The laptop has finally died. I knew it was on its way out. I was hoping to keep it going with sheer will of thought. But no. It has loaded it’s last Word doc and joined the great mother board in the sky.
So that’s the end of writing on the road. I’m open to donations for a new laptop. Or if you happen to have a laptop you don’t want or use I will be happy to adopt it.
Someone told me once about a strange technology called “paper and pen” I think I’ll give that a go 👌
In episode two of the 2A1J Podcast Andy and Rachel are very sick. But they persevere against adversity to bring you another brilliant, thrilling, funny, and all-round okay podcast.
We talk about the progress of our novellas, we answer listener questions, talk about moths and Blackadder, and generally make each other laugh.
In Episode One of 2A1J Andrew has a rant about novellas and puts forward his case for why they are brilliant and should be read by all. Rachel and Andrew discuss what makes a novella a novella. They outline their plan for the podcast moving forwards and, at the end of the episode, reveal the ideas for the two novellas they will be writing over the next three months.
Find us on Twitter @2A1Jpod for updates, and be the first to hear about new episodes by heading over to 2A1J.wordpress.com and signing up as a member.
You can follow Rachel on Instagram and Twitter @RachyPetalFace
And Andrew can be stalked @AndyChapWriter on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Two Authors One Journal (2A1J) podcast is nearly here! Tune in on Twosday (haha) 25th June for episode 1.
Me and Rachel Howells have been recording the sounds of a typewriter and layering a guitar over it for our opening jingle and it sounds bloody brilliant.
On Twosday’s episode we’ll be talking about novellas and inviting you to write along with us as we start to come up with ideas for the two novellas we will be writing over the next 3 months.
Two authors, two novellas, three months to write them and three months to edit, create book covers, and build up to an Christmas release in paperback and Kindle.
We can’t wait to start writing our new novellas and bring you into our creative writing process.
Follow me to keep updated. If you want to be the first hear about new episodes you can send me a private message with your email address and we’ll be creating a mailing list where you’ll get a weekly message saying, “It’s here, check it out!”
You can follow Rachel on social media. She is @rachypetalface on Instagram and Twitter.
I am @AndyChapWriter on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
We’ll have a proper sign up page set up soon for the mailing list but for now you can message either of us on any of our social media accounts.
Me and Rachel have started a weekly podcast! 2A1J (Two Authors One Journal). In the prequel episode I interview Rachel Howells about her new book, Wode House. Listen right to the end to find out more about the future of the podcast.
Holding the proof copy of Wode House by my beautiful and talented partner, Rachel Howells (@rachypetalface).
We are one day away from the big launch! Tomorrow, Monday, 3/6/19, is the day. Write it in biro on the back of your hand so you don’t forget. Put a post-it note on the foreheads of your children (in case the ink rubs off your hand). Spray paint the side of your vehicle so you are reminded on the way to work. Whatever you do don’t miss the opportunity to be one of the first to read this highly anticipated debut novel.
Click on one of the link below to get your copy.
Or, if link-clicking isn’t your thing, search for Wode House Rachel Howells, in the Amazon search bar.
In Better Angels of Our Nature, Stephen Pinker says that swearing is a sign of a civilized society. You’re not going to be hung for comparing a member of the royal family to the back end of a donkey. We have progressed beyond that. There is no doubt that there is an offensive side to the English language but you are free to use it as you please. The question is; when should it be used, and when should it be avoided?
If you are writing a picture book for three year-olds it’s probably best that the talking squirrel doesn’t have speech bubbles filled with expletives. But that’s obvious to anyone so let’s focus on fiction aimed at adults. The reason this subject is on my mind is that I’m reaching the end of writing a horror/thriller novel and as the first rewrite looms I start to think about these things.
There is swearing in my book. It is occasional and mostly in the dialogue. I only paused for thought when I came to edit the moments where the fourteen year-old children in the book swear. To justify this I’m going to drag out two very important words; realism and context.
Fourteen year-olds swear. You might not hear them doing it, and not all of them do, but most, when amongst their peers, use “bad” language all of the time (in fact I’ve questioned my twelve year-old daughter on this and she has confirmed that many of her friends do indeed have potty mouths. She of course is an angel, or so she tells me). You can avoid it in your writing but sometimes avoiding it takes away from the realism of what you are writing. As I’m currently writing horror I’ll use horror as an example. Let’s say we have a fourteen year-old boy named Billy, and Billy has just witnessed the violent death of a parent. Is he more likely to mutter the word, “Gosh.” under his breath, or something more visceral? The word gosh would immediately destroy the believability of the scene. However, if you are writing a scene where Billy is enjoying a particularly good ice cream it would be unnecessary for him to comment on how f***ing delicious it was.
