The Corporation
In my efforts to get published, I feel like I am slowly becoming part of a large corporation. This corporation has its own company culture which you need to become familiar with in order to move ahead. There is a certain manner of speaking, a way of talking about yourself. You need to be able to acquire friends and influence people. You need networking skills, good presentation; you need to be open and confident.
Some promoted to the upper level. The talented, that is. Do you too have talent? You won't know yourself. There are talent spotters in the corporation. You can be lucky and run into one by the water cooler. Or you can try to get the attention of one - without being pushy.
Doing your job excellently can be enough to get promoted; it just takes years and years, or else a lot of luck.
After some time you want to get out. You feel you don't understand the unwritten rules, you never will. You want to clear your head of the institutionalised thinking. Just why is someone universally lauded for talent when a couple of weeks before their work was universally ignored?
The corporation requires a particular kind of personality to succeed. You have to ask yourself: are you that type? You might instead be an individualist, a non-conformist - a creative type.
It goes like this:
A child of twelve can understand it. It goes like this:
There is no truth outside what people decide is true. People vie against each other in argument, and the consenus that emerges is what we call the truth.
If you yourself are involved in the debate, then it is accepted you will appeal to "the truth" in order to convince your opponent. It's human nature. If you manage to convince enough people, then you will feel vindicated. You can't help it; you're human.
Go ahead, support whatever view takes your fancy: it's a free world.
On Rejections
Got a rejection slip from the NY. It came by real post. "We regret that we are unable to use the enclosed material." A note was handwritten underneath: "Thanks for the read. Keep writing."
Thanks NY. It's a little courtesy that counts for a lot. Their last rejection (by email) went: "We're sorry to say that this manuscript is not right for us, in spite of its evident merit."
The Paris Review on the other hand have never replied. Their stated policy is not to send a rejection slip at all. If your piece gets accepted, fine, they are good enough to contact you. Otherwise, silence. If on the other hand your submitted piece gets accepted in the meantime, you are obliged to inform them.
Well, it happened that indeed the piece was accepted somewhere else several months later. On a whim I wrote a short note withdrawing the story. They do not communicate by email, so I brought the letter to the post office. It was one of those quirky things people do, like talking to the bolts and clips when you are trying to assemble IKEA furniture. Except the instructions from IKEA don't state: "You are obliged to talk to the components when assembling."
the Dublin Review
I have a piece in the latest issue of The Dublin Review. It was one of those occasional long stories that engage me fully. I get caught up in the characters and the story keeps demanding greater space for development rather than cutting. But as the finish comes into sight I get more depressed. There is nowhere to publish a story more than about 5,000 words long. The knowledge of my wasted effort gets me down.
In this case however the story escaped. Before submitting to the DR I emailed the editor, Brendan Barrington, and asked if he would even consider one that length. He said he would, and off it went.
This issue also has a prison story by Carlo Gébler and a gaelic pastiche by Robert Cremins. I haven't yet read all the non-fiction articles, but what caught my eye was Adrian Frazier's essay on Yeat's late play Purgatory. Oddly enough, I'd made an attempt to read that play some weeks before. It struck me then as being non-Irish, drawing from some tradition I was unaware of. I read it as an uncompromising study of those whose lives are cursed and who have moved beyond hope. Few such reports are returned from the world of despair.
Frazier points out that Yeats believed in such things as hauntings and spirit voices. The play, he writes, is not a gothic ghost-story or a modern version of a Noh play; it is realism.
But apart from this Frazier's essay mentions a late work (around 1938) by Yeats, On the Boiler. I have to get my hands on this. It seems to be a diatribe against the consequences of over-democratization as Yeats foresaw it. Modern society has proceeded in a diagrammatically opposite direction to every sentiment expressed here. Here are three quotes:
Most Irish people should not be taught to read or write.
Representative democracy has given Ireland to the incompetent.
The success of the Abbey Theatre has grown solely out of a single conviction of its founders - 'Not what you want, but what we want.'
Bewley's Cafe Theatre New Play
It's a hot night in Belfast. Johnny Meister is sweating, pumped full of energy. He roams the streets bumping into friends, popping a few pills, bumming a toke, and trying to avoid an encounter with his arch enemy The Stitch.
