Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, Words and Writers

Hermes, the Forgotten Blog Master

Hermes

Basic things seem unbelievable when I transpose them into prose. How can I possibly be believed when life is so absurd?

All I want to do is recount my life. This is impossible. Even if nothing worthwhile has happened it still seems strange and unusual. I defy you to write about your day without seeming like some white lie is forming the basis of your humour. If you do manage to write about your day and find it mundane and humourless (and so proving me wrong) then you have failed to live a day worth taking note of.

Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I create a situation knowing my actions can lead to absurdity. I don’t know anymore. I remember hearing a stand-up comedian trying to explain with all seriousness this bizarre thing that had happened to him and he said, “I used to allow things like this to happen, maybe I encouraged it. I knew, no matter how weird things got, after the danger had passed I would have a good story to tell. And if it went bad I could trust on my wit to get me out of it. And if not my wit I could say, ‘Hey, I’m a writer, this will all end up in a book someday. Don’t kill me.’” Or something like that. That’s my version of what I heard anyway. Maybe I made the whole thing up. I think I did. It still holds true.

Weirdness happens naturally. It is up to the writer to capture it for prosperity. Life is weird. Get used to it. Embrace it. Chase it through the normality and wrestle it to the ground. You will learn so much more through your mad moments than you will through your sane ones. Sane ones pass by like a series of red crosses on a fridge calendar.

It is not routine that we really crave. It is the broken routine that excites us. It is the moments when you look back at that calendar and see that a red cross is missing. What happened to that day? You weren’t there to cross it out that’s for sure.

If you’ve managed to get this far through this post then good for you. I’ve had a lot to drink and it is entirely possible that the above will turn out to be a gibberish series of incoherencies. If that is the case I will write another blog post tomorrow explaining how late it was and that it’s a miracle the laptop survived the night. Violence follows inane drunkenality. (Take note! Drunkenality is a new word, write it down and inform the authorities).

Tomorrow I will have had some sleep and some coffee. I will be in control of my intelligence. I will no-doubt mistrust my drunken instincts to write such rambling nonsense. Or maybe truth lies somewhere in the whisky sodden words of the writer trapped in his natural habitat.

See him. The writer. There he is. In his cage. He is drunk. He has a cigarette hanging from his mouth. There is no plot in his mind. There is no character waiting to be created. There is only the page and his incessant nonsense.

Goodnight. Farewell. It is up to Hermes, the Greek god of wit, literature, and poetry, to determine if these words are worthy of an inconsequential blog post.

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, Writers on Video

The Book Trailer

Book trailers. I hear that’s the new thing. “Make a book trailer,” they say, “People will watch it and then you’ll be famous. Everyone will buy your book because they saw a video of it. It’s all about getting the word out.”

There used to be a time when all a writer had to be able to do is write. That was it. Nothing more was really expected of them. Now your abilities at marketing and promotion outweigh the necessity to write a good book. You must be a writer, an advertiser, a director, and a blog forum socialite. You must be shallow. I’m not very good at self-promotion. I made an advert though. You can watch it in a sec, it’s just below these words. Before you do though, let me apologise for the lack of effort I put in to making the advert. You see, my daughter was making a video for her YouTube channel and when she was done she left the camera out. So I thought, hey, I know, I’ll make a trailer! So I pressed record, sat down, and went for it. There was no real thought or idea behind what I was going to do. But now it is done. Tripping the Night Fantastic has its very own commercial. Yay.

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life

Applied Daydreaming. The Madness of the Wordsmith.

Shoe

There is a problem. Daydreaming has become a habit. It has overtaken all things. It has got to the point where these mad divergences into the imagination have spilled out of the fingers and become real. All reality is at risk. Nonsense has overridden sanity. Imaginary friends have been re-labelled as characters. The lunacy has become accepted by the ones we expect to be most rational; the literary folk.

Farewell normality. Welcome to the world of the author.

Every tendon from my shoulder to my finger tips are crying out to turn this into fiction. I want to write about the beginning of all this writing, “You there. At the back. Stop daydreaming!” said the retarded fucking teacher.

And so it would continue. But I must resist. We all know how that goes. The supressed creative mistook for an idiot. Whose fault is it that something the teacher said sent your mind into a spiral of questions and possibilities? And why is that such a bad thing? Daydreaming is less often born from boredom, and more from inspiration.

