The Ostensibly 'Orrible Oli Jacobs

It had been a long and tiring day, in 'the most terrible place on earth' (Awful Places Weekly Summer edition 2009).  

For some reason, the current batch of ‘guests’ in my cellar were particularly feisty and refusing to submit to treatment which normally would have them begging for their lives.  It was a mystery, and it was quite annoying. 

Normally I love a good mystery, something to ponder over, something to tax the brain a little.  When it came to my guests however, I liked them to be predictable.  If I used my cattle prod on someone hung by their ankle from the ceiling, I expected them to shriek and wail, not grit their teeth and not make a sound.  If tied someone to a rack and tickled them endlessly with feathers, I expected them to laugh and writhe until they sobbed for mercy, not remain expressionless and tell me that they were not ticklish.

This was not because I hated a challenge, I love to work hard on a guest and to finally break them.  But this was different, it was insolence of the highest magnitude, rebellion and mutiny, and I was somewhat stumped as to how to snap this newfound hardiness in my guests.  I blamed society, people were just uncaring and too worldly nowadays.  When I presented them with a glowing brand, which I had heated in the fire until it shone bright orange, and threatened to press it into their foreheads, all they would say was “seen it on YouTube. It don’t scare me.”

Gits.

When I am set a conundrum I tend to pace the long dark corridors of Holbrook Towers.  Pipe in mouth, fluffy slippers on feet, striding thoughtfully.  I was on my third circuit of the second floor landing when I heard a noise come from further down the corridor.  A thumping noise.  I paused for a moment;  Manson the butler was spending a quiet evening in the Iron Maiden as punishment for forgetting my mid morning coffee,  Dahmer, the chef had gone out to ‘fetch’ some dinner ingredients, and my new member of staff, Gein the gardener had left for the day, to do a bit of moonlighting at the local graveyard.  I should have been alone in the castle.  I stood deathly still, waiting for the sound to come again.

Thump.

There it went again, coming from, of all places, my bedroom.

I crept along the landing until I came to my bedroom door, I pressed my ear to the wood.  There was defiantly someone in there.  I pulled a spiked mace from the hands of a suit of armour at the top of the stairs and stood outside the door, mace above my head.  Two deep breaths later I charged, kicking, kicking in the door, screaming at the top of my lungs, and swinging the mace with all the effort that my arms could muster. 

The room was empty.

Had my ears deceived me?  Had the madness, inherent in my family, finally caught up with me?

Thump.

The noise came again.  It was coming from my wardrobe.

‘Who’s there!’  I cried.  ‘I have a weapon.  I have killed before, don’t test me.’

Suddenly there was a muffled thumping and fumbling noise.  The doors rattled.

‘Hello?’ Came a voice.  ‘I’m stuck.  Can you open the doors for me?’

I approached the doors and opened them a crack.  I could just make out a pair of wide frightened eyes, hidden between my winter overcoats.  I slammed the doors again.

‘What are you doing in my wardrobe?’  I asked.

‘I don’t know.’ came the voice. ‘One minute I was sat in a pub, having a little drink.  I got up to go to the gents and found myself stuck in here.  It’s very dark, and I’m frightened.  Where am I?’

‘Well you’re not in Bleedin’ Narnia!’  I cried.  ‘Who are you? Are you another one of those Author types?  Answer me, before I come in there and stove your head in!’

Our conversation, through the door of my favourite wardrobe, was recorded as follows;

Who’s there?  What are you doing in my bedroom?

This isn’t the Belle Vue pub… How much did I drink while tapping out that book?

Ooh, you’ve written a book have you?  Tell me a little about it?  Persuade me to invest in it with your smooth marketing skills.

I have indeed! It is called Deep Down There and is a Horror Comedy about a hole. Well, more horror than comedy… the hole appears in a gated community and begins to drive the residents mad. Mad, I say. MAD! Dark times begin when they start to remove it, and finally investigate it. It’s being published by Unbound (https://unbound.com/books/deep-down-there) and if you like words, you’ll love this. Because it contains many words. So many. With many syllables and all.

Have you brought me a present?  What is it?  Will it be useful to me and make me smile?

