I have finally been published. A short story I wrote for a competition earlier in the year came second and was published in Tyneside Tales, an anthology of stories based in my region. I just attended the book launch for the book, which is purchasable here .

Mick

Congrats, Mick. I knew you could do it.

But "purchasable"? :rolleyes:

Look at this guy. As soon as he becomes a famous author, he wants his friends here - we who have offered him compliments, enouragement, and support all these years - to pay for his work. :p

Post the damn story, so we can all read it for free.

I don't get royalties. :p

Mick

Aw, thats great Mick! Congrats :p

A Tale of Memory; the Tail of Love

Unforgettable.
A summer of passion, of lust, of love.
And now it was all over. We lay there in the grass, overshadowed by that falsity of male dominance: St. James’ Park, dwarfing and destroying the natural bliss of Leazes Park beneath it.
Silence.
Oh, the silences! They spoke more than our words. The looks. The looks. Long, lasting looks of longing love.
Lament. Lament that it was now over. Or soon to be.
“Why must time exist?” I asked.
“If it didn’t exist,” she replied, “there’d be no anticipation. Nothing to look forward to.”
“It shouldn’t exist. It shouldn’t.” Like a spoilt child.
In fact, when we were together, it didn’t exist. Time merely prolonged our minds when apart: the fears, the desires, the racing excitement, the highs and the lows; but when we were together there was no time. There was no past, no future, no present. Only the moment. Only the instant. Only the eternal abyss of existence. An existence of spontaneity and of immeasurable desire. Galaxies apart and yet our bodies were one.
We lay there, looking into each other’s eyes. Sometimes she smiled. To ease the pain. It didn’t. I didn’t smile. Couldn’t smile. Seriousness. A grave certainty that this was the last time. We kissed.
Kissed. Each time it got better, magnifying the loneliness to come. Her eyes closed, her tongue gentle, her nails gliding across my neck and through my hair. Every amazing flash between us; the moment, the magnificence, the memories. All put into that one kiss. Like every kiss. She was the epicentre of my emotional earthquake.
“I don’t want you to leave,” I said. It was a silly thing to say. Like a doomed Holocaust victim pleading to live. I looked away and lay down on my back. Birds overhead. Oblivious to the turmoil around and below them. I envied them endlessly; their freedom, their elegance, their ability to become art at any moment.
“Then come with me.” She’d said it before, countless times. She brought her face over mine, cutting out the sunlight. So I could look into her eyes without squinting.
I simply sighed. You know I can’t.
“Why?” she asked.
“You know why; I’ve told you.” I looked away again, putting my head to the side. Looking along the nap of the grass and wishing I could become it. Lifeless grass, without love, without worry, without anguish. It welcomed being cut down. It relished its own death, for it was in death that it found neatness and beauty. While humans wasted away…
I couldn’t leave. Tyneside; the centre of my world. I loved her. But I also loved her. We’d spent the summer together; it had gone beyond intimate. But if time was the greatest of all measures, it was a mere fling. Nothing compared to the lifelong bond with home.
“You must remember to write everyday,” I told her. Reminded her. I’d forgotten how many times.
“I will, I will.” An attempt to reassure, but words meant nothing.
It was just us. The world did not exist. Our only company was two stone lions, sitting symmetrically on the grass with us, statues of life. I closed my eyes and pretended to be dead. Held my breath. She noticed and slapped me on the face. A playful slap. It didn’t hurt. She smiled. I closed my eyes again.
“You’re silly, you know that.”
“How come?”
“Not moving away with me. You say you love me in one breath, and that you won’t move away with me in another.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me.”
“I can’t,” I snapped back. Sighed. “Words cannot express it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know”—I didn’t know—“perhaps I’ll write a novel. A short novel. I get bored with lengthy ones. Especially when you’re around. I can’t concentrate long enough.”
“Then write a novel,” she said, as if that was that, and all things were dandy and sorted. “A short novel.”
“I don’t know.” A pause. A violent pause. They were all violent. Violently exhausting. “My prose sucks. I hate it. I can’t write fiction. I can only write about you.”
“You’re blind, you know,” she said, as if diagnosing me with cancer.