The argot can be as dense and menacing as that in A Clockwork Orange. And yet it's real, taken straight from the street.
It's a fast-paced amoral world, and we are swept along by The J.Meister who relates it all. He jumps freely into his own version of the friends he meets. His anecdotes of the past are interrupted by the impinging events of the now. There are underage girls, drugs, milfs, speeding, revenge, piss-takes, and always razor-sharp humour.
Davey Stitch takes over the monologue for the second part of the play. From J.Meister's constant anxieties, I expected this guy to be as hard as fuck and hell-bent on revenge. In fact he is even more keen to avoid any violent encounter. But when his sister claims to have been abused by J.Meister, we can feel things are going to turn bad.
A little familiarity with the Belfast accent will serve you well in following this play. The dialogue makes no compromises for a middle-class Dublin audience. And rightly so. The play might possibly set the viewer off thinking about social deprivation, class divisions, binge drinking culture ... but there are no such reflections in the drama itself. It's just Meister and The Stitch, in their own language and on their own terms.
The playwright is Rosemary Jenkinson. I feel like saying "she has a remarkable ear for the rhythms of Belfast English" but to be honest I wouldn't be a competent judge of that. I take it on trust from the excellent reviews this play has got from previous runs in Belfast and Edinburgh. I know this play is brilliant though, and acted with astounding energy. By the end of it the two lads were wringing.
Get to it while you can.
Moving to Stoneybatter
Despite the name of my fiction collection, I've never been certain that I live in Stoneybatter. Like most local areas of Dublin, there are no official borders on any map. This is a great boon for estate agents, who can reassign houses from Ballymun to Glasnevin, or Cabra to Phibsboro. Or even make up entirely new areas.
But from next month I will indisputably reside in Stoneybatter, in a house that looks something like the one above.
The Brian Moore award
I got back from a long-overdue holiday on Sunday, at four in the morning. A few hours sleep and then it was time to get the bus to Belfast. I reckoned on a couple of hours snooze on the bus, but the sun was blazing through the glass and made me feel lucid. It felt like the beginning of summer.
I hadn't bothered looking up maps; I was sure the first person on the street would know the John Hewitt bar. Bad mistake. They were all just as much strangers as myself. The shops were all closed (if they were open at all on a Sunday) and only tourists would be strolling around the city centre. But a security guard at last put me in the right direction.
The shortlist was kept secret. Each person on the shortlist knew they were on it (obviously), and as far as I know they could tell whoever they wanted. But the names were not circulated. I didn't see any familiar faces when I came in. It was too early for a pint, so I ordered a coffee.
The fellow beside me at the bar looked pretty ordinary. Given that one-in-three of the people in the pub were on the shortlist, it was a reasonable question to ask. "I am indeed," he said. "Are you on it yourself?"
We had a small chat, but seeing as I was there on my own, and he apparently had no-one with him, it became quite a long chat. He was a big fan of Brian Moore (he pronounced it Breen, which I understand is how the writer preferred it), and had read 17 of his novels. Brian Moore, he told me, was greatly under-rated these days, and there was bound to be a resurgence of interest in his work. The enthusiasm came out in his voice as he recommended me what to read.
And what about the judge, Richard Baush, I asked. "I've only read two of his books," he answered apologetically. "But I really like his stuff. Great short stories."
Now I had read nothing by Brian Moore and less by Richard Bausch. If there was any justice this guy would win and not me. But I was pretty sure neither of us would win anything. It was a gut feeling.
The shortlist was read out name by name. Then the third place was announced: Korrena Bailey from Monaghan. This was one of her first pieces of writing. She's far left in the photograph. Second place was Sheena Wilkinson. Both had just finished the MA in creative writing at Queens. The competition was open to all in Ireland, but I would imagine it got more attention up north, especially through the work of the host organisation, the Creative Writers Network. By all accounts they are a great resource, providing a much-needed hub for writers across Northern Ireland.
Then Richard Bausch called out the winner, Hugo Kelly, the man I'd been talking to for the last hour. Sometimes the right person wins.
Hugo has won a number of competitions, including the George Moore short story competition no less than three times. He's been shortlisted for Fish, the Francis MacManus, and several other places that either I forget or that he didn't mention. I'd love to read some of his work, I think a collection is long overdue and hopefully this win will change that.