Well I am known as the generous sort. You look like the type who likes a good space adventure, so try this big old collection of my Kirk Sandblaster series of books. Think Terry Pratchett & Douglas Adams walked through a wormhole and got gorily, disgustingly, but hilariously combined into one organism. Be aware, though, the series contains instances of space piracy, ice pirates, a planet-wide Hunger Games, and sandwiches. Lots of sandwiches.

I have a gift for you also, for I am in a giving mood.  I give you the gift of the chameleon.  You are able to change your colour, dependant on your surroundings, able to become more or less invisible at will.  What will you do with your new found power?  Where would you go and what mischief would you get up to?

Oh, the possibilities… One would be tempted to use this power for evil, thieving and getting up to all sorts of dark vagabondery. However, I feel at first I’d use it to escape the overall hustle and bustle. Get out of situations where someone is talking to you and you need to suddenly get away would be handy as well. Imagine their faces as you slowly faded from view. I’d also probably raid a till or two. Hey, I never said I would use it wisely all the time…

It’s the end of the world, I tell you!  The stars have aligned, Jupiter is in the ascendency and Nigel Farage still lives and breathes.  According to my charts we have about a week left until Emperor Trump finally snaps and slams his forehead onto the big red button.

Tell me your plans for the final week of earth as we know it?

What?!? That came out of nowhere… I’d probably throw a party, one to end all parties. Invite all my friends and family around, and enjoy one last hurrah. That would be a couple of days, then maybe a day of resolving old feuds, before finally spending the last few days with my wife and pooch, sipping cocktails and seeing in the apocalypse with a bang.

Earth is at the centre of an intergalactic war and, as leader of the planet, it is up to you to throw your hat in the ring and decide whose side we’re on.  The choices are as follows;

The Jhakkar – a large insectoid warlike race, who are intent on total and utter control of the universe.  They enslave all planets that they take over and drain the resources of each world, before using their massive green Boomcannon to reduce it to rubble.  Billions have died at their hands, mercy is seen as a weakness.  They have promised you that, if you side with them and turn the war in their favour, they will provide the earth with the resources needed to eliminate poverty and hunger, make war and violence a thing of the past, (and also give you a palace of your own to live in, with slaves to do your every bidding).

The Floof – A race of small cuddly bear like creatures who are the universe’s one true hope of freedom from the Jhakkar.  They want peace and happiness for the whole of the universe, with free cake for all and jelly beans as the currency.  They offer the earth a seat at the table of governance of the universe if they win, however they do insist that everyone follows their religion (whose beliefs include worshipping the holy hamster of Gnaarthock (blessed be his fur), absolutely no alcohol, enforced meditation for three hours each day, and all reading and writing is the work of the Floof’s version of the devil, The Dark Monkey H’rrrgunth, and as such totally banned and punishable by being cuddled to death).

Choose your side, the fate of the universe is in your hands.

We side with the Jhakkar, obviously. Long term, it just makes sense. Peace and prosperity? Lovely stuff! The Floof are weak-minded fools who utilize their inherent cuteness to sway the thoughts of those present. They are the true evil in this scenario, and should be stopped by any means necessary.

Plus, that palace would be very nice…

Poetry can heal the greatest ill’s.  I have a bunion which irks me, can you cure it with four fantastic lines of rhyme?

Let’s have a close look.

At the rot on your foot.

It’s a really vile wound.

I’m afraid, sir, you’re doomed.

If I look out of my castle window I can see the villagers impaled on spikes all the way down my front drive.  I am indeed a lucky man.  Tell me, if you could look out of your bedroom window on the greatest piece of scenery in the known world what would you see?

There’s a place called Hughenden Park in Wycombe, where at the right angle, you can see fields for miles. I would gaze at that vista for a while, before looking to my right and seeing the combined beaches of Southampton, Bournemouth, and Swansea beckoning to me, along with the soothing crash of waves. Ah…

Hurl yourself forwards to two hundred years in the future.  You have travelled a thousand miles in your search, but finally, in the middle of a remote moor you find it, ‘The last pub in Britain.’  You enter the doors and find it to be empty, no one goes to pubs any more, they are too entranced by their mobile phones and have become immobile at home.  Able only to order take always and scan the interweb for the latest celebrity gossip.  You walk up to the bar and speak to the wizened old crone at the taps.  This is the last bender.  Tell me your plans for the evening in this old relic of the twentieth century?

