Money, money and me

Posted by colmoshea on

Money, I fucking hate it, I fucking hate money, I really do. I hate how it gets into everything, cheapening it, reducing it to a cost instead of a value or a worth. And I hate how it makes us feel, and act, impinging on almost everything we try to do. and I especially hate the way it makes me feel.

Now first things first. I am not someone starving in a garret. I have a job, a good job by most standards, and I own my own home, well technically the bank does but you know what I mean. I have never had to miss a meal because I could not afford food, though it probably wouldn’t have done me any harm every now and then. I pay my bills and have yet to be threatened by repossessions or visits from debt collectors. In summary I have nothing to complain about, right?

Granted, I’ve always been useless with money, very good with figures and numbers but useless with money, maybe on some level I always wanted to get rid of it as soon as I got it? All I know is that if I didn’t set up various direct debits to ensure things like the mortgage and other bills are paid, and a small amount put by as savings, I’d be in trouble. Put it this way, if, every week, I was paid in cash and all I had to do was walk from work down to the end of the street to lodge my money in the bank, and if, on the way there each week, I was to pass a man selling what he claimed to be magic beans, all I can say is I’d probably be destitute and the town would be full of fucking beanstalks.

Earlier in the week I tweeted, half-jokingly, that I’d been to the gym and finished a Simenon novel and now my sense of inadequacy was fully fuelled up. True, quite often it’s hard not to feel inadequate, but usually with some sort of reason. I don’t look like a lot of the people in the gym, I don’t work hard enough, I don’t have the sense of motivation and dedication that is required to attain their levels of physical fitness. Plus I really couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirrors for as long as they do each day without retching. Likewise with writers, I know I don’t have the natural talent, or again the motivation and dedication to achieve what the great writers I admire most have achieved.

But this is what I would call natural inadequacy; others have surpassed what I could achieve by means of natural talent, determination, motivation and hard work, and usually a combination of all of these. I feel like shit comparing myself to them but I can understand the difference. It’s not good to feel this way on a regular basis but at least it can be explained in a somewhat semi-rational way. And you can always try to turn these feeling around and be inspired by them.

But money is different.

You see, there are certain things I really, really want to do. I won’t name them because they don’t really matter to anyone else, just thing I want to do. And the only thing stopping me is money. Now this isn’t a situation where you could say that a positive mental attitude, a song in my heart, a spring in my step and a smile on my face can make anything happen. Likewise what I want isn’t particularly extravagant, it doesn’t involve yachts, supercars, a Fabergé egg addiction or paying the Jedwards to fight to the death in a cage with nothing but one broken bottle. No, what’s required here is money, nothing else. If I had the money these things would happen, nothing else required. As I do not have the money these particular things cannot happen, simple, end of.

And before you start thinking that there are other, more spiritual aspects to life that are much less dependent on material possessions I’d say you may well have a point, but my concern here is with things that are, as I say, purely reliant on having the money to achieve them, nothing else.

Now the problem is I know others can have the things I want, some without much of a stretch. The only real difference between them and me being they have more money. Maybe some are people who have worked extremely hard and are reaping the benefits rather than concentrating solely on increasing the figures in a balance statement each month? Maybe some are people who have inherited the money, just spending what others have worked for, feeling they have a divine right to be superior? Maybe some are grasping, cruel, greedy people who enjoy getting the better of those around them and flaunting their success in the faces of everyone else? Maybe some are just like me but for taking a slightly different path in their lives, going left when I went right, taking different subjects in school or college, and going after one job while I went after another? I don’t know.

There seems to be some notion that people with money are better than people without money. A stupid idea I grant you and one that most people have the good sense to ignore and can go about their lives in a much healthier and happier state.

But my problem is I cannot describe how completely and utterly inadequate I feel when I see what others can do that I cannot, simply because of money.

Stupid, right? There is nothing special these people have over me except money. Quite possibly some simple twist of fate has decided they will be better off than me, nothing more. I shouldn’t feel this way; there is no reason why I should feel like a worthless shite when I see that others can do what I want simply because they can afford it and I can’t, I really don’t understand it?

I’ve always been pretty introverted, probably suits me as a writer. As I’ve said elsewhere when you’re trying to write you have to essentially go digging around inside your own skull to find the elements of the story and try to bring them together, so either by accident or design you end up pondering over these things that hang around in your head unwanted and unanswered.

