The Word Cloud

My new, as yet unnamed crime thriller, based on the Thai island of Samui, needs a catchy title that reflects crime, a mystery, and an exotic location.

Background. Steve, my 50 year-old, unattached MC, finds out that his once college roommate, Jimmy Mack, was found drowned under suspicious circumstances. Apparently it had something to do with Jimmy's cheating girlfriend, who is later washed up on Lamai beach. 

Soo, a lovely Thai freelance investigator, is roped in to help Steve find out what happened - a romantic friendship ensues - but then they realise there is a stalker watching them...
... a stranger who has his own agenda.

Any better ideas than my title...?

P.S. There will be sequel, like my Hawaii High series. 

P.P. S. As a thank-you, a complimentary PDF copy of the novella (when it's finished) will be offered to all contributors...

    So there I was, watching TV and nomming a bacon and egg sarnie, when suddenly a spider the size of a light armoured reconnaissance vehicle contemptuously flung the sofa aside and came galloping across the room towards me, gnashing its huge teefs and wiv smoke and sparks coming out of its fierce nostrils. I think it was probly a cross between a tarantula and a velociraptor or something.
    But I didn't panic! I carefully choked on my sarnie and, hardly pooing myself much at all, ran screaming from the room. I grabbed a can of anti-ickysnarly spray from the kitchen and burst back into the living room, dispensing CBW in a toxic cloud which disoriented the beast long enough for me to beat it to death with a guitar stand.
    I was quite pleased with my heroical triumphantness, until I went to finish my sarnie which now tasted of fly spray, hissboo.
    Hate spiders.

Im a bit worried about posting my work on here. So for now I shall wait and 'observe'. I hope you all don't mind?

Hi folks...just a quickie!

I am in the process of writing a crime thriller...a very new genre for me.  My MC is going to be a Private Detective.  Some of the comments I have recived so far have hinted that the MC is nothing really different to the norm, apart from the fact that he is part Scottish and part Norwegian and called Harald Mcallan (wonder where I got that name!)

So....I had an idea.  What if he was was gay?  Not camp gay, but a regular gay man.  Would this be a problem do you think?
Do folks prefer their PI's to be straight and tough?  This guy can be tough too, and I have hinted he is a bit of a hunk!
What do folks think?
Cheers
Mac

I am the kind of person that ensures domestic harmony by the reasonably regular supply of consumer goods. Sad, but true. I am also the kind of bloke who bothers about the technical spec of any gadget that enters my hallowed ground. I don’t think this to be sad, but accept that others might.

It came about that I was recently purchasing a few months of peace, otherwise known as a netbook. I am not a fan of these cut down machines and pondered long and hard over the right one, comparing benchmarks, facilities, disk size etc.

Today I delivered the product of my researches, to be told that the lid was a nice colour.

Oh well.

Following on from SecretSpi's "Elephant in the Room" blog about phrases we hate, I thought it might be fun to make up our own new ones to replace the old chiches. They could be a reworking of an existing saw or they could be completely 'outside the box'. Here are a few to get us started.

Deciding between destinations: 'Far off fields take longer to reach'

Urging caution: 'A watched kettle never boils over'

Suggesting someone's getting above their station: 'The pot calling the kettle by name'

A lay-line metaphor: 'Getting all your steeples in a row'

 ... the possibilities are endless - 'The well never runs away'.

Can you think of some more?

Ok. The following blog needs some warnings;

Don’t read it if you are of a delicate disposition, if you are eating or if you are a prude or if you are eating a prude. Wait... no... that’s not right... Anyway perhaps not a prude but maybe someone who thinks self-gratification is not for “water-cooler” moments. I do use bad language and the context is of a sexual nature. Read between the lines there.

So if you are, say, under... oh, I don’t know... 30?... You should not read it. If you are a male over 70 you must not read it as there is a good chance you’ll get ideas and put your back out. The only people I would suggest it is recommended reading for are weak, lonely, easily influenced males with a high susceptibility to subliminal messaging even when the message is blatant and not subliminal. These people should post their names in the comments section and I will duly keep an eye out for them in the tabloids over the weekend.