Let’s be honest, I’ve travelled a long way, so why not start with a swift kick of energy in the form of half a cola, before moving onto the ales. I like them dark, but starting with a stout is a surefire way to kill the palette. So one of those, and onto the likes of golden ales & craft lagers. They’re good for a few hours, but as the bender comes to an end and I’ve talked the ear off the barmaid about all my word-based ideas and general conspiracy theories, I point my finger at the dusty bottle of Bowmore Darkest scotch buried in her shelves, and grab a glass and a small bowl of ice to bring out the flavour. Splendid.

Where are you on the internetty thing?  Where can I find and stalk you?  Do you tweet?  Insta? Snapchat? YouTube? Blog?  Where are you, in heavens name?

Hey, you gave me the chameleon power… But to keep up with my shenanigans, you can find me tweeting as @OliJacobsAuthor (https://twitter.com/OliJacobsAuthor), Open the Book of Faces and find the Oli Jacobs Author Page (https://www.facebook.com/OJBooks/), look over my Instagramic efforts as @olijba (https://www.instagram.com/olijba/), read my works in progress at https://olijacobsauthor.wordpress.com/ and then buy them at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oli-Jacobs/e/B0086XR1JG/

Oh! And don’t forget to pledge toward Deep Down There, of course. Be rude not to… https://unbound.com/books/deep-down-there

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to find my way out of this bedroom and back to the pub. Wait. Why is the door locked from the outside…?

Our discussion over, I cautiously opened the door.  My fear of the man inside had lessened, but I knew better than to ever fully trust my senses when you discover a man hiding in the your wardrobe.

He gingerly stepped out.  I need not have been so scared, he seemed like quite an amenable chap after all, and I decided to invest in his lovely work.  I would strongly advise you to do the same.

Together we checked the back of my wardrobe and it did indeed lead to a set of pub toilets. 

We shared a drink, Oli and I; him having a beer, me on my normal tipple of Babycham and Special Brew with a twist of lemon.  I left him, somewhere in between his eight and my ninth.  I had wandered to the toilets and suddenly found myself back in my bedroom.

I fumbled my way back through the overcoats, only to find the hard wooden back panel of my wardrobe.  Had I imagined it?  Was it all a fantastical fantasy?

I decided not, as I was perfectly drunk and desperately needed to relieve my bladder.

If you have enjoyed this blog interview and would like to take part yourself, then please contact me at caraticuspholbrook@gmail.com.

I would also ask that you consider supporting my own book Domini Mortum which is availabel to view here www.unbound.co.uk/books/domini-mortum

The Eloquently Effervescent Erinna Mettler

  Fame.  It's the greatest curse of the 21st century.

Lots of people want it, very few get it (despite the overwhelming explosion of realty television which seems to create a z list celebrity on a daily basis).

Would I want fame? Would I want the recognition and rewards that every desperate big brother contestant strives for?  I don't think so.

Give me infamy every time.

These were the thoughts that ran through my head as I stood at my work bench in the Carcass room, hastily deboning another victim to be added to my ever increasing patio.  The man on the slab was not anyone of note, I had, the night before, ordered a pizza from the newly oped fast food restaurant in nearby Nether Stinkhole.  When it arrived I noted that there were no olives.  I had specifically ordered olives.

I had invited the delivery boy in and bade him sit down whilst I rang the restaurant once more.  They were ever so apologetic and said that they would send another pizza straight away.  "Excellent."  I said.  "Please have your chef deliver it himself."  It would seem that my own fame had preceded me as they agreed without question.

When the chef arrived he could not be more sorry.  It would not do however and, as I sliced his throat with a pizza cutter, I congratulated the first delivery boy, who had sat most patiently waiting on the Chesterfield, on his promotion to new chef at Nether Stinkhole's finest pizzeria.

Chop, chop, chop went the cleaver, as I carried on my dark work. Infamy indeed.

 Perhaps there was another? I thought to myself as I scooped the remains into my biggest bucket and removed my leather apron.  Perhaps someone else has pondered on the trappings and evils of fame, perhaps even on the minor merits.  After washing myself down I headed to my study.

Twenty minutes later, as Manson the butler brought me a calming flask of cherry brandy, I decided to seek further enlightenment on the subject.  After visiting my most favourite publishers Unbound at their lovely website I came across the answer to my dark prayers.  I sought out the sage advice of someone 'in the know' and invited her to tea forthwith.