Discovery of a Writer
I came across this article on the salt publishing website. It's by an experienced literary agent, Luigi Bonomi. The style is jaunty, familiar, nudging - like a tabloid columnist. It's addressed to the wannabe writer:
some part of you wonders whether it really is publishable and will make you your fortune
Hold, stop right there. Real writers don't think their books will suddenly earn a fortune. Enough of the patronising tone. But it gets worse.
Now here comes the important bit you will be solely judged on what you have written in your covering letter and on your first page.
I can't believe he wrote this. In moments of disillusionment, I'm sure most writers think that agents spend more attention on the cover letter than they do on the manuscript. But it's a cold shock to see it stated here with a perverse kind of pride. In the cover ketter, Luigi continues, you should take pain to avoid any suggestion of "Difficult Author syndrome". Hmm. Do I sound like I might be suffering from "Difficult Author syndrome"?
The cover letter should say
what you are currently doing with your life apart from writing, and how far you have got with the novel
I had always thought you had to submit a complete novel. I mean, what agent would begin to work with an author who hasn't even finished the work? Or what kind of writer would submit a novel he/she had only started?
If it's good the novel will be put aside and read more carefully later in the week. If not, it's sent straight back with nothing else having been read except for the first page!
He makes clear that he's only talking about the slush pile here. But I'm genuinely confused. What books/writers are not on the slush pile and how did they get there?
you have on average around 60 seconds to impress an agent with your covering letter and first page. ONLY 60 SECONDS.
I don't know any writer who would claim to be able to make a judgement on a novel within 60 seconds. Nor any editor. But you split that amount of time between the novel and the cover letter! This is just beyond any speedy gonzales jokes. If you were a professional working for a company and admitted to making crucial decisions in 60 seconds you would have your sorry ass kicked out the door.
And yet there are brilliant authors out there waiting to be discovered. We know there are − this year a police constable sent us his first novel and it went for £800,000.
- Even a policeman can become a writer, is that what you're saying? I won't be sending you my manuscript any time soon, Luigi. No sane non-celebrity would send you his/her work. You will miss the opportunity to discover me, another "unknown". But I have discovered you - to be a dickhead. It took me longer than 60 seconds - but that's because I took the time to read what you had written. And I took the time to look at your website, and analyse what kind of writers you take on, and what might have been on their cover letter that attracted your attention.
These are the jobs of the very first 6 fiction authors on the LBA's list:
TV producer, PR & communications consultant, Television drama scriptwriter, military pilot, broadcaster & Guardian columnist, host of TV's The Gadget Show.
I gave up then and never got as far as the policeman. This kind of bullshit-sniffing just makes me feel dirty and degraded. Before I go I'll take the opportunity to call you ' arrogant dickhead' again Luigi. With your 60 second attention span you won't read this far. Oh, and if you ever give a talk entitled "How to become a writer" I'm gonna throw a scoop of horse poo at you. Courtesy of Smithfield horse market.
Sue me. It'll make me famous and then I can sell a book.
Djelloul Marbrook
Djelloul Marbrook has been maintaining his online commentary on culture and journalism for just over three years now. He is a one-man assault of reason on the bullshit apparatus closing in around us. Without bitterness, with no resort to irony, he picks apart the issues of the day: Iraq, media standards, the car industry, the election campaigns, the financial crisis.
For decades he worked inside the belly of the beast: Marbrook has had a long career as a journalist with papers such as The Providence Journal, The Elmira (NY) Star-Gazette, The Baltimore Sun, The Winston-Salem (NC) Journal & Sentinel, and The Washington Star. He has witnessed at first hand the changing nature of newspapers, the manifest decline in respect for the truth. His breadth of perspective is not measured in the days or weeks, but stretches from the 1950's to the present.
Marbrook began his blog when he was 74. He has been making several posts each week since then. The energy, acuity, and variety of the writing is truly astonishing. It is always the whole man talking - not a mud slinger, nor an exhibitionist, nor someone trying to make a name in journalism. He has already been down that road, but finally found the freedom to say what he needs to say in this new medium of the internet blog. The topics range from the political to the personal, from art to climate change. Always the topic is grounded in the events of the day, though the perspective broadens out. The energy and occasional experimentation with style suggest a much younger mind grappling with the world. There's nothing to suggest a writer of over 75, except where he explicitly brings in his own experiences. He is a man of integrity in an age when such a statement sounds quaint.
