Look At This! It’s A Thing!

Posted on by inkbiotic

I am the shill, hear me roar!

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An orangutan unimpressed with my roar

So here again is a small excerpt from my book which got published, and you can even buy it right here. It’s all about magic, love, drugs and the pursuit of something, anything, beyond the humdrum. It’s about how imagination is a powerful force for both creation and destruction.

Vurt is raging now, preaching about the evils of cocaine, of billy, the evils of all drugs.

“It’s all just sloppy! Sloppy and messy. Look at yourselves choking and gacking and sweating.   Don’t you get it? There’s nothing cool about this. This is too easy, too obvious. Anybody can take cocaine!” His podgy face is patched with red and he is lurching about the kitchen in a frenzy of belief. I shimmy over to the breakfast counter, lick my finger and dip it into the powder sack. Cant makes his way over and is looking at me all cute-eyed and squirmy. I hold out my white-coated finger to him.

“Suck on it rich boy.”

He narrows his eyes, takes my hand in his and my finger into his mouth. His tongue is rough like a cat’s. He starts gagging, flailing around for something to take away the taste. I jive away across the kitchen. Vurt is still preaching, so I put my hands on his shoulders and dance in time to his words.

edging 2

Or if spending money seems a bit drastic, then there’s the easier way of getting more of my writing and hearing about my new project as it happens, by signing up here.  This is perfectly safe, and I won’t spam you with lots of emails, I’ll only write when I’m doing something interesting.

 

Questions to Ponder part 2

Posted on by inkbiotic

Continuing posting up the questions I found on this Imgur post. Sometimes they have touch of smugness in the tone, but they are still good for self-reflection and taking stock. If you have any thoughts or answers of your own, then I’d love to hear about it.

11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do?

12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?

13. Would you break the law to save a loved one?

14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?

15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?

17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back?

18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?

19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?

20. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?

My Answers

11. You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified. What do you do?

Argue with them! I’m always happy to argue when I think people are being unfair. However, often I later realise they had a point and I feel stupid (although maybe not in the above case). I don’t know the real rights and wrongs of speaking up – there’s an arrogance in arguing, but if I think something is wrong then my mouth doesn’t ask my brain to intervene, it just carries on.

12. If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?

Assuming they could understand me, remember it and care about a stranger’s advice. Actually I’m not sure. People are so varied that fantastic advice for one person is terrible for another. I’d try: engage with the world; the more effort you make, the happier you will feel.

13. Would you break the law to save a loved one?

To be honest,  at times I’ve broken the law because I’m bored (I’m not talking big laws here). Without thinking I’d break the law to save any person.

14. Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?

The two seem fairly different to me, there are cross-overs, but I’m wary of insanity labelled as creativity, because that’s a dangerous romanticising of illness. It’s true insanity can give a different perspective on life, which helps with creativity; but insanity can also destroy time, energy, concentration and communication skills, so it often harms creative ability also.

15. What’s something you know you do differently than most people?

The general living my life thing, how I look, what matters to me, the job I do, how I behave, what I own. I’m not good at conforming – it’s not intentional, I’m just crap at it, so I’ve ended up with an odd life; I’m not an impressive renegade or anything, just odd. That can be scary sometimes (am I doing everything wrong?) and people often get angry about it; but my life suits me well, so I’ll stick to that wonky route.

16. How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?

Because people are varied, it helps makes the world a fascinating place.

17. What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back?

Visit Madagascar/ Antarctica, have a road trip around the U.S. However, those need to wait, first I’ve got lots of other things that are more important (to me) to do.

18. Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?

I tend to obsess about the past, and it isn’t helpful at all. Unfortunately, when I’m feeling down the whiny thoughts circle my head, like an endless march of self-pity. So, yes, I am, but I am trying hard to stop that.

19. If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?

Just about anywhere would be exciting, although not helpful right now. Every culture has something I can learn, a new way of thinking, a new climate, new details to life. I get itchy feet, so I don’t keep the possibility too far from me, and sometime soonish, I hope to move away.

20. Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?

No, and no.

So, now over to you…

We Already Invented Pokemon Go

Posted on by inkbiotic

I expect you’ve heard of Pokemon Go. We invented it twenty years ago, with ghosts.

