Join Me: Founding Cults

Just finished Danny Wallace's 'Join Me'.
Somewhat disappointing on the 'how to get your followers to sign over all their worldly wealth or at least enough of it for you to live in luxury' aspect of cult founding, which was the aspect I really fancied learning about.  I suppose I'll just have to read up on the real experts like Frank Buchman (for the history of how the ideas of this rather odd evangelical have somehow become medical orthodoxy in the21st  Century I'd recommend 'the Orange Papers'.) or, of course, the original 'Holy Roller Collector'.
There's not even much on 'persuading your followers to give up their days jobs, spend all their money on spurious "how-to-fly" courses and work for you sixteen hours a day'.  Very thin on 'how to convince the punters that in your role as Messiah you're obliged to shag as many of them as you physically can', either.
And as for organising mass suicides - well this book leaves you completely in the dark.
Wallace never gets to grips with the bread and butter, day to day work of exploiting your followers - which, let's face it, is what, if anything, draws most of us t the idea of founding our own 'New Religious Movements' in the first place.
Instead he lets the side down by concentrating on fripperies like being nice and doing good deeds which most serious cults forget the minute they get your credit card number.
So if you're looking for a step-by-step guide to persuading mugs to chop their todgers off on the promise of a one way trip to a passing comet this is NOT the book for you.

Not even colossal, a mere giant.

If, on the other hand you're looking for a bit of self-deprecating whimsy about a bloke who inadvertently sets up a rather nice organisation and encounters eccentrics like Joinee Cobbett, who's really fond of giant squid [I take that back: there's nothing, and I mean NOTHING wrong with being interested in top end Cephalopoda - who can resist a giant squid and as for a Colossal, well
...], Dennis M. Hope, President of The Galactic Government who becomes Wallace's mentor on 'how to be a guru' and Doctor Spacetoad while alienating a remarkably tolerant girlfriend, then you may well have a good time with this.
But I needed  to know more about how to get them to sign over their property, let me father huge broods of children and organise a mass suicide: surely that's not too much to ask?  Anyone got any recommendations for 'organising cults for beginners'?  Preferably with chapters on 'It's your duty to shag the the Messiah' and 'Going out with a bang:  tips for arranging a mass suicide'.
Though the book did teach me a fascinating Norwegian saying:  Alt går, sa den gamle damen, hun var steke en frosk i brødristeren.
PS I've since found what this book is missing.  The link is so lovely I feel I must give it in full:http://knowledgefiles.com/categories/mind-control/the-illuminati-formula-to-create-an-undetectable-total-mind-controlled-slave/.  Once I've read that I'll have my cult up and running in no time! It's all beginning to fit together:http://vigilantcitizen.com/musicbusiness/lady-gaga-the-illuminati-puppet/

Just Read 'The Psychopath Test'

The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson.  I passed so now wish to be known as Dolores.  Pictures of dismembered body parts to follow once I reach 'Advanced' level.
I'd always thought psychological profiling was largely voodoo, but it was astonishing how much entrapment went on in the Colin Stagg case.
"Mmm, I read your ad 'sad lonely nerd seeks nookie' and thought, that's the man for me!  Just confess to a particularly gruesome murder and you can lose your virginity..."
"Er, I didn't actually kill anyone but if you really insist I'll try to make upa violent fantasy for you."
Arrest this man at once, he's confessed to violent fantasies!A
And the trend for diagnosing children in the US as bipolar is truly scary.
Still, at least Dolores (above), ne David Shayler has come to save us now s/he has come out as the Messiah.
Next on my reading list: How To Be A Woman.  Can't wait for Chapter IV 'Knit Your Own Cervix'.

Another Cesspit

which springs to mind is that referred to in the famous quote of James Anderton, (that is the bible-bashing bobby and former chief Constable of Greater Manchester and not the Burnley-born, fast-medium swing bowler) who once said: Everywhere I go I see increasing evidence of people swirling about in a human cesspit of their own making.  Which is a jolly unfair thing to say about people simply on account of their having a predilection for same-sex rumpy pumpy, but does seem to be the literal truth about Glastonbury in the rain.

Did he...

Foresee this?