It comes as a surprise - given the close acquaintance with current affairs - to find out that he is a poet. That is to say, he had a collection of poetry, his first, published last year. Far From Algiers won the Wick Poetry Prize last year. He keeps track of reviews here.
Here's my pick of Marbrook's posts from 2008.
Journalism as Imperial Circus, Jan 2008
Reflections on picking up a glossy magazine while waiting at the dentist's Feb 2008
Are too many books being published? Feb 2008
The many ways to stroll down a street in New York, March 2008
Djelloul reflects on his journalistic career in Baltimore, and the TV series The Wire. March 2008
The triumph of packaging over content, April 2008
On walking the streets of New York talking to yourself, April 2008
An appreciation of Brenda Shaughnessy's poems, April 2008
One of the many blessings of growing old is a certain integrity of smile. May 2008
Declining of newspaper standards and whether internet sites can take up the slack, May 2008
Though there are not many posts on the topic, but Djelloul has some experience in how the art world operates. Here he takes a look at the galleries of Hudson, New York and gives some tips to art buyers. June 2008
This post is what happens your brain if you watch too much television, July 2008 Marbrook announces the publication of his debut poetry collection Far From Algiers and talks a little about the poems' orgins, Sept 2008Just one of many observations on the Bush administration Oct 2008
America's drugged press, Oct 2008
Notes on the Detroit car industry crisis, unions, and legacy of Reaganism, Nov 2008
The press corps doesn't like a public figure who understands what he is talking about Nov 2008
The commercially censored press, Dec 2008
Do you remember the severe ice storm in the USA last December? Dec 2008
New Beginnings & Congratulations
Colm Liddy has blazed a trail and shown it's possible for a pharmacist to get published. And he hasn't even been on the telly. His 40 Fights Between Husbands and Wives is due out next month from Penguin. It's a thick collection of short pieces, all tightly revolving around the title theme. A few have appeared previously in The Stinging Fly - other than that he's totally new.
But he has worked hard for years. It's a long tale of rejections and new beginnings. Some of it is recorded in posts in The Stinging Fly Cafe. At one point he launches into a spontaneous prayer to the gods who create us:
Please be the agent for my book.
I just have this strong intuition that you'll be the one to break me free of this terrible cycle of rejection and despair, rejection and despair.
That particular approach didn't work. But some other one did. Eventually, at last, long last, finally, after years and years, one last final chance ... hit the target.
Congratulations and the best of luck to Colm and 40 etc. And to his wife, without whom the book would not have been possible.
Orbiting the Blogosphere
For some time I've been in a stable orbit above the blogosphere, observing through my refracting lens. But the tug of gravity pulled me in, spiralling ever closer ...
One of the liveliest blogs is Uiscebot's. Uiscebot's. It's a mixture of reviews of whatever play he happens to have seen the night before, interviews, and "and anything else that takes my fancy." "Uisce" means water in Irish. Beyond that I have no idea of the name. I won't reveal where he lives in case you have a vendetta against him, but I can show you his spiritual home. ⇒
I had dipped into Women Rule Writer several times over the last few months before I found out who the author is. I hadn't tried too hard: her profile photo, a shot from behind, is top right of the blog. Viewed at full size, those elegant bare shoulders suddenly look familiar.
Her blog is literary eclectic, part diary and part events guide - usually of events she wants to go to or is in some way involved in.
Women Rule Writer is the best place to pick up the hot trail of Irish lit blogging. Her posts always get comments from other bloggers and the links panel opens a door to the whole scene.
And it's a small, relatively new scene. Electric Acorn paved the way a decade ago for online mags, but blogs as such are new. The ones that have come to my (limited) attention only date back to 2007.
Emerging Writer describes itself as the struggles of an emerging writer to get published. He/she posts an average of once a day, often more. Amazingly diverse and possessed of a frenetic energy - I love the many photographs and youtube clips, tips on what's on, where to submit and what to read. He/she also keeps a word counter on progress in writing his/her novel. (I'm going to stick with the feminine from now on. That ME photo of a baby looks girlish. And "gynecological" is a word only a woman would use.) It stands at 25,545 as of today. By comparing this number with the output to the blog, maybe we can see where the words are going astray.
