Gary Davison

Doesn’t seem right, does it?

Is how it used to be. Now it’s sand castles, factor fifty and funparks. Back on the 4th July, please don’t burgle my house as I have three ex-heavy weight boxing champs house sitting.

Karen came in yesterday and caught me at it again. Head on my desk, shoulders going, laughing my head off.

For the past couple of days I’ve been doing a little research for my forth novel, which is going to be another comedy (Streakers is a comedy, by the way). I’ve been looking up different surnames, and there are some beauties.

Cockadoodledoo

Fanny Grocock

I.P Rainwater

Richard Asspacker

Janet McQueer

Wayne King

A local funeral directors - The Box Brothers

And the one that done me in, Daniel Rape. Imagine standing in a bar and being introduced to someone called rape. ‘Gary, this is Ivan Rape.’ It was all too much in the end.

I eventually settled on a great surname, which I’ll have to keep to myself. It’ll probably be the only laugh I get.

It’s the weather, man. They just can’t help it, can they? One glimmer of sunlight and heat and they’re out. The muffin top brigade.

They hide away all winter, get whiter than a box of persil, then whipp it out and march around town and think nothing of it. You get the odd beauty who has had the decency to get false-tanned up, but for most, it’s a wobbly old affair.

Then we have the thong-show-ers. Give me strength, that one there’s a bloke.

Last, and the best, are the public affection-ers. In Newcastle, it is usually a hand down the back of the jeans, or even full on necking on in the middle of the street. In other parts of the world, they call it art,

This is the only muffin (no rude jokes required thanks), I’m into today, and I’m going  to town to do a bit of banking, get some euros and sit in Preta Manger watching the truely jaw-dropping sights,

ACCEPTABLE MUFFIN TOP.

 How many times have you bought a magazine, flicked through it, and thought, I will never buy this pile of shit again as long as I’ve a hole in my arse?

Then, a month later, went and bought it again. Me, many, many times, and especially writing magazines.

I used to buy Writing Magazine and Writing Forum every month. What I liked about them was the success stories. Joe Smith gets 400k deal and gives up work and lands film deal, whilst entertaining three blonde stunners.

Everything else in the magazine, apart from maybe the page at the back where they feature an author’s writing place and routine, I had no interest in. So inevitably after reading the one story in it, I ditched it and vowed never to buy it again.

Whatever I’m into, I get a mag on it. The worst ones to buy are the golf. Absolute crap, even worse than men’s magazines like FHM, which I’m glad to say I never buy. Yes there are a few nice birds in and a sample of aftershave (I neve wear aftershave), but there’s nothing worth reading. Yesterday I was in Smiths in town, and I couldn’t help buying this golf mag. It was like some force of nature steered me towards it and off I marched to the counter. It’s in the toilet now, waiting for me to skip past the adverts, read about Deadly Geoff Ogilvy, then toss it in the bin, with a chant of, As long as I’ve got…

Now here’s an exception to the rule. I have been buying Boxing Monthly, since I was about sixteen, and there aren’t many boxers out there I don’t know a little something about. For the past few years I’ve been harping on how the games getting shit, and the Boxing Monthly is not worth buying, but again a force of nature keeps me picking the thing up.

Last month, I grabbed a copy of Boxing News, which comes out weekly. That’s  the one there, and I’ve got  to say it’s a big improvement on Boxing Monthly, and of course it’s bang up to date with it coming 0ut every week. I’m getting it fortnightly at the minute and thoroughly enjoying it.

 This bastard I’m getting every week only because I have to. Christ it’s boring. I’ve got to force feed the words into my brain, but if I don’t I won’t know who is going bankrupt and who’s ontop. I hope to hell I make the front cover of the the thing with a film deal - ‘Block Paver turned author lands the big one’. I wouldn’t stick my fingers up on the cover, but I’d probably give a moonie.

And my favourite mag, that never lets you down, plenty to read, and cheap as David Dickinson? I’m usually perched in Preta Manager with a coffee and wrap, people watching when i read this. My fav part is the stories at the back, Street Lights, I think it’s called. Stories written by the homeless. Grab yourself a copy of this one and keep away from the rest.

