Forum Comments

Thanks, Tina.

From an idyllic country cottage to a squalid, alcoholic's cave in one foul swoop! Amazing what we find when we scratch the surface, huh? I really feel for Marnie. She needs help. Looks like you've got some new lodgers.

Twiggy/Monopoly money/child's mother says 'That's nice'. I've got one of those pursed-lips smiles, meaning I'm ever slightly in awe of this story's writing. It's cheeky and rolls along naturally, and I really like the petty little discussions between the two women. Doesn't end there, I hope.

That reminds me of something, Alex. The accident people are almost urging us to have (fake) an accident by sending us these messages (I've had at least two hundred). Talk about capitalism at its finest. More work for the hospitals, doctors, nurses, lawyers, telesales staff, phone companies, all to justify a couple of weeks off work and a £2370 compo claim for someone desperate or stupid enough to be sucked in. The actual cost to society far outweighs the sum realised, but the rich don't care and nor do the govt. Why should they when they don't have to do any of the work? If the company yields profit and the workers yield tax, they're quids in.

I didn't find this sad. You're breaking the cycle, but forgiveness is key to keeping it broken. The only battle is of the sexes, and being one for the children's sake, even if not together. If that's achieved, the broken cycle will remain broken. We don't choose our parents but we'd be nothing without them. Lovely little poem. Thanks

Surely we can have one more just before she leaves. At least one going to the airport, surely. I don't know if I can wait till you get out there. She's priceless.

Always glad to help. Youngish, hey? I still think you've got a future in writing. I hope you keep writing and posting. All the best Richard

'Awfully hard getting the buggy around the rainforest'. Love it to bits. Read the first, too. They both have the exact same voice; Jennifer Saunders? Well done. You could do a third, no? Mortgage repayment worries, cards have been scissored, hubby's beta blaster needs changing and his job's in the air, the children don't talk and one's been expelled, home-taught now, charity accounts late for the taxman because it's all gone on you know who, house on the market but nobody's buying, gambling on poker sites to steady the boat, life crumbling, friends removing themselves quietly. You've a real talent for comedy. Very personal. Almost too close for comfort. There's money in this work and to develop it as a TV comedy sketch with all the characters may be an arduous task but could prove very worthwhile. Richard

2011 will be a year of hopeless, relentless pessimism. Or perhaps a reality check is a better way of putting it. Better still, a year of spiritual correction.

Thanks to Shoe, Amlee and McWilfo for reading and enjoying.

The world will change forever in Feb when countries have to show their paperwork. This reminded me of how close it is.

I was only giving a personal view. I just couldn't see the attraction, and felt let down from my expectations. They do tend to let us down (expectations), especially when they're built on CHiPS and Foghorn Leghorn. If you can hack it, and there's very few that can, I wish you all the best. The dream is there, no doubt.

Dom's right. Publishers/agents have closed ranks and unless you're a celebrity chef or have a specific niche market, chances are it'll get alot worse before better. E books are all very well but I'm a staunch traditionalist when it comes to books. E books aren't even books, which says alot for the digital age (selling something that isn't actually there, with you). While the tree element is there, literary book production for new, independent work counts for pretty much zilch compared to food and product packaging which is over-elaborate for commercial/unitarian reasons. I don't buy books anyway, unless they're from a charity shop. I get what is on offer from friends and the library. Sharing is good. I've set up a little publishing company called Catchy Monkey (the website will be up in time for my picture-book's release in about a month). To encourage me to sell them over a certain time and to get a good price for proper printing, I'm investing enough for 200 caseback books and 800 perfect bound so they look the part against all the Chinese made ones on the shelves. I'm using a small British litho printer. With an ISBN code, I can sell thru Waterstones and indy bookshops but they take 50-odd% (which wipes a huge chunk of profit but keeps it out there) so I'll be reading to children at schools and libraries for free. Back to the well-trodden path for me, which seems to be surplus to requirements for mainstream publishers, who prefer to do multimedia tie-ins or just keep churning out books that my Mum read as a child. Readings are much more enjoyable because I love the buzz of seeing kids' eyes light up and hearing them laugh together. My illustrator, an old friend, just won Redbubble.com's 'modern artist of our times' award for 2011 and it's a plus that he's my favourite children's book artist in the world. I'd be up for reading other writers' work with a view to publishing it with them. As far as I know at this time, I'd ideally charge £11 for the ISBN code (I paid £111 for ten codes), £39 to use the name and 10% for each book sold by way of my website. For sales thru bookshops, there won't be any charge because I can link the order straight to you and you'll send them off yourself. Any other marketing would be down to you, so apart from exposure and a point of sale, you'll be promoting your book as hard as you want. Belief is key to selling a product and every company out there surely started from scratch. This may sound precocious and arrogant but all I'm saying is that I'm damned if I don't take the plunge now and my hat's off to anyone who wants to do the same. There are so many scare-merchants out there prepared to put down ambition but their comments usually say alot more about them than anyone else. There's always a tetchy reason for provocation. Luigi, your work is very well respected. Maybe start a poetry night in your area and see what happens. Poetry's easy to print cheaply. You may have already done so. Ideas blossom. Real publishers will come to you if they want to, and when that happens it'll be for more than a slice of a buck. Keep the faith.