After all to a fundamentalist who takes the Bible literally wearing colourful clothes and homosexuality are virtually the same thing.  The Bible even forbids tattoos and funny haircuts (Leviticus 19: 27-28)

19:27 You must not round off the corners of the hair on your head or ruin the corners of your beard.   19:28 You must not slash your body for a dead person or incise a tattoo on yourself
So that's Mohicans out.  Which, along with the adulterers, fornicators consumers of shellfish and those wearing mixed fibres means there won't be too many at Pilton Farm who will inherit the Earth.

That Cesspit of Spite, Envy and General Nastiness...

Which lurks below the word 'Comments' on so many websites, and is especially venomous in 'the Guardian' is best avoided at any time.  I so wish that Charlie Brooker's idea could be instituted and ground glass would automatically be sprayed into the eyes of anyone who even thinks of entering a comment.  But, in a fit of masochism, I decided to see what the explosive combination of Rowling and the Guardian's readership would have and, among the all-too predictable bile I discovered something worthwhile: a link to the text of J K Rowling's  address to the Harvard graduation ceremony.
A truly inspirational piece from an admirable person and well worth a few minutes of anyone's time to read.

Ways to Spin Out a Multi-Volume Fantasy Epic. 1/983

One technique much favoured by fantasy novelists is the dream sequence.  Your character can have a nasty nightmare about what's coming, a whole host of creepy premonitions causing him to wake up in terror, then have the actual event happen and then be so traumatised they dream about it over and over again.  Judicious use of this technique can get you ten times as many pages out of any event than you ever dreamed possible.
To see this technique in the hands of an expert look at any section of G R R Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire' narrated by Bran: odds on he'll start by having either a premonition of what's coming or a nightmare about what has happened and any significant event in his storyline will be described half a dozen times in different tenses.  Repeat fees used to be a perk of TV writers but the shrewd novelist can use the same incident over and over again, and as the buyers of fantasy novels think weight = merit don't hesitate to kill as many birds as possible like this.  (See also tip 48, "Pad, pad pad," croaked the raven.)
For more inside tricks of the fantasy novelist try 'the Fantasy Novelist's Exam' and wonder how some of them avoided plagiarism cases.  "Mountains of Dhoom, my Orc" as Mr Royle might say.

'A Song of Fire and Ice': Volume 1/864

Until the recent HBO adaptation of ‘Game of Thrones’ I had been unaware of the existence of G R R Martin,  called by some ‘the American Tolkein’ – it’s those middle initials that do it. Anything from the network which gave the world ‘the Wire’ has a head start with me so I gave it a go, and was initially very impressed.

The characters seemed fuller than in much fantasy (though admittedly there are lampposts with more developed personalities than Orlando Bloom’s Legolas) and there seemed a somewhat more complex version of morality than ‘the Dark Lord wishes to enslave and destroy’.  (It must be rather limiting being a Dark Lord.  You wake up in the morning thinking ‘what should I do today; watch the cricket, maybe pet a cute puppy, oh no I’ve got to get on with my murder, torture and enslaving the world just like every other day.) I suppose that’s why they say “there’s no peace for the wicked”.

The first few episodes on HBO were so impressive that I couldn’t wait for the series to end.  Box sets have completely changed the way I watch TV and waiting weeks to find out how the story end seems so 20^th Century.  So I placed a series of staggered orders with Amazon for the volumes of ‘A Song of Fire and Ice’ to arrive a few days apart, not realising I’d booked in on a Cresta Run of literary quality.

"I am a lady," insists Lady Sansa

The early books were not masterpieces but they were gripping stories where the desire to find out what happened kept the pages turning.  Not without irritations; the changing a single letter to make things exotic: Sir, Ser Fray Bentos, Jeffrey, Joffrey, Edward, Eddard, and the rest quickly lost their novelty.  Characters who on screen, in the hands of an actor, had some sort of life, on the page subsided into fairly simple types:  Ned Stark is dour but honourable, one daughter is a tomboy, the other so insistent about wanting to be a lady as to irresistibly summon up images of ‘Little Britain’.  And if Genghis had sussed beforehand that rebranding his hordes of nomadic mounted warriors by changing the n of Khan into an l and putting the title first would have meant his proxy rejoicing in the name Carl Drogo he’d have thought better of the whole idea.  And that’s before Shagga, son of Dolf pops up to trump it in the Silly Names contest. 

