Progress update about The Senseless Counterfeit

I finished writing Act 1 of the Senseless Counterfeit this afternoon. At the present rate, the whole play should take about 3 months. This is only guesswork on my part, as I've never written a play before. It's possible that my progress will accelerate over the latter half of the writing, as usually happens when I write a novel.

I'm away for a few days in August, at a wedding in Metz, and may also spend a few days visiting my daughter in the Middle East at some point in July. Apart from these commitments, there's really not much to prevent me focusing on the Senseless Counterfeit.

The Senseless Counterfeit - a Neo-Jacobean Tragedy

At the instigation of Gill Kirk, I've temporarily set aside Odour Issues in order to write my first ever play. The Senseless Counterfeit is a Neo-Jacobean Revenge Tragedy, written for the most part in pentametrical blank verse, with a contemporary Bristolian subject-matter, and featuring all the standard tropes of the genre - murder begetting murder, plays-within-plays, grief-maddened daughters, disguises, poison, cruelty, and ghosts.

Briefly, the story draws on certain events in Bristol's recent history, relating the lynching of an innocent and cultured man accused of paedophilia, this episode generating the torture-murder of a second man, this time genuinely a paedophile. The denouement centres around a tantric weekend organised by the sophistical villain of the piece, who gets his comeuppance courtesy of an LSD-tipped dildo encountered through a glory hole.

I've started writing Odour Issues

Since finishing Pretty Poli a couple of months ago, I've taken the anticipated break from writing in order to apply some Enlightenment landscaping values to the pestilential swamp masquerading as my garden.

However, at the same time, although I haven't been writing, I have been reading - most of Alexander Pope's translation of the Odyssey and about two thirds of Ulysses; as well as a couple of chapters of Leavis's Great Tradition, which persuades me that at some stage I'm going to have to stomach my distaste [sic?] and have another attempt at Henry James.

This week, I'm pleased to announce, I finally started writing the third novel, Odour Issues, in what is developing into a Bristol Tetralogy. I've written about 1500 words so far, and aim to be concentrating on OI for the rest of this week, before spending next week on the patio-laying stage of the afore-mentioned swamp reclamation project.

Bristol Central Library - a short poem

Bristol Central Library

The chair he sits in, like a burnished throne,

glows on the marbled fat librarian’s flesh.

Upstairs, through the door without,
insinuates the babbling of creche,
submerging the monomaniacs’ drone
and the profanities of louts.

The hipster who needs to blow his nose

snorts through all Eustachia his snot.

The paranoiac in his shell-suit seethes

and itches at a snow-capped scalpine spot

The sleeper, having woken, yawns and goes

through the circulating thieves.

Apollo’s been usurped. His temple’s now

a Pandemonium, or slough, or pond

where with spasms, signifying disease,

flail spiritual seekers in despond

in company with diverse clowns,

and harlequins, and chaps with fleas.

Pretty Poli on Kindle

As promised earlier this evening, Pretty Poli is now available for purchase on Kindle. Here's the URL:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pretty-Poli-Monsieur-Perroquets-Ascent-ebook/dp/B00VPA3SHQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428270356&sr=8-1&keywords=pretty+poli

Completion and Publication of Pretty Poli.

PUBLICATION ANNOUNCEMENT

I'm delighted to announce the Kindling of my newly finished novel ...

Pretty Poli, or Monsieur Perroquet's Ascent to a High Perch.

I will provide the necessary link to Amazon as soon as Pretty Poli becomes available for sale, in a few hours from now.

Video Parody of Hotspur's speech in Henry IV Pt1 Act 1 Scene 3