Writing is a cherished folly. Writing is applied daydreaming. That is all. For now. Soon I will come back to this blog and write something worthwhile. The beast must be fed.

I don’t know why I put a picture of a shoe at the beginning of this.

Andrew Chapman Words and Writers

Mellifluous Ramblings

Dictionary 4

The problem with reading dictionaries is that you find yourself writing words into your prose that you are certain you would not understand yourself if you came across it in someone else’s book.

But that’s how vocabulary grows so you should never shy away from it. The context should carry the word anyway. And if you read in the way I do, and come across a word you don’t know, google is at your fingertips with all the meanings and definitions for all the words and things in every language in all the world. Smart phones are magic impossible devices sent to us by aliens.

(I just want to say quickly that I am aware that using the words “but” and “and” at the beginning of a sentence is technically wrong. It is a matter of grammar that I dispute. If it is used widely in common speech it is acceptable in prose. I might expand in this point at a later date).

Anyway, I was talking about words you wouldn’t normally use. I wrote the following sentence –

She made a wonderful mellifluous sound.

In the interest of context, the girl mentioned in the above sentence was enjoying the intimate company of the protagonist (Ghastly isn’t it? Sex has no place in comedy, the scene will probably be deleted). Mellifluous is a word no one knows naturally. In fact it’s a word I didn’t know I knew until I wrote it and had to look it up to see what it meant and if it fit the sentence, which by chance it did. Osmosis in action. Mellifluous. I’m not going to tell you what it means (you may already know). If you don’t, think about what you think it means and then google it.

On this occasion I actually decided not to use the endlessly helpful Google (or the brilliant and underrated Wikipedia) and instead I took the opportunity to flop open my massive and beguiling Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. It has all of the words in it. Look at it. It’s enormous –

Dictionary 1

You see, it’s big isn’t it. Let’s open it at random and see what new word we discover.

Dictionary 2

Cock-horse. Well, there we are. Who was expecting that? Definition –

(In the dictionary the definition is long and exhaustive so I’ll break it down) A Cock-horse is when a child rides an adults knee. Like a game. Pretending she’s riding a horse.

The massive dictionary makes for a nice light bedtime read for the kids too –

Dictionary 1

I mean, who has ever used the word mellifluous before? I know I haven’t. Well, I have now, 4 times. But you know what I mean. I don’t think I’ll be using cock-horse any time soon.

I seem to recall having some kind of point when I started this post. Until I got distracted by the dictionary. I might start doing a word of the month (or whenever I come across an interesting one). Here’s a good word – Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. It’s the name given to the fear of long words. There’s a psychologist somewhere with a sense of humour. Some people add an extra “p” in the “…quippedalio…” bit. But that’s just silly.

Do feel free to share any interesting words in the comments.

If you liked this post you might also like this one – https://andychapwriter.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/paradise-lost-hobby-gained/

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, Words and Writers

I Left my Words at the Airport!

Lost WordsI wrote a couple of paragraphs for my next book on my work laptop yesterday morning. I was on a small propeller plane on my way to Manchester. It was early and the flight was short. I took out the laptop and got typing. I liked the words that fell from my fingers. They were interesting observations about the waitresses in Las Vegas casinos. I think they were interesting anyway. I can’t remember exactly what I wrote.

I was there for a meeting but after it was done I had about 4 hours to kill before my flight home at 10pm. So I got a train from the airport to Oxford Road to meet a friend. We went to a pub. Had a pizza. Went to another pub. We drank lager and all kinds of different ales. Then it was time for me to go.

I was swaying a bit at the security check in at Terminal 3. I was the only person there. I had drunk some water and eaten about 15 Smints so I was more sober than I could have been, but not sober enough to pay attention to what I was doing.

In my bag was about 15 ink cartridges that had been taped together. They looked suspiciously like a bomb that had been disguised to look like printer cartridges. I was made to separate them and put them into small clear bags. My laptop was put in a separate tray.

I went through the scanner. It didn’t beep (a first in the history of Andy).

“I think you’ve missed your plane mate,” said the security guard on the other side.

“I don’t think so.”

“Let’s see your boarding pass.”