Here’s my dilemma, and the one that got me onto thinking about this in the first place; when is it okay to swear in prose, outside of dialogue? My thoughts on this are straight forward (but I have gone against my own advice a few times as I’ve looked at each individual case). If you take the swear word out no one is going to notice that it isn’t there, and so all should be eliminated. Whether or not swearing is okay in a civilised society there is no doubt that some people find it abhorrent. So take it out. People will happily read the murder scenes in your book and not flinch but as soon as they come across an F-word in the middle of a descriptive passage a big bell will ring in their head. Even if that ringing stops pretty quickly it is still jarring enough to drag you out of the scene.
So why have I left a few in? Sometimes your descriptive prose will reflect the thoughts of whichever character is in that scene, and that’s okay. It helps to clarify the mood your character is in. So you have a scene that goes – Terry stood on the side of the road looking at his smashed up car. The other driver, some drunk moron, was still sat in his driver’s seat, bleeding from the ears. Terry had two options, call a taxi and make it to the wedding on time, or help this stupid fucking drunk.
Alright, so that’s not a great example, but hopefully it illustrates my point well enough. Sometimes your prose reflects the thoughts, or the mood, of the main character in the scene.
It’s interesting to me that there are no age guidelines with books, as there are with film and television. It is up to the responsibility of the author. But we’re not talking about sex and violence, we’re talking about language. You might lose some readers because they think your use of language is vulgar, but remember, that just makes you more civilised than them. Don’t swear for the sake of it though, the novelty wears off pretty quickly for the reader. So long as your portrayal of life is true then you won’t need to think too hard about whether or not that particular word is necessary.
Let’s all get sick at Christmas. That’s the best way to celebrate. Curl up on the couch and cough into a tissue. Still, we’ll make up for it on New Year’s Eve. Board games with the kid and the missus, quizzes, cheesy snacks, we’ll stay up late laughing and joking and we’ll do all the things we were too ill to enjoy on Christmas.
And then on to the conversation everyone has on New Year’s Eve, “Got any new year’s resolutions?”
Actually, I do. I’m 50,000 words into my next novel. I’m going to finish it. It’s a good resolution because it’s an easy one to accomplish. Another resolution; never get sick again. That’s a bad resolution because it’s impossible. What is the point of a cold though? Who does it benefit? The germs? If the germs found a way to procreate and eat without pissing off their host they would do a lot better. We wouldn’t try and kill them with Beechams for a start.
That reminds me, the cold medicine I was taking went out of date in September. That probably means nothing but maybe the decaying molecule that is meant to help me will some how make things worse. Or maybe I’ll get superpowers. Fevered Snot Man to the rescue! I bought them in a supermarket three months after they went bad. I’m still a bit ill so this post is going to jump around a lot. I’m not in the frame of mind to think straight. I’m in the mind to think wonky.
The common cold is scientifically known as the rhinovirus. I feel like more people should call it that.
“Hi boss, I can’t come in to work today, I have rhinovirus.”
“Oh my god, where did you catch that? Africa? Are you going to die?”
“Nothing some Lemsip won’t fix.”
Actually it won’t fix it. Nothing will. If you take Zinc early enough you might knock a day off the disease but you might also get a metallic taste in your mouth, become nauseous, and lose your sense of smell. So you’re not really gaining much. Vitamin C might knock a day off too but studies have proven uncertain. The problem is, you’re not fighting the virus. All the bad symptoms are created by your immune system going into battle mode. You have to take on yourself to get better. Take an antihistamine for your nose, an anti-inflammatory for your throat (or sinuses, or something), a paracetamol for the fever, and ibuprofen for the pain. You’ll be dehydrated and unable to sleep but at least your nose will stop running.*
Your best bet is to take some LSD and spend the next few days laughing and crying while being harassed by huge cackling multi-coloured Christmas ornaments.
The thing I don’t like about being ill is that I can’t write very well, or think too well either. I don’t want to take a week long pause from the novel but I have no choice. I sit and stare at the first quarter of the chapter I’m currently on and can’t make any sense of it. I know something isn’t working but can’t figure out what. It seems sloppy somehow. Bu today, today I feel almost okay again. I opened up that document and saw the problem. Away went the fingers and the prose straightened itself out.
That’s what I should be doing instead of writing nonsense for my website. Why am I doing this? It feels like the site goes stale if I don’t add something at least once a month. Even if it is just the ramblings of a sick man.
The next blog post I write will be much more coherent and interesting.
There is a kid in the book I’m writing called Dirk. He’s in bed right now. I have to go and ruin his sleep. God I love writing horror.
* Unless you actually have Influenza in which case your nose won’t be running anyway. But you might die soon, so don’t worry too much about the Lemsip. Also, don’t take anything I’ve said here as scientific fact. It’s probably accurate enough but I have things to do and Wikipedia is a rabbit hole that I don’t have time to fall down right now.
