Selling Out - (A Portion Of My Novel)
Also, my first submission. I'm thinking of signing up to the writers workshop when i can afford to - because, christ knows i need the help haha!
These are the second and (the start of) the third chapters of my novel. The first is subject to a rewrite. I know it's a bit of a mess, and any advice would really be appreicated. I've finished two novels of my own in the past before and i know for a fact they were awful. They were my learning curve. I want this one to be good.
It's about the proliferation of advertising and how it changes our every day lives. It's also a lovestory, a satire, and a generational touchstone. The last one was a joke, i hate that phrase. The lead protagonist works for a company which places adverts on the sides of cars, it might help to know.
Here goes...
[QUOTE]Walking home in the company of wolves I take some time to muse upon my day. I always do this on my way home, I guess that’s why I like to walk to work and back as opposed to taking the car - it gives me time to reflect upon my job, or consider anything else that needs considering.
It only takes me twenty minutes to cross over Westside to my house, not too short and not too long. Just perfect. Even on a wet night the buildings provide enough shelter if you walk close enough to them, hugging the harsh stone walls as the droplets bounce up off the road.
Strolling past the river everything in the city looks so concrete and formidable. Mile high structures housing high flying executives. Different boroughs in every direction, each home to their own gangs and internal politics. Even on Fifth Street the darkness is all consuming, like some depressing city dwelling parasite sapping the last of my optimism. I never used to be this person. I don’t think I ever wanted to become this person when I paced down these same streets as a child.
Passing 24/7 shops on every block I feel obliged to buy something. Anything. That urge to buy - fuelled by advertising - is irresistible, even to those actually in the advertising industry. I think I want a soft drink. By want I mean need, I need a soft drink more than anything else in my life right now. Christ, I cant imagine why I’ve walked seven blocks without one!
Stopping at the next shop I sidestep through the door, awkwardly, allowing a crowd of loud and colourful teenagers to stream out as I enter. Inside the shop it’s somewhat more of a traditional newsagents than I expected, everything feels so familiar and it’s rather reassuring. Even the old style rolling tobacco being the glass counter - I’ve never smoked, but I’m so pleased to see it there. I pick up a can and take it to the cashier. He asks what the weather’s like outside. I tell him it’s humid, close even. As he scans the barcode he just shakes his head . I ask if it’s been a long day. He says, “yeah, too long”. We laugh, I think we connect. I know I’d like him, so I make a mental note to stop here again someday on the way home from work.
Maybe I could start buying a newspaper on the way to work, although I guess the staff are different in the mornings. He did say he’d had a long day though, so perhaps not. As I’m leaving I glance at his name badge. I smile as I close the door behind me and leave Viktor to finish his shift.
Crossing the river is my favourite part of the walk home, it reminds me of being a kid and playing around the area. I was the ruler, and everybody else was my minions, my public, my servants. Being a kid in the city is way more fun than you’d expect - everything is at your fingertips from parks to shopping malls, rivers to multiplexes.
When I was five I slipped into the river and my father had to dive in to rescue me. For the next five minutes while I shivered on the banks away from the now terrifying ebbing and flowing of the water, tears streaming down my face, he just ignored me while everyone congratulated him for being so brave. So fast. So heroic. This was his moment and not mine. I just wiped myself down with a stray sheet of newspaper which was lying nearby, the paper disintegrating, sticking to my clothes in miniscule dots without ever making me any drier. Later he told me a local journalist had seen what had happened, and that it’d be in the paper in the morning maybe. I was absorbing headlines while my father was twenty feet away thinking he was making them.
That night he told me again that he’d be in the paper in the morning, yet when he bought a copy the next day and there was no mention of the incident, he quietly told me that it was me who hadn’t made the final print. My father, my king. These actions were indicative of the years to come, I just didn’t know it at the time.
Arriving home I almost skip past the cars in the driveway in my eagerness to start my evening. The cars present are, incidentally;
Pickup Truck. Mine. Advertising courtesy of a major computer company, whoever offers the highest rates. This season, it’s Microsoft. By next year it’ll be Packard Bell or Apple. Maybe even Dell.
Toyota Yaris belonging to my wife Jennifer. The advertising is confined to the hood - Cosmopolitan magazine most months, although any edition of a female orientated magazine from the same publishing house is allowed in the terms of the contract.
