Week 328 – He Always Wanted To Be Sammy, More Brilliance From Tom And Potential Familiarities

Before we start, we have a Brucie Bonus:

‘Nice to see you, to see you…’ – Oh I can’t be bothered! If you don’t know the reference, I suggest you don’t look it up.

We have a secret level today, a wee addition.

We are delighted to announce that we’ve received a piece of work from the legend himself, that, to be honest, we didn’t know how to categorise. It isn’t exactly prose. It’s definitely not a story or essay. And it’s not a poem.

But what it is, is a brilliant piece of writing.

It is called, ‘Get Off My Back, Saugus’ by Tom Sheehan and we have put it onto his author page. That way it will always be there. Please have a look.

I’ve been doing this for a while now – I reckon I must be around 260 posts in and I do keep coming back to certain topics. Some of that has to do with senility. Some of the topics piss me off so much that I need to keep fanging about them and others I mention because they keep coming up.

One of those is about the use of stereotype. Without going too much into this we do need to accept that stereotypes are there and it’s perfectly acceptable to use them in a story. But you need to be careful. When used well, you have something with realism (Due to them being there) but when used badly all you really have is a list of what we know.

I’ve realised how organic stereotypes / clichés and settings are. They evolve but they never change if that makes any sense.

If we go back to let’s say the fifties – We would have working class man, chauvinistic, frequenting the pub and his wife was in the house looking after the kids.

Sixties – Everyone likes to think on the hippies.

Seventies – This is looked at when racism and sexism was used as comedy.

Eighties we have two ends of an economic scale – We had the redundant from BitchFuck and the Affluent from BitchFuck (I’m talking about here in Britain).

Nineties – Hmm – I’m not really sure what I would put in here, maybe just the aftermath of the 80’s.

And then we have from 2000 on.

What will people be using as stereotypes / clichés and settings writing back on these times??

Now don’t crucify me for this, I am just asking.

Will writers be getting pelters for using characters such as a ‘Snowflake’? Will a gay best friend be in every piece of work? And if so, will they be loud??

I don’t think we will need to worry about sexuality as mentioning that may be banned. Gender will never become a stereotype as there are too many to have any frequency.

What situations will be so common that it’ll be considered overkill?

Maybe social media will have run its course and any plot will be bombed out if anyone writes a story about this.

Fiction about reality celebrities (By fuck is that a contradiction in terms!!) may be an automatic refusal. (Good on Christopher Brookmyer for getting in with such foresight with the absolutely brilliant ‘A Snowball In Hell’ in 2009)

And will any YA set in a supermarket where they gather to be obnoxious and think they are all hip and street (Or whatever the term is) be scoffed at.

To be fair, I scoff at that now. In the name of fuck! At that age we would have not been seen dead in a supermarket drinking coffee and being a general prick. But then at fifteen, we were all in the pub!!

Will publishers not accept any stories about mental health and talking about it?

Could ‘Mindfulness’ have run it’s course?

Anyhow – I am genuinely interested in any lists of stereotype or cliché that you can come up with that you reckon we will be bombarded with in the coming years. (Forget Trump, Brexit and the situation that we are in now which we already refuse to mention – We’ve been bombarded by all of them already)

Okay onto this week’s stories.

We only had one new writer and four well established authors / editor.

If you are new to the site and you don’t know our first writer who I’ve already mentioned – Just click on his name at the bottom of his story and be amazed at what you will see!

The legend that is Tom Sheehan was first up with ‘This Old House.‘

‘Such lovely writing.’

‘I liked the idea of him telling the spectre behind him that this was his time!’

‘Tom has given us more of his quality writing that we’ve all come to enjoy!’

Yash Seyedbagheri is a bit of a constant for us at the moment and the site is all the better for that.

He was next up on Tuesday with ‘Carried.’

‘All about that one moment of letting it all go!’

‘We’ve all longed for just a bit of peace.’

‘Him dancing beneath the moon was lovely.’

Wilson Koewing was our new writer.

We welcome him, hope he has fun on the site and most importantly, we want to see more of his work.

Wilson broke the back of the week with ‘Snow.‘

‘Excellent tone.’

‘He held it right to the end.’

‘Perfect pace, beautifully judged.’

And on Thursday, it was our pleasure to publish not only a wonderful enigma and tremendous writer, but a fellow editor.

Leila Allison was next up with ‘Unsanctioned Acts of Compassion.’

‘This made me a bit tearful.’

‘Complex but engaging as always!’

‘Leila’s work gives you something else every time that you read it.’

We need to send our congratulations to our next writer.

David Lohrey has joined that very small club of writers who have reached double figures. Less than three percent of our writers have managed this, so we must acknowledge what a huge achievement this is!

‘Baptism By Fire‘ finished off the week.

‘The usual quality of writing that we have come to expect from David.’

‘We have to publish this due to the piranhas!’

‘It leaves a lot with you.’

Well that’s the round up weel rounded up!

I haven’t mentioned this for a while but I will today as our comments are a bit anorexic. Although we have picked up a new person which we really do appreciate. A huge thanks to Terveen Gill, hope that you will stay with us. Your input is much appreciated!

Please let us see your words folks. If you think anything about the stories, it doesn’t take much effort to turn those thoughts into the words. Just a wee bit of typing! It’s brain fingering when you think on it. Although now I read that back, I don’t think that phrase will catch on. Well except for those into mummification.

Due to the section about supermarkets, it got me thinking about name badges. I don’t care for them. I think they are only an excuse for some old letch to stare at a young ladies boobs smile and call her by her name while getting a bit inappropriately excited.

You are fooling no-one you old perv!

I think your name tag should be on your shoe. And as the old sleaze slowly looks down your body and stoops over towards your crotch to pretend that they are reading your name – Knee the bastard’s nose through the back of their head.

But there are worse folks than them and that is the over-familiar. They are the fuckers who then continue to use your first name like a bad writer does with their shite dialogue!!

Hugh

Image by Suzanne Brill from Pixabay