Long may she remain emerging!
Not a blog, but my current favourite ezine. 3am is great to dip into for interviews and short fiction. Some of the stories try to bamboozle you into awe ("transgressional fiction" is what they call it), others will truly blast your brain. You can't go far wrong when you start by flouting all the rules. Or ... well ... on second thoughts maybe you can click here! But if you need to mainline an antidote to the dying mother school of Irish fiction, this is the place to go. Don't expect stories from here to feature in The Sunday Tribune any time soon.
Before I accelerate to escape velocity from this sub-orbital trajectory through the blogosphere, I'll mention one of the pioneers. Sinead Gleeson used to be an editor at SIGLA magazine. They accepted two of my stories at once with heartening enthusiasm. (I don't now remember if it was Sinead herself or another editor). Later I wrote a couple of articles for the mag. It was a great venture while it lasted, always interesting articles and interviews, nothing like it today. But I can understand it must have been a full-time job for two or more people. Sinead metamorphosed SIGLA mag into the The Sigla Blog with some retroactive magic so that some of the material from the mag is now in the early years of the blog. Here's an interview with writer M.J. Hyland from 2004.
There's a treasure trove of stuff in her archives - let's hope it stays available forever and a day. In the last post dated June 16 of this year, Sinead says she'll be calling it a day. A blog can't go on forever. Four years and six months with an estimated 840 posts. I'm addicted to it, clicking through the archives, it's a music/film/books history of the recent past. All the good books I heard mentioned and then forgot.. the new bands. The posts range from 168 on books down to 5 on food & wine. Clearly she hasn't checked the bookshelf space in Eason's to see what's popular these days.
McLaverty Short Story Award
It was lashing rain when I got off the train in Belfast. I was tempted by the taxis, but thought my euros might take a hit. By the time I reached the Linenhall Library I was soaked to the bone. The librarian and administrator of the award, John Killen, greeted me politely enough, but only 5 seconds of politeness. He was busy with the logistics of the day, and waved me ahead for the tea and sandwiches. At that point I was sure I had not won. They always tell the winner in advance at these kind of things, I told myself.
I was pleased to see a familiar face on the shortlist, Belfast's Rosemary Jenkinson. She's a short story writer and playwright with a play coming up next week at the Old Museum Arts Centre, Belfast.
The prize was judged by writer Carlo Gébler and editor Anne Tannahill. The names of the runners-up were announced first. Gébler described the third place story and why he liked it, then called out: "Is Suzanne Walsh here today?" scanning the room left and right.
The same for Margaret Irish (who will be giving a reading in Galway next Thursday.)
When my story title was called out I enjoyed several seconds of secret fame.
Then the photographs and shaking hands began. McLaverty's daughters and granddaughter were there. I met them again by chance on the train back to Dublin and we had a long chat to shorten the journey.
The story was written in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin when I lived there. You had to leave your coat and bag at the Garderobe. There was a café attached with cheap tea and coffee. I began to read German here too.
Here's the official announcement.
Email from nowhere
Baduk, Go, Weiqi
Yesterday I got promoted to 9 kyu at the game of go.
I have a faint memory of coming across a description of the game of go in a compendium in the Ilac centre library soon after it opened. The book - a large illustrated volume - contained the rules of all the most common board and card games. There were several pages on the game called go (Japan), baduk (Korea) or weiqi (China).
The game seemed to me more like a natural discovery than an invention. It was like Pythagoras' theorem or prime numbers. I would not have been surprised if the game had been discovered independently by distant civilisations. It has been claimed that if intelligent life exists anywhere else in the universe, then they will play go.
So how is it played?
A grid of squares on a board.
Black stones, white stones.
What to do next?
Well, you could flick them like tiddly winks. You could form shapes on the board.
But let's suppose a black stone is placed, then a white one, and so on. Let's suppose they don't move.
What rule can we apply so there can be a winner?
We can think of making the longest line. We might think of who can be the first to make a 2x2 square. What about some rule to capture the enemy's stone? We are placing stones one by one - there is no jumping. How about making it a capture if you can surround the enemy's stones?
