Thursday, January 31, 2013
My Twenty-Third Book
Twenty-three
is a special number, but the only reason I believe this to be true is because
many years ago I was a fan of Robert Anton Wilson and he invested that number
with immense mystical significance, though whether he did so jokingly or
seriously is impossible for me to know with certainty. That was one of the many
great things about him. Was he a prankster or a guru? Perhaps both. Or neither.
Or both and neither.
Anyway,
my twenty-third book has just been published. Tallest Stories took, as I’ve stated many times, nineteen years to
go from original concept to published product, though when I began writing the
first tale I had no idea it was going to turn out this way. I envisioned merely
a fairly compact sequence of a dozen tales. As it happened, the first
story-cycle consisted of 20 linked stories and appeared as the middle section
of my Nowhere Near Milkwood book in
2002. A couple of years later I put together a sequel; and a couple of years
after that a third sequel. In 2006 I revised and reordered the entire thing and
sent it to my agent but he had no success in placing it; so in 2009 I rewrote,
revised and reordered it again and it was accepted by Eibonvale Press in
February 2010.
And
now, at last, it exists as a book! Such a long and tortuous journey, believe
me! The contents are listed on my Aardvark Caesar site, if you are interested,
as are the contents of all my published books so far.
B:
‘The Groin Scratcher’ (appeared in Mister
Gum)
C:
‘The Rolling Hills’ (not yet published)
D:
‘The Trial Separation’ (appeared in The
Sticky Situations of Zwicky Fingers)
E:
‘The Cowardly Custard Apple’ (not yet published)
F:
‘The Furry Godmother’ (appeared as part of the compound novelette ‘Fanny’ in The Brothel Creeper); and ‘Cutting Back’
(appeared in At the Molehills of Madness)
G:
‘An Ideal Vocation’ (my first published story)
H:
‘The Myth of Sisyphus’
I:
‘Shared House’ (incomplete)
J:
‘One Better’
K:
‘The Magic Lamp’
L:
‘Bone Idle in the Charnel-House’ (unpublished novelette, will probably be the
title story of a future collection)
M:
‘My Bearable Smugness’ (will appear in The
Lunar Tickle)
N:
‘Convergence’
O:
‘Multicoloured Leaves in Bright Spirals’
P:
‘Under the Tree’
Q:
‘Consolations of the Wild One’
R:
‘The Dungeon’
S:
‘Floodtide’
T:
‘The Cat’ (appeared in At the Molehills
of Madness)
U:
‘Thinner Air’ (appeared in The Less
Lonely Planet)
V:
Hand drawn map of ‘Litalia’, the imaginary land that is the location for my ‘Sampietro
Mischief’ sequence of stories.
W:
Two notebooks containing the following stories from Mister Gum: ‘Plop Fiction’, ‘Where the Sun Doesn’t Shine’, ‘Cop
Hospital’, ‘Plums and Oriels’ and ‘The Glue of the Scream’
X:
A notebook containing the novella ‘Rommel Cobra’s Swimming Carnival’ that
appeared as the last section of The
Postmodern Mariner
Y:
A notebook containing ‘The Most Boring Story’, ‘The Tallest Midget’, ‘The Six
Sentinels’, ‘The Folded Page’, ‘The Surface Area of a Ghost’s Wanderings’, ‘The
Man Who Gargled With Gargoyle Juice’ and ‘The Kissable Climes’ from Tallest Stories; and also ‘The
Non-Existent Viscount in the Trees’, ‘In Moonville’ and ‘The City that was
Itself’ from The Less Lonely Planet.
Some
of these manuscripts are among my earliest surviving stories and date from 1992
and 1993. Despite being streaked with Tipex (anyone remember that stuff?) they
tend to be a lot neater and perfectionist than my later manuscripts!
Incidentally, there is no good reason as to why I am wearing a bag over my head in the above photo. I just felt like doing so...
Incidentally, there is no good reason as to why I am wearing a bag over my head in the above photo. I just felt like doing so...
# posted by Rhys Hughes @ 3:50 PM 
Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