The following weekend a carriage arrived with my guest.  My discussion with her is recorded as follows:

  Hello, Erinna.  Do come in, please don’t trip on the bodies, I’ve had a busy week and it’s the maid’s day off.  To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, tell me a little about yourself?

    Hello, will there be tea? Milk no sugar. I’m from Yorkshire so I like it strong. I am a writer, mainly of short fiction, though I have been known to dabble in poetry. I started writing late in life (40!) I did a course in creative writing on a whim and was rather good at it so then I did an MA, wrote a novel, co-founded a spoken word company (Rattle Tales) and a short fiction prize (The Brighton Prize) as you do. I write every day now. My life is categorised as BW and AW (before and after writing.) I have just finished a short story collection and now I’m working on a ‘novel’.

    A writer, eh?  What’s your book about?  I’m afraid I am feeling quite dazed today so can you please sum it up in no more than 26 words?

    My book is called Fifteen Minutes and it is a short story collection about fame. Ordinary people interact with celebrities, not always in a good way.

    Would you be happy with fifteen minutes, or would you grip, white knuckled to the glory for as long as you could?  Or would it be a curse?

     There is good and bad fame in the book, sometimes the famous can be a positive influence, sometimes they alter reality for the worse. People are too obsessed with people who are famous for being famous, just for having lots of money and a big arse and talking out of it! I also think people who have it should maybe stop moaning about how awful it is. You don’t have to be a movie star, you could do theatre, no-one would care much about you then! Personally, I’d cling on with both hands so long as I had a Tuscan villa to retreat to. Luckily, writers don’t get hounded much by the paparazzi, not even really famous ones. I love the idea of lots of people reading my books, Hollywood adaptations I can live with.Of course with fame comes responsibility – that’s one of the themes of the book.

    I had a friend once who told me that anyone can write a book, all you need is the time to do it in.  With the glut of self-published books on the market now, do you think he was he telling the truth, and should this sort of thing be encouraged?

    Anyone can write one but it will probably be rubbish. I’ve been writing for a decade and I’m competent I’d say. The time you need is probably about twenty years. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t write, every paragraph you finish makes you a better writer, even the crappy ones, failure is a means to success.
    
    Self-publishing is a different thing. A book needs to be edited. A book is a collaborative process. I wouldn’t recommend that anyone self-publish without an editor but at the same time mainstream publishing is SOOO boring these days, isn’t it? They just publish the same old same old – it’s time for a revolution. If something is good people will buy it, it doesn’t need to be approved by an agent or a big publishing house. So pay for a fantastic editor and publish away.

My mind is troubled.  Could you soothe it with a haiku that both calms my soul and sums up your outlook on life?
   
Of course I’m happy
for you, but when is it my 

    turn to be a star?

What would you say are the four laws of writing a really effective short story? And is the short story writing process more limiting than writing a novel?

Only four! I could write a book about it. One – pick a subject that no-one else has thought of, or a common situation seen from a different pov. Of my stories, the one’s I think are the best have been about very odd things; a jogger finding a severed foot on a beach, the last cow on earth, a tramp in New York the day John Lennon was killed. Those 3 all came from news stories. Pick out the obscure and focus on it. 

Two – write it in clearly defined scenes (like you would a novel) bang bang bang, 3-5 episodes, nothing wrong with flashbacks either. 

Three – edit it until your eyes bleed and you never want to read it again. Print it out and read it aloud, read it to friends, an audience, a workshop. Give it a close edit at least ten times, cut everything you don’t need, which is usually the first paragraph, then edit it again. 

Four – don’t just trail off… I read a lot of short stories for Rattle Tales and The Brighton Prize and endings are the place most people mess up. The end has to be as good as the beginning and if the end can refer to the beginning in some way so much the better. Like the beginning, make sure you absolutely need your last paragraph.

    Are they more limiting than writing a novel? Hmm, my novel was made up of interlinked short stories but then I think most novels are! I think you have to be economical and there is a definite art to that which has to be learned but then you should be economical in a novel too.

    I love using a good simile.  Could you invent one for me, which I can slip into everyday life?