If it is black's move, he can capture the single marked white stone. If it is white's move, he can capture the marked black group.
What extra rules do we need to add make a game?
Surprisingly, none. At least, no arbitrary extra rules - they all follow naturally from that first premise: that the game is about closing off the enemy stones to capture them.
In Chinese it is called the game of surrounding.
The white stones at the bottom can never be captured by black.
The winner of the game is the one who has surrounded the most points plus prisoners.
Inundated
I just chose a suitable piece for The Sunday Tribune. I have heard that it's not good to be too experimental there, and that a sad human interest story will go far. Dying mother kind of thing.
I took a look at the website to check the word limit. No sign of it; no mention of submissions. I used google with the URL targeted at www.tribune.ie. Searched for "new irish writing", "submissions", "Ciaran Carty".
Fact: There is absolutely no mention of how to submit fiction to the Trib, nor any indication that unsolicited submissions are possible. Not on the site, nor anywhere else I can find online.
Well, that's a good way to cut down on the work pile.
The Trib and the associated Hennessy award have come to occupy a position of influence. In the blurb for the collection The Tribune prides itself that the awards "proved a vital launching pad for many of the most exciting writers in Ireland today."
"Some of the great names in Irish and international literature were discovered when they were first published in the New Irish Writing page of The Sunday Tribune."
In the couple of writing groups I have attended, from the instructors, and among other writers (at least two who have had stories in the Trib), I have never heard anything good about New Irish Writing. Nothing terribly bad; just a mention of dying mothers and mediocrity.
It's sad to think that - by default - being published in The Trib has become a badge of honour. There are no other mass circulation outlets in Ireland, and so this one is given respect beyond its due. It's sad to think that getting into The Trib is the boost writers wait years for.
To their credit though, they often choose writers with no previous publications.
I submitted once before, but it was a long time ago. I lived in Poland and and didn't know the word-limit. The standard rejection letter did not enlighten me. "As you can imagine, we are inundated with stories ..."
Yep, and another is on its way. Oh, for those not in the know, the word limit is 2,500.
Granta reply
Granta posted me a reply to my submission. (I had not sent a SAE.) They thank me for submitting work, but unfortunately will not be able to respond individually to my submission if unsuccessful. They will contact me only if they wish to publish my work.
This is a new one. An individual letter to inform me that they cannot respond individually? So, is this better or worse than the rejection they sent last time?
Granta is committed to discovering and publishing the finest new fiction and non-fiction from around the world, they say on their website. Going back a few issues, all the fiction contributors were high-profile, most of them for their writing.
Naked Thighs and Cotton Frocks
My "Like A Good Boy" story appears in the anthology Naked Thighs and Cotton Frocks and Other Stories published by Leaf Books, Wales. It came out in December, but it seems the initial print run has already sold out, so I haven't had a chance to read the other stories yet. Leaf Books are innovative publishers of mini-books (20 for a tenner), and courageous concepts such as mixed poetry and story anthologies, science fiction, and micro-fiction. This anthology has eleven short stories from writers across the UK, and one from Ireland (myself).
When I lived in Germany every kiosk and knick-knack shop would have a small collection of micro books on sale close to the till. Tiny matchbox-sized books, for the handbag or pocket. Leaf Books are the only ones I know of on these islands who produce these sort of books. Who knows, the idea could catch on with our masters, the great public.
The glacier moves again
Crannog magazine accepted a piece and invited me to give a reading at their launch on 19th October. It's at the Crane Bar, Sea Rd, Galway at 6.30 pm, Oct 19.
Also at the beginning of October Arabesques accepted two pieces. They are due to appear in the next issue.
Reading in Donegal
I've been invited to give a reading as part of the CLE author editor tour. Haven't decided yet what piece to read.
Tuesday 23rd October 8pm
Letterkenny Library
featuring from The Stinging Fly Press
Authors Neil Hegarty and Aiden O'Reilly with Editor Declan Meade
More information
I still occasionally read some mathematics, more rarely share their company. This list of 10 differences between mathematicans and writers is the kind of twitter I promised not to unload on my website. Next I'll be blogging like a sphincterly challenged gourmand about my recent controversial exchange with Penguin.