Volkswagen Passat. Reuben’s first car, his mother and I decided to buy him it as a present for passing his driving test on the fourth attempt. There’s not many things you get congratulatory gifts for passing if it takes you four attempts, so he should count himself lucky that I’d already agreed to buy the car off a friend long before he finally fluked the required pass scores. Every panel of the car is something different, anything really; computer games, Jack Daniels, local clubs. It just about covers his insurance and fuel costs, but probably not the two speeding tickets and five parking tickets he’s acquired so far this year.
Reuben’s advertising, that’s called a package deal. Fairly self explanatory - companies with similar targets, say 18-25 year old white males, each pay 20% of the cost and get 20% of the car to use. Often for first time drivers, this is the best deal.
Other deals include minimum intrusion advertising (one panel maximum, usually the hood), fully inclusive (any and every part of the exterior of the vehicle deemed necessary), and customisation deals (where fibreglass or plastic can be used to mould your car into a more enticing billboard).
See: Red Bull Volkswagen Beetles
Xbox Pickup Trucks
In fact, those are the only two examples I’ve ever came across. That option never really took off come to think of it, no wonder though. Who’d want to drive about in a can of Red Bull or a games console? It’s probably not even safe.
Regardless, I’m back home now. I remove my shoes at the doormat, hang my jacket up and collect the mail addressed to me sitting on the ledge. Four circulars. A postcard from brother too, as much too gloat about his expensive holiday as to reach out to me no doubt.
“Honey, I’m home,” I shout, even though the phrase annoys me. Surely if you’re in your own house, speaking to somebody you know, then there’s no need to tell them you’re home. They should be able to surmise that much by their own accord.
“Hola, dinners almost ready, we thought you were going to be late,” Jennifer hollers back from the kitchen. Since the split - nay, trial separation - was resolved things have been like this. Short conversation. Strained voices. Forced pleasantness. By “we thought you were going to be late,” she means “we thought you didn’t care,” or even “we thought you were having an affair.”
The marriage guidance councillor / therapist who recommended the trial separation did say most of the strain on our relationship was caused by my paranoia however, so there’s a chance I’m reading too much into her comment.
Dinner tonight is pizza. I could have made it myself easily enough. Sitting around the table we avoid eye contact apart from when I say thanks. We don’t say grace because we don’t know what to believe in anymore.
Our common ground now is our children, Reuben and Keira, so we talk to them and about them exclusively usually. It eases proceedings along.
“Good day at college Reuben?” I ask.
“Yeah, great,” he mutters, because he knows that’s what he’s expected to say. Jennifer puts her digs her knife into the pizza, carving herself another slice.
“How’s school then?” I ask Keira, knowing this’ll be easier because at seven she still loves to talk. Still idolises her father.
Without hesitation I get a blow by blow account of the day from her. Some girl hit some boy in the playground and he cried. Assembly was dull. Mrs Kirkland gave them a history test, about the Hooverville’s set up in the height of the Great Depression in 1930’s America.
I tell her that people used old newspapers as blankets and that they were called “Hoover Blankets.” Jennifer laughs a hollow laugh, before saying “the trick seems to be simply to add the name Hoover to any item used.” Nobody else laughs.
I think about wiping newspaper over myself when Dad pulled me from the river. I hope I’m a better father than that. We finish our meal in silence.
Things weren’t always like this. We were in love. Still are I think, just in a different way. There’s a decade between the ages of our two children because we loved each other enough to want to extend our family in two different decades.
Reuben was an accident when we were young and foolish, I admit. A happy accident though.
Keira was planned. Every detail premeditated - her birthday falls only three days from Jennifer’s target birthday for her, which was the summer solstice. Coincidentally three days later is referred to as the June solstice, so nobody complained when she was born on the 24th of June.
The reasoning behind this is that her birthdays would always be filled with glorious sunshine, daytrips to the beach with friends, ice cream in the garden.
We learnt this was a preference after almost ten years of Reuben’s birthday in November. Always in bloody November, not that we could be surprised that it never changed. Celebrating with twenty other children confined to the four walls of your sitting room doesn’t always make for the nicest of anniversaries, suffice to say.
I tell my friends we stay together for the children. In truth, we stay together because we don’t know any other way.
Chapter 3
I’m running, falling through space, past thousands of people. There’s traffic everywhere, always just missing me. Lurid advert after lurid advert screeches past. Blues and greens everywhere I turn. New films, sports magazines, furniture shops. Every conceivable branding is just inches away from taking my life. The drivers look like they’re laughing at me, this is a game to them. Everything sounds so loud, like an alarm. Like my morning wakeup alarm even. Shit. It’s morning.