There was a degree of character development.  Sinister, cynical dwarf Tyrion Lancaster Lannister turns out to be not quite so sinister when you get to know him, though he stays a dwarf – and cynical.  His brother Jaime (shouldn’t that be Jemeaime?) proves to be rather nicer than first view suggests.  Though as we first see him attempting to murder a seven year old who inadvertently spots his incestuous adultery with his twin sister it would be difficult to go far downhill from there.

 

 

"Did you call me  a lady?" asked Brienne.

(To Be Continued)

Twitter, Good, Bad and...

I'm one of those boring people who have always said, "I can't see the point of Twitter."
But, for reasons too tedious to explain, I was cajoled into joining this week and I've been forced to semi-revise my opinion.
On the Good Side.
I thought 'Caitlin Moran's good for a laugh, I'll follow her.  She tweeted about having discussed clown porn on Newsnight.  So I had to go to the iPlayer and watch that.  In discussion with her was Brooke (Belledejour) Magnanti, reminding me she's interesting and leading me to her new blog, which is worth reading.  (Though personally I didn't have enough curiosity to investigate her link to 'Furry Girl's Vegan Porn site:  if you must on your own cabbage be it.)  But I did follow Ms Magnanti's suggestion of watching 'The Apprentice' while people heckled on Twitter.  I had slightly misunderstood the concept:  I thought it had something to do with business, rather than being a contest to find the most unpleasant sociopath at large in the UK today.  And it turned out I wasn't the only person who had never seen it before.  Mark Gatiss was giving his faux-naif commentary, culminating with the wonderful 'Are they all killed at the end?'  To which I couldn't resist adding 'if not why not?'
So Twitter did lead me down some interesting byways.  And without it I'd never have seen this: this wonderful photo.
On the other hand I did subject myself for a couple of days to Graham Linehan's minutely (that's issued every minute, as well as minutely detailed) account of how superinjuctions are preventing us hearing how the CIA are using Iranian torturers to rape indigenous Faroese hackers.  Until I figured out how to switch him off.  Just because someone's a comedy writer by profession doesn't mean their every utterance is funny:  unless they're the magical Caitlin Moran, of course.

Clown Porn

Inspired by the wonderful Caitlin Moran's appearance on Newsnight I've renamed my WiP file 'Clown Porn'.  I do hope my laptop's not stolen.  Though anyone opening said file would be sadly disappointed.
PS.  It's just occurred to me that having pressed the little 't' icon I suspect I may have twittered 'Clown Porn' to all and sundry.  An action I hope I won't live to regret.  I blame it all on Ms Moran.

Self-Publishing: the Hockings, the Greek Seaman and a lot of Pratts

Having purchased your Kindle and downloaded your fill of popular classics  the thrifty reader will then have their eye irresistibly drawn to the plethora of works available for 69p or thereabouts.  What kind of literature retails for the cost of 500g of Dairy Milk?

Most of it is self-published.  Even the most cursory look at self-publishing leads, with the inevitability of Nick Clegg abandoning a point of principle, to the name of Amanda Hocking.  The economics are pretty compelling:  without the costs of cutting down trees, chopping, pulping, printing and buying expensive lunches for publishers it's possible for a writer to compile a .doc file, transfer it to an e-reading device at minimal cost, charge a small amount and end up with more cash than most traditionally published writers who aren't called J K Rowling.  70% royalties as opposed to the 15% at best for paper books.
One of the most important companies in the flourishing world of self-publishing is Smashwords, who both act as a publisher selling direct to readers and as an aggregator, converting submissions into the formats required by major distributors such as Apple, Barnes and Noble, and, of course, Amazon for Kindle in return for a small percentage of royalties.  Founder Mark Coker certainly makes a convincing case for this "pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap" approach in an article for the Huffington Post.  Though not having any physical stock means you don't even need a pile, nor the space to store it.  The perfect 'get rich quick scheme'?
Brian S Pratt certainly seems to be raking it in.  One of the costs self-publishing cuts out is editing and proof-reading.  Mr Pratt is no G R R Martin or Terry Pratchett:  his prose is poor even by the undemanding standards of the fantasy genre, flat and cliché-ridden, laden with frequent grammatical errors and typos; his characterisation is rudimentary and the pacing is idiosyncratic.  Does any of that matter if there are readers satisfied enough to come back for more and pay for it?
We seem to be entering a new era of publishing where the traditional role of the publisher as gate-keeper guaranteeing that work has passed a quality control test has passed and, at least for now, entering one where the reader chooses for himself whether something is worth buying.  And a sizeable chunk of readers don't seem to regard correct grammar and scrupulous copy-editing as make or break factors in a budget buy.
Self-publishing does seem to offer writers a way to connect directly with readers and the possibility of making money from it without having to meet the exacting standards demanded by traditional publishers.  But if you're hoping to make money by churning out copy that reads as if it's been through Babelfish to Hugarian and back a couple of times and commissioning  your mother to write gushing reviews on Amazon it's best to develop a thick skin as the now legendary tantrum thrown by Jacquline Howett to a rather generous review of her opus 'The Greek Seaman' shows.

