1.
Hermeneutics - that's always a good word...
I had a friend when I was younger whose favourite word was 'receipt'.
Why am I telling you this?
I needed someone to talk to. I am going to write everything down.
That's what they told me to do after they took my legs away and put me in this room with only a computer for company. No internet connection....
It's got to be part: 'worlds weirdest social experiment' and part: 'worlds weirdest kidnap and ransome deal'... it is definitely weird.
And not a little bit cruel - but I wont dwell too much on that - this needs to be a seller - you might say my life depends on it....
So, thankfully, being removed from your place of work by a man masquerading as a delivery driver and brought blind-folded and drugged to an un-known location and then having your legs (surgically and professionally) amputated before being strapped to a comode inside a plastic cube with only a computer and keyboard for company and told to: "write us a best-seller - you have 3 months", does tend to fire the imagination - especially when they add: "or you die"...
It's like Scheherezade for the 22nd century. The psyches they are using were spot on in their assessment of me - it took exactly three weeks (computer counts the days) for me to decide that writing was preferable to death with or without legs. But only just. So I've had eight weeks to come up with the goods... Can you imagine? Would you go for invented fiction or reality with speculation on the likely outcomes and motives? Well, I've been trying to re-write every idea I've ever had, begun or fathomed for a book in the last 5 weeks... They just zap it when it turns to shite. Depressingly, their judgement is as good as mine and usually arrives close to or at the very moment I realise I'm lost and the story is long gone too - as far gone as my legs. Only the right one itches though....
My record was 24,562 words. That was the first attempt. I guess (because it was also the worst) that there is some informed plan to reduce a human being (which I, broadly, am) to his or her most en-feebled and in-human state, since they let me go on for a week... I can't edit either. There really is no going back. Ever. Or so it seems...
Word Count 24.576.
(pause)
There is just a word count - or there was..
I don't know whether I've got a calendar month left or a bit more, but it's not long to write something that people -YOU - will be held by.
But now, I don't give a fuck anymore - and they know that too. I've been everywhere.
So what happened next? Well excuse me if I don't just put the kettle on and light a cigar while you fuckers fawn and beg for more.....
2.
As I said, Hermeneutics:
It is an interesting word for two reasons:
1. It is a word I have often used and repeated under my own breath, to myself - as if it were a surrogate for any other word, which I might have been incapable of bringing to mind when needed.
2. I got my first - let's call it a - 'communication', 'though I guess it was some form of reward, seconds after I wrote the sentence containing it. This is what it said:
"The Greek view of language as consisting of signs that could lead to truth or falsehood is the very essence of Hermes, who is said to relish the uneasiness of the recipients."
Do they know me?
A few weeks ago, I was a Librarian with a slight drink problem (fixed) and a recent divorce (ongoing) a salary and legs.
This is the story so far...
(pause)
I guess that Hermes is significant....
as are the continuation marks.
I also guess that there will come a time when the cessation of this story mid-sentence will be the end of the story and of the writer, which could be quite unique in literature...
So, the story - the story will have to begin in the library - or at least with me - with what I can fathom from what I know, which has never lead me to believe that I had a story to tell - let alone one so remarkably good that it would serve the twin goals of saving my life and becoming that sought after entitlement and film rights achiever known as a 'best seller' - beginning in a library...
Oh God, I count the dots.
I want to scratch.
I can only type -
and pray that however dull, sanctimonious, self-pitying, turgid (wrong) base, boring and flat my writing becomes - that they will let me end it on my own terms and that a library - that my library - can be made, well, WHAT DO YOU NEED?
I am Hermes.
And by that, I don't mean I'm a CEO, majority shareholder or mountain biking celebrity - I mean that I AM HERMES.
Read on?
3.
Hermeneutics - that's always a good word...
I had a friend when I was younger whose favourite word was 'receipt'.
Why am I telling you this?
I needed someone to talk to. I am going to write everything down.
That's what they told me to do after they took my legs away and put me in this room with only a computer for company. No internet connection....
It's got to be part: 'worlds weirdest social experiment' and part: 'worlds weirdest kidnap and ransome deal'... it is definitely weird.
And not a little bit cruel - but I wont dwell too much on that - this needs to be a seller - you might say my life depends on it....
So, thankfully, being removed from your place of work by a man masquerading as a delivery driver and brought blind-folded and drugged to an un-known location and then having your legs (surgically and professionally) amputated before being strapped to a comode inside a plastic cube with only a computer and keyboard for company and told to: "write us a best-seller - you have 3 months", does tend to fire the imagination - especially when they add: "or you die"...
It's like Scheherezade for the 22nd century. The psyches they are using were spot on in their assessment of me - it took exactly three weeks (computer counts the days) for me to decide that writing was preferable to death with or without legs. But only just. So I've had eight weeks to come up with the goods... Can you imagine? Would you go for invented fiction or reality with speculation on the likely outcomes and motives? Well, I've been trying to re-write every idea I've ever had, begun or fathomed for a book in the last 5 weeks... They just zap it when it turns to shite. Depressingly, their judgement is as good as mine and usually arrives close to or at the very moment I realise I'm lost and the story is long gone too - as far gone as my legs. Only the right one itches though....
My record was 24,562 words. That was the first attempt. I guess (because it was also the worst) that there is some informed plan to reduce a human being (which I, broadly, am) to his or her most en-feebled and in-human state, since they let me go on for a week... I can't edit either. There really is no going back. Ever. Or so it seems...
Word Count 24.576.
(pause)
There is just a word count - or there was..
I don't know whether I've got a calendar month left or a bit more, but it's not long to write something that people -YOU - will be held by.
But now, I don't give a fuck anymore - and they know that too. I've been everywhere.
So what happened next? Well excuse me if I don't just put the kettle on and light a cigar while you fuckers fawn and beg for more.....
2.
As I said, Hermeneutics:
It is an interesting word for two reasons:
1. It is a word I have often used and repeated under my own breath, to myself - as if it were a surrogate for any other word, which I might have been incapable of bringing to mind when needed.
2. I got my first - let's call it a - 'communication', 'though I guess it was some form of reward, seconds after I wrote the sentence containing it. This is what it said:
"The Greek view of language as consisting of signs that could lead to truth or falsehood is the very essence of Hermes, who is said to relish the uneasiness of the recipients."
Do they know me?
A few weeks ago, I was a Librarian with a slight drink problem (fixed) and a recent divorce (ongoing) a salary and legs.
This is the story so far...
(pause)
I guess that Hermes is significant....
as are the continuation marks.
I also guess that there will come a time when the cessation of this story mid-sentence will be the end of the story and of the writer, which could be quite unique in literature...
So, the story - the story will have to begin in the library - or at least with me - with what I can fathom from what I know, which has never lead me to believe that I had a story to tell - let alone one so remarkably good that it would serve the twin goals of saving my life and becoming that sought after entitlement and film rights achiever known as a 'best seller' - beginning in a library...
Oh God, I count the dots.
I want to scratch.
I can only type -
and pray that however dull, sanctimonious, self-pitying, turgid (wrong) base, boring and flat my writing becomes - that they will let me end it on my own terms and that a library - that my library - can be made, well, WHAT DO YOU NEED?
I am Hermes.
And by that, I don't mean I'm a CEO, majority shareholder or mountain biking celebrity - I mean that I AM HERMES.
Read on?
3.
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