking that we were okay. Friends had rung the pub we were at, just to check that we were fine. We were lucky, many weren't.

Not really writing related, but something that is pertinent on today of all days. I'd never felt as loved. And you, in turn, are loved back. Thanks x

Tales to Terrify - 83

I'm pleased beyond words to let you know that my story "83" is featured in the 250th edition of the Tales to Terrify Podcast.

"83" is one of the stories from "Scenes of Mild Peril", my next anthology of short stories. It's a particular favourite of mine, and is definitely not one for the squeamish (or, for that matter, anybody having a job interview in the immediate future). Listen to it by clicking here. Enjoy!

Tales to Terrify is a Hugo nominated weekly horror podcast that's been going since January 2012. Some notable authors featured on it include Christoper Fowler, Steven King, Joe R Lansdale, Stephen Volk and Kim Newman.

If you've found your way through to here via Tales to Terrify and you like what you've heard, why not follow me on Facebook and Twitter? Cheers!

Forever and Ever, Armageddon - buy it here!

I have a handful of copies of "Forever and Ever, Armageddon" left over from my panel at The Big Comfy Literature festival.  It's usually £4.99 but for a limited period only I'll only charge £4.50 for a signed copy (which will include UK postage - for anywhere outside the UK, drop me an email).

Pop me £4.50 via this handy paypal link and in the notes mention who you'd like it made out to - if anybody at all - and I'll do the rest!

In the words of Marvin Gaye, "What's going on?"*

To start with, I had a brilliant last week at the Big Comfy Literature Festival last weekend in which I shared a local author panel with the talented (and infinitely more presentable) authors Elizabeth Earle and Kelly Hadley-Price. This was great fun, made even more pleasant thanks to cake and Prosecco (thanks, Elizabeth!).  I caught a number of other events there - the highlights being a talk by Kate Riordan and a performance of "Not tiggerdy Boo tonight", a play written by fellow Coventry Writer Group author Margaret Egrot.  Another highlight was an absolutely fascinating talk about the history of the Memorial park by local historian and writer Trevor Harkin.  Thanks to Michael from the Big Comfy Bookshop for both organising it and for having me!

Local Author Panel - Elizabeth, Kelly, Muggins.

"Did I accidentally leave a fork in the knife drawer? Bother."

I'm a mere couple of thousand words away from finishing Recreant, but after a (blessed) long absence the Black Dog is back with an absolute vengeance this week so my get-up-and-go has got-up-and-gone. Normal service will hopefully soon be resumed!

Not this black dog.

So, you'll hopefully forgive me a bit of self indulgence. I received my copy of 47-16 (or to give it the fancy highfalutin full title 47-16: Short Fiction and Poetry Inspired by David Bowie) this week. My story "Saviour Machine" is the opening story. The tireless editor Chris Thompson has put together a beautiful piece of work that I'm very proud to be a part of, an eclectic mix of styles and authors - and a very worthy tribute to the great man.

Now comes the self-indulgent bit... It was only when I was putting it on the bookshelf when I realised quite how far I've come in just a few short years. From my first submitted short story "The Shadow Cast by the World" being accepted for the first volume of Fear's Accomplice, I've built up quite a reasonable body of work - and it's hopefully only the start..!  And there are more coming up that aren't even in the photo below.

Books of all shapes and sizes - look at 'em!

So, thanks for sticking with me and buying and reading my stuff. And if you're extra-special reviewing it as well. Hopefully you'll enjoy Recreant - when I've finally finished the bloody thing.  Sooner rather than later, hopefully!

Next time :)

                                                                                                                                                  

* Released by Marvin Gaye in 1971, the year I was born. Coincidence? Yeah. Yeah it is.