What is it in me that can spend time around those that have achieved through their own talent and hard work, and applaud them and enjoy their success, and even use their achievements to spur me on in my own efforts? Yet when I am faced with people who can have the things I want or do things I want to do simply because they have more money than me I feel like a piece of shit barely fit to be scraped off a shoe. I really do, honestly, feel nauseous when I come across these things, almost to the extent that I feel the urge to apologise for my own existence and back slowly out of the room, what the fuck is that all about?

Is it just the arbitrary nature of the universe, a cosmological coin was tossed and that’s the way things work out? Shouldn’t I just be able to accept that others will always have more money than me and move on? The old question applies, do others feel the same way or is it just me? I somehow doubt that knowing this is shared would make me feel any better, I know those with the money are out there and will continue living their lives as they want, whether good or bad, and I will continue to feel completely worthless, all because I don’t have as much money as they do. I could work harder, earn more money myself, maybe arrive in a place where I finally can have the particular things I want. But would I then want other things, would that sense of inadequacy remain, just moving up a step for every step I climb myself?

Feeling like this is entirely stupid, completely pointless, a totally unhealthy thing to keep rattling around in my head, a complete waste of time yet it’s totally inexplicable. I really don’t have a reason or an answer.

Essentially I’m fucked if I know.

Interview

Posted by colmoshea on

After the publication of my short story in the Bohemyth Journal I was contacted by Mel Ulm who runs the Reading Life blog and asked if I’d like to be interviewed.

For what it’s worth my Q&A session is up here:

http://rereadinglives.blogspot.ie/2013/04/colm-oshea-question-and-answer-sessions.html

Despite my own witterings it looks like an interesting site and a lot of work seems to have gone into it

Stand up for Bastards

Posted by colmoshea on

Now Gods stand up for Bastards.

To be honest I can’t say I’ve any particular reason to open up with that. Presumably something to do with the fact I’ve booked myself a ticket to see King Lear in the Abbey Theatre on my birthday (probably not a good idea to think about that too deeply come to think of it). It’s a play I haven’t seen in any form since I studied it for my Leaving Certificate so definitely not today or yesterday. I’m looking forward to what’s being regarded as an excellent production, and also to see if I can spot the resonances with Beckett’s Endgame as were recently pointed out to me by a friend of mine who’s studied both.

What’s really brought Edmund’s soliloquy to mind isn’t specifically to do with me being a bastard, I will leave that to the judgement of others, my own true self opinion is probably unprintable, even here. No, what brought it to mind was Edmund’s embracing his ‘baseness’, and in my own writing I have to embrace aspects that I might have preferred not to.

All of this has come about as I’ve recently finished a fairly intensive period of writing and re-writing. Re-writing can be a pretty harsh exercise in navel-gazing for any writer, which usually doesn’t go well for most, and is never a good time for me. As you’re writing you can always kid yourself that what you’ve just put on the page is excellent, or at least pretty decent. Going back to re-read something usually throws up the realisation that everything you’ve tried is utter shite. The only way past this is to understand that you will always regard everything you’ve written as utter shite no matter what it is, you just hope that your first opinion of the work is at least partially true. You just hope that someone else reading it will find something they like, convince yourself you’re getting away with it and keep going from there.

Anyway, where was I? Everyone who tries to be a writer dreams, at least some of the time, that they’ll be able to take quill to hand, or pencil, or pen, or keyboard, and bring forth words, sentences, paragraphs of utter beauty. Somewhere in all of us is the wish to bring out something that will cause the reader to shed a tear of joy, or at least pause and smile; reflecting on the glorious music the writer has wrought upon the page. Like many writers, or attempting writers, before I have found that it’s something I just cannot do.

I’ve tried over the years to write beautiful sentences, tried to structure narratives, stories, even just paragraphs, that capture something of a sheer and simple beauty. But I can’t write like that. Every time I’ve tried the words always come out wrong. I may know all the right notes but I can’t necessarily put them on the page in the right order (with thanks to Messrs’ Morecombe & Wise).

Many times I’d love nothing more than to be able to engage the reader over page upon page of beautiful prose describing a smile that would knock a man sideways or early morning mists rising to reveal a rich and verdant valley or simply lying on a bed tracing a finger over the soft Latte-coloured birthmark on the alabaster skin of a beautiful woman. But I can’t, not without making each seem stilted, bland, clunking and utterly, utterly false. I’ve found that the only way I can write, to any effect at all, is by reaching for the ugliness of the world.