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t the place to be. You’re going to write, but you’ll never get published. Or you said last week you’d make a film. But that would never be funded. You should move away with me. London is the place where it’s all happening. Not here.”
“You see! Now you’re blind. People need to open their eyes. There is more to England than red buses and rhyming slang. People cringe and shudder at the thoughts of the grey skies and green fields of the north. If only they forgot their self-importance for a day or two and came up here. Then they’d see.”
“What would they see?”
“I don’t know. Friendliness. Taste. Life. It’s all chaotic down there. Fancy a city where the most famous place is where people go to satisfy their sexual insecurities.”
“Soho isn’t the most famous place in London.”
I ignored her. “When you say you’re from Tyneside, everybody says, ‘Wey aye man,’ in that hideous southern imitation. I’ve never heard anybody from up here say that though. Never. Never in all my life. ‘Wey aye man.’ It’s so clichéd. So archaic. So not here.”
“It’s a mark of identity, though, isn’t it,” she suggested. “It’s the way by which people recognise you.”
“Exactly. That’s why it stinks of bollocks. Why recognise somebody by something which is actually very rarely said?”
I held her and she kissed me. It was nonsense. It’d gone over her head. It was alright for her. She was going to be devoured by art school and culture. Culture. What a pathetic word. If you were against culture you were racist, and if you were for culture you were a moron. There was no inbetween. No wonder we’d failed the Culture Bid. It was hideous; the campaign, the ideas, the whole initial concept in the first place.
“Then write about me,” she said, moving on, or moving back, whichever way you looked at it. “When I’m gone.”
“Perhaps I will. There’s a short story competition coming up. I never usually go in for them. Traditionalist morons from the south usually win. But perhaps this one will be different.”
“What will you write about?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll write about my affair.”
“Affair?” She was intrigued. “Go on.”
“With two people. One’s divine, an absolute goddess. She is the air I breathe, the food I eat, the film I watch, the poetry I read. She is the grass I lie on right now, the birds circling above me, the clouds passing overhead. She is the embodiment of life, and everything I wish for from it.”
She was smiling. Immune to my poetic frankness. The smile was a knowing one; almost mocking, as if my pretentiousness wasn’t to be taken seriously. But deep down she knew. She knew.
“And the other?” she asked.
“The goddess is real, and I can see her now. Feel her now. Be her now. But the other person is intangible, elusive. Neither a he nor a she. It is a place. A place of life, of a buzzing excitement which pleases me in every other way the first girl cannot. It’s awful, to be so attached to a place. Like Woody Allen, in the opening of Manhattan, when he says, ‘He adored New York City; he idolised it all out of proportion.’ I feel the same. It’s not in my heart. It’s deeper than that. It’s in my gut, in my loins, in my soul. It’s all around me. It envelops me like a hot fire. No, a warm fire. A comforting one.”
“I’ll be glad to leave.”
“Leave me?”
“No, silly.” She gestured to slap me again. “To leave here. I don’t see things in it what you do.”
“Because you’re looking. I’m not. That’s why I can never leave this place.”
Like Allen in New York, with a country between himself and Hollywood, I would stay. Stay and change the world from this modest life of growing importance. It was too easy to move south to make it big. Everybody did it. They betrayed their backgrounds in exchange for experience and pompousness.
She was staring at me. I could tell, as I lay there fiddling with a blade of grass. I met her gaze. She was serious. All very serious all very sudden. A child realising her mother’s reprimand isn’t a joke. Realising that she is just like the rest of us. Mortal. Life too short, the world too small. Le temps détruit tout. Of course. Sure. Wey aye man.
We kissed again, and this time she was crying. I held her tight and close, like my life depended on it. It was an aggressive, reassuring kiss. Remember to write. She would. But not forever. It would fizzle out. And she knew it. And so did I. Our subconscious fears fighting to spoil the moment.
But they couldn’t.
For the world spun on its axis as it always did. St. James’ Park still stood there, proud and redundant; the birds still circled overhead, oblivious and stress-free; the grass was still intensely green in the sunshine; the stone lions still sat at either side like fiercely loyal guards, looking on into eternity. And together they shaped the moment, the magnificence, the memory.
Unforgettable.

