Once again I've taken matters into my own hands and gone via Kindle Direct Publishing to publish my horror novel Dark Eve. It's £2.17 in the UK and $3.50 in the US. You can find it here: Dark Eve
After my disastrous foray into Lulu, I'm hoping that the more reasonable price-point for this novel will encourage more people to buy it.
Will
Monday, 29 October 2012
Monday, 1 October 2012
Stuff's happening.
My blogging has slowed down even more of late, as you three people who read it may notice.
This is because I've been doing stuff for The Gamer's Challenge at the moment. It's taking a bit of my time. I will be back with more nonsense, though. Will
This is because I've been doing stuff for The Gamer's Challenge at the moment. It's taking a bit of my time. I will be back with more nonsense, though. Will
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Swirly-whirly.
Oh shit, look out. They're moving around – reshuffling as they like to call it. Another chapter in the current cycle of Torygeddon started up again this week with MPs coming back from the summer recess and David Cameron shouting, "Change places!" showing, again that his medication isn't at all up to snuff.
The reshuffle itself is pretty much inconsequential, we've still got the same collection of dead-eyed mutant entitled arse shavings that we had before MPs were moved into different seats. Yes, some of the people put in place will allow the PM to do what he wants that little bit more easily. Like, for example, strapping on his Edward Scissorhands gloves and flailing at the NHS and the welfare state, because poor people shouldn't be allowed the security and health that he's never had to worry about. The two institutions are, in England at least*, already bloody and torn messes. That's okay because, idealogue ole Davey-wavey-scumbag doesn't see anything wrong with damaging the people who actually do the grunt work in the country.
Gideon Osborne still resides on his throne as Chancellor of the Exchequer, replete with giant butt plug, sans lube, to make sure he maintains the look of a man who's thirty seconds away from shitting himself with glee or dismissing peasants to go and work in the mines. He doesn't care what mines, any mines, arsenic mines that have been closed for decades, just as long as their in mines, that's where the poor (read non-millionaires) belong.
It amused me to hear about Osborne being booed at the Paralympics the other day. Look at that gommy motherfucker, he doesn't even have the decency to look ashamed of himself for the mess he and the rest of the government have left people with disabilities in. The man's clearly had some kind of shame bypass, which isn't a huge shock, how else can you account for him going out of the house with a face like that for all these years.
Cameron's not even pretending the Lib Dems have got any kind of sway any more. He's just moved more Tory ghouls from one place to another. Lots of nasty pieces of work like Jeremy Hunt as health secretary, who was under investigation for his handling of News Corp's dodgy bid to buy BSkyB and is known to be against the NHS, stem cell research and anti-abortion. Wonder what he'll be doing then. Whatever it is, I bet it won't involve any lube and will end up with lots of people with worse or no health care.
Then there's this cunt, Chris Grayling who cheated the system for £127,000 of expenses and has now been put in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions. Just the person to look after the benefits of the most vulnerable in our society. Let me reiterate that for those who nodded off: another very rich man who will happily fuck the system to get even more money and will shit on people will virtually nothing, from a great height. I think that sums it up nicely.
And let's not forget the nice, tolerant Maria Miller, who's been made minister of equality. A woman who's so into her equality that she's voted against gay rights issues on numerous occasions. She's minister for EQUALITY. Do we see a problem here? David Cameron clearly doesn't as he's happy to have this intolerant dolt in the position. He might as well just set the Catholic church up in an equality council.
That's only a small selection of the horrible bastards the Prime Minister has put in place to screw the country over that little bit more. And old Nick Clegg and the rest of his party look on with happy grins, letting all this happen. Thanks, Nick you spineless scrap of junk sperm.
So here we are, in the early part of the twenty-first century, governed by a regressive bunch of over privileged shits** pulling bits from the country's infrastructure like the highest-stakes game of Jenga in the world. Fucking cunts.
* I will reiterate that I'm Scottish, but it doesn't mean I'm happy about this shit going down.