In essence I am an ugly writer, that is I write about ugly people doing ugly things to each other. If I have any ability at all, if I have anything going for me, it is that amidst the ugliness I can manage to find something that the reader will feel is real, something they will be able to identify with and more importantly something for which they can feel some compassion.

There are times when writing that I feel an urge to try to save the characters from the world I’ve constructed for them and there are times I just want to reach down into the shit, scoop it up, handful after handful, fling it at the wall, grab hold of the reader’s head, press it close and shout in their ear SEE, SEE, THAT’S THE STORY, LOOK AT IT, LOOK AT IT.

All of my favourite writers in one way or another look down. Oscar Wilde said we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars, many of us prefer to stay looking down into the gutter, that way we can see the shit floating towards us. Those writers I admire most are those who look down, look towards the unwanted, look towards things going wrong, look towards things falling apart, look towards what happens when the inevitable failure happens and look towards what people do next. They don’t do this to deride, they don’t do this to gloat at how much better their lives are, they do so out of compassion, out of love. Doing this doesn’t necessarily mean concentrating on a flop-house drunk from a pulp novel, or one of Beckett’s tramps. It can mean looking at the comfortable middle-class lives of those in the work of writers like Richard Yates, though exposing the tensions and self-destructive urges that inevitably destroy everything the characters once loved and held dear.

I really do feel that is the only direction my own attempts can go, not in an attempt to copy, more as a realisation that their stories resonate with what I want to tell as well. You can’t pretend that influences don’t matter, you find something that echoes what’s bouncing around in your own head and you go with it. If you have any guts and if you have any talent you try to make a little of it your own. That’s the challenge.

So anyway, that’s more than enough of my trawling through my own shit for a while. I’ll leave you with this one thought

. . . . . I am available for children’s parties . . . . . .

The Gods will not save you

Posted by colmoshea on

‘The Gods will not save you.’

My favourite line from the Wire, and one that floats in and around my head on a more than regular basis. It’s grown to mean something applicable to more than just the characters in the show, I find it applies to most of the crime fiction that I love, and serves as a useful barometer for the crime fiction I don’t.

It refers to the powers in the universe outside the control of any one individual, or individuals. What we’re really talking about here is fate. Not the kind of fate ordained by the gods, or by karma, nor do I mean something allotted to a mere mortal by a capricious God. In fact it’s something that exists in a world where God, or Gods do not. What I mean here by fate is the struggle by a character, or characters, against forces that are far too strong for them, and always will be. In the world of the Wire this included poverty, drugs, crime, politics, big business and corruption in all its guises. In each of the seasons of the Wire the various characters come up against these forces, some were beaten, some cow-towed and surrendered, and occasionally one or two might prevail. But we were never left in any doubt that these victories were only temporary, the game remains. The names may change but the game is still the game.

I always find it useful to be mindful of what has been with us from the world of the ancient Greeks, that the gods interfere in the lives of men at a whim and will destroy them, or raise them up, if and when they see fit. The modern forces have replaced the cast of celestial beings sounding like Laurence Olivier or Liam Neeson and sitting on clouded mountain tops, but their impact on our lives remain.

A lot of crime fiction seems to take a different approach, whether consciously or not. To me it seems like they adopt the superhero approach, namely their hero is imbued with some special faculty that lifts them above the world of mere mortals. This can be the supreme intellect of a Sherlock Holmes or the more physical abilities to out-drink, out-fight and out-shoot as seems to be the lot of many heroes. Instead of dressing them in a mask and a cape the writer dresses them like one of us but the super powers are always close to being unleashed, usually bringing death and destruction in their wake, saving the damsel and returning the world to one of law and order. Whether the hero actually wears a badge is usually immaterial, their code has been imposed and the evil vanquished. Until that is they reappear in the next episode, the world has reset and the eternal fight against evil resumes. If I was anything more than a dilettante when it comes to philosophy I might be able to describe this in post-Nietzschean language, in a world where God is dead the Superman reigns, but I think you get my drift.

I’ve never been interested in a superman as a hero, even as a kid I was never that interested in the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, it was obvious from early on that as Superman was invulnerable and couldn’t be beaten he was never in anything more than temporary peril, nothing bad would ever happen to him. And if nothing bad could ever happen to him then why was I watching, there was never anything at stake. This basic premise applies to crime fiction. If I pick up a book and the hero appears to be a version of the superman it will take something special for me to keep reading, why would I?