Fifty minutes later and I’m in the office. Black suit (not pinstriped), red tie (not clip-on), and black shoes (not polished). The later rather lets the presentation side of things down, but when you oversleep you don’t always get a say in these things. Since the nightmares started there’s a lot of things I don’t get a say in each morning.
[/QUOTE]
If you stuck with it to the end - thanks. It's not been properly proof read yet. All opinions welcomed when backed with advice!
-Simon
Is it fair that I give you a raincheck?
I want to read it, but I just finished Invisible Monsters, and I'm a bit tired.
So I'm going to read it first thing this morning.
Come rain or shine.
That's good enough for me, i can wait. Cheers for taking an interest.
In fairness, Invisible Monsters is better.
My idea wasn't to compare the two, merely saying that reading it entirely today has gotten me thinking, and it being 10:something has gotten me tired.
I'm not like: "I'll read it tomorrow because monsters is so amazing and I can't read another work of fiction today because it won't be as good"
I'm just like: "Yeah, I'm not going to review it well if I do it now, and i'll have to revise it a ton tomorrow anyways"
Glad we've got that covered.
Haha, i understood you first time. I was just saying!
M'kay.
I just don't want to come off as a dick or whatnot.
Nah you're not at all, its difficult being new on a forum - hell, i'm still new here really, and i'm guessing 99% of the people dont have a clue who i am or whether i'm a dick or not too.
Yeah.
I noticed this thread a bit back, but didn't comment 'cause it looked a bit old and I didn't want people to get anal about it.
But I read the first bit and enjoyed it, but realized that it wasn't one of those AlexanderDeath posts I could zoom through while semi-comatose, and thus stopped abruptly.
Alexanderdeath has certainly been the highlight of this section since i joined too - and not for good reasons haha.
I usually find i only read the really terrible stuff in here, because its like watching a car crash. I could make a Rant reference here, but i wont.
Heh, I know.
It's like anything that isn't horrible is ignored.
Because people are more interested in degrading/debasing/destroying other people than they are helping them out.
That's what a lot of The Cult is like - the worse the post, the more the attention. At some point i'm going to lower myself as low as i can go and see how i fit in.
Nah, thats harsh. A lot of things about this place seem to be pretty good really.
Haha.
Yeah.
I noticed you liked Explosions in the Sky, and I think the Arcade Fire?
Are you a big fan of indie?
That's the primary genre of music I tend to listen to.
(And to make this somewhat on-topic, I like your use of proper grammar in that piece of writing)
Yeah i'm an indie / post-rock type of guy. With a bit of everything else thrown in. Aside from being a uni student and supermarket slave, i write for a music magazine - therefore i hope i've got reasonable music taste!
If you like both, you must have decent taste yourself i'm guessing.
(Cheers for the grammar comment, i've never understood why people feel the need to let standards slip when using the internet or sending messages on their phones!)
I know right?
But yes, I like that sort of thing too.
Have you heard "Neutral Milk Hotel"
I assume so, but man... epic stuff.
Do you use Last.fm?
I'm a big Neutral Milk Hotel fan actually, although i've never chased up anything apart from In An Aereoplane Over The Sea - it seems to be hard to get anything else here in the UK.
I'll link you to my last.fm. What's yours?
[URL=http://www.last.fm/user/Simon57/]http://www.last.fm/user/Simon57[/URL]
By the way, i know that in between the good on that page there's a lot of crap - i go through weird spells of listening to all sorts haha!
Mine is YellowRedBlue of course!
I'll add you up.
I've been looking for music for a while though, I haven't got any new stuff for a month or so.
Where do you get yours? Download, actual cds, or what?
I'll add you back then on last.fm.
Me? I've never downloaded a full album in my life. I buy almost everything, and the rest i get as promos from the magazine. I'm not a downloading fan to be honest - i'm a purist and i enjoy holding the cd or vinyl for myself, looking at the sleeve notes, filing it in my collection.
I'm a High Fidelity type of guy, assuming you've seen the film or read the novel. Not sure if Nick Hornby is cool around here, but High Fidelity certainly does it for me.
Let me advise Aereogramme, Sparta, Biffy Clyro, Willy Mason and Red House Painters. My five for the day!
Ah.
Unfortunately I have nowhere to get the music I like from around here, so I am forced to download most of it. I don't have a big problem with downloading, but I'd pay if I could.
And I will see what I can do about hearing those musicians!
