I am always happy to accept guest posts. If you are interested in doing a guest post please contact me (putting “guest post” in the subject line of your email). Your post can be about any topic (within reason of course)! But subjects might include: a piece about your favourite book, why you write or anything of a literary nature. Please send emails to newauthoronline (at) gmail .com.
Kevin
Can anyone please tell me why I am putting pen to paper (albeit of the virtual kind). You see, the fact is I simply can’t remember. Ah, (Kevin leaps out of his chair scattering ink well and quill pens in all directions), I remember now, I am participating in day 2 of the Daydreamer Challenge, which is being run by the Teen Daydreamer. For day 2 participants are asked to choose a word which best describes them and write a short piece regarding it. In addition those participating are asked to do something or other., (Kevin scratches his head and looks heavenwards for inspiration). Ah, got it! Participants are also requested to make up a word which best describes them.
Without further adoo here is my word – absent-minded! Being a writer my mind is often filled with ideas for my next short story or whether that poem which I wrote earlier really expresses what I thought, at the time of writing it expressed. My preoccupation with matters literary has caused me to feed my guide dog, Trigger twice, (strange he doesn’t seem to object to that)! I also recollect desperately trying to find my watch only to discover that it was on my wrist all the time!
Turning to my made-up word, I will plump for writerreality. For me, as an author my characters appear to me as real people and their trials and tribulations take on a life of their own, hence writerreality.
For information on day 2 of the Daydreamer Challenge please visit https://theteendaydreamer.wordpress.com/2015/04/07/the-daydreamer-challenge-day-2/.
Kevin
I am participating in the Daydreamer Challenge which is being run by Caitlin the Tean Daydreamer, (https://theteendaydreamer.wordpress.com/). For day 1 Caitlain asks that participants choose 1 of 3 topics. My choice is the beach. However, being tired I have cheated and reproduced below a post which first appeared on my blog in 2014, (apologies Caitlin, at this time of night my brain seeks the land of nod, hence my reposting of an earlier article rather than something new).
“I see you, bare feet leaving traces in the damp sand.
Lost in beauty, you watch the gulls as they wheel and cry.
The salt sea caresses your sun kissed skin.
The birds continue to scream overhead.
The sceen overpowers, your tears mingle and are lost in the great atlantic.
In my dreams I glimpse you, a girl walking along the beach”.
(for the original post please visit, http://newauthoronline.com/2014/10/24/beach/).
The clock ticks.
Upstairs an ogre sleeps.
Paralysed by fear, a child sits waiting for the monster to awake.
Hands of terror traverse the clock’s face.
A creak. The child glances fearfully upwards, praying for deliverance.
The flower radiant with spring’s promise glows
The bee of sweet nectar sups, tarries perchance awhile then goes.
Thoughts of my grandfather mingle with the wind’s sad cadence, as it shakes my windows.
Acorns, fur cohns and conkers strew the forest floor. Many have fallen from the branches which overhang the pavement.
The feel of nature’s bounty in my coat pockets as I walk home. Conkers to be put away in drawers to harden, acorns for planting in grandfather’s garden.
You told me that weather cohns (you called the fur’s fruit that, or do I confuse the seeds with those of the pine tree?) open to signify fine weather and close to portend storms. Was it an old wive’s tale?
The acorn I planted in the garden which grew into a tree. You didn’t have the heart to tell me that, by chance a weed had rooted where, I hoped an oak would stand. .
I still have your cufflinks in a box, safe in a drawer.
(The below post contains, of necessity some profanity. If you are offended by such words you may wish to stop reading now).
Today’s Guardian has an article about Clean Reader, an application which allows the user to reduce or eliminate the amount of profanity in a book, (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/28/clean-reader-is-freaking-silly). The author’s contention is that Clean Reader is a silly idea but, in the final analysis readers have the right to put their own interpretation on the books they read. So, for example the owner of a print book is at liberty to cross out words they don’t like provided they don’t pass off the amended text as constituting the author’s original work.
My concern as an author is that Clean Reader alters the original meaning of my work. Take, for example my short story Samantha. In Samantha we meet a young woman who has been forced into prostitution by her brutal pimp, Barry. For reasons of authenticity Samantha contains scenes of violence and, yes the use of profanity. For instance Sam is told by Barry not to let a client “anywhere near your sweet little fuck hole” until he has paid. This is how a man of Barry’s stamp, a brutal pimp with no respect for women, would address those who he controlls. Yet Clean Reader would render “fuck” as “love” making Barry’s words risible as no pimp would refer to a vagina as “a love hole”.
To take another example, Nick, the client Sam is visiting, says that he wants to “fuck”. Nick’s desire for sexual gratification has nothing whatever to do with romance so to change “fuck” to “love” as Clean Reader would is to render the story risible and to change it’s meaning to boot.
I don’t want anyone to be offended by Samantha or any of my writing for that matter. However if someone downloads Samantha I fervently hope that they read it as written. If a tool such as Clean Reader is utilised the true horror of Sam’s situation is sanitised (I.E. forced prostitution is portrayed in a downright risible manner with clients making love, rather than “fucking” sex workers).
In conclusion, I have concerns regarding Clean Reader, specifically that it has the potential to alter the author’s original meaning and convey an inaccurate view of the work being read. I suspect though that most readers will avoid the app and, given time it will fade into obscurity or cease to exist completely.
The Blue Hour Magazine publishes poems and short stories and encourages authors to submit their work, (http://thebluehourmagazine.com/submissions/). I have just started following the magazine.
Kevin
I am delighted to announce that I have branched out into pastures new. Not only do I write but, in addition I’ve taken a tentative step into the world of alternative fashion. Should anyone wish to consult me on the best alternative looks please do not hesitate to contact me. I can, I assure you be relied upon to furnish advice in respect of fashion which will have your family, friends and others agog with envy. Well they will be agog anyway!
This morning a colleague remarked that I had on one brown and one black shoe. I am registered blind with limited residual vision so haden’t picked up on this fact until my colleague enlightened me!
I own 2 pairs of work shoes, one black and the other brown. Both have precisely the same pattern on the upper part of the shoe while the soul is also identical which explains my own unique fashion statement! What a relief that I don’t currently have a female in my life or heaven knows what shoes I might (accidentally) have put on this morning …
For tips on fashion please email me at newauthoronline (at) gmail.com – or not as the case may be
Kevin
A cold spring day
All this will fade away.
No birds to be heard
Only the sound of traffic going somewhere
K Morris - Poet 