** Or partially in my case. Scotland's devolved government gives us a buffer against the fuckers.
Will
The reshuffle itself is pretty much inconsequential, we've still got the same collection of dead-eyed mutant entitled arse shavings that we had before MPs were moved into different seats. Yes, some of the people put in place will allow the PM to do what he wants that little bit more easily. Like, for example, strapping on his Edward Scissorhands gloves and flailing at the NHS and the welfare state, because poor people shouldn't be allowed the security and health that he's never had to worry about. The two institutions are, in England at least*, already bloody and torn messes. That's okay because, idealogue ole Davey-wavey-scumbag doesn't see anything wrong with damaging the people who actually do the grunt work in the country.
Gideon Osborne still resides on his throne as Chancellor of the Exchequer, replete with giant butt plug, sans lube, to make sure he maintains the look of a man who's thirty seconds away from shitting himself with glee or dismissing peasants to go and work in the mines. He doesn't care what mines, any mines, arsenic mines that have been closed for decades, just as long as their in mines, that's where the poor (read non-millionaires) belong.
It amused me to hear about Osborne being booed at the Paralympics the other day. Look at that gommy motherfucker, he doesn't even have the decency to look ashamed of himself for the mess he and the rest of the government have left people with disabilities in. The man's clearly had some kind of shame bypass, which isn't a huge shock, how else can you account for him going out of the house with a face like that for all these years.
Cameron's not even pretending the Lib Dems have got any kind of sway any more. He's just moved more Tory ghouls from one place to another. Lots of nasty pieces of work like Jeremy Hunt as health secretary, who was under investigation for his handling of News Corp's dodgy bid to buy BSkyB and is known to be against the NHS, stem cell research and anti-abortion. Wonder what he'll be doing then. Whatever it is, I bet it won't involve any lube and will end up with lots of people with worse or no health care.
Then there's this cunt, Chris Grayling who cheated the system for £127,000 of expenses and has now been put in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions. Just the person to look after the benefits of the most vulnerable in our society. Let me reiterate that for those who nodded off: another very rich man who will happily fuck the system to get even more money and will shit on people will virtually nothing, from a great height. I think that sums it up nicely.
And let's not forget the nice, tolerant Maria Miller, who's been made minister of equality. A woman who's so into her equality that she's voted against gay rights issues on numerous occasions. She's minister for EQUALITY. Do we see a problem here? David Cameron clearly doesn't as he's happy to have this intolerant dolt in the position. He might as well just set the Catholic church up in an equality council.
That's only a small selection of the horrible bastards the Prime Minister has put in place to screw the country over that little bit more. And old Nick Clegg and the rest of his party look on with happy grins, letting all this happen. Thanks, Nick you spineless scrap of junk sperm.
So here we are, in the early part of the twenty-first century, governed by a regressive bunch of over privileged shits** pulling bits from the country's infrastructure like the highest-stakes game of Jenga in the world. Fucking cunts.
* I will reiterate that I'm Scottish, but it doesn't mean I'm happy about this shit going down.
** Or partially in my case. Scotland's devolved government gives us a buffer against the fuckers.
Will
Monday, 27 August 2012
Riffling some brain folds.
On the off chance it's escaped your attention, I like films. I like all kinds of films. Horror, action, comedy, fantasy, thrillers, dramas and on rare instances even a western. I have a curious relationship with the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Yes, that's a brave statement to make, I know, I'm a hero. You can sit down from your ovation now and let me speak so that you, too, may understand.
I'm also going to nonchalantly spoil the film here. In further addition I'm going to repeat some things that dozens of other people have gone over in the past, live with this, get through; I think you'll find it's worth it. If not the doors over there, you whiny cunt.
When I first saw the film, in my mid-teens, I thought it was a fantastic film about a teenager bucking the system and skipping school with his friends to live large in Chicago for one day. The ease with which he outsmarted anyone who dared get in his way (this wording is important) I found comedically and narratively satisfying. When it seems he's about to get busted by his jealous, uptight sister that satisfaction when she softens and realises he's not quite so bad after all (you, know after she hooked up with a grotty-looking drug dealer* in a police station) is a moment of dramatic tension that settles you in for the climax. I enjoyed the film, is what I'm getting at.
Now, fast forward the better part of twenty years. There I am, sitting in front of the television looking for something to watch and I stumble on the film in question. Now everything that I loved from my adolescent viewings is still there: the teen rebellion, the hapless determination of the teacher, the parking attendants fucking the trio over, the faint hope that one of Sloane's boobs will pop out in that hot tub bit. However something else started to edge its way into my adult brain, something that set the hackles of my grown up sensibilities quivering. I was still enjoying this film, but I couldn't shake the feeling of nebulous outrage that took me until the end of the film to pin down.