(and I haven't read/seen high fidelity, only heard of it)
I'm guessing if you're on an literature forum, then you should start with the High Fidelity book. You'd no doubt enjoy it. The film is a good adaptation for sure, but a definate second to the novel itself.
Seen from your last.fm that you do have pretty damn fine taste. The newest Modest Mouse was a classic - their best work to date in my opinion.
As for the artists i mentioned, i'll upload a couple of tracks from them tomorrow for you if you want. Easy way to find out if you'd like them or not! Taste is such a subjective thing.
Alright, sounds good.
My favourate MM album is "The moon and antarctica" but I prefer the newest one to "good news"
I'll try to get that book after I'm done with Diary. My school library isn't bad.
(But until I came along they only had diary by Chuck Palahniuk, luckily the librarian and I get along)
Your school library sounds better than any one i've ever been to - cant say i've seen Chuck books in any of them! Scotland can suck at times.
I havent heard The Moon And Antarctica, but its on "the list" for sure. "The list" is very long and must always be said like so - "the list". Or maybe in itallics, if i'm feeling in a crazy sort of mood.
Hm.
It's their... third last album.
It's dark, and it's a commentary of social and commercial life.
And yeah, I have a list to.
It's not just you. ^.^'
Good times! That MM album does sound good, i'll pick it up after Xmas most likely.
One has to be geeky about listing something in their life, and for me that something is music.
Anyways, it's 4.22am and i have work at 11.30am. So i'm guessing it must be bedtime for sure. Nice talking man, i'll be sure to catch up with you some other time on here.
Alright, you too man.
By the time you get back, I'll have read your little story.
Okay!
I read it, and found it rather enjoyable, witty and clever.
I really liked the whole consumerism stab, with the "I need a cola" bit, as well as the advertising on the cars.
Overall, I liked it a great deal, and was looking forward to the next line from the protagonist. I thought the Dad story about the river was odd but interesting at first, but I kinda related it to the son now that he grew up when he was at the dinner table talking about his daughter "Still idolises her father" which made me think of the relationship she likely will have, and the relationship he himself had with his own father.
Keep writing, I'd like to read more from you.
Cheers for the feedback - nice that it was postive!
Also decent to see you managed to pick up the two main themes of the novel from that short extract... consumerism and family relationships as influenced by the previous generation.
The consumerism theme was really where i was going with it to begin with, but i've become more character orientated than culturally observational as i've developed it.
Anyways, glad it didnt make you want to sue me for the ten minutes reading it!
Mhm.
No problem man.
Glad to see I understood it as well.
Do you have anything else written?
Aye, i have various chapters and fragments and all sorts kicking about. Once something more is up to scratch i'll post it in this thread for sure.
This could well be the first novel i ever like enough to finish without rushing it or spoiling it.
In the past, doomed attempts have included a heist novel, and a novel about an award winning actor who gets mistaken for a nazi and goes on the run with a band of people he doesnt even know.
I am going to write a horror/satire eventually...
Mainly because I am much better at less serious writing, but I still have a fair bit of philosophical points I'd like to eventually get across in my writing. Not to mention other beliefs.
Seeing as you're quick to comment on other peoples writing (not a bad thing!) i'd be interested to see some of your own. You sound as if you know what you're talking about.
I never know if i want to write humour/satire or if i want to write gritty/realism. Can you do both without the former devaluing the latter? I'm not sure.
Yeah.
but it'd be difficult, quite difficult.
I'll show some of my writing when I get it worked out.
I work in fragments of writing as of late, and it's nothing I can be judged on.
So let me work, and I'll have it to you in a week or so if I'm lucky.
Fair play, look forward to reading it.
I utterly and faithfully promise to finish this novel, no matter how tedious it becomes to write or how bad i think it is. I need to stop making excuses to not finish things.
That sounds like a plan.
I just get too caught up with the surreal and the inane when I write.
Things like villians with mustaches don't help either...
But those are things I don't expect to be good in the first place.
Haha, i'm with you there. It's too easy when writing fiction to let your mind wonder too far, into a land which nobody reading it is ever going to fully comprehend. Tricky indeed.
For me, I try to throw all my ideas, my beliefs, my thoughts, my dreams...
Everything, into one piece, into one line.
I want it to be an up to date followup on me, on my stances, and whatever I'm thinking of.
Flash.
Give me attention.
Flash...
Invisible Monsters. Nice.
