Sunday 21 March 2010

A Treat For You All……

Being the literary genius that I am, I get on a regular occasion at least two people every three or four years asking me if I have written my novel yet. So due to this unprecedented public demand, I have decided to give the followers of this blog something back as a thank you for all the support and love I have received from you all since I started it.

An extract from the half completed manuscript of my novel.

Yes, you just read that right.

My gift to you.

This is a few short scenes from my searing and heart rending expose of the English class system. It encapsulates love, loss, and all the things that happen in-between. The writing is very layered, so it will take considerable brain power to read between the lines and to fully grasp what I am really writing about.

So, if you are ready to begin, let me take you by the hand and take you into another world.

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Mimi Demure slowly sipped at her lukewarm tea as she gazed wistfully out of the window of the parlour room, watching the ice melt slowly from the bare fingers of the willow tree that sat melancholy outside. She gave a small sigh and stirred the muddy brown liquid in her cup once more.

From the other side of the room, Roger noticed her discontent and looked up from the spreadsheets and plans that he had laid out all over the parlour room table with concern on his handsome face (I don't mean he spread them out over the table with his face).

“Mimi, what’s wrong?” he asked her, worry mixed with love swirling around in his dreamy brown eyes.

“Nothing Roger, “she replied in a voice that sounded tired and worn like the face of their groundsman, Calder, “Just go back to your work.”

Roger rolled up the sheaths of paper, filled with diagrams and equations, and tied them up with a lace ribbon.

“Mimi, my love. I have watched you now for the last year in despair. I feel as if you are slipping away from me and I don’t know how I am ever to keep hold of you.” he asked her, pain creeping into his rough, but yet warm face.

“Do you love me Roger?” she asked him, staring into those dreamy brown eyes with her own ice cold blue ones.

Roger rose from his table and walked over to her, falling to his knees and taking her hand within his own.

“My darling, of course I love you. You are my world, my light, my everything. If you were not in my life, well, I wouldn’t know what to do. My heart would be torn asunder, split like the firewood between Calder’s lumber axe. Why must you ask such silly things?”

“I’m tired Roger, tired of this life that I lead. I am like a buttercup in spring, I need love like the buttercup needs sunlight and water, and at this present time I feel as if I am in a desert, parched and dry.”

“Mimi, I don’t understand?” Roger replied, feeling the slow lurching sensation within the centre of his chest at the slow realisation that the person he loved most in the world was slipping from his grasp. Slowly.

“Do you remember when you took me to Paris Boulevard Roger?”

“I do, we danced naked by moonlight so the black light slid over your skin like oil. I remember that night more than any other in my life, it was the night that I knew I loved you.”

“I can’t remember ever feeling like that again Roger. You have been so wrapped up in your work that you have hardly noticed me, noticed my despair. I longed for you to look up from your blueprints, your plans and schemes, and just see this woman, this flesh and blood, sitting before you, just hoping for a smile, a simple glance that would prove that you still feel the same way about me. But it never came Roger, it never came.”

This last part was said in a wistful whisper.

Oh my darling!” Roger wailed to the oppressive weight of the parlour room as the grandfather clock ticked slowly behind him. “What have I done to you, what torment have I placed you under?”

He beat his fist upon the hard wooden floor with every word he uttered.

Mimi slowly removed her hand from his.

“I’m leaving you Roger. There is a plane leaving tomorrow for Cairo. It has a one way ticket. I won’t be returning.”

Roger remained silent on his knees; the only flicker of emotion was a slight twitch under his right eye that flickered like the wings of a hummingbird.

“Do you have nothing to say Roger? Nothing to ask of your love as she tells you that she is leaving you and won’t be returning?”

Suddenly Rogers forehead split apart like the teeth of a bear trap, exposing his trembling pink brain, a brain that had a six foot red tentacle sprouting from it with a luminous yellow eyeball on the end.

“Oh Roger, what’s wrong?” Mimi cried as the tentacle moved towards her face so she could see her own reflection in its shiny, slimy surface.

Roger opened his mouth as if to speak and a guttural voice spoke without his lips moving.

“Sub human creature, I am Xanther from the Planet Mugathra! All humans will be enslaved!”

Mimi shot from her seat and pressed both hands against her shocked face.

“Oh Roger, why did you have to be the first Englishman to ever set foot on Mars? Damn the space race! Damn it all to hell! How am I ever going to explain this at the tennis club?”

She pushed herself backwards from her chair as the thing that used to be her husband shed its human skin and sat in front of her in a quivering red mass of blob like tissue with many more tentacles whipping around its obscene body.

“Blaaaaaaargh!” the blob cried as it wobbled towards her. “Destroy all humans!”

Mimi quickly ran out of the parlour room and down the hallway towards the armament display. She grabbed the Sword of Punarbrula from its display case and turned to face her jelly like husband as he rolled glisteningly across the floor after her.

“I promised myself I would never use this again after what happened in the Congo,” she cried, holding the sword in the position her sensei, Muturgo Barringturo, had taught her, “But it seems to me that the Sword of Punarbrula is the only thing that will kill you now Roger, that and........love.”