I'm bowled over. Thanks, Rachel. You're a real day-maker. Read this to my girls class and they liked it so I quietly confident your little uns will enjoy it. I'm trying to angle it to publishers but they're a bit of a closed book at the mo. Three bags full, sir! Going to send it to the Queen and the Duke of Gloucester to see if they like it.

Taken it out now. Cheers for that.

Yep. This is very nice indeedy

Finally! I knew something was up, though. I'm so into this that I've been making it up myself. Divine: the writing and the intervention. Your Tucson man certainly has angels flying all around him, and they're doing what no human could ever do. That is, outside of Terminal Three Heathrow and in the company of one fine helper. It's almost like the angels were so worn out by the time he got to you. I am absolutely sold on this story and am beginning to think (well, it's been a while actually) that these beautiful increments in your life's meandering but steadfast path (if that makes sense) were destined to become a book, and a very worthy one at that. My hope is that you don't send any of it out to publishers until it's completed. This feels like a spiritual journey for you, so let it roll, unravelling truths and revealing things to yourself in ways that were perhaps out of reach before it all started. You were meant to write this. Just keep being you and doing what you do and this amazing story will follow its rightful course; just like life. My thoughts and prayers are with your man. All the best Richard

Listening is vastly under-rated and sometimes people don't do it, so listen very carefully; You're a little gem of a person with a huge heart who has made me smile and giggle today. Keep the buzz going. Richard

Hi Pia, I think she does know I love her now but I gave her cause for concern a few years ago. We hurt the ones we love, don't we? Still, I'm making up for it with visits to her care-home and I'm now able to offer her the love she always had for me. Better late than never. All the best Richard

I think I understand what it is that a lot of your writing does for me. It takes me back to my twenties, and reminds me of my own experience of love and how I would exhaust it; the giddiiness of joy and belonging and then the certainty of an ending. It's a rare talent that can write about such things and cause others to touch their own void. Thanks Richard

If only the US could see that they've become the mirror-image of Russia, they'd jump out of their socks! No welfare, no health system, no work, no future, no love; just mental, emotional, sexual and physical obesity. One day, it'll pop.

Me too. I'm an Aries... Good starter - all smiles and fists flying- but get bored quick. I must have missed something in this story when you said you used a male narrator because I was sure it was a girl. It worked extremely well as a girl for me, much better than a boy, but perhaps I took it as I wanted to read it. It's definitely a female voice, although mentally transgendered, or unisex is a better way of putting it; Ferris Bueller meets Jo Brand meets JD Salinger. I think you would do best to embrace your bouncy feminine side. Not a lot of girls say it how it really is for fear of God knows what, perhaps themselves, but this piece says it ALL and warrants praise for its wretched, blithering, pinpoint-accurate honesty. I can't wait for one of my sisters to read this. She'll crease up and piss herself laughing. My other two sisters wouldn't get it so much. Indeed, they'd turn their noses up a bit. The sister who'd roll along in this is lesbian but that doesn't take away the fact that of all three, she holds all four of the comic aces, and the joker. Just the way it is. I really hope you manage to muster a plot, however flimsy, for this novel in progress (although broken down in a layby). Even if it was an imaginary plot in the mind of the author, or a worry she had, like the character might conjure in the piece about the Tesco value cream..

La France Tue: Cette fois, c'est L'Europe!

So much to say about this. A famous writer said that the best writers usually kill themselves with whatever takes their fancy and this hit the same spot. The world's full of tardy little shysters with no imagination. They pinch from, and plot against, anyone with flare, and it's a wise person who takes that on board, otherwise they slowly eat him up until he's dead. Then they sing his praises, telling of their faith to his cause at parties, buying his books until they go out of print. They were the first to recognise his talent!! 'Wait till he's dead,' say the publishers. 'Then go to his family and offer them a deal. They always take it.'