Ferris Bueller is a horribly entitled and over-privileged shitweed! The revelation was like being slapped in the face with the week old corpse of a dog. Almost everything he does in the film is hideously reprehensible in some way. The way he emotionally blackmails his best friend into going with him. Hacking the school's computer. He commits several kinds of fraud** including impersonating a police officer. Grand larceny and makes Sloane and poor, poor Cameron accessories. And he does it all with a cocksure smile on his face that says, "Yeah, man, I should be allowed to do this. Why should the law apply to me, I'm fucking awesome!" and lo, he gets away with every criminal act and every instance of horrendous psychological torture he inflicts on Cameron†.
My sense of outrage was only stoked further when I realised I still liked the fucking film! How can this be? My new viewing revealed to me that Ferris Bueller was a reprehensible slime ball who would happily destroy the lives of people around him as long as he got a laugh out of it. He's an avatar of the '80s yuppie culture and everything I hate about the modern world. I put it down to the charming storytelling of John Hughes (RIP) and the supporting cast of flawed and likeable characters. You know, with the obvious exception of Ferris Bueller and the need to tell us everyone likes him when there's really nothing redeeming about him.
As an aside, I was witness to one of the worst Freddie Mercury impersonators (or impersonator of any kind) ever this weekend. It got me wondering if the guy was taking some kind of bizarre revenge out on the late singer because of some kind of trauma. For some reason it got me thinking about this next bit.
In case no one's noticed, I consider myself something of a writer, these rambling, incoherent blog blabbings notwithstanding. I started thinking about Ferris Bueller's Day Off and what could be done with a sequel. I'd had the same thoughts for another John Hughes classic: Weird Science‡. I've even gone in a similar direction.
For this little bit of speculation, we begin with Ferris Bueller, twenty-six years later. He's been to college, got a degree and gone into the same line of work as his father (whatever that was – vague business man?), got married to Sloane, had a couple of kids, got divorced from Sloane and is now living with his girlfriend who is still in college and looks almost identical to Sloane. He's got a good life.
One day he comes back from work to find his teenage son waiting for him in the flat. Ferris's son, let's call him Tom after Ferris's father, is a lot like Ferris, in that he's confident, successful and has wanted for nothing in life. Ferris knows something's up and his suspicion is horribly realised when he finds the raped and strangled corpse of his wife on the floor. Tom says she reminded him of his mother.
Ferris begins to help his son dispose of the body, but as he goes about this he learns more and more about his son's secret life of sneaking around without Sloane's knowledge and murdering hobos, as well as possibly Ferris's parents and dealing drugs. Ferris realises Tom's even more of a sociopath than he ever was and has to make the decision whether to put an end to Tom's murderous ways or cover up for his son. Then he realises he'll go to jail too and decides to cover up the murder and help young Tom in the future. Cos he'll be fucked if he goes down for someone else's murder.
There you have it a Ferris Bueller sequel fitting for the character. I didn't say it was going to be comedy, did I?
* Bonus! Played by Charlie Sheen!
** Admittedly one of the instances of fraud is down to the mass gullibility of his school-age contemporaries in what must have been the worst school of all time, but it still all stems from him being a dicky wad of manipulative shit.
† I can't really count poor Sloane, because, while she shows every sign that she should be very intelligent, for most of the film she wanders around with an empty-eyed grin, passively going along with whatever Ferris suggests.
‡ This one actually stands up to my recent viewings, probably because it's fucking bonkers and the Ferris Bueller-type characters are the utter bastards they should be.
Will
I'm also going to nonchalantly spoil the film here. In further addition I'm going to repeat some things that dozens of other people have gone over in the past, live with this, get through; I think you'll find it's worth it. If not the doors over there, you whiny cunt.
