Gary William Murning Online

The following five phrases all fall into the “I never want to hear it again”-category.

1. Two rule-breaking housemates go to Big Brother jail.
2. And God created…
3. John Leslie.
4. I do not feel sufficiently committed to your material to offer representation.
5. Credit crunch.

Especially if they’re all used in the same sentence.

This is going to be a brief post about a certain Mr. Brown (who, incidentally, has incredibly powerful thighs, after all the frantic back-peddling he’s been doing of late.) I had intended to write a longer piece but, well, I’ve been working pretty hard on Children of the Resolution and I am, frankly, well into the red sector on the shagged out scale.

So, answer me this. How, in this article, can Gormless Gordon say this…

 “[...] I think I can steer this economy through difficult times.”

… without feeling that it is directly contradicted by the admitted miscalculations, fiscal and political, he made over the 10p tax rate?

Also, is it just me, or does he look frighteningly like Richard Nixon, at times? (That’s a hint, Gordy.)

* Sing along with me (and Jilted John.) 

Carrying on from here, few more of my favourite blogs…

1. Rambling On. Lottie and her very precise Virtual Bitchslaps (and more!).
2. Hayley’s Online Soapbox. A very refreshingly sceptical and investigative approach to the “paranormal.
3. Andrew’s Tech Blog. Newly discovered. A wealth of techie info from a very nice guy whose brains I want to pick
4. Richard Dawkins’s “In the News” Section. News stories with on science, atheism and religion.
5. Wired Science. Science blog network from Wired.
6. On the Road Again. My stand-up mate, John.

[Please be aware that not being included in the list does not necessarily mean your blog falls into the "badly written blogs that claim to speak with authority on subjects they quite clearly know nothing about" category.]

I’ve never really been all that much of a poetry fan. It seemed superfluous when, in my teens, I had the latest Marc and the Mambas L.P. to listen to (”What you earn / Heaven knows / It goes straight up your nose…”). Prose was my thing, and I just didn’t see the necessity for it.

One poem, at least, did get through, though – and I was reminded of it today when, the novel taking a (very slight) detour, I had to grab a name for a very beautiful Welsh girl out of thin air. Myfanwy, I thought, and the John Betjeman poem came flooding back…

Kind o’er the kinderbank leans my Myfanwy,
White o’er the playpen the sheen of her dress,
Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery
Soap scented fingers I long to caress.

Were you a prefect and head of your dormit’ry?
Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?
Who was your favourite? Who had a crush on you?
Which were the baths where they taught you to swim?

Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.

Trace me your wheel-tracks, you fortunate bicycle,
Out of the shopping and into the dark,
Back down the avenue, back to the pottingshed,
Back to the house on the fringe of the park.

Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy,
Golden the light on the book on her knee,
Finger marked pages of Rackham’s Hans Anderson,
Time for the children to come down to tea.

Oh! Fullers angel-cake, Robertson’s marmalade,
Liberty lampshade, come shine on us all,
My! what a spread for the friends of Myfanwy,
Some in the alcove and some in the hall.

Then what sardines in half-lighted passages!
Locking of fingers in long hide-and-seek.
You will protect me, my silken Myfanwy,
Ring leader, tom-boy, and chum to the weak.

“When I finally write the first sentence, I want to know everything that happens, so that I am not inventing the story as I write it - rather, I am remembering a story that has already happened.”

John Irving.

The older I get, the more problems I have with my one-time writing hero, John Irving — especially with the tendency towards excess in his writing. Nonetheless, he has an impressive ability and I still value what he has to say on the subject.

Take a look:

The above question is one I’ve been thinking about quite a lot just recently. The chapter outlines for Children of the Revolution are now complete (and, boy, am I happy with them!) and whilst there are immense similarities to my own experiences up to the age of about nineteen, and even though my protagonist possesses many Gary-like traits and attitudes, it’s still hard for me to comfortably view it as being about “me”. Even though, to a very large extent, it is.

The author John Irving once made an insightful comment. I’m quoting from memory, here, but it went something along the lines of how he was wary of/uncomfortable with the autobiographical form because he could “always remember a better version”. He was referring to that very human (and possibly very necessary) trait we have to revise our memories — to tweak them in our favour, to make ourselves the heroes of our own lives, or merely to present a more amusing story down the pub. I am very conscious of wanting to avoid this with Children of the Revolution. If Carl, my protagonist, is to be even a bit like me, I don’t want him morphing into some cape-wearing superhero — WheelchairMan, Righter of Educational Wrongs and All-round Good Egg.

To avoid this, I’m trying not to think of it in “semi-autobiographical” terms. I’m drawing on my past heavily (the school-based episodes have about a ninety percent factual base), but the emphasis in the phrase “semi-autobiographical novel” is solidly on the word “novel”. It has to be, if I’m to get the job done successfully. Carl is just another character in just another of my novels. A boy/man like any other — with faults and virtues alike. He’s not me, because if he were I might be tempted on some level to gloss over my own failings (not that there are that many, as I’m sure you know… I’ve told you often enough ;-)) and present an unbalanced view that would do no one any favours.

I might admit to the unmistakable likeness and the genetic match once the novel is written, but for now he’s someone I’ve just met — a stranger I’m learning to know and love.

The things a writer has to do!