She waited until Roger was only a few feet away.

“I will always remember Paris.” she whispered as tears rolled down her face.

The sword flashed down.

An inhuman scream was heard.

Followed by a pop.
___________________________________________________________

Pretty powerful stuff huh? I think it really dissects the human condition and lays out all that emotion bare for us all to see. I sometimes look at the things I write and can understand how people say that it is some form of a blessing the talent that I have, but in reality, it is really some kind of a curse. If people keep expecting you to write stuff this good, this powerful, what happens if you have an off day and write any old crap that just looks as if you have just cobbled it together in about 20 minutes?

Lucky for me, I’m still waiting for that day to come.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

You can let go of my hand now.

Disclaimer- This is of course not an extract from my latest manuscript, but merely a piece of crap I concocted. I don’t have manuscript. I have ideas for three novels, that if published, would actually change the face of books forever, but I just haven’t got round to writing them yet. This is due to the fact that I am lazy and suffer from crippling self doubt.

All of these books would be about Vampires. I like Vampires. I had an idea about ten years ago to write a book about a teenage girl who falls in love with a Vampire. It would be filled with sexual awakening and that heady rush and heartfelt yearning that only teenage love could bring. I was going to call it “My Boyfriends A Vampire, But I’m Actually OK With This.” but decided that there would never be a market for shit like that.

So if anyone out there would actually like to do the writing for my novels for me, I can dictate and stuff, I will sell the rights 70/30 in my favour, and even let you have some say on the obligatory Tim Burton film adaption.

Just let me know.

Extra Disclamier- It's amusing me (and worrying me in equal measures) that folk think I was actually being real with this.......

19 comments:

Susan at Stony River said...

Now that was worth skipping Mass for Dan. Excellent!

Actually, I'd do something with that excerpt for the Probing Uranus humorous sci-fi anthology -- I *think* submissions are still open. Anyhow, who wouldn't want to be involved in Probing Uranus?!

Unknown said...

Nah! Nobody would buy that teen in love with a vampire shit, or ever make a movie out of it!

Kim Ayres said...

I hate to point out plot point inconsistencies, but "How am I ever going to explain this at the tennis club?" conflicts with the fact she was leaving for Cairo never to return anyway.

I mean, if you're writing about tentacled aliens from the Planet Mugathra, you need to have a sense of realism about it all...

Anonymous said...

Is this the line for queueing for the film rights? Because that is some b-movie excellence right there my friend.

Lo said...

My darling....I do not mean to be ruthlessly unkind, but .....
don't quit your day job.

aladdinsane12 said...

oh man, for a second there i was really worried! i was trying desperately to like it :) i was thinking "this doesn't seem like him- it's not his style!" and was thinking how to diplomatically tell you it was not my cup of tea. i agree with the vegetable assassin, though- totally b-list movie material!

Jana said...

Hi Dan, you will surely have one dedicated reader for your novels if you ever decided to write.

I love Vampires too and you know that this is exactly the kind of stuff that sells...so go right ahead!

Anonymous said...

I think you write too well to pen 'girl meets vampire' novels.

As for writing your novel for you... I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine....?

Millions Of Atoms Man said...

You had me at “Blaaaaaaargh!”. You had me at “Blaaaaaaargh!”

I would buy this book in a heartbeat.

The mad woman behind the blog said...

**speechless**

Pandorah's Box said...

First of all, you are a star dahlink!

Secondly, I actually pretty much enjoyed your extract from your 'novel'. It was pretty freaking amazing.

And third, who would read about vampires and teenage love. Boring. No offence :)

Disclaimer: this was actually a really effing funny post and any self-doubt you might suffer from should be BANISHED! Banished along with Roger and his slimy tentacles!

Pandorah's Box said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
JenJen said...

I smell a Matthew and Dan partnership!!

YAHOOOOO

hope said...

Oh...my...lord, she sighed, tears of hysteria running down her face as she gasped for breath. That a vacant mind could utter such phrases like, "the only flicker of emotion was a slight twitch under his right eye that flickered like the wings of a hummingbird." threatened to take her breath away permanently.

Seriously pal, if you ever make me laugh that hard again there will be repercussions. :) Such as me nagging you and Matthew to get on with your books. Someone told me the other day, "you have a book in you" [and I assume he didn't mean I'd eaten one]. But how would I compete with such....poetical license? ;)

Perhaps an anthology, where we could all contribute?

Thanks for the laugh my friend...I needed it!

hope said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
UberGrumpy said...

Shouldn't that be melancholily? Maybe not

hope said...

If you've got a moment to spare between chapters, kindly visit my site to pick up your Virtual Easter Basket for Hershey's Better Basket Blog Hop.

Linda Medrano said...

I don't even know what to say. Love swirling in his eyes! Wow. I don't know what to say.

ladytruth said...

I was actually getting into it and then WHAM! The alien popped its head out. I should've known: if it's too good to be true, it usually is ;)