I gave it to him.

“That plane is about to take off, It’s due to leave at 9:25.”

I checked my watch. It was 9:22. “Shit, I thought it left at 10. Or there about.”

“You better run mate if you want a chance to get on it.” He pointed at the screen at the end of the room that listed the flights. “It’s at gate 144.”

I grabbed my jacket, put on my belt and slung my bag over my shoulder. I ran for the gate and arrived panting.

“Have I missed it?” I said, chucking my passport at the guy and slumping over his desk.

He looked at me like I was some kind of delusional mad man. “No. We’re not boarding yet.” He tentatively picked up my passport and handed it back to me. “Why don’t you take a seat.”

I turned around and there were people sat in the waiting area, staring at me.

“That fucker was messing with me.” I said, mostly to myself.

I sat down and looked at my ticket. The boarding time is 9:45. This is how these sick fuckers get their kicks. Watching people run at full speed away from the security check in fear of being stranded.

It wasn’t until I landed in Bournemouth that I noticed my bag felt a bit light. I had left my laptop and ink cartridges in Manchester. Fuck. My boss will not be happy. How will I do my job?

I called the airport security in Terminal 3. They seemed to be expecting my call.

“Hi, I’ve just landed in Bournemouth and I –“

“Forgot your laptop?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ve got it. You’ll have to call lost and found tomorrow afternoon. They’ll arrange to have it sent to you.”

I got in a taxi and met my sister for a beer. I’m not really concerned that I can’t get much work done without it, I can work around that, but those few paragraphs about the casino girls in Las Vegas. I need to get them back.

The first thing I did when I got up this morning was back up all my writing (I have two laptops, one that stays in the house and is used just for writing, and the work laptop which is used begrudgingly to do the things that result in money being in my account at the end of each month).

Losing words is far worse than losing a laptop.

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, Words and Writers

A Morning of Disgrace. Happy Birthday you Beer Addled Word Murderer.

Drunk Polar BearGod damn. Birthdays. Who’s idea was it to celebrate this shit every fucking year? It should be a day of mourning. One year older, one year wiser, and that year always starts with a hangover worse than any that came before. I’ve been staring at the ceiling for two hours trying to work out how to get out of bed. I used to be able to do this. I remember doing it yesterday. But right now it seems impossible. My phone keeps beeping at me, like a terrorist trying to destroy my half-awake dream-like madness. I live in an attic flat so the ceiling is only two feet away from me. I grab on to it, to stop it spinning. The phone beeps again. I turn and look at it. “Alright fucker, you win.” I say, and reach over and grab it. I have the motor skills of a yeti. I unlock the phone and reality crashes through the screen. It beeps again. “Wake up you sonofabitch!” is what that beeping means.

I crawl, in my underwear, to the bathroom and put my head in the bath. I run the tap and frighten myself awake with the freezing water that pounds my skull. Dressing gown, where are you? You genius brilliant peace of attire. I find it behind the door and climb in.

In the kitchen I fill the kettle to the top. It boils. I make one cup of instant coffee, half full with milk so I can down it, and then fill the cafetiere to the top and sit down with it on the sofa. I put sugar and milk straight into it and drink directly out of the spout.

I turn on the TV but Hollyoaks comes on and blazes its tragic fucking nonsense into to mind just long enough to reinforce the fear I have of bad soap operas. A horrible disdain is awaken in me and I am, by some miracle, prevented from throwing the remote at the TV in a bid to kill the drama (it must be the coffee waking up the normal rational man that dwells somewhere inside of me) and I turn the fucker off instead, like any sensible human would.

I open the laptop and start writing about my morning. And now I’m here, typing. And who is weirder? Me for thinking anyone would find this shit interesting, or you for reading it?

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, Words and Writers

You Read, I’ll get Started on the Dishes.

Free comedyIt is time to attack my flat with an aggressive attitude towards tidiness. I must drag myself away from the page and clean this mess. Thinking straight in this environment of disrepair is near impossible. How do things get so out of control?

There are bowls of finished pasta strewn about. Cups of consumed coffee litter every surface. Guitars are left against walls. The bookshelf is a calamity un-alphabetised incomprehension. There are no clean spoons.