Italian translation
It looks like These Are Our Lives may appear in Italian next year. At least, I was asked to give permission for my story to be included. It would be great if Le Nostre Vite gets a second life in Italy.
3000
The homepage counter has passed the 3,000 mark. Even subtracting all the spiders, bots, and worms that's still quite a few visitors.
A better statistic might be the unique visitors per month. That averages about 400. As usual on websites, most visitors just view the homepage. The individual stories get 12 - 32 unique hits a month. That could well be more readers than they might get in paper form.
Yet I still feel like I am producing stories for nobody.
Tidal Wave of Bullshit
When I worked on the sites in London I used to shake my head in incredulity at the headlines in the tabloid press. The crass jingoism, chummy language, and the cunning commandeering of the man-in-the-street's opinion were obvious to every hod carrier, even the Mayo ones. Crap like that would never go down in Ireland. An English workmate explained that the Brits weren't stupid, they would just buy the paper for a laugh to see what stupidity was in it that day. Most would buy two papers - one for the news and one for the tits and a laugh.
More than a decade on, The Evening Herald doesn't have tits in it to identify it as a rag. And the humour is usually unintentional. This is the paper that once had the front-page headline Man Almost Run Over by Tram. (It was the first week of the Luas.)
I have lived in several countries since, and gone through years when I knew as much about Ireland as I did about Jamaica. When I returned to Ireland it was a shock to see how bad the papers had become. I begin to see that if a person reads them long enough he becomes the sort of person they are addressed to.
Yesterday the headline was Squatters Demand €2 million of Taxpayers Money to Move On. That was about a traveller family that has been living undisturbed on a plot of land for over twenty years, and so have acquired rights to that land under Irish law. The article confirms peoples' prejudices that travellers have plenty of money, and that the government hands out money freely to lazy wasters. That second opinion is not actually native to Ireland: one should understand that the journalists have gotten their notion of the common man's concerns not by talking to people in pubs, but by copying the style wholesale from the UK or USA models. That would explain the use of such words as "boffins" to mean scientists. I have never heard this word used in Ireland. Here is an analysis of Evening Herald of a few issues of the paper.
Today the headline is Hurricane Punches Charity Ref. I take this race to the bottom very seriously. Readers are being fed a diet of bullshit. I can't say there's any devious political motivation in the Evening Herald, not currently. But the populace is being led to a quagmire. There is no truth, just the opinions of different factions. The closest to truth is what the majority at a particular moment desire. The masses despise themselves yet exult in their own power. They become ready for harnassing by a tyrant.
Jedyna dobra strona gazety jest polski dodatek wydawany w srode.
I have no particular interest in journalism, but I bear witness here: this paper is SHIT.
When writing you are free
When I meet would-be writers - usually through the internet - I try to be helpful, proof-read their scripts, tell them when the plot holds together and when it gets too confusing. But I have nothing to say to them about getting published. I can never say "if you improve on this I'm sure it will get published." On the whole, I feel better not meeting them at all.
It's nicer to meet realistic people who have a chance.
In other areas of life I became accustomed to my work being valued for its skill and ingenuity. Only in writing do I feel that success or failure is beyond my control. A chance introduction, a photograph in a newspaper, a revealing bio - these are things that might be crucial.
Some people think this is great. It reassures them that the world works in a familiar way at all levels. "That's the way the world works," they tell me.
See, they return
I am back in Poland for a while. The dry air quickens my thought. The country has not changed as much as I expected. Perhaps because Ireland has changed so much recently I expect every country to become strange to me over the course of a couple of years. Or - like many Poles themselves - I had a kind of feeling that joining the EU would effect a transformation overnight.
Pozdrowienia dla moich wszystkich przyjacioł i czytelnikow w Polsce. Polska jest ojczyzną mojej tworczości. Pewnego dnia wrocę tam, żeby żyć i mieszkać. Brakuje mi elegancji i wdzięku Polski. W Polsce nauczyłem się, że człowiek sam decyduje o ty, kim jest a nie, że jest tym, za kogo inni go uważają. W Polsce rownież nauczyłem się co znaczy "walczyć".
Revamp
Over the next few days I am putting up my redesigned website. I've gone for a clean look called "transparentia" with little to detract from the writing.