No, I want to read about somewhere where things really are at stake, not just a scratch here and there, where their lives are at stake, and the lives of others, and some part of the characters are aware of this from the beginning, and also aware that people will probably die no matter what they do. In fact failure is always part of the story, but it’s when the characters essentially embrace that failure and continue that I am interested. Chandler created his Marlowe, his knight errant roaming the streets of LA, a sucker for a damsel in distress but always aware that he had probably been dealt a losing hand, yet he continued, the quest more important than the outcome, only in that could he live according to his code, like the knights of the grail quests on which he’d been based. From Chandler, and Hammett, arose the hard-boiled hero, but my main problem with many of the later derivations is that they, whether by accident or design, evolve into the superhero, at which point I don’t care. (Incidentally, anyone bothering to read this with a knowledge of graphic novels can probably shoot down my superhero analogy based on work being produced now, I don’t know enough of the medium to argue but even they would agree that the basic superhero idea gets pretty stale, no doubt why many modern graphic novel authors seek to subvert the clichés).

The twin pillars of my own love of crime fiction are David Goodis and Derek Raymond. In each of their work I can see the presence of the Gods, and their complete indifference to man, and the struggles of the characters become infinitely more interesting as a result.

Goodis peopled his stories from amongst the drunks and the losers of the slums of Philadelphia, all trapped in their world, occasionally getting a glimpse of the riches of the world outside but returning home, as poor as it may be. The idea of getting out, getting away may flicker into his or her consciousness but that flame is quickly extinguished by the ‘Gods’ and they fall back to where they began, or worse. I would have loved to see Goodis attempt a serial character in his books, I have only read a couple of attempts at a detective from his days writing from pulp magazines, to no great effect to be honest, but I would have loved to see what he could have tried to do with a recurring character in the world of his novels.

Derek Raymond’s great achievement is the series of Factory novels, based around the investigations of a nameless Detective Sergeant in a division outside the interest of the rest of the force. Here the fight against the ‘Gods’ is carried out to full effect. Raymond’s hero knows he is unwanted, knows he asks awkward questions and knows that in the end he can achieve no real justice for the victims of the crimes he investigates, that idea that the hero would achieve justice for the victim I’ve always found flawed, so what, the culprit is arrested, big deal, the victim is still dead. Raymond’s Detective Sergeant knows his efforts will be paltry but believes that his own efforts will at least serve as recognition that someone cared. In his masterpiece I was Dora Suarez he says a prayer to the dead Dora hoping that by confronting her killer she can go to her rest, though realising how futile his efforts are.

Stories set in a world where the Gods, in whatever form, do not care are not automatically ‘gloomy’ or ‘depressing’, and how I fucking hate when these words are used to describe a story, I’ve never felt a story has to have a happy ending, why should it? Futility is no reason not to do anything, a lot of what we all do every day is futile, yet we do it, and do it again the next day. In many cases it is the struggle of the characters that is interesting, how they confront the forces pitted against them knowing that the Gods are deaf to their pleas. It’s not really strange that the works of writers like Goodis and Raymond survived in French translations as their English-speaking readership largely dried up, those that lived with the cultural legacy of existentialism were more attuned to the struggles of the protagonists in an uncaring world. Who else could define the world of Noir for us?

The Gods will not save you, so fucking what, don’t go looking for help from them when you know that help will never arrive. Accept that all you will attempt will be futile; the best that can be achieved is some sort of small victory, temporarily delaying the inevitable. But a small victory achieved in circumstances where immense forces are weighed against you, where the Gods will not, nor will they ever, help you is worth more than some generic piece of shite where the hero stands staring off into the sunset with a cartoon woman by his side, ready to save the world again in his next adventure.

Done – ish (. . . for now)

Posted by colmoshea on

So I’m finished, done, finis, well the complete draft of my latest effort, ‘Shadows of the Morning Light, Shadows of the Evening Sun’ anyway. Give or take 70,000 words in four months, I’m fucking knackered.

I know it needs a lot more work but for the moment I don’t want to look at it, not sure I can.

What to do with it now is the next question. I’ll send it out into the world to see if it can find a home, maybe it will, or maybe it won’t and might end up chained in the attic like its older brother, who knows?

Either way, a night or two off is required. If anyone needs me I’ll be the one trying to scrape what remains of my brain back inside my skull

The Next Big Thing

Posted by colmoshea on

First things first, thanks to my friend Janet Cameron O’Faolain (http://www.asimplejan.com) who passed this idea my direction, and apologies for taking so bloody long in responding.