I grew up near Liverpool in the 70s and this took me back there. The Saturday morning cinema, getting kicked up the scrotum for hanging out with a Sri Lankan, Bay City Roller thugs, boot boys and hippies on Babycham. For me, all that's missing is a wanky reference to the Abba girls and the tennis girl scratching her arse on the poster. Still, I can't have it all. 'There clothes was so out of date' is the there typo, and the was. Nice piece.

Alphadog, Don't give these marketing morons any headspace. They're just misled individuals who assume we too are a bunch of robots that will remember the name nike when we see it elsewhere after these mindless posts have infiltrated our brains and suddenly go out and buy their pathetic wares. All the best Richard

Noble and no bull. Nice and sultry, too

The things we do to forget are never as valuable as the things we do to forgive. I think this is a nice poem.

Humour's lovely but there's a serious shortage of it. Humour is a word that describes something.

I've read this twice and I think that if you left out 'I flinch with the distance...' and 'I see myself; shrouded with...' and 'I see how he stroked my face...', these omissions might give a nice, snapshot contrast between the two final thoughts; the crudeness of your boyf's semen aroma following him around coupled by the innocent pondering of the dandelions as an ending.

Very strange poem, Maggy. I'm no Poirot at reading into petry but this seemed to be about co-depencency or was it incest or partner beating? I got miffed at her being 14 cos I guessed she was a little older. I'm probably missing all the vital clues here so guide me if you will. Your writing intrigues as always. Favour: would you read my effort 'i like that prosetry stuff' and let me know what you think about it. I'd appreciate your honest opinion. All the best, Richard

Cripes! That was as hard a read as I've had for ages, but for all the right reasons, if you know what I mean, which is that you capture us with your words so well. There's always something to identify with, tricky to get right and to make it feels as if it's coming from the reader's own experience. Like Barry says, this seems like a novel in progress. I certainly hope so, but I dread for Marnie as the story unfolds. Let's just hope she accepts the gift of desperation when it arrives and that she acts on it. She'll be in defensive mode tomorrow so just try and think 'live and let live', then she might answer some of her own questions about what to do. Keep on truckin' Richard

Sorry, Andrea. No one's perfect. The fact is, the care system in this country (UK) is a stinking cauldron of golden scams to the govt and a miserable, shambolic mess to those it's supposed to serve. British children are the least happy in the developed world. Poverty is at its worst rate for a hundred years. Our ill-served youngsters came last in four of six surveys and third last in the other two. At the other end of the Vulnerability Rainbow, care homes are big business for privately run profiteers. Everything is accorded to price/cost-efficiency. Frozen food heated up, lack of staff, idiot management, paperwork, NO TIME TO CARE IN A CARE HOME. I thank God that Asians make up most staff members because they come from a culture of care. In the UK, there is no culture of care because the sick bastards in govt entrust even sicker social workers to make crazy decisions based on targets to please privately run companies who purport to care in a system of corruption. 90% of all prostitutes on our streets who have been arrested at least once have come from the care system. At least 75% of care leavers have no academic qualifications of any kind. 71% of our homeless spent time in care. 17% of young girls leaving care are pregnant or already mothers. I don't have the figures but I think I can safely say that parentless and foster children represent far less than 1% of the child population. It's tiring to watch people get the wrong end of the stick and allow it to go on. Florian has posted a great topic here that's well worth developing but it'll go down the pit of extremism and be washed away with all the vulnerable people in this country, all because no one really has the time or inclination to care about anyone but themselves. Did anyone know that the adoption business in England alone accounts for £830 million? Of the 64,400 children in the 'care' system, only 3,200 were adopted, all because it's more profitable for the govt to keep them there. If we're talking about sell-by dates here, almost all the children who go through the care system are past theirs by the time they leave, if they make it through. NSPCC figures show that 300 'disappeared' while in care during the last three years, most probably sold to the sex and drugs trade. Before you worry about getting old, spare a thought for those who will never even be able to get a job.