 

*** (Line break to signify “last chance to change your mind”) ***

 

Sooo... how can I put this? Right. Well... So I was in the loo at work the other day where they had just installed a new hand dryer. One of those Dyson Airblades. And I’m thinking to myself... that’s quite a powerful blow it has on it... and... were I to stand on tip-toes... maybe... just maybe...

There is, however, a slight technical issue. See, at first blow the Dyson Airblade begins quite cool. Cold in fact and could quite easily dampen one’s ardour. So a person (person/pervert tom-ai-to/tom-ah-to) would have to start the machine going for a while. And then... well... to be honest the thing gets bloody hot bloody quickly and at the risk of toasting John Thomas it would have to be over well within the British standard (2 minutes 35 seconds. On average. According to an online poll of London prostitutes. As opposed to the 355 minutes 2 seconds of an offshore Pole called Wassili Czecnizski, although I think he was just boasting. Or I made him up. Like I made up the online poll...) otherwise A&E would be a fascinating place to be. If you were anyone but the person that tried to get his jollies from a Dyson Airblade.

Of course, having had this train of thought you can probably see how awkward it was, once I’d washed my hands, to use the bloody thing. I nearly had a panic attack about the noise it was making and the thought that people outside would be counting the seconds it was going; one, two, warming up – ok, three, four, drying hands – ok, five, six, being thorough – okay, seven, eight, what the hell is he doing in there?, nine, ten, oh my god this is disgusting, eleven, twelve, oh, I can  ever look him in the eye again...

Later I checked online and the Airblade is only £600 and I figured... with a little bit of adaptation... I reckon I could start a new business. Adaptation would be along the lines of less of a “heating” element and more of a “warming” element and perhaps a deeper trough for those who are well endowed. Well... maybe they (“those-who-are-well-endowed” should never be spoken aloud in the presence of men lest their very souls wither and die or you want to send them whimpering back to the fourteenth level of hell where their arms are tied behind their backs and the only way to get sustenance is to touch a button that is six and a half inches down a tube) wouldn’t perhaps need the assistance of a plastic fantastic fan dance. So fuck ‘em, no, the trough stays as is.

So I’m thinking Spearmint Rhino will want at least half a dozen units per club. So that’s... er at least six then. I may need to do a bit more market research here.

One thing I am sure of; I can’t see me selling any units to Tesco’s...

 

*** (Line break for the cessation of open-mouthed staring) ***

 

Told you not to read it.

Ez

Yesterday I put up one of my little nonsense ditties and many thanks for the kind things that folk said about it. I do like to write nonsense verse but I don’t particularly work at it. Every once in a while one just worms its way into my head. For example:

As the train rattles south, taking me home,

And the sun settles low in the west,

In the glass of the shelf that’s over my head,

I can see down that young lady’s chest.

is one that just wandered into my head one day. It’s important to write these things down before you lose them.

True genius of both pathos and comedy is found in the great Spike Milligan. He was without doubt unique. He wrote and performed such wonderful material. I don’t feel he is nearly sufficiently honoured and remembered for his work. His war books are still worth reading today. On the subject of nonsense, please allow a couple of examples from his work:

Just hugely funny and expressed with such economy:-

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I'll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?

And perhaps a little closer to my own mood today:-

Go away girl, go away
and let me pack my dreams
Now where did I put those yesteryears
made up with broken seams
Where shall I sweep the pieces
my God they still look new
There's a taxi waiting at the door
but there's only room for you

Here’s to Spike. Cheers

Higher education – the debate continues

In my previous blog, Who Needs a University Education? Who Wants it?, which can be found here:

http://writing-community.writersworkshop.co.uk/members/profile/104/blog-view/3796

I concluded that successive government policies, through (1) creating one-size-fits-all ‘universities’ out of existing universities, polytechnics and colleges, (2) adjusting the methods of attaining entry qualifications and thereby vastly increasing the number of eligible students, and (3) introducing student loans instead of grants to finance all this huge growth and then increasing the fees to £9000 – have virtually priced themselves out of the market. The question has to be asked, are they no longer giving value for money? Is it worth it?