No – I hate similes! I really do; they are almost as bad as semi-colons. This comes from judging a short story competition. A huge majority of our entries have far too many similes.I’ve had stories with fifteen or sixteen on a page, sometimes two or three in a sentence. It’s like being hit over the head with a nail-studded club. At first it’s diverting but pretty soon you’ve lost all consciousness. I do use them, but rarely, and usually from a character’s pov. I offer up as evidence this quote from The Road (one of the best books ever written and the subject of my story The Typewriter in Fifteen Minutes),

‘Then they set out along the blacktop in the gun-metal light, shuffling through the ash, each the other’s world entire.’ 

The light is not ‘like’ gun metal it ‘is’ gun-metal light, they don’t shuffle through ash ‘like’ dirty water or some such, it’s just ash, it is not ‘as if’ each is the other’s world entire, they just are. I rest my case.

The earth is dying.  The 100 most notable people on the planet (which obviously includes you) have been chosen to start a new world on the other side of the galaxy.  Your 300 year journey in suspended hibernation has just ended, you wake up 10 years early and you are feeling particularly mischievous.  Choose 2 people whose life support you will turn off for the good of mankind and 2 people you will wake up early to spend the last 10 years of the journey with.

Obviously Trump has to go but I also put forward Rupert Murdoch who I hold personally responsible for every bad thing to have happened to this country since he pledged support to Margaret Thatcher. These two bozzos would definitely be on the bloody spaceship because they’d buy a ticket with their pocket change. I don’t understand why in 2017 old rich white men still have so much power. Anyhow, ten years is a long time. I don’t need someone who’s done a lot on earth do I? (Though I suppose the Dalai Lama would help with the anxiety of being stuck in a metal box hurtling through space). But it’s a difficult question. There are all sorts of things to consider, like if they are old are they guaranteed to live the whole ten years? If you wake up David Attenborough would he die almost immediately – and can you then wake up someone else? I might wake up lots of interesting old people in that case. As I get older I realise that old people have a lot of knowledge to pass on and a lot of good stories to tell. Also are there unlimited supplies, like fresh food? Because I’d quite like the world’s greatest chef to cook for me very day - and pass their skills onto me. The other one is Keanu Reeves – obviously.

    “Good things happen to good people in the end.  Bad people get what’s coming to them.”  Discuss.

    There is a wealth of evidence to suggest this isn’t the case! I’d like to think it does happen, that evil gits get found out and that even if they don’t they know they are tainted in some way. Good things happening to good people in the end – that unfortunately is not always true but at least if you are good you can say that you’ve lived your life well and not have any worries going into suspended hibernation.

    Where can I find you on the world wide interweb? Do you blog? Tweet? Facebook? Amazon?

    I blog quite a lot at www.erinnamettler.com and I spend a lot more time on Twitter and Facebook than I should. I particularly love Twitter @ErinnaMettler so please chat to me on Twitter. Instagram too. Linkedin and I have an author page on Amazon so just search on there.

I waved goodbye to my new friend, as she boarded the carriage home.  Almost immediately I returned to my studied, fired up my laptop and pledged my support for her very lovely collection.

You should support her too, or look out for it when it invades bookshops soon

The Majestically Musical Harriet Cunningham

The annual orgy of debauchery and dodgy folk music, that is 'Holbrookfest', had been raging below for nearly two days now.

Every year I would open the grounds of the castle up to bearded starchildren and crusty jugglers, all of whom seemed intent on exploring the most experimental of music styles whilst testing their own bodies pharmaceutical capabilities.  

It was a good way for me to keep an ear to the rumblings of the tragically hip, whilst also producing inordinate amounts of spare cash which their grubby, patchouli stinking paws would hand over to me gratefully.

This does not mean I mixed with these sorts, that invaded my precious property so willingly,  oh no!  I would confine myself to the tallest tower of the castle for the three day event, observing them from a tall window in between counting all of their probably not very hard earned but well wasted money.

It was late on the second evening, whilst I sat at the window breathing in the smell of hastily built campfires, tofu burgers, and portaloos that I was disturbed by a sound on the stairway outside my door.  I pressed the call button on the tannoy and called to the butler.

"Manson!  It sounds like another hippy has found their way into the castle.  Set the hounds loose will you?  They haven't been fed for two days now and they do like the taste of a woodsmoked festival goer."

Content that I had dealt with the interloper, I laid back on my Chesterfield, and helped myself to another handful of jelly beans.  One more day, I told myself.  One more day and I would rid myself of money laden hipsters for another year.

