Just another drunk with a pen - (Nepotism and other issues with writers).

 

Look at this image.

I'll discuss it more after the following.

Text Publishing Australia

This was written in 2012 but still applies. In fact, never more than now. See bottom image.

Just another drunk with a pen

 

That’s a trademark I can accept

Preferable to another blogger with Me syndrome

Or another middle-class wanker

With a literary degree

Implementing flowery play on words

Self-important cleverness

With the need

And avenue to impress

Doesn’t the truth count for anything?

Where is the sweat and desperation?

That isn’t born out of a need

To shock

Or to create a false, try hard persona.

 

I want it genuine

Dripping with substance

And all its pain

By those who feel it most

Those sensitive ones

Who are clinging onto the lip of the abyss

Not because they want to be

But because they are scrambling hardest to get up

Collapsing, relieved on the surface

And not sitting on the mountain

Analyzing intellectual angles from afar.

 

The desolate do not smell the sweet

But pungent to the point of decay

The others on their perch

May pretend to comprehend

Yet have never lived

Down on the plains.

 

I’m slowly giving up the compulsion

To give a fuck

But I’m not there

Just yet.

 

Years on, I'm a little closer to accepting that this is just the way it is. But I'm not there yet.  The ones that are connected, have the most success. ie, those already in literary circles. The image above shows it perfectly.

"I'm afraid it takes more than mere talent to get anywhere these days. The world is simply brimming with talented people."

From Something to Live For - 1952

Almost every writer I've ever read about who was published, was connected in some way. Excluding those in my Famous After Death series. And even then, writers like John Kennedy Toole, who infamously committed suicide after not getting his novel published, had a lot of correspondence with a publisher beforehand. 

J.K. Rowling, among others, whinge how they were rejected many times but she had an agent. Her work was being seen by the right people. If you don't have an agent and they can be just as hard to get, or a strong publisher connection, then forget it. You're invisible. Emailing your novel is pointless. No one will look at it.

It's even worse now. In today's 'woke' world you can be guaranteed that the work is not the most important factor. Identity politics is being used as promotional tools. You only have to turn on the TV to see how every company is bending over backwards to use 'feel good' content to push their product. 

All one gender. All one colour. Where's the inclusion? Where's the diversity?
No dissenting voices. The silence is deafening. 
It was never about equality. It's a power grab. The hypocrisy is staggering.

It's a form of nepotism. The arts in particular are full of it. It's nothing more than a circle jerk. 

At best, it's an exclusive club. To make things 'inclusive,' they create exclusivity. As a white male, I'm at the bottom of the pecking order. Purely because of my skin colour and gender. Ironic. But still wrong. In fact, it's worse, because they purport to be doing the right thing and hold the moral high ground. If you speak against it, you're branded a bigot and cancelled.

Hence, the final straw into why I had to go my own way. 

If I'd known what was coming I would have done it years before. After completing my first novel, I banged on publisher's doors for fifteen years. After dreaming of being a writer from the age of eight. Forty-five years is a long time to hold onto a dream. Too long.

A.J. Langford Books

Apologies if this all seems a bit ranty. As mentioned, 45 years is a very long time.

I have more novels ready to go. Very different from anything I've published before. Mostly Young Adult and Sci-Fi. I've just lost motivation for now.

I think I need a drink haha

Interview with Poet Dominic Kirwan

'Honest exploration of the human psyche... brash and unapologetic.'

Poet 

Dominic Kirwan

Artwork by Dominic Kirwan

Dominic Kirwan

Thanks for coming along to chat. I've been a big fan of yours for quite a while now. Let's talk about your new book, Put a Smile on that Face. What can people expect to find?


Irreverent mayhem. Black humour. Social satire. Bleak navel gazing chunks of self deprecating chaos. Twisted tales of love lost and won. Surreal fables of microwave soup and other such mind altering banalities. A couple of serial killer ditties. Oh, and words... lots of words.

Your book. has a unique structure to it. What was the motivation behind it?

'Put a Smile on That Face' is really three smaller books in one. Each part has a certain flow from poem to poem that is very deliberate. The three parts sort of mimic each other structurally but end very differently. There are a lot of different types of poems in the book, at least they are different from me. Following up a humourous piece with a gut wrenchingly honest heart breaker works better than being overly repetitive. Hopefully the reader is surprised by the shifts in tone and doesn't know what's coming up next. At least that's what I was trying to achieve.

  

Did you always want to be a poet? How did it all come about for you?

I must admit I kind of wince at the title Poet. I've written poetry and short stories since early high school. The writing bug crept up on me more when I studied at University twenty or so years ago. I majored in Literature and Drama. Although if I'm honest (and I see no reason not to be) it came about as a reaction to mental illness.

My ambition was to be an actor and right before I finished my degree I had a complete mental breakdown. In my mind I had lost everything and was devastated when I realised that performing and acting were going to be very unrealistic professions to pursue with a diagnosis of Schizophrenia. So I started to write more and more. Initially it was a few poems every day in order to express the hell I was going through. The poetry was by and large dreadful of course. I was preoccupied with hiding myself and my thoughts in my poetry – which in turn made them very cryptic and quite disorganised. A lot of them were word salads and made little sense to anyone but me. But I stuck at it and kept putting it out there. Eventually Ginninderra Press picked up a manuscript from me which became my first book 'Where Words Go When They Die.'

How much of the person is in the work?

A hell of a lot. I'm brutally honest and I rarely hold back. I'm more interested in authenticity and exploring extremes, even if they are everyday, banal ones. Don't get me wrong, a lot of my poems are complete fictions, but I pour every ounce of myself into them. Still, my books aren't therapy –  I write because I absolutely love it.

Do you find Australia a difficult place for a writer’s work to be noticed?

Yes. But I suspect it's the same in most countries. I'm clueless about self promotion (and I mostly hate it) and I'm not very adept at utilising the internet to get my work out there. But I'm lucky to have a solid publishing company behind me. Most people don't really care about poetry at all, in fact I get the impression the average person loathes it. You can't be in this to make money. It's just not realistic. It's not that I lack ambition – I just think it's a tough thing to sell. It's hard enough to get people to buy your book on Kindle let alone in physical form. I suspect the art of real, beautiful, tangible books is dying if not almost completely dead. It's a great pity. 

  

How do you write? Do have a process of working?

Sometimes sporadically. Sometimes for intense, elongated periods. Other times I don't write for weeks at a time. One thing I lack is discipline. Although when I'm inspired and on a creative roll, I find it hard to stop. I over edit the hell out of everything I write also which can be a stifling factor.  

What would you like to take on in future? Do you have something planned?

I have a long, long time in the works novel called 'The Holy Babble' to finish. Once again though, major publication for a novel as weird as mine (or even at all) tends to be a bit of a pipe dream. I'm one hundred and thirty thousand words into writing it and I'm still struggling to find the impetus, and an interesting, original way to finish it.

I'm currently working on a manuscript for a book of short stories. I have about twelve or thirteen short fictions ready to go. 

Most importantly I have an almost completed manuscript for my next poetry book titled 'Miracles Become Monsters.' If everything goes according to plan it should come out late next year.  (2018)

  

Cheers Dominic. 

Best of luck to you and hope to talk to you again soon.

Ebook available at Amazon here.

Print copy here

Goodreads Page

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