This stimulated considerable comment broadly in agreement, although it was pleasing to learn of some others’ experience of the ‘new’ system which had worked out well for them. Certainly some of the polytechnics have managed the transition to university status and served their new student intake well. But at a cost? It seems there is definitely now a gap in the provision of honest-to-goodness practical training in basic skills and thousands of school leavers are being forced through the ‘academic’ sausage machine, not against their wills, necessarily, but against their best interests, because the alternatives no longer exist to the extent that they used to.

The resultant glut of ‘graduates’ on the job market has (1) made it difficult for employers to differentiate between job applicants and (2) reduced the number of job opportunities per ‘graduate’.  At the same time new students are now facing starting their careers with a potential debt of around £30,000.

The previous blog outlined the steps that got us to this point. It’s now apposite to consider what may well be the next steps.

We have already seem employers starting to favour applicants with work experience over the purely academically qualified. This latest hike in fees has caused potential students seriously to reconsider their options. For these reasons, we are very likely to see student numbers starting to decline. So even with the higher fees not all universities are going to be able to make ends meet. We’ve heard, as commented on the other blog, that some converted polys have already had to close. This trend is likely to continue, but because of the unnatural uniformity that has been forced on these places of higher education it will not always be the new that will founder. We could see some long-standing and excellent universities going under through lack of students and hence, fees to keep them going.

Might we eventually end up, not just back to the number of universities we had before the polytechnics were promoted, but with rather less, some of the good ones having gone under in the battle for the reduced numbers of undergraduates who can still afford the fees? Back to where we were in the 19th century when only the rich went to a (comparatively) few universities.

And the inevitable result of fewer and smaller universities? Fewer academics, less research, fewer brilliant minds trained and let loose to invent and innovate, to make great discoveries – in medicine, in food research, energy research, environmental research. This will be a poorer place, and not just fiscally.

My last blog ended by implying that for many it no longer made sense to go to university. I am now saying that something must be done to change that scenario. The trend outlined in the previous blog cannot be allowed to continue as I’ve suggested here that it may well do. Our universities must be retained, strong and viable, to stand alongside industry and commerce to maintain, or some might say, regain our position as a world leader - to keep the country viable for future generations of school-leavers to have genuine practical and appropriate choices about the next stage of their lives and continue the process.

Well, it was 'no' from the agent. And this time it's a real, definite, don't-send-the-MS-to-me-again kind of 'no'.

For a bit of background, the agent originally read the MS (in a very different guise) way back in 2007. She liked it but pointed me towards a major rewrite which I did whilst figuring out the life-changing-hit-by-a-bus experience of having our first son.

Fast-forward through dirty nappies, sleepless nights and lots and lots of rewriting to early 2009 and this time she really liked the MS but again pointed me towards a rewrite which started out quite minor and became rather major, including the execution of a protaganist and a two-year wrangle with Chapter 1.

Fast-forward again through a family crisis, writer's block, four months of morning sickness (yup, son number 2 coincided with rewrite number 2 - not trying to create a pattern here, honest!), York Festival 2010 (yay!), more dirty nappies, more sleepless nights, a lovely, long, creative maternity leave, a bit of Emma and Debi and some invaluable collaborative editing with fellow Cloudie, John and I really thought that this time, I'd got it right.

And it does appear that I've not got it wrong just not right enough. The main problem for the agent is that she doesn't get the link between my past and present plots - I'm too gutted tonight to know whether or not I agree with her. I've invested 5 years of rewrites in the hope of persuading her to represent me and it feels like I have nothing to show for it.

Though I know that's not really true. The MS I have now is vastly superior to the one she read in 2007 and I have learned a huge amount about writing along the way. And while I lick my wounds, she did finish off with a very positive comment:

"You do have a lovely style though - loads and loads of potential so I'd love you to keep in touch. Any other ideas brewing?"

I do, as it happens, but with two small children in the household, it may be a while yet before the ideas become anything close to an MS.

So, don't mind me if I wibble nonsensically in the corner for most of the weekend. I'm not giving up. It'll be back to business on Monday.