My New Love

It took me some time to be convinced of the need for a Kindle.  I've been using books for almost half a century now and I've got used to them.  I know how to use them.  You can write notes in the margin.  They smell nice - when new;  some second hand ones really could do with a spray of 'Sure for Traditional Reading Devices'.
But I had a little windfall from Uncle Ernie (the Premium Bonds computer, not the one from the Who's 'Tommy' who fiddles about (only a hundred quid:  sorry I can't help with that poor kid with terminal cancer who's using your personal bank account to save up for that trip to Disneyland) and I thought I could risk splashing out on a toy which  might end up gathering dust.
I could not have been more wrong about the level of use:  I haven't had a technological thingamajig give me so much pleasure since I was first introduced to the Rampant Rabbit©.
One design flaw in the 'Book©' , certainly in its paperback incarnation, is the difficulty posed by simultaneously shovelling chunks of Tesco Finest Pepperoni Pizza down one's gullet and turning pages without either smearing said tome with anchovy or losing your place.  The Kindle, however, will happily sit in the place adjacent to the plate occupied in Michelin endorsed  eating establishments by the more esoteric cutlery remaining on the required page until encouraged to move on by the merest twitch of the pinky.
And its handy in bed.  (Sadly reading being just about the only form of sub-duvet recreation I can manage nowadays.)  Indeed its petite frame and negligible weight mean it can be used just about anywhere while doing almost anything.
Battery life is absurdly long:  after about a month of near-incessant use I recharged because I felt I ought rather than any demand issuing from the device.  Controls are laid out to feel comfortable and intuitive so despite their looking dauntingly small this reader was soon zipping along like a pre-teen on an X-box.
Documentation is clear, meaning that even fresh from the box there's relatively little likelihood of the "How do I make this bleeping thing work," tantrums which often sour the early days of the relationship with a new electronic homemate:  it does work and pressing a button does what you would expect it to do.
The display is remarkably easy  to read - the font size is adjustable for those with less than perfect vision - and reflection is not a problem.
One of the few things I remember being taught at university is that books are not fetish objects to be revered:  they're tools to be used and so annotate.  The Kindle gives you the tools to highlight text, make your own annotations and save favourite passages.  (One flaw I've found in the instructions is here:  I know how to save passages but the documentation isn't so clear on how to remove items without junking the whole 'My Clippings', so until someone can help I seem to be stuck with three copies of the Table of Contents of one book I inadvertently made while getting to grips with this feature.
The best thing is the capacity.  Whenever I venture from my burrow I can take up to 3500 books with me.  Nevermore a train journey blighted by the station bookstore with the mind-boggling choice of either the latest Dan Brown opus or 'Jeremy Clarkson's Book of Prangs.
There's an enormous and rapidly growing selection of books available, even better many out of copyright works are available free, even more are available at a nominal cost - there is a choice of comprehensive editions of' 'Complete Works of Shakespeare' for less than two quid, as an example.  And talking of cheap reads, the Kindle appears to be (cue ominous music) "changing the face of publishing".  Will publishing end up looking like one of those middle aged actresses whose face appears to have been applied via shrink-wrapping?