Talking about me
They will say "Aiden is arrogant." How could I not be arrogant if I am to survive at all? If I were less arrogant you would never have heard from me. They will say: "Aiden is pretentious." I say: Who am I pretending to, when there is nobody listening?
But of course, they will not say these things.
They will say nothing at all.
Reverse Links
The following sites contain links to this site:
Searc's Webguide to Irish Writers
Laura Hird's Site
Irish Writers Online Philip Casey's site
The Stinging Fly
Google Directory
Reference.com Directory
Who Is Hot Now Celebrity Entertainment Directory (somebody hates me)
These are Our Lives short story collection
J.G. Ballard
I am still re-reading Ballard's novels since I completed a review of Kingdom Come for The Stinging Fly last week. Ballard was an early favourite of mine - each story seemed to have a hard jewel at its core. Eniwetok - the thermonuclear noon. The man who walked on the moon. The Terminal Beach. I didn't like Empire of the Sun much. It's appeal depends on its being real. In fact I didn't read it to the end until a couple of years ago. Now that the future is here Ballard had to move away from science fiction. His more recent novels are set in the terminal landscapes of the modern age - the suburbs or a Mediterranean holiday zone. These take the place of the deserts, nuclear test zones and abandoned airfields that feature in his earlier fiction.
We don't need science fiction any more. Now that the world is changing to be an alien place and we no longer know ourselves, we need fiction to tell us what the human is, what relationships are, how to live.
2000
The number of visitors to the site has passed two thousand. I'm not sure how many are by mistake, but it is still a significant number. I hope there are some real readers among them.
Say nothing Aiden. An unpublished writer has no right to speak.
New Stories
Three or four new stories have been added to my collections since June. My favourite is still This Is How It Is from the second collection.
Over the past six months I have come to believe that these stories will be published when they are good enough. This is a great boost. I never had this belief before, nor was there any reason to have such a belief.
The Winding Stair Bookshop, mentioned in one of my first posts below, is open for business again. This time round they occupy the ground floor only, but they have well-chosen stock including many from the smaller publishers.
Short Story Anthology
In early July The Stinging Fly Press will publish a collection of short fiction These Are Our Lives. It looks to be the definitive collection from Ireland this year. Lots of new names appear in it, including my own.
Guest page
I had to delete the guestpage. Spam was flooding up to 200 entries per day. The spam bots also discovered my email address (aidenoreilly@eircom.net) on this site. I knew that spam was inevitable once I made my email available. It was just a question of becoming popular enough.
1000
Some time in March the number of visitors passed the thousand mark. Not bad for a site just one year old. About 40 new visitors a week take a look. But I suppose a lot of them don't count as real. There are a lot of unreal people.
New Stories
Over the last week (since Feb 23) I have added two new stories. One is in The Stoneybatter Files, and the other has gone into Greetings, Hero.
Hey, you there in Korea
And you too in Australia, Turkey and Austria. Sign my guestbook! It would be great to have a few calling cards from different places around the world. I'm not that cool that I wouldn't appreciate them. In the website stats you can see the broad range of countries where people are looking at this site. It seems odd to me that I have more readers in the Czech Republic, South Korea, and Turkey than I do in Ireland.
SIGLA
An article of mine on artificial intelligence appeared in July's SIGLA. The second fiction collection Greetings, Hero has been off-line for three months now. Aiden is re-editing several of the stories. Another story of his appeared in SIGLA magazine last month.
Roman Empires appeared three months ago - see below.
NEWS
You can understand more about the extended present through these stories than you can by hooking up to the headlines. Watching the news every day puts you in danger of losing contact with reality, of becoming immersed in an eternal NOW where nothing ever changes.
The Latest
The latest news in my extanded time-perspective is that after 2000 years Christianity is coming to an end in the industrialised world. Churches are being redeveloped into apartments, the tattered remnants make a fundamentalist stand - in the USA of all places. Men have reached the moon and computers play chess better than grandmasters. The mass of knowledge has accumulated to such an extent that people can spend over twenty years being educated to understands the basics in any field. Our cultural inheritance has laid the foundations a world for which we do not have the intellectual capacity to grasp. In the exact sciences there is still a paradigm of progress to ever greater heights, but in political, educational and artistic life a new modesty is emerging.