Growing up my twin sister and I were isolated by geography, we lived on a farm in Cornwall, in the middle of nothing and nowhere. Our dad was intent on going off-grid, becoming self-sufficient, and with his fervour, he took his new bride out to the arse end of oblivion and set up home. Piecing together his notes from the time (the ones he didn’t burn before he died) he believed that if he joined nature, it would welcome and enrich him. It didn’t; he got hayfever, he was bored (this was long before the Internet), most animals eluded him, his attempt at agriculture failed.

He gave up.

He quickly fell into a depression and it was up to our mum to take over. She turned a small corner of the farm into a vegetable plot. She had no idea what she was doing, but did a good enough job. Our vegetables were mostly edible; wonky and you had to pick out the grubs, but otherwise fine. She learned to fish, to bake bread. Smart woman our mum.

Anyway, all this meant that me and my sister looked after ourselves. We made our own entertainment and we searched for ghosts. And they were everywhere. Not the pale, flimsy wraiths that you get in horror stories, ours were all shapes and sizes. Some were fat, some had tentacles, some had many feet and others had none and slithered along the ground like snakes. There were colourful ghosts, solid ghosts, ghosts that span in circles and ghosts that could do tricks.

We’d be sitting at dinner, mum would be busy reading while she ate, dad would be staring at his dinner mournfully. We’d have to stay quiet, but we didn’t need words, we could signal with our eyes: look over there, by the sink! A lesser purple-splotched wriggling turkey ghost! And we’d point our ghost catching devices at the ghost (the devices were actually calculators, but the fancy kind with sin and cos) and press the right buttons and the ghost would be ours and we’d write it down in our notebooks.

Or we’d be out on the hill behind our house. Staring up at the clouds and then we’d hear a rustle in the bushes, we’d whisper so we wouldn’t scare it away,

“A jumping, three-eyed lumpy sprat ghost, quick!”

Me and my twin don’t talk anymore, we’ve already said everything there is to say, but still when Pokemon came out I sent her a postcard, on it I said: hey, didn’t we do Pokemon already?

I thought about adding a smiley face or putting a couple of exes, but we’re not that kind of family. She hasn’t replied.

Riddled with Senses – another bit

Posted on by inkbiotic

The more I shill, the less guilty I feel about shilling. Still feel dirty though.

Anyway, Riddled with Senses is my book that’s just been published. I’m posting up a few bits of it in the hope that you like it and decide you want to read more. If you do buy it and like it, then please, please write me a short review on Amazon, I have two now – partly thanks to Samantha Henthorn.

This extract is written about Jitty, an odd, but hopeful teenage hermit. Ruled by her broken digital watch and a hodge podge of magical beliefs, she breaks into the houses of her neighbours in order to interfere in their lives.

The moon was fat, dimpled like a half-sucked peppermint. Jitty stood with one foot in a puddle and one on the edge of a pavement, the night air stirring the hairs on her arms, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. The plans for the night were in her pocket, but she knew not to rush, it was important to feel the world about her, a symphony that would grow in complexity as her own rhythm merged with the infinite.

Jitty knew that everything had a pulse, from the quick vibration of a fly to the slow boom of a tree, the erratic rhythm of a human to the almost imperceptible thereness of a building. Everything had a pulse. During the day those pulses mixed and merged and clashed, but as the sun sank and rhythms of all animals grew slower they became easier to ignore and the quieter pulses could be felt. Through her feet she could feel the rushing of the sewers below, the subtle crumbling of the buildings around her and the trees growing and stretching and somewhere between them was the faint clicking sound of a story fragment wanting to be found.

That Night I Walked as a God

Posted on by inkbiotic

That night I walked as a God. I ditched the petty pesterings of a puny world. I became huge. I strode through the stars mixing constellations, and laughing as the horoscopes jumbled, as mortals fumbled to fit the new demands of their shifted personalities. I meddled and I smited. I demanded adoration from my unworthy minions. I stood on cliff tops and called on the wind to ruffle my hair, and fire to dance at my feet. I felt no fear or doubt; logic was an abomination and I crushed all who used it. I leapt from rooftop to rooftop, omnipotent and nimble. I stared into bedrooms and living rooms, observing blasphemous and unholy ways. Knowing that this was not spying, but righteous judgement, I rained fire and brimstone from the light fittings.