I couldn’t afford the next yearly payment for the andychapwriter.com domain name so I haven’t had access to my own site for a while. Finally things have reverted to andychapwriter.wordpress.com and I’m back in. In the new year I will pay for the domain again but for now we are slumming it.
So what’s been happening, I hear you ask? But of course you’re not asking that because you’ve probably never been here before. I’m going to tell you anyway. Much has changed. I won’t tell you about the awesome life changes that have happened. The woman who has changed everything. A move into the home of my dreams (if you are imagining a mansion you are on the wrong path. If you are imaging bookshelves stuffed with books, a globe bar, brown leather seats, a writing desk, then you are on the right track).
This is a website about my writing, so let’s talk about that instead. This woman I mentioned earlier, she’s the catalyst. She’s a writer too. We sit there, both of us, at night, she has a coffee, I have a glass of wine, and we write. Side by side. When we are done with our evening’s writing we read it to each other. And then we high-five and dance around laughing and shouting things like, “We are so fucking great!” and “This is going to change literature forever!” and then we cry because we are afraid that we might be just a bit too great. Genius s a burden, dear reader.
There has been a big change in my writing. My first two books were 40,000 word novellas. They were comedies. That’s what came out naturally. The books were well received and praised for their effortless humour (I’m in a bragging mood), and so I did what any good author would do when he’s on to something, I completely turned my back on it and started writing horror.
It’s my first attempt at writing a full length novel and it is flying out of me. I’ve never had so much fun writing. Those previous two books took well over a year to complete, in fact it was closer to two years. I started my current novel in September and am already at 35,000 words. And, if I can credit myself with some objectivity, they’re pretty good words too. The characters are strong, the story is good, the fear is working. I discovered that making someone laugh, and making someone afraid, are very closely related.
I haven’t just opened a word file and thought, what can I write that will really scare someone? I had an idea. It was to do with an old game’s console. I won’t go into what the story is about, not yet, but it is set in 2002 and is connected to events that happened in 1992. It has given me a chance to play with my own nostalgia in the writing. The characters took over the book completely. I barely have to write them, they are real and alive.
I know how the book ends but I don’t know exactly what’s happening from here to there. I’m halfway through. The story seems to know where it’s going. The characters seem to know for sure. It’s not like making something up. It’s more like excavating a story that’s already there. It’s like an archaeological dig. It is revealing itself one careful brush stroke at a time.
This post is getting a bit long. I will write more, the more I write. I’ll tell you about my partner and her book. I will reveal more about my own. Until then, farewell!
Knock, Knock, Knock. Simon waited for a few seconds.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Inside Charlie’s apartment something stirred under a bed sheet.
Bang! Bang! Bang! ‘Charlie!’
Charlie opened his eyes, a little confused and world weary thanks to a large bottle of Jack Daniels the night before.
Bang! Bang! Bang! ‘Charlie! Open the door!’
Charlie sat up and climbed out of his bed.
Bang!…
‘Shut up! I’m coming.’
Charlie un-chained the door and opened it. Simon Squeezed past him and went straight to the kitchen.
‘What?’ Charlie demanded wearily.
‘It’s Tuesday, we have to be at the studio in an hour.’
Charlie’s face tried to respond and failed, so far only his legs, eyes, part of his brain and at least one of his arms was completely awake. He tried speech ‘nmph?’
‘GMTV. I’ve got you three cups of coffee, drink this.’
Charlie took the coffee.
‘And a bacon and egg sandwich,’ continued Simon.
‘mm.’
‘Eat your sandwich and get in the shower, I’ve got you a new shirt and some razors.’
‘You’re ever so nice.’
‘I know, now get in the shower.’
Simon edged him toward the shower and gave him his second coffee as he entered and closed the door behind him.
‘Make sure you shave!’
‘Alright, stop shouting.’
Fifteen minutes later the shower door opened and out came Charlie. To Simon’s astonishment he actually looked close to presentable.
‘Right, you look good, let’s go.’
‘Wait, wait… wait.’
‘What?’
Charlie looked around his room and grabbed his keys, a small cantina and half a cigarette out of the ash tray.
‘Ok.’
In the underground car park Simon unlocked his car. Charlie looked at him with an expression like pity.
‘What are you doing?’ said Charlie.
‘Getting in the car.’
‘We’re not taking your car we’re taking mine.’
‘Really?’ Simon ran a disapproving eye over the trashed vehicle, ‘why don’t you buy a proper car?’
Charlie composed himself and prepared his fragile mind for coherent conversation.
‘It’s not about how new and shiny a car is that makes a car great. I’m not getting in your car; it has no handbrake and no keyhole, so in my book it’s not even a car. Having no keyhole is like a woman having no vagina.’