The novel has trapped me in its world of creation so much so that my world has crumbled around me. It is time to take off the blinkers and focus on reality. This could take days to sort out.

So while I am busy cleaning I have a gift for you all. I have made Tripping the Night Fantastic free for the weekend. So while I am knee deep in shit, why don’t you immerse yourself in the weird and humorous world of Charlie Deavon and his hallucinogenic and drunken foray into mystery and murder.

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, Words and Writers

The Periodical Son Returns

strand_blanched_soldierGood afternoon blog, and readers of blog. It’s been a while but here I am, back from the swamp of words that is novel writing. And I have some exciting news! So brace yourself. Sit back in your chair and hold on to your laptop for safety, this is bracing stuff. In a way.

I was thinking to myself, who are the greatest writers of old and how did they become popular? Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came to mind immediately. Both of these chaps first released their books in serial form. A chapter a week in a magazine or newspaper. So I have decided to do the same. The Accidental Scoundrel is being released one chapter at a time on Jottify.com. The first two chapters are there now and I will add a new one on a regular basis periodically. I’m not sure it will be weekly though. In the fast world we live in, and with all that is out there to grab our attentions, I will most probably add a new chapter every three days.

After the series is finished I will release The Accidental Scoundrel as a paperback and ebook on Amazon.

Pop over to Jottify via this direct link – http://jottify.com/works/the-accidental-scoundrel/ and have a look. I would love to know if anyone has tried this route themselves or if you think this is a good idea, or even a terrible one, let me know what you think.

Currently I am listed as the most read author of the day (yeah baby!). Help me stay at the top by reading and enjoying each installment as they come!

For now though that is all, I will try and come here more often and write interesting posts about wonderful things, but until then, have a good Easter!

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, The Other Stuff

Unified Field Theory of Pointless Moodiness

Einstein Happy

Trying to relieve stress with logic is like trying to put out a fire by explaining water to it. Yet here I am, thinking my way into happiness. When my siblings and I were teenagers my dad banned the word “stress” in the house insisting that there was no such thing. Especially if you’re a teenager. Now, as an adult, whenever I feel that certain pressure in the brain that we call stress I immediately feel embarrassed and stop it at once. He’s right though, and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. I spend a lot of time thinking about a lot of things. What I want to do is come up with a Unified Field Theory of Pointless Moodiness. In a similar way Einstein tried to bring Physics and Quantum Mechanics together in his Unified Field Theory. And, like him, I suspect I will ultimately fail.

The problem is my thoughts on the subject are a series of valid points that openly contradict each other (I won’t go into them all here, it will only become tedious.) My other problem is I’m not a particularly emotional person. Also, my inability to worry has led to a certain amount of hinderous (that’s a new word I just invented. Write it down and phone the OED for me) complacency. For many people when an overdue bill arrives in the post it is the worry of the consequences of not paying it that sets forth a plan of action. It sits in the mind and niggles at you and you won’t be able to relax until you have the burden of debt removed from your shoulders. I can’t remember the last time I worried about such things. If I have money I pay the bills. If I don’t have money I don’t pay the bills. The solution to a bill is to pay it, if the solution has to wait until payday then so be it. When payday comes around I will have almost certainly forgotten about the bill entirely and will go and spend the money in the pub instead. Where I have a thoroughly good time. You see, I have avoided worrying and also enjoyed a pint. When I remember about the bill again I make the same plan. It’s a marvellous thing.

UFTPM (Unified Field Theory of Pointless Moodiness)

Statement 1 –

Stress is the result of an unresolved problem.

Statement 2 –

A problem is only a problem if it can be solved.

Statement 3 –

If there is not a solution then what you are dealing with is not in-fact a problem (and therefore not stress – see statement 1.)

(It is either outside of your control, and therefor can’t be fixed with worry – not that anything can -, or the thing that is causing you stress cannot be fixed because it is a hardship or a tragedy. In that case you are only feeling stressed by accident and need to reassign a different emotion. I would recommend sadness.)

Statement 4 –

Nobody else cares. You should join them.

Statement 5 –

I fancy a pint. (And here my theory falls apart. Alas, Einstein, you and I are cursed by the same troubles.)

