first piece for artifice

http://artificebooks.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/the-siting-of-nostalgia/


I've nearly finished with my BA.

Artifice blogging team

From today I'll be working as part of the Artifice blogging team.

Circle/Line out today

from The Red Ceilings Press

http://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/index.html

http://issuu.com/theredceilings/docs/circle-line

Enjoy!

EDIT: Also, now in video form

https://vimeo.com/40694998

lerning

ben lerner writes INABILITY, VAGUENESS and DOUBT better than anyone else.

i really want to learn from this and infuse my own words with his indeterminacy.

story in PANK

today, i have a story published in a great magazine

http://www.pankmagazine.com/a-new-person/

don't wanna lose this.

by Joel Dias-Porter or 'DJ Renegade'

from this site: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/243666

this is Joel's blog: http://renegadesblog.blogspot.com/

The Bukowski in You

When the last pile of chips
gets shipped the other way,
when your wallet yawns
like a two-coated man prone
on a park bench,
what else is there to do
but stagger out of
the Taj Mahal’s poker room
and return to the shadows
of an empty womb,
then curl up like
the last macaroni
stuck to a paper plate?
You sense even the women,
and dumping the trash’s last odors,
wouldn’t sweep you
into their dusty pans.
The red deck, the blue deck,
the shuffle machine,
have conspired to
make you feel like
the darkness under
the dealer’s manicured nails,
his Rolex stopped to watch.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Everything you touch stutters.
You can’t remember
what singing sounded like
before the Ace of Hearts
punctured your last lung,
can’t feel your buddy
tapping your shoulder
asking, “How much you down?”
You remember the elevator
ride to your room,
39 floors of sunk stomach
before the white smile
of a towel spread across
the bathroom floor.
Suppose you were nothing
but a hand towel
in a $49 motel?
Suppose you lived
to lick beads of brightness
from a working girl’s back,
but all you had
was parched lips
and a swollen tongue?
That’s why whisky
clings to the bottle,
slight burn in the beginning,
then oak smooth and
polished as an expensive casket,
that’s why when
the last card turns,
whatever you hear
sounds like a bullet.
More so if you dig
digging in moist earth.
Even more so, if
you’re not a gardener
or a man in a straw hat
wanding the beach for beeps.
You’re addicted to
the dance of the Blue deck,
but also the way
the Red deck parts like
a pair of painted lips.
You’re addicted to
knowing that even
a gypsy psychic
can’t find your card first,
no matter how far she
follows a palm’s
rugged grooves
like wood grain.
You’re addicted to
knowing the cards love
no one
but the last hands
to hold them.
Is there anything
sexier than
putting it all-in and
having the moment
Morse code thru your veins?
Anything sexier
than the way
desperation’s dress
hugs her hips?
That’s why you return,
why you tease your chair
to the table’s edge
and post a blind bet,
why you peel the corner
of your hole cards
like they're prosperity’s
last pair
of good panties.

fuck

from 2009

i didn't even know i was in this.

http://ancientheartmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-know-dancer.html

news and an on-going list

i have been offered a place on Manchester and Warwick's MA creative writing courses.

i will be attending Manchester to studying Fiction Writing.

my favourite songs:

Once in a Lifetime - Talking Heads
God Only Knows - Beach Boys
Wild World - Cat Stevens
American Woman - The Guess Who
Riders on the Storm - The Doors
Big Poppa - Notorious BIG
Heroin - The Velvet Underground
Islands - The XX
Lou Reed - Perfect Day

I will add many more, I am sure.

Lit Pub article and an extract

Today, The Lit Pub published my article on Ana C. and Richard Chiem's 'Oh No Everything Is Wet Now'. The article is here:

http://thelitpub.com/oh-no-everything-is-wet-now-is-a-rebellion-against-the-standardisation-of-literature/

Read the book here:

http://magichelicopterpress.com/ohno/ohnoeverythingwet1.html


Extract from new novel

Backstraight and sunken, Robin’s canvas is laced with shapes: a fingernail moon; two heavy, sexual spheres; ribs of fine, long lines; blooming blotches; slow snailing trails; a trinity of stars; a pair of hands. Robin screams a nothing sound and dips the brush back to clean.

reshaping and rewriting

new novel might transform a little, becoming a little more interconnected than originally intended.

seems that it will 'function' as a novel now.

think in terms of how 'A Visit From The Goon Squad' functions as a novel.

certain characters seem likely to become prominent, which I hadn't intended previously.

still very much exploring ideas & experimenting.

*

I add to The Prodigal around once a week. Feels like each session is progress. Feels like it is tightening up. I am cutting out anything that seems/feels lazy.

good news

my follow up submission to PANK has been accepted.

editing

i keep finding parts in The Prodigal that seem really poorly written.

editing seems to be the only way to salvage the book.

forgive me.

i am trying hard.

i am still learning.

btw bbz

i'm writing a collection of essays on the subject of virtual ontology.

each essay/article (w/e) will look at a text/book/ebook (w/e) and explore how it has some bearing/relevancy (w/e) on the construction of an ontological self/presence (w/e) within virtual space.

it's called Virtual Ontology.

literary criticism is the shit, yo.

news

first chapter of new project received a very encouraging rejection from PANK.

an article by me will be published in December in The Lit Pub.

new project

is laying itself out for me.

i am learning to be patient with ideas.

to let them spill out as draft, not product.

i hope i have improved as a writer.

i hope i can go on improving The Prodigal between now and its publication date.

i want to offer you a wonderful experience.

my novel

as Beach Sloth noted in his review of the first draft of The Prodigal

it is a very interconnected book.

sentences play off other sentence that may have been 50 pages before.

i put a lot of effort into making these connections seem natural.

because it is such a short novel, there is some joy to making it sing to itself.

the work seems interconnected on account of the way the story is told.

by a character driven text, written in third person-present tense, i was able to jump between times and in/external monologues with a degree of believabilty and continuity.

my novel

while i'm going through the editing process, this might become a series

of how i perceive The Prodigal.



as a comedy, it is not a witty novel.

it is more likely to make you LOL that titter to yourself in a self satisfied way.

it is asinine and base and relatable and foreign.

it is all these things because it is a character based book.

the novel isn't driving towards an ending.

lots of novels i like do that,

but lots of novels that i like go out their way not to.

the novel is geared around some guys.

the novel hangs in a middle.

it might feel like a sketch show.

i tried to track a balance between thinking and actions

and internal and external monologues.

this was the biggest challenge.

this is where most of the editing has been taking place.

this is where i hope to make it a better experience.

this is where i want to make myself as invisible as possible.

my novel

isn't complex, sophisticated or revolutionary.

it is challenging, experimentantive and honest.

it is also quite funny.

i hope you buy it in 2013.

oh

it seems to me

that the worst thing

is to be cruel.

i have been cruel many times.

i will try to minimise this.

i believe that i can be a better person.

October Reading List

Term is restarting and I have two manuscripts to edit. This might be slow going.

Action, Figure - Frank Hinton
Nouns of Assemblage - [various]
Us - Mike K.
In Great Company - Mike S.
EVER - Blakey B.
Wild Abandon - Joe Dunthorne
No Hellos Diet/Hurt Others - Mr. Sam Pink.
My Eyes Saw Your Unformed Limbs - Jacob Steinberg