And then I looked in your window and saw you eating crisps and cutting your toenails. Such tiny feet. And I knew I wanted to be a God no more.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Posted on by inkbiotic

I am a shill. I will continue my campaign of pestering, but I will keep these posts brief and just post a little from my just published novel Riddled with Senses. It’s the story of what happens when the lives of two teenage girls collide; one a drug addled cynic, the other a bizarre loner whose imagination has taken over her life.

If you are intrigued by the style and ideas in these small snippets, then you will probably like the book, so if you fancy something to read…

Nobody mentions it, but there are two types of insanity. One is the unstable mind, that’s the one they make films about, the romantic insanity, a person out of control and capable of almost anything. But the other is the madness of the stable mind, where behaviour is illogical and damaging but every day it is exactly the same. This is the life of my parents, irrational and distressing, crazy as a flock of loons trapped in a plastic bag, but never changing.

My Responses to My Own Questions

Posted on by inkbiotic

There were some excellent answers to these questions in the comments and on various blogs, so thank you to everyone who took part (and to anyone who still wants to, please do!) These are my own answers…

If you are a blogger, how would you describe what you write about? Are there specific themes you stick to or a style you use? (feel free to add a link)

I write a hodge podge of daft stories and pictures, with occasional posts on things I’ve learned about mental illness and brain injury. I don’t really intend a style, but I think my stories tend towards the odd and my health stuff is very focused on sharing solutions.

Do you write driven by inspiration or do you struggle to find things to say?

I try to write three posts a week, and sometimes that involves more thoughts than I have, so I try to keep a backlog of ideas.

Which kinds of posts do you most like writing? Do other people like reading them?

The stories. I like to play with ideas. I think people tend to like them. Although often I write something I love, but nobody else really notices; or I post a story that I think is so-so, but readers love it. I am not good at predicting opinions.

What wouldn’t you ever write about? Why?

I don’t want to slag anyone off (although sometimes the temptation is there). I do write about real situations in stories, but I make sure I play with the characters enough to remove them from reality. I try to avoid complaining posts; although they can be interesting to read, they make me feel miserable when I write them.

What’s your favourite post that you’ve written? (again, add a link if you like) What did you like about it? Did other people ‘get’ it?

Lost Islands of Xogulano these are very much niche fiction and I know they leave most people cold, but they’re probably the thing I’m proudest of. I just love mixing science and imagination, but finding ways of doing so that aren’t typical sci fi. Some of the BI posts are also very important to me, like Overcoming Panic and Phobias, because they were hard won lessons. I suspect much of the stuff I learned recovering from a brain injury is alien to people – close friends didn’t understand what i was talking about most of the time – but I like to know they’re available to anyone who might relate to them and find them useful.

What’s your favourite post that someone else has written? What about it caught your attention?

There’s  there’s this short fiction by wordwitch. I like it because she mixes poetic images with pure oddness; making a funny and beautiful story, with complex ideas contained in a tiny space. And Booky Glover wrote this poem, Booky’s poems always have melancholy elegance and for that reason they stand out.

Do you keep a blog because you want it to lead somewhere? Or do you just like writing?

I do like writing, I feel lost when I don’t write. However, I also have a bit of an end game – I’ve written two books now, one published, one not yet, and I hope by blogging I can find people who like how I write, in the hope they might also like my books.

What sort of blogs do you most like to read? Personal? Stories? Factual? Pictures?

All of those. I think I like a variety. I love reading a good story, but then I get curious about the people who wrote them and I want to find out more.

What kind of posts put you off reading?

Bitchy, bitter ones. Bigoted, hateful ones. Fortunately there don’t seem to be many of either on WordPress (although I might just be missing them).

Is there anything else about a blog that puts you off (eg fonts, popups)?

Anything that makes the writing difficult to see – hefty side bars, odd fonts. And I hate popups, I think they’re rude. On my blog, I want an email sign up button linked to my Mailchimp account, and trying to achieve that without using popups has been seriously complicated.

When do you write and read blogs? From work? On the toilet? Inside a volcano?

At home, in the one chair that doesn’t wreck my back.

How do you find other blogs to read (or do you not)?

I follow many, I go looking under tags to find more. One of the best things about WordPress is how many brilliant blogs are on here.

Goodreads

Posted on by inkbiotic

This is a general post about Goodreads, plus a small plug and a few questions for all you smart internet-sters out there.