Summery

Time will pass, you are infinitely small and unimportant. Think of an elderly person. Can you see him? Walking down the road, or sitting in front of the telly. Do you think he remembers that Tuesday afternoon 40 years ago when he had a backlog of paperwork. Or that time he was on hold for like an hour and then the person who answered the phone had to re-divert him and then the line went dead and he had to call again when all he wanted to do is get his goddamn internet reconnected! No. Don’t be silly. He didn’t have the internet. Actually, if I’m honest I don’t know him very well, this imaginary old man of ours. Of course he doesn’t remember. Many years from now you too will be old and you will not remember the insignificant thing that is worrying you right now. Especially if it is work related.

Why am I banging on about stress? For the past week I was convinced that I was stressed. I was having a tough week at work (there has been a hostile takeover and everything has turned to shit) and I forgot how fleeting this moment is. I forgot that time would pass. Stress is an indulgent emotion. If it were a worthwhile feeling then it wouldn’t disappear so fast. As soon as you blurt out the thing that is annoying you to a friend, or an imaginary friend (even lunatics need to vent), all the stress falls away and you feel silly. Do you know why? Because there is no such thing. There is only the moment between the problem and the solution. Once you realise that, you will see, it is pointless getting down about it. It isn’t stress you’re feeling anyway. You probably just have a headache because you’ve had too much coffee.

If you are now feeling stressed, having just read about it (These things happen. Subliminal suggestion and all that. You’re probably thinking about that unpaid bill right now aren’t you? Or that parking fine maybe? Sorry about that.) I’ll tell you a joke to make you feel better.

Why did the baker have brown hands?

Because he kneaded a poo.

–

Wait, I’m not done yet. I have another joke for you.

–

What is the difference between roast beef and pea soup?

You can roast beef but you can’t pea soup.

–

Alright, last one now.

–

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

Fsh

–

Ok, one more.

–

A horse walks into a bar. The barman says, “Why the long face?”

And the horse says, “My mum just died.”

–

Ok, that one might have got you down again. Here, this one will cheer you back up, and then I promise I’m done.

–

Knock, Knock.

“Who’s there?”

“Your local MP.”

…

Knock, Knock

“Are you there? I said it’s your local MP. I’m out meeting my constabulary.”

Knock Knock.

“I’m not answering the door!”

–

Ok, I made the last two up. What was this post about? I’ve forgotten. Oh yes, Stress. Or something. Hold on. I’m trying to think of another joke. Ok, here we go.

–

“Doctor, doctor, I feel like a pair of curtains.”

“I’m not a doctor. The real doctor is dead. Now take off your trousers.”

–

Ha! That’s ridiculous. Ok, I’m going now.

Andrew Chapman An Authors Life, The Other Stuff

The Undisputed Poll

Gaa

Here’s the thing. I’ve been reading too much. I’ve also been writing a lot. Just not blog posts as you may have noticed, but a lot of novel writing. The blog has been left to asphyxiate from a lack of words. It needs constant content for it to survive but it’s not always possible. The blog for any writer is secondary. The proper writing always comes first. My problem is I write more than one thing at a time. Currently I am writing a kids book (Tommy, God of the Island of Wonder), a travel diary (Drowning in the Land of Madness) and a thriller (as yet unnamed), the blog simply takes a back seat. But the thing is the blog is the only thing that keeps my writing alive in the view of anyone that isn’t me. Every now and then it is important to feed this social beast. So welcome to a completely unimportant and unnecessary collection of words that are here for no good reason other than to be made of letters and to be in an order that reads as a coherent yet pointless series of sentences.

There’s no point in boring you though is there? I’ll tell you what, I’ll try and think of something interesting to say. Let me think. I’ll assume you are interested in writing, writers, books, and words, so an interesting thing about something related to that… Ok, here I go.

Did you know it is totally unnecessary to write anything in order to keep someone reading? It is more than possible to string someone along with the merest possibility of a payoff, even if the reader is half convinced already that he or she is wasting their time? You are wasting your time. But stick with me, because you know there is something interesting coming. The interesting thing is the following indisputable fact that I just came up with:

According to a recent poll 100% of people that took part agreed that they would be happy to be involved in a poll.

Good god, what the hell am I talking about? We’ll catch up again soon. I’ll think about what I’m going to write before I start next time.