I heard the snarls and snaps of the dogs as they obviously fed well on the stairs.  The sound pleased me somewhat and I smiled comfortably at the good deed which I was doing for the world.  As the sound of the hounds abated though, my smile became short lived as a gentle tapping sounded on the door.

"What is it now, Manson?!"  I yelled, jumping to my feet and throwing open the door.  It was not the butler that I saw stood before me however.  For there, framed by a scene of complete devastation that involved the dogs tearing my useless butler to pieces, stood a woman holding a book in her hands.

'Ah, delightful' I thought.  It's this week's author come to distract me from my festival misery.  I bade her come into my chambers and take a seat.

And, as happens every week, our conversation is recorded as follows;

Who are you? What brings you to my dusty and crumbling castle at this time of night?  Have you brought me a book?

I am harryfiddler, a storyhunter from down the road, round the corner and across the ocean. I write fiction and non-fiction and classical music reviews and brochures and... Anything with words, really. Excuse my calling in so late.  My flight from Australia, where I live, was delayed in Dubai and then the 37 bus didn’t come.

Have I brought you a book? Jeez. I’ve come 10,000 miles, and you want a book as well? Sorry. It was a long trip, and I confess I haven’t finished the non-fiction book I’m crowdfunding with Unbound. I have finished two novels, but more of that later...

      I am old and confused most of the time.  Explain your book to me in no more than 27 words.

Sanctuary is a scrapbook of memories and photos and made-up stories inspired by the archive of a festival in darkest Devon that has nurtured generations of musos.

     You are stuck in a traffic jam in central London.  Outsider your car tempers are fraying, road rage is imminent.  What piece of music or song do you play to soothe your mind and remove you from the madness?

Oo er. You do ask all the hard ones, don’t you? I’m remarkably susceptible to ear worms so I probably have multiple tunes going at any given time. Rather than add something else in, I might just concentrate on listening to all those sounds that are around but you never quite hear. Your heartbeat, for instance. Your breath. The lesser-spotted leaf-blower. Failing that, Bach.

     What's  your favourite instrument in the orchestra? I'm very fond of a kettle drum myself.

I’d be in trouble if I said anything other than violin. So violin.

      If you could start your own theme park for adults, what would be the theme?

I’m just emerging from that part of life where you are constantly at the beck and call of children, so my concept is a fantasyland for parents. The rides include “Uninterrupted Reading Time” and “Dinner I didn’t cook myself.”

What's your biggest claim to fame, and, more importantly what would you like your biggest claim to fame to be?

My biggest claim to fame, to date, is making international news when I was banned from Sydney Opera House by the artistic director of Australia’s national opera company. I particularly liked getting digital highfives from music critics from around the world.

That said, I’m still hoping to be famous for writing a best selling novel one day. Working on it...

How much of your own personality do you put into your characters and do you ever find yourself displaying the characteristics of the people you are created?

Not sure about the second. Definitely the first. Nothing is safe from me when I’m on a story hunt. I use my own personality, but I also shamelessly filch personality traits from others. My friends are now wise to this. They’re still my friends, but they’re scared. Very scared.

     What would be your ideal superpower? And could you describe your superhero costume to me? Would there be a cape?

My superpower is writing. My costume is pajamas. The cape is only for best.

     My mind is addled, I am in need of grounding.  Could you calm my troubled spirit through the form of poetry? Either a Haiku or a rhyming couplets which reflect your secret to inner happiness.

Would it be showing off to give you a sonnet? It’s just that I have one up my sleeve at the moment. I’m doing a PhD and it’s driving me nuts and so instead of writing my thesis I write poetry.

All I want to do is write some stories,

Ripping dogs or shaggy yarns will do.

For ever has a man or woman stopped

And looked and thought “How cool

Is that? I want to share it with my mates.

I want to tweetit; bloggit; instagrammit;

Paint it on the cave walls; sing a song;

Whisper bitter somethings round a fire;

Fashion my experience and in so doing

Make sense of what I see." A modest aim,

But how? It’s no more possible to drink

An ocean, and then piss a cup of gold.

History, mystery, my story, memory

I’ll be doing this PhD until I’m old.

     Where else may I find either you or your work?  If I wanted to buy your most intriguing novel where would I find it? Do you tweet? Blog? Insta? YouTube?

