THESE ARE SOME OF THE STREET SIGNS ‘MODIFIED’ BY FRENCH STREET ARTIST CLET ABRAHAM. HE WORKS BY PLACING STICKERS OVER THE EXISTING SIGNS, SO IF IT IS TERMED GRAFITTI THEN IT CAN BE EASILY REMOVED. AMAZING ART IN MY VIEW.
67 – A COLLECTION OF POEMS
67, my first collection of poems is now available as an ebook by Tin Hut Tales, and will be available as a paperback in about two weeks time
http://www.tinhuttalespublishers.co.uk/67/
JUST WALKING
Walking…just walking
Away from the hum and drum
Away from the hub and bub
Away from the whine and grind of this rusty city
Couldn’t take it, they will say
Well, let them
This place isn’t all it’s cracked up to be
I saw a man today selling boxes to homeless people
Business was brisk
Did you know that the stone from the Pyramids
Would build a wall round England ten feet tall?
They say John the Baptist was gay
Funny the thoughts that come into your head when you’re walking
There was an old woman who lived in a hovel
She didn’t have any shoes but no one cared
She fell down one day
The hospital put her in a trolley for a few weeks
Then sent her away
Back to her hovel, her piss-stained bed, her broken radio
Her clock that didn’t tick, her bare cupboards, her solitary chair
Carried her up three flights, stood her in front of a walking frame
Said ‘take care of yourself, dear’
The whole fucking world anaesthetised by indifference
HOW TO WRITE ABOUT SEX
Here are 25 steps on the subject of writing about sex that are probably better than any I could dream up. I know, I am just a lazy bugger and couldn’t be arsed to use my imagination. Either that or I’m still in the missionary position!
“Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.” Virginia Woolf
Sex is interesting but not totally important. I mean, it’s not even as important (physically) as excretion. a man can go 70 years without a piece of ass but he can die in a week without a bowel movement. Charles Bukowski, Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Sex and a cocktail: they both lasted about as long, had the same effect, and amounted to about the same thing. D H Lawrence, Lady Chatterlesy’s Lover
DON’T MAKE YOUR HOUSE IN MY MIND
(scene from my play Money From America)
DON’T MAKE YOUR HOUSE IN MY MIND
Oh yes, I saw what you wanted
From the very first day we met;
Your long legs wanton in the marram grass,
You promised sex without frills,
Your instincts more mothering than you know,
You delivered it without thrills
After the kids came it was respectability
And a job we could grow old in;
Our own home twenty years down the road
Everything borrowed along the way;
Freedom mortgaged for a safe house
Wasn’t such a big price to pay
All things come to pass in time;
The kids, the home, the income,
Shared lives going down the long slide
But their passing leaves a sour taste behind;
I should have made it clear from the start,
Don’t make your house in my mind
DOES YOUR POSTMAN ALWAYS RING TWICE?
James M Cain, author of the best-seller THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE said the book was so-called because when his postman was returning his rejected manuscripts he always rang twice
A few years ago, Samuel Moffie submitted The Perfect Martini to 100 literary agents. Actually, he submitted the first twenty pages of Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions disguised as The Perfect Martini. Only one agent responded positively, but that’s because the agent recognized the original author. 99 agents declined.
Which just goes to show, what the fuck do agents know! Or care.
Agents are concerned with commercial viability, first and foremost. Literary quality is a secondary bonus. Now, if Vonnegut wrote a novel where a dominant vampire becomes master to a naive, submissive, shape-shifting werewolf, I’m sure he would have fared better.
Why spend months, or even years, writing and submitting queries to agents who are clearly looking the other way? If they passed on Kurt Vonnegut, what chance do you have?
Brian Marggraf writes in his blog; I queried over 300 agents, followed all their silly and varied submission requirements, I know, no attachments, got it, waited to hear back for weeks sometimes, other times, didn’t hear back at all, even with partial or full manuscript requests, read all their canned responses, I’m not taking on new authors at this time, the work doesn’t fit with my list. Blah, blah, blah. My tip – don’t send any more. Take your work straight to the reader.Within one month, I built a platform, designed my cover, formatted my ebook, published, promoted, marketed, and advertised. Made sales.
He has got a point. And my postman? Yeah, the fucker always rings twice.
GUT FEELING ON THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION
GUT FEELING ON THE DUCK THEORY OF EVOLUTION
In the beginning there was silence
Slow symmetry break-dancing in the bleakness
Time’s arrows curving beyond comprehension
Soon, the dance of geometry commenced;
Atom, electron, proton, neutron,
Wave upon wave
Spin particle, spin!
Then into the melting pot
The first sounds of all our futures;
Quark, quark, quark, quark, quark, quark…
NEIGHBOURLY ADVICE FROM WRITERS
The first draft over everything is shit– Ernest Hemingway
There speaks one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Some advice, such as the above, is common sense, and some, such as this ‘write about what you know’ is shit. If all writers followed that advice how many great books would have been written? Would Orwell have written 1984? would Terry Pratchett have written any book at all? would Shakespeare have written Julius Caesar? The list goes on. Write about what you don’t know might be more appropriate!
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. ― W. Somerset Maugham
The following 21 tips may offer some insight – but I wouldn’t bank on it!
21 Harsh But Eye-Opening Writing Tips From Great Authors
to purchase or read extracts from any of my books click on my Amazon page; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent
NEW WAVES
NEW WAVES
To hear someone say;
I worked my fingers to the bone
So someone sharper could take my home,
Raises few eyebrows these days
Work isn’t the toad
Work is the poor man’s load
Piled up all his life ahead
Never relenting until he’s finally dead
You could of course ignore it;
No mortgage, no gadgets that comfort
No requirement to pay-as-you-earn it;
A kind of existence
NEVER LOOK DOWN!
Looking at these images reminds me of my own time in the steel/construction industry. In more than 30 years I worked variously as a welder, rigger, banksman, foreman, and sometimes all 4 at the same time. The pictures show a time when health and safety didn’t exist as a concept;there were no safety nets, hard hats, harnesses; you were your own safety officer, comon sense prevailed. And if you didn’t have any you didn’t last very long.
We had all the modern safety equipment bu t it still still didn’t prevent accidents or deaths. I remember working on the biggest construction site in Europe in the early 1980s, Aughinish Island Aluminium Extraction Plant in west Limerick, and on the first day we had to attend an induction course. We were lectured about safe working practices, and told that according to statistics x amount of workers would be injured and seven would be killed. I don’t remember how accurate the injury forecasts were, but over the course of the 4 years the complex took to build 7 workers were killed. Most were falls but a couple were hit by falling objects.
Remember, the construction site is a dangerous place. SO TAKE CARE
to purchase or read extracts from any of my books click on my Amazon page; http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tom-OBrien/e/B0034OIGOQ/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1388083522&sr=1-2-ent
ODE TO A SHOPPING TROLLEY
ODE TO A SHOPPING TROLLEY
Oh beautiful chromed perambulator
You of the sleek wheels
And wayward inclinations
Carrier of booze and babies
And, occasionally, goods and chattels,
You were a lovely mover once
Look at you now;
Silt to your midriff
Capsized for eternity
Gathering flotsam and jetsam
For a stinking old stream;
Fit for nothing but stopping gaps
My Writing Life 