This is something all writers want to happen to them. We may write for ourselves first, feel the need to write to keep our heads straightened out, but in the back of our minds and deep in our hearts, we want the world to go balistic about our books.

Word of mouth. You can’t buy it, promote it, force it, in any way. It’s word of mouth. It’s what people really think, and to make it to the top of the pile, you need to produce something special.

When I say special, I don’t necessarily mean the writing itself, or even the story. Take Jordan, for instance. Any writer worth their salt will slate her work, me included. It’s utter nonsense, but SHE is at the top of her game (the big tits, arses out, game), and so her stories are special to her fans.

Karen and I watched Twilight the other night. It was a great film, thoroughly enjoyed it. A love story with the vampire twist that had you on the edge of your seat.

Karen was so loved up with the lead character, she couldn’t wait for the next film and I was sent packing down to Waterstones to buy New Moon. Karen, who usually reads for about ten minutes before hitting a wall, was glued to the blasted thing every night for hours and I couldn’t get to sleep for the sound of pages turning. Well, that, and being completely narked that she was so engrossed. Jealousy I think you call it.

Stephenie Meyer has tapped into the teenage market with her books, and beyond, and last week occuppied numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the book charts. She has of course been at number one with all four of her vampire stories.

A fantastic achievement that no amount of publicity can buy. Yes she’s front of store throughout the country, but unless the book sells in mass quantities she won’t be there for long. Word of mouth is the ultimate accolade any writer can get - whether from the masses, or from their chosen market. One lives in hope.

 and go see this. Honestly, it’s even funnier than what people are saying. I’m best man for my brother’s wedding in August (gulp, the speech) and ten of us are off abroad for four days on the razzle and there’s no chance we’ll be able to live it up as hard as these fellas did on the Hangover.

Stealing Mike Tyson’s tiger is probably the lamest thing they did. Great, great, film.

 Quote of the week, A banker is the type to give you an umbrella when it’s sunny, then takes it away when it rains.

Stephanie Wright! Congratulations! Good grief I was that excited I could hardly write out the blog post. Well done Stephanie, great story. Here’s what Lucy from Legend Press said,

‘‘The Doctor’ by Stephanie Wright as we thought it was poignant and we liked the revelation at the end. It was simple but powerful.’ 

Simple but powerful is what you need to win something like this and I’ve got to say, all the entries were very good. Thanks to everyone for taking part, it’s been  exciting, hasn’t it? The next one will be on September 4th, but I think I might throw the odd picture up with a few words from Jon Haylett from time-to-time for you to practice. And of course I’ll work on some even better prizes, like a signed photo of me (behave).

Well done again Stephanie. You go into the Hall of Fame at the top of my page along with your story and if you can email me your address, I’ll send on the three signed novels.

Here’s ‘The Doctor’ By Stephanie Wright.

 Julia visited Mr Hu’s shop in the downtown Chinese quarter once a week, almost without fail, but none of her friends dared ask why she went there. They were the B-Crew, the Boob Crew in junior high but truncated to the more mature version in college, and they shared everything. Almost. Julia knew they each held a secret more secret than the girl-on-girl kisses shared in sixth grade at summer camp. She could even guess at one or two of them, though she’d never presume to ask. These were the sacred secrets that were not to be bartered, only gifted only after sufficient self-flagellation. Thus, she kept hers.

To arouse less suspicion, she tried to vary the day of the week she went to Mr Hu’s, just as she’d varied the days she telephoned throughout the long summer she told them she was in Paris. Mr Hu’s shop was more than the apothecary for the immigrant Chinese community. Two summers before, it was her home for three months. She lived in a tiny, airless room with silver flocked wallpaper broken here and there by cheap, plastic-framed art and calligraphy she couldn’t read. In that room, The Doctor came, Mr Hu himself, beloved in the neighborhood, terrifying to Julia. In that room, she gave birth in silent shame, and from there, she walked away transformed. It was Hu Li’s home now. Her daughter’s home, where she lived adored and cherished by her grandparents and visited once each week by her mother.