  

I write music reviews and features for the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper and various other old media things. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll take a look at my pitch for Sanctuary, crowdfunding with Unbound: www.unbound.com/books/sanctuary. I blog about music and other stuff at www.harryfiddler.wordpress.com and I tweet under the name @harryfiddler. My most intriguing novel is yet to be published but as soon as it is I’ll be yelling about it. 

Our discussion was halted however, by the sound of screaming from the grounds below. I walked to the window to see what all the commotion was.

There below was a scene of abjest horror.Some fool had decided to take a drug induced swim in the moat, not realising that it was full of crocodiles.  A gathering of fools had tried to pull him out, tempting my aquatic reptilian pets onto the shore, where they were now parading through the festival, ripping a path through the white faced mimes, tattooed fire breathers, and drunken hair braiders, that ran screaming from them.

"Oh bugger."  I said. "This happens every year.  You'll have to excuse me.  I'll need to get this mess cleared up before some rainbow child snapchats it and I have the police come knocking again."

And with that I escorted my guest downstairs and through the relative safety of the tradesmans entrance at the rear of the castle.  I wished her well with he book, and with her journey back to Australia and watched disappear into the gloom of the evening.

I would encourage you to invest in her book, it sounds a most wonderful thing.  Everyone that supports it, gets their name listed within.  If your name doesn't appear I shall know about it and you may receive an unexpected gift through the post of two tickets for 'Holbrookfest' next year.  It is a weekend that you will never forget, as it will be your last.



If you have enjoyed this blog interview, and the others which I am publishing on a weekly basis, then please visit my own Unbound page www.unbound.co.uk/books/domini-mortum where my own book Domini Mortum, A Victorian Mystery novel is in much need of love, attention, and most importantly pledges.

If you wish to be a guest yourself at the 'Castle of Despair' for your very own author interview, then please email me at caraticuspholbrook@gmail.com whereupon I will devise a visit of the most exquisite torture especially for you.

Thank you.

Paul

The Worst Newspaper in the World

“If it’s murder you want then this city is producing it afresh every day.  Nobody wants to hear old news, I cannot sell it." - George Purkess, Domini Mortum

A little over two years ago I found myself at a writing impasse.  I had recently completed my first novel, Memento Mori, and the burning desire to build on the achievement and hurl myself straight into the process of creating another had begun to fill my every waking thought.

I had an issue though; Memento Mori was, I thought at the time, a standalone story, a tale of how a photographer, and expert in the field of the Victorian fad for post mortem portrait photography, had become involved, and become a suspect, in a series of grisly murders in late nineteenth century London.  I had written it to be stand alone, pained over the final few pages tying up as many loose ends as possible  in order to make it a one off story, and had completed it with the intention of moving on to something else completely.

That is until it was read by others.

I have a happy little posse of test readers, they are a small but varied group comprising of close family (who aren’t afraid to be brutally honest with me), friends (who would take great pleasure in pointing out problems and issues with the story), and others who I have only met throughs and pictures the internet (who expressed an interest in reading the novel for me and who gave me some of the more constructive and sensible advice).

The problem that arose was that they wanted more.  They had questions about characters in the story, they wanted to know what happened to them once the story finished.  This is a great thing for a writer to hear. It means that you have somehow made a connection with the reader and interested them enough in the world that you have created to make them want more.  It was a problem however.  The problem posed was, relatively speaking, a good one; what writer doesn’t want their work to have made such a mental affect on the reader that they invested in and even cared for the characters created?  It was a nice problem to have but it gave way to another; do I leave them in the lurch and let them make up their own minds or do I take the story further?  And if I do take it further then how?  I had sweated blood over tying everything up at the end of Memento Mori; how do I start to untangle these very tight final knots that I had created?

The answer came, as sparks of new interest and sudden ideas often do, through mindless internet browsing.  I had been toying with the idea of adding illustrations to Memento Mori; the kind that filled my favourite books when I was younger.  Pictures like the excellent illustrations by Sidney Paget in my Sherlock Holmes books and also in my childhood favourites, my Jennings books which used to belong to my Dad when he was a boy. 