Thanks for posting it, Mick.

I would have been plenty pissed if I paid £9.95 for that. :p

Congratulations Mick. That's great news.

I must say, excellent writing.


Don Cardi

Great news! Well done!

Congrats!!

Now get to working on that Weekend review.

Congrats Capo!

Excellent story man. Keep it up

Mick,

I am so happy for you. I know this is a passion of yours and am so thrilled at your success. I just knew you could do it. It's only the beginning I'm sure. Btw, you have a very poetic flair. All my best to you.



TIS

I'm sure Plaw didn't intend to make this sound as mean as it does. :p

Congrats, Mick! At least someone here follows through with his writing!

wow congrats mang!

Mick -

When I first read that story back in July I thought it was good. Now, I think I'll be saying, "I knew Mick when...."

Keep those creative juices flowing! Good work!

Nice work, lad! Given the quality of your posts here, I'm not surprised that you've been published.

Proud of ya Mick

Fabulous work, Mick! You should be proud. I wish you greater and greater accomplishments, you deserve it.

First of all, CONGRATULATIONS, MICK!!! That's quite an achievement!!! And it's just the beginning, my friend!!!! Really, I knew you have talent and passion. With a bit of luck, you don't need anything else to make it! But when you get rich and famous, don’t let it go to your head, ok?

Some guys at uni were from Newcastle and they did used to say "Howay" a lot. I think they did use it sometimes in a cliquey way, but they were a nice bunch. If I hadn't known them I would never have learned what a "filthy mackem" was.

I thought that was excellent writing, Mick. Brilliantly structured and written, and moving too.

Keep it up, you've got a great talent

I'm sure Plaw didn't intend to make this sound as mean as it does. [/b][/quote]Mick knows I was kidding, dontcha' Mick?

Mick?

Actually, I thought it was very good. One line in there that I thought was truly excellent.....

....Our subconscious fears fighting to spoil the moment....

Congrats Mick!
From a fellow trying-to-be-published author.
That's a great achievement!
I believe you'll give us a lot of fine moments with your writing, in future!

For our American friends, the phrase "Way Aye man" should probably be explained.

It is a phrase commonly attributed to (if not actually uttered, as Capo points out) by a group of Englishmen known as "Geordies".

They also say "Tats oot" and "Ahm garn oot on tha tap tonight man".

Totally rocks!

So you stayed in your hometown, you published the novel. What about the 2nd project mentioned in the story?- the movie? Will it be funded? While you're still living in your hometown?

A few more questions,if ya dont mind :

1)You say it won 2nd place. Which story won 1st place? Did you read it, and do you think it is indeed better than yours?

2)Have you ever lived in London? I'm sure you've been there many times, but if it was the other way round' - if some outowner came to visit Tyneside every now and then, do you think he could fully grasp the city's heart as someone who lives there?
Im just asking cos Im curious about London, is there really not much merit to it besides red buses and rhyming slang? (I've only been there once, but that was years ago, so Im just curiuos)

3)Can you please post this picture :


I'd like to see the real image you visualized while writing this.
I hope you have the exact picture with the lions/Park and the right setting of the sun

4) This is the most important question :

We are all happy readers of this tale. But what about the most important reader?

Did you show it to her--to "she" ?

I dont mean it in a way of "lookie here, told ya I could publish a novel"....I mean simply that she may be interested to read a novel where shes one of the main characters


---
---


Anyway, you dont have to answer my questions if you dont fell like, 'specially if you're too busy writing your next story

Once again, SPLENDID work Capo - thank you for sharing!

Congrats Mick!! I'm sure it was a big thrill for you.

Birds overhead. Oblivious to the turmoil around and below them. I envied them endlessly; their freedom, their elegance, their ability to become art at any moment.

LOVE that line.

Btw, Mick, Tyneside is the place where the river Tyne flows, I understand?

Thank you for the kind words, folks.

Plaw, I did indeed grasp your biting wit in your post, and I knew you were joking. Or at least hoped. There's no need to overcompensate by actually copying and pasting a line with individual reference and praise. Liar. :p

Fame, to answer your questions:

1) A woman, older than I, who lives, I believe, in Ireland, won first prize. She's a history in writing, if nothing big. I've not read her story yet, but it's based around Christmas I know, by the title.

2) I've not been to London before; I just resent the fact that it is so commonly used as a cultural export to foreign countries, used as an insight to England and English life. There's more to us than the red buses you see in Hollywood films. I was also kind of challenging the judges when I was writing it: do you dare to publish a Notherner? They did.

3) The lush green is of Leazes Park. The stadium dwarfing it is St. James' Park, home to Newcastle United Football [soccer] Club. To the right of the picture would be the stone lions.

4) Yeah, she's read it. I spent some of my most finest, heart-pumping moments in that park, the setting of my story. I'm glad I got something out of it other than a kiss.

And as for the funded film, I have a short adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl showing at the Northern Lights Film Festival closing gala, alongside Michael Winterbottom's The Cock and Bull Story.

JustMe, yeah, Tyneside is home to the River Tyne. On looking, if appearances mean anything, it is certainly one of the dirtiest rivers you can find.

Thanks again,
Mick

Thanx a lot for answering capo, wont bother u with more questions

Cant see the pic, red x, or is it just on my end?

The only association I have with the rive Tyne, is David II Bruce of Scotland, moving down its left bank in october 1346, and having vision of st Cuthbert, but still crossing Tyne, only to be defeated at Neville's Cross...
So how does the countryside look there? Hills and moors?