I know this is a terrible way to go about writing a novel, but i'm afraid to use all my ideas in one book incase somehow - by some fluke - i get it published... and then have nothing left in the tank for a follow up!
Imagine how heartbreaking that'd be. You dream of making it as an author, then you finally do - only to find that you can't think of anything to do next! Soul destroying.
So sadly i'm always holding back from investing my full self into a novel. Plus i think it helps to distance yourself from the characters, certainly from the lead protagonist. If you end up linking them too closely to yourself i always feel they'll become to likely too develop as you would, and not as the novel in hand demands them to.
Different styles for different people i guess. I always suspect mine are the wrong ways to go about things!
I think that's beneficial in the long run.
But it could hold you back until then.
I have no doubt you could be published if you tried enough and kept at it for a while longer.
But getting there no matter your skill level can be extremely hard.
Yeah, it's too easy to assume that if you develop the skills then you'll get your break. Probably the best authors of our time never even made it into print, which is pretty sad when you think about it.
My favourite book of all time probably never even got written. Or is sitting at the back of a cupboard somewhere waiting for a clearout or a house fire to act as its eraser.
I like how this thread has some banter in it now - even if it is just you and i!
Yeah, it's constructive.
Or more constructive than a lot of comments around here...
But yeah, I know what you mean.
I write, because I want to read what I want to read, and as of yet, nobody's made a book that I absolutely love, and can relate to and etc etc.
So, I want to make that book.
For me, and maybe for other people to enjoy.
"like some depressing city dwelling parasite sapping the last of my optimism. I never used to be this person"
I say go for the metaphor
YellowRedBlue - going off topic here, but then it is my thread i guess... we mentioned music earlier...
One of my favourite albums of all time, i really think you'd like it considering your taste:
Aereogramme - My Heart Has A Wish That You Would Not Go
[url]http://www.divshare.com/download/2554368-43c[/url]
Full album download for free, hope you enjoy it!
Thanks!
I was looking for something new.
I'd be posting more, but I feel like Michael Jordan/Vick had sex with my skull.
I'm thinking of painkillering it up!
Edit: I downloaded, and I really, really like it!
You're a good man Simon.
Hope you're feeling ok man, sounds rough.
Glad you like that album - even in Scotland they were a proper obscure thing. Best band never to achieve any real success that this country has ever had. Sadly split up a few months back just after that album as they couldnt afford to go on. I've had the pleasure of interviewing them, seeing them live a few times, and listening to their music for years though. So it's all good.
Glad you enjoyed it! Hard to imagine any Arcade Fire / post-rock / indie fan not digging it though really haha.
I'm about to work on the other album/head to be.
Preferably at the same time.
I'm okay though, just a little dazed and pained.
Nothing I can't handle.
Thanks again, this is good stuff.
If you don't mind downloading, I suggest you go to [url]http://g2p.org[/url] and search "Black kids" in songs, they have a 4 song ep I'm getting into as of late.
Try it, you know?
Anyways, have a good night man.
I'm downloading your recommendation as we speak, i'll let you know what i think of it tomorrow (or maybe later tonight). If you're enjoying the stuff i'm pushing your way i'll push you a few more things over time, no bothers. It's good to share music with somebody from a different continent - really broadens the horizons!
That looks like a useful site you linked me to there, might use it to look for other stuff. Cheers.
Hope you feel better soon man.
WRA!
It's the morning before I have to depart for school, and I'm actually being able to listen to shels now.
I'm really enjoying it all, specifically The White Umbrella parts.
I'm now delighted to be able to tell you i'm really enjoying the Black Kids EP. Reminds me a lot of the band Architecture In Helsinki, which can never be bad a thing.
Listened to it about five times already, the tracks seem to get better with listening. Hurricane Jane is fantastic. Cheers man!
My personal favourate is "I'm not going to teach your boyfriend how to dance with you"
But yeah, glad you like it.
[url]http://okkervilriver.com/index.php[/url]
That's actually a free cover album by a very, very talented band.
One of my personal favourates of recent years.
I'll definately check that out, that's a band i've been meaning to check out for a long time.
Out of interest, how are you with acoustic stuff? You a Sufjan Stevens fan? He seems to be a love or hate thing for a lot of people. I'm on the love side. Wouldnt definately recommend him though, because thats backfired on me in the past!
I like acoustic, but I admittedly don't have any.
I've heard the name of that guy before, so I'll check it out.
I'm going to bump this to see if anybody fancied passing comment this time?
Any comments or criticisms are welcome!