Throughout these books, usually at the start of each chapter, was a illustration of a scene or incident from the pages to follow, usually annotated with a line or piece of dialogue taken from the story – ‘Jennings and Darbishire come up with an ingenious plan to save Binns Minor from a thrashing, much to the annoyance of Venables.’ or something similar or ‘Let me see the evidence, Madam, said Holmes as he firmly grasped his pipe’.  I wanted this for my books.

It was as I scrolled through the infinite screen loads of sketches from the Victorian age that I came across various front pages of ‘The Illustrated Police News’.  Now, of course I had seen many of these before, I have an ever growing collection of books on Jack the Ripper many of which include the IPN’s covers showing Martha Tabram and her unfortunate peers.  This time it was different though; this time, I looked a little more in depth at the pictures on my screen and found myself wanting to know more, wanting to know who drew them and how did they go from the eyes and mind of the artist to the front page of one of the forerunners of the modern day tabloid.

Now, I could bore you with tales of carefully drawn pictures sent to those in the offices who would do their part of the job; tracing the initial drawings before intricately carving them into blocks of wood ready for printing… but I will not.

What came of my research however was an idea a way of taking that modern day police procedural concept, so adored by TV companies, and take it back to Victorian London.  Could I write a novel with a newspaper illustrator as the central character, solving a series of grisly murders, like those shown weekly on the cover and within the pages of The Illustrated Police News?  Why not?  And perhaps, could I link this story to my first novel and have said central character investigate and uncover the events of Memento Mori?

Some people would say that I had a ‘lightbulb moment’ but I’m afraid in my case when ideas like this formulate in my mind they are more like a ‘brain on fire moment’  and I found myself senselessly hurling myself into the process of learning everything that I could about The Illustrated Police News and its processes.

There are some excellent resources available for those interested in the newspaper and it's history, and not just those to be found on the internet.  My favourite and most trusted source of knowledge is the book 'Cruel Deeds and Dreadful Calamities: The Illustrated Police News 1864 - 1938 ' by Linda Stratmann.

    

It's  beautiful book not just in the sense of the contents, which tell the chronological story of the newspaper from its original inception, through the 'Glory years' of the late 19th century up until its eventual demise, but just through being a lovely object to hold.  It is quite large in size, like one of those annuals which I read and reread when I was younger; Warlord,  2000ad, Victor and the like.With regards to content however,  inside these pages is where I first saw the name George Purkess. 

George Purkess, the proprietor of The Illustrated Police News is the only character in Domini Mortum, who actually existed, although in truth, very little is actually known of him.  There are no known photographs of him, although he is described as “a stout, comfortable-looking man of middle age, medium height, and dark complexion."  Other than that all that I could find out about him was gleaned from an interview tat he gave to The Strand magazine, a rival of his own publication.  

In it he told me all that I needed to know about the man.  Such as the fact that he would never work in the afternoon, preferring to leave the offices for lunch at his club from which he would not return until the next day (This is a a fantastic idea that I still feel we would all benefit from today).  He also gave an isight into the process of collecting stories and portraits to feature in his newspaper.  For George Purkess, getting a good portrait of a suspected killer or victim was worth a lot, he admitted to paying up to £50 for a good portrait, an amount that would be well into the thousands now.  Mr Purkess claimed that a good portrait would do more to prevent crime than to glorify it in any way (apparently he had been told that the criminal underworld in London at the time greatly feared their picture appearing in the newspaper more than anything).

For stories the Illustrated Police News were less bothered Often copying the news stories of other newspapers word for word and adding their own garishly shocking pictures and headlines to fool the public into thinking that the IPN were publishing an exclusive piece.

But what about those headlines; 'Scared to death by a donkey', 'Battle with an owl', 'Topless female bare knuckle boxing'.  Well they obviously added something to the newspaper otherwise why would the front covers of the IPN and their bizarre stories still litter the internet over 100 years later?

But 'The Worst Newspaper in the World'?  I don't think so. Because without it I would never have written Domini Mortum and that is something that I do have Mr George Purkess and his 'Terrible' publication to be grateful for.

If you would like to find out more about the Illustrated Police News, then I would recommend that the best place to start is by visiting my Unbound page at www.unbound.co.uk/books/domini-mortum and pledging your support for my novel.  Once published you will get your name listed in it as someone who made it happen.  You will also be able to read all about the mysterious Mr Purkess and his newspaper, all wrapped up in a beautifully written murderous supernatural story from Victorian London.

Thanks 

Paul