What is Goodreads?

I suspect most of you already know what this website is, I’m always last to be a newbie, but in case you don’t know:

Goodreads is a massive hub for both writers and readers. It has many forums, discussing fiction and the ideas in factual books, as well as authors sharing information about the art of writing and how to self publish. It also allows authors to put up their books and information about themselves, so that readers can find them.

I am now on there!

My just-published book Riddled with Senses is now up, right here, in fact.

And now the questions…

  • So do you use Goodreads?
  • If so is it for learning about new books to read? Or promoting your own writing? (or both?)
  • Are there any good books you have found through it?
  • Do you write on the forums?
  • Which groups have you found interesting/useful?

And, if you’re interested in connecting up with other bloggers on here, then please say your username – I’m on there as Petra Jacob, and currently friendless, so if anyone wants to add me, that would be great.

 

Update! Update!

Posted on by inkbiotic
riddle-cover
I wrote this!

So I just got an email telling me that my book is now on Amazon, which is all kinds of ridiculous and exciting.

Here’s the page Amazon link

And here’s an extract, in case you’re in the mood to be persuaded (or dissuaded, whatever takes your fancy).

I try to exist only as an unreal being striding with large steps across the ocean. In the small, grey, scurrying world I live a little less each day, shrink my shadow so the pedestrians can’t step on it, breathe a little less of the stagnant air. I have a method, it has taken many years to perfect.

“Don’t become another dull fart,” my grandmother used to hiss, “the world has too many dull farts, just look at your parents! They’re like talking wallpaper. You have to be different, you have to stay shiny, not get weighed down and dusty, they’ll never find you if you’re weighed down and dusty.”

“Who?” I would squeak.

“And don’t behave. Don’t get too attached, don’t become part of the parade,” she said through blue smoke curling around brown smoke, her eyes darting to the door to check Bloater wasn’t listening in, “the routines, the rules, it’s all dust. You have to keep shaking it off or you’ll end up looking just like the rest of them. You have to stay shiny.”

 

A Novel Extract: Riddled with Senses

Posted on by inkbiotic

This is a little bit from my novel which is currently weaving its way through the printers. It’s written mostly from the point of view of a Hazel, a bitter seventeen year old, here writing in her diary right before her life gets thrown upside-down. It’s a little different to how I write now, more intense, more cynical, more lyrical I think.

Finally we tumbled wearily into Ditchley Park where we are slouching the morning with relief, isolated in nature where pedestrians daren’t tread. Outside the fence we can see them hurry and fluster from one dull detail to the next, huffing and rasping, out of focus at the edges of our movie.

We stretch out the hours sinking into the grass. Cant makes a small crop circle in the grass, walking his fingers in a spiral, pretending to be a little alien impressing the ants. We talk in rhymes, feel out of time, easy, tricking the light and dancing the dust, sleazy, slightly stoned and wheezy.

“This is how life should be,” declares Cant and I know he’s right, of course it should, no shouting, no hither and thither, no distress. We wonder why our tragic species ever strayed from the park, why leave the place we truly belong in order to create a world of confusion? Is that really evolution? Why do we need forms, bar codes and barriers? Why spend all that time building things only to smash them up to make space for new things? Why bitch and bicker? Why catch trains or buy stamps or wear stilettos?

“If people just thought to ask us, we could sort all this mess out,” says Cant thoughtfully chewing on a daisy, “but people never think.”

“If someone set up cameras and a news network in the park, then we could share our newfound understanding with the world,” I add.

We fill in the gaps to our New Theory of Where Man Went Wrong, plotting his tragic journey from park to street; his simple beginnings surrounded by grass, with easy access to the public toilets and the mobile cafe selling hot drinks and dogs to the complexities of corners and escalators; from happy, upright species to hunched, wary carcasses.

“The biggest nail in the coffin was when we started building banks,” declares Cant.

We’re thinking of selling our thesis to a science graduate, they’re all fucked on drugs anyway, they’d never realise it was bollocks and we could make a fortune.

When lunch comes around we walk back to school slowly and sadly, vowing one day to return to the park and bring others, to show them the way life should be. Back in the melting and solidifying streets, we pick up our pace, our thoughts quickening, becoming brittle, our spines in a stoop, our brows in a furrow. We become townies once again.