‘Charlie it’s a modern car, this button is the hand brake, and it doesn’t have a keyhole because you start it with a button.’
‘Your sexless freak of a car is the automobile equivalent of a blonde-tipped, spiky haired prick with no penis, whereas my fucked up little Jaguar is the car equivalent of dishevelled rough sex.’
Simon closed his car door and got obediently into Charlie’s.
Concise and in control is how Charlie would describe his driving. Most others would describe it as erratic, dangerous, fast, and suicidal. Neither is right, he actually drives in a way that is both oblivious to other road users and apparently, as he has never crashed, safer than flying. In-fact, his record is so clean that being driven by Charlie is statistically safer than driving. It is frightening nonetheless.
Charlie spoke loudly over the sound of the engine.
‘Now your wife has a good taste in cars.’
Simon looked at him suspiciously.
‘How do you know what my wife drives?’
Charlie took no notice.
‘A 1971 British Leyland pick-up 4×4. Cool car.’
‘I’ve never introduced you.’
‘It even has a damn snorkel and a roll cage!’
‘Charlie!’
Charlie looked at the slightly panic stricken face of his agent.
‘Not getting paranoid are we Simon? She dropped a box of books to my last book signing. You weren’t in so she offered.’
‘She’s been acting strange recently, that’s all.’
‘Of course she’s acting strange, she’s a woman. It’s when she starts acting normal you have to worry. It is a cool car though.’
‘It’s not hers her dad left it to her.’
‘Simon, fucking relax.’
‘You’re right. I’ll start acting like you shall I? Get drunk for days on end, eat shit, swear at everyone?’
Charlie pulled the car up outside the studio and stopped the engine.
‘Sure, if you want to.’
‘I wasn’t agreeing with you.’
‘Ok.’
Charlie gave him a friendly pat on the back.
‘You know, it’s a pretty easy life, just doing what you want.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
A man in a suit was waiting by the entrance of the studio. He noticed Charlie and Simon and waved them over.
‘Ok, that’s the producer. He’ll brief you before you go on. You must do what he tells you. Marcus, how are you!’ Simon called from a distance.
Marcus ushered them to hurry up.
‘Simon, I didn’t think you were going to make it,’ said Marcus.
‘It’s nice to see you again,’ said Simon.
‘And Charlie,’ said Marcus turning to Charlie, ‘I’m a big fan of your work, very funny stuff, glad to have you on the show.’
Charlie considered this interesting critique of his work and replied dryly, ‘My next book is about a blind alcoholic orphan. She gets raped by a ghost and spends most of the story sitting in a dark room swearing at the walls until she finally dies of aids.’
The good thing about people like Marcus, or anyone who has a job that involves holding a clip board and having a wire leading to your ear with people telling you to tell someone else to hurry up, is that they never really hear anything anyone says to them. This is why his response to Charlie’s reply was, ‘Looking forward to it. The green room is on the right. The makeup girl will be with you in a few moments.’
Charlie looked at him like a wizard looks at a clown.
‘I fucked your dad,’ he said.
‘Hm?’
Charlie sat in the green room staring at the mirror.
‘Simon.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you really think people who watch GMTV actually want to read my books?’
‘Yes.’
‘The only people who want to read my books are either drunk students or bored serial killers.’
The makeup girl came in wearing a short mini skirt and a low cut top. I would describe her in more detail but I’m not sure it’s necessary.
To Simon’s initial relief Charlie seemed to be behaving himself on set. He answered the questions well with a light sense of humour and gave witty anecdotes about how the book was written. He even offered to sign a copy for the interviewer, Ben Shepherd. (It later transpired that Charlie had just drawn a picture of a penis with a smiley face on the tip and the word BEN in big letters along the shaft). The segment came to a close with a final question.
‘Thank you for coming on the show. We’re all big fans. What do you have planned for the rest of the day?’
Charlie smiled and said, ‘I think I’m going to fuck your makeup girl.’
Ben went red.
‘Err… sorry about that ladies and gentleman. We’ll see you after this short break.’
Charlie and Simon hurried back to the green room to get their things and get out before the producer had a chance to come down on them.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?!’ said Simon.
‘What? He was asking for it.’
‘How does Ben Shepherd “ask for it”? He’s the most unthreatening man on TV!’
‘He said he was a fan of my book.’
‘How is that a bad thing?’
‘He’s never read the book.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s Ben Shepherd! He’s never read any book! He would struggle with The Very Hungry Caterpillar!’
‘What!?’
‘Exactly!’ Said Charlie.
‘You won’t be allowed on ITV again and the BBC probably won’t have you.’
‘I don’t really care.’
Andrew Chapman / Author and Screenwriter 