The idea is that each blogger answer the questions listed below and pass them on to whoever they want after that, and the questions circulate around the blogosphere like some electronic chain letter, though should anyone wish to take up the chain rest assured that I’ve sat on the damn thing so long any bad luck is bound to fall on my head so please proceed without worry.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Oddly enough it was one of those flashes that never seem to come, I was sitting at home one night and a leaflet was stuffed through my letterbox, a flyer for a take-away or something, and the snap of the letterbox startled me, and that turned into the idea of something unwanted coming through the letterbox, which turned into a gun, which turned into the story.

What genre does your book fall under?

In the broader sense it is a crime book, as in it involves characters who live in a world in which crimes are committed, though not in the conventional sense where solving a crime is the object of the story. In terms of the lives of the characters, their situations and actions I would class it as Noir; basically I tend to start with characters already in a bad place, and go downhill from there.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Curious question, and one that I really can’t answer. Not out of any sense of modesty, or false modesty, it’s just that I’ve written the two main characters in the book from the inside out, I barely provide them with physical descriptions, I actually haven’t given either of them names. The story is told as what are essentially alternating monologues, what I’m trying to do is crawl inside each character and experience the story from there.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

Two men, one gun, one desperate to get it back to save a life, the other desperate to use it to get back the life he lost.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Sadly at the moment the book will sit growling on my hard drive, having neither agent nor publisher. I have entered it in the Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair Competition 2013, but if it isn’t successful there I’ll probably send it out hoping to hook myself an agent, and failing that I might look at e-publishing. Being something of a traditionalist I still aspire to see my name on a physical book sitting on bookshop shelves.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Funnily enough I started the book in early October 2012 and should have a first draft finished by January 2013. This is a lot quicker than anything else I’ve written before, necessitated by the closing date of the Novel Fair competition, which can only mean either I’m on to a winner or I’ve made an awful, awful mess of things.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Also known as the ‘who have you stolen from’ question. Usually my writing will have elements of those crime writers I admire most, namely David Goodis and Derek Raymond, though in this case I can certainly detect elements of Jim Thompson and Georges Simenon, though these are aspects that I pick up on, or think I pick up on, myself, more than likely anyone that reads the thing would see something totally different. I even see little crumbs of Samuel Beckett but that may be no more than wishful thinking. I’ve always truly believed that each writer is a product of those writers he or she admires most, whether we try to or not their work will always seep in, there’s no point in trying to avoid it. The best any of us can do is try to throttle back the inspirational tap as much as possible and mix it with as much of ourselves as we can in a confusing metaphor kind of way.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Really have no idea. I suppose I’ve always loved stories about people who are trapped in situations outside of their control, and their efforts to get out of them, though in their hearts they know the situation is probably doomed. It’s the idea of fate, though without any supernatural being or beings overseeing things, that and the premise of the gun and away we go.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Awful, awful question. If you want a crime fiction book that isn’t about a detective who’s essentially a superhero without a cape chasing after an infinitely-resourced serial killer with a fixation on a classic work of fiction, and who between them pile up bodies like discarded cigarettes, this may be the book for you. If you prefer a book where people struggle against a world outside of their control, who try to do right even though they know they will ultimately fail and where you crawl inside the skulls of these characters, and learn more about them than you ever want, then this may be a book for you.

Thanks again to Janet for passing the questions on to me and anyone out there with their own blog is more than welcome to take them on, answer them as you wish and let the chain continue.

Down these Mean Streets . . .

Posted by colmoshea on

I know, I know.

I found this photograph online some time ago and have been using it as the wallpaper on my desktop ever since.

(I can’t remember where I found it so apologies to any owners, etc.)

It’s just fantastic though isn’t it, how many stories can you tell in an alley like this?

Though it’s worth pointing out that the light at the end of this proverbial tunnel leads not to a heavenly afterlife but to a bookshop,

. . . much better don’t you think.

Just saying is all

Posted by colmoshea on

Before this thing degenerates into me completely peering up my own arsehole I should try to get it back on track, that is my attempt to promote my own writing with the goal of one day being published and having a book, or books, taking up space on the shelves of bookshops across the country. I’ve attached extracts of my own attempts at pissing into the void above.

So far I’ve completed one novel, ‘This Dirty Road’, which, as I said elsewhere, was one of the winners of the inaugural Irish Writers’ Centre Novel Fair competition.

I am currently working on my second novel ‘Shadows of the Morning Light, Shadows of the Evening Sun’.

Extracts of both can be found by clicking on the banners above.