When I first saw the film, in my mid-teens, I thought it was a fantastic film about a teenager bucking the system and skipping school with his friends to live large in Chicago for one day. The ease with which he outsmarted anyone who dared get in his way (this wording is important) I found comedically and narratively satisfying. When it seems he's about to get busted by his jealous, uptight sister that satisfaction when she softens and realises he's not quite so bad after all (you, know after she hooked up with a grotty-looking drug dealer* in a police station) is a moment of dramatic tension that settles you in for the climax. I enjoyed the film, is what I'm getting at.
Now, fast forward the better part of twenty years. There I am, sitting in front of the television looking for something to watch and I stumble on the film in question. Now everything that I loved from my adolescent viewings is still there: the teen rebellion, the hapless determination of the teacher, the parking attendants fucking the trio over, the faint hope that one of Sloane's boobs will pop out in that hot tub bit. However something else started to edge its way into my adult brain, something that set the hackles of my grown up sensibilities quivering. I was still enjoying this film, but I couldn't shake the feeling of nebulous outrage that took me until the end of the film to pin down.
Ferris Bueller is a horribly entitled and over-privileged shitweed! The revelation was like being slapped in the face with the week old corpse of a dog. Almost everything he does in the film is hideously reprehensible in some way. The way he emotionally blackmails his best friend into going with him. Hacking the school's computer. He commits several kinds of fraud** including impersonating a police officer. Grand larceny and makes Sloane and poor, poor Cameron accessories. And he does it all with a cocksure smile on his face that says, "Yeah, man, I should be allowed to do this. Why should the law apply to me, I'm fucking awesome!" and lo, he gets away with every criminal act and every instance of horrendous psychological torture he inflicts on Cameron†.
My sense of outrage was only stoked further when I realised I still liked the fucking film! How can this be? My new viewing revealed to me that Ferris Bueller was a reprehensible slime ball who would happily destroy the lives of people around him as long as he got a laugh out of it. He's an avatar of the '80s yuppie culture and everything I hate about the modern world. I put it down to the charming storytelling of John Hughes (RIP) and the supporting cast of flawed and likeable characters. You know, with the obvious exception of Ferris Bueller and the need to tell us everyone likes him when there's really nothing redeeming about him.
As an aside, I was witness to one of the worst Freddie Mercury impersonators (or impersonator of any kind) ever this weekend. It got me wondering if the guy was taking some kind of bizarre revenge out on the late singer because of some kind of trauma. For some reason it got me thinking about this next bit.
In case no one's noticed, I consider myself something of a writer, these rambling, incoherent blog blabbings notwithstanding. I started thinking about Ferris Bueller's Day Off and what could be done with a sequel. I'd had the same thoughts for another John Hughes classic: Weird Science‡. I've even gone in a similar direction.
For this little bit of speculation, we begin with Ferris Bueller, twenty-six years later. He's been to college, got a degree and gone into the same line of work as his father (whatever that was – vague business man?), got married to Sloane, had a couple of kids, got divorced from Sloane and is now living with his girlfriend who is still in college and looks almost identical to Sloane. He's got a good life.
One day he comes back from work to find his teenage son waiting for him in the flat. Ferris's son, let's call him Tom after Ferris's father, is a lot like Ferris, in that he's confident, successful and has wanted for nothing in life. Ferris knows something's up and his suspicion is horribly realised when he finds the raped and strangled corpse of his wife on the floor. Tom says she reminded him of his mother.
Ferris begins to help his son dispose of the body, but as he goes about this he learns more and more about his son's secret life of sneaking around without Sloane's knowledge and murdering hobos, as well as possibly Ferris's parents and dealing drugs. Ferris realises Tom's even more of a sociopath than he ever was and has to make the decision whether to put an end to Tom's murderous ways or cover up for his son. Then he realises he'll go to jail too and decides to cover up the murder and help young Tom in the future. Cos he'll be fucked if he goes down for someone else's murder.
There you have it a Ferris Bueller sequel fitting for the character. I didn't say it was going to be comedy, did I?
* Bonus! Played by Charlie Sheen!
** Admittedly one of the instances of fraud is down to the mass gullibility of his school-age contemporaries in what must have been the worst school of all time, but it still all stems from him being a dicky wad of manipulative shit.
† I can't really count poor Sloane, because, while she shows every sign that she should be very intelligent, for most of the film she wanders around with an empty-eyed grin, passively going along with whatever Ferris suggests.