I just booked a digital copy, Jennifer. Sorry for the delay but I've been so stony lately, saving up to pay for the printing of my children's book. Saw Terry Jones on BBC Breakfast and he mentioned you in the Unbound revolution, which reminds me of the same ethos that Rough Trade pioneered back in the 70's to provide a platform for the rise in anti-establishment music. The 50/50 royalty split is the same, too. Power to the people! You'll get there, but don't take your foot off the pedal just yet. This could be the start of something big and I wish you all the best for the future. Richard

Thanks Magic.

i liked the jittery childlike writing style and was thoroughly perplexed by the storyline, which refused to become more accessible, which was regrettable for me, having read with great interest this otherworldly piece. I'm convinced there is important meaning to the character's psychosis/paranoia/real life problem but never got even close to understanding. Like someone said, there's nothing else on abc like this, so well done for originality. Giving readers a bit more to chew on with regard to the emotional state of this character and background would have been helpful, but a good read nonetheless.

Read this and your other latest and they both roll off the mind's tongue really easily, a sure sign (to me at least) that you're in a purple patch. I hope you can find time to revel in it. It's already paying off but don't stop now. Times like this are few and far between the grind, little passages that make the gloomy norm worthwhile. All the best Richard

If this debate was about what goes on in Africa, then yes I think it's relevant and worth discussion, but in the developed world, or at least Europe and North America, I think gay rights have been given as much rightful freedom as women's rights, which have changed the balance of power in favour of women in the last thirty years (which was when divorce became acceptable, strangely enough). Any debate on social injustice in the Western world is far better given to the most vulnerable people, like one year-old babies awaiting adoption or children who suffer abuse in the home. THESE people are truly left in the dark and abused by the state by way of institutionalised neglect. In fact, it's almost as if govts were there to help the perpetrators. Being such a private 'family' matter, those who regard themselves as decent, upright citizens ignore these children as a matter of course, as if they were not their problem. Now THAT'S injustice. Discrimination of gays is based on backward views of a person's sexual preferences. Those that see gays as a problem tend to have issues concerning their own sexuality that they are not prepared to accept, and which are usually just too delicate to even contemplate, although almost all of these types are only aroused by the opposite sex. Or there are those, mostly religious (yawn) who just don't think it's natural, ie. a screw goes into a bolt and fits snugly to construct something while a screw really shouldn't/wouldn't go into a screw. A lot of progress has been made to recognise homosexuality as a normal part of society, which it is, and women will soon overtake men in the employment market, which will deform the family forever, which seems to hold no interest to anyone. Sometimes I wonder whether those gays who can't stop fighting for their rights (even now that they can marry and adopt children and artificially inseminate a female friend to grow a baby for them) are in the same bracket as those ignorant sods who can't stand the sight of two men or women holding hands. There will always be graceless folk on the planet, and they are as worthy of a place on the planet as the graceful. It's called humanity; good AND bad. Now start thinking what it must be like for a seven year-old child who is being touted as a sexual toy to paedophiles by his/her parents/guardians. Go on, do it for a minute and see how that must feel. Or perhaps imagine yourself as a one year-old baby in a children's home awaiting adoption when the adoption agency has no intention of letting you go because you keep them in a job. It's a bit more daunting than overcoming one's sexual preference and how that's perceived by others. Gays are fine by me. One of my sisters is a lesbian and would have almost certainly killed herself if she hadn't had come out. I think I even helped her to come out. Accepting one's self is life's hardest battle. When that's done, it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks! I think Florian's point is worth taking on board.

try the album with Rabbit in Your Headlights in by Psyence Fiction (James Lavelle and DJ Shadow) or Massive Attack's Mezzanine. Bath's a great place and Weston super Mare's half an hour away if you like British seaside resorts(?) There's a second hand record shop on a little sidestreet in Bath owned by a guy called John. Give it a try.

No, I think they've actually found somewhere they like where they can run free without having to look at us. It must be such a drag dripping of money but not being able to properly enjoy it. Something tells me they'll really only stay out there until earth has been sufficiently disinfected.

Nice one, Terrence. I'll keep you posted for when I have a venue

Well 'ard, Raunchy Rache. Short and sweet like the ice-cream I just had. I'm good at accents from growing up up north. My parents are from the south so me and my sisters would always have cracks at different lilts. I used to like talking scouse with my mouth turned inwards like the apes on Planet of the Apes. Such a vile accent it's beautiful. Best Richard

Cripes, you've just emptied my mind! what a relief. You're getting bloody good at this poetry game. Again stinking of filthy luca, I can only imagine that your head is aching in its paltry and mortal confines, yelling for more space. No, this is truly excellent, Magic, and you're destined for big things, pats on the back and jealous gazes. Pee of the wee for me. Richard

Great imagery and a damn fine poem to boot