‡ This one actually stands up to my recent viewings, probably because it's fucking bonkers and the Ferris Bueller-type characters are the utter bastards they should be.
Will
Friday, 17 August 2012
Go Slower Squiggles
Hello, friends! It is I, Fabrizio Giullare, your favourite author. Since I last spoke to you there has been a major development in my career: I've gone into writing movie scripts. Yes, you read that right, and I'm so pleased about it. Though, I'm not surprised; it was only a matter of time before someone recognised the genius of pieces such as Little Plants and Fluff and Corkscrew Bandana Dancers. It did take them longer than I'd anticipated, mind you.
What did take me by surprise was the direction that the production company wanted me to go in: horror. Now, I've never shied away from any genre, but I've never found myself dipping my toes in the same waters as Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft or anyone else with three names. The man from Broad Tedium Films is a very persuasive person and convinced both myself and my agent that my personal style fits and this would be a fantastic idea.
So this left me with something of a dilemma. I've never watched any horror films either. So I got down to my local rental place and picked up a few movies that sounded good. I didn't go for anything that had been given a theatrical release, as I thought that would just be vulgar, instead going for offerings that had gone straight to DVD. I watched several of them over the course of a most educational week and gleaned what I could from them.
I had the tools required to create a fantastic horror tale. Granted, some of the tools were already in my possession.
For example I'm a firm believer in 'Why have drama when you can have turgid sequences of nothing happening?' and it looks like most of these horror film makers have that same wonderful philosophy – Dread and The Broken being fine examples of this. My own fifteen hundred page novel Clogged Pores in Pall Mall is about one man staring at a drop of water going down a wall. It's something of a masterpiece and a personal triumph for me. Seeing that I could bring that kind of unrelenting lack of event to the screen filled me with a giant, quivering sense of excitement.
Then there's the greatly overrated trait of internal story logic. Why have a character do something that makes any kind of sense in favour of having them jump in random directions? I love to set up characters who, for example, clearly hate and fear cows to then have them go and purchase one as a pet, without one word of explanation. That jarring sense of confusion is just what the reader or, in this case, the watcher needs to make sure they stick around. It's one of my favourite writer's tools.
Of course I have had to wade out into the deep waters of brevity for this project, but then you can't have everything. I've just had to make sure the film seems like it's twelve hours long.
All in all I think I've done a damned fine job on it. I can't wait for Windmilling Arms to appear on the shelves of rental shops and music store chains.
Happy writing!
What did take me by surprise was the direction that the production company wanted me to go in: horror. Now, I've never shied away from any genre, but I've never found myself dipping my toes in the same waters as Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft or anyone else with three names. The man from Broad Tedium Films is a very persuasive person and convinced both myself and my agent that my personal style fits and this would be a fantastic idea.
So this left me with something of a dilemma. I've never watched any horror films either. So I got down to my local rental place and picked up a few movies that sounded good. I didn't go for anything that had been given a theatrical release, as I thought that would just be vulgar, instead going for offerings that had gone straight to DVD. I watched several of them over the course of a most educational week and gleaned what I could from them.
I had the tools required to create a fantastic horror tale. Granted, some of the tools were already in my possession.
For example I'm a firm believer in 'Why have drama when you can have turgid sequences of nothing happening?' and it looks like most of these horror film makers have that same wonderful philosophy – Dread and The Broken being fine examples of this. My own fifteen hundred page novel Clogged Pores in Pall Mall is about one man staring at a drop of water going down a wall. It's something of a masterpiece and a personal triumph for me. Seeing that I could bring that kind of unrelenting lack of event to the screen filled me with a giant, quivering sense of excitement.
Then there's the greatly overrated trait of internal story logic. Why have a character do something that makes any kind of sense in favour of having them jump in random directions? I love to set up characters who, for example, clearly hate and fear cows to then have them go and purchase one as a pet, without one word of explanation. That jarring sense of confusion is just what the reader or, in this case, the watcher needs to make sure they stick around. It's one of my favourite writer's tools.
Of course I have had to wade out into the deep waters of brevity for this project, but then you can't have everything. I've just had to make sure the film seems like it's twelve hours long.
All in all I think I've done a damned fine job on it. I can't wait for Windmilling Arms to appear on the shelves of rental shops and music store chains.
Happy writing!
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