Paul Schiernecker

Author: Paul

  • My Body Is A Cage.

    Last month Dazed & Confused ran a competition to write a short story (less than a thousand words) based on a lyric. I wrote and submitted two (neither of which it appears were chosen to be published). This is based on one of my favourite lyrics, from one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands, a lyric I liked so much that earlier this year I got tattooed on my right arm.

    I was ready to go, but I couldn’t tell anyone because they were doing everything within their power not to think of it, not to even entertain the idea, they were physically trying to stop it from happening, preventing the inevitable. They hadn’t actually taken the time to ask me what it was that I wanted to do because everyone always assumes that you want the opposite of the decision I had made. I couldn’t tell people how I felt because if they knew there was only one earthly term for it – giving up. It was human nature to hold out, to keep going but after everything that had happened I didn’t feel particularly human, and in fact I was ready to go.

    It had been eighteen incredibly difficult months for us all, for me and my children and my grandchildren. It would be much easier with me going, it would close the chapter, it would settle affairs and balance life out again, I would be comfortable again. It had been eighteen months since I had watched my husband die, torn from me by the same disease that now tore through me. I’d had quite enough of it, I wanted to be back with him, to dance with him, the one I love. There was only way I could get that to occur though. I had to let go. I had to unlock myself from my body and set my spirit free. I forced my eyes and tried to do it, to release myself. I let my aching and tired self relax onto the raised arc of the hospital bed and tried to drift off but there was a noise and I jumped back to life. The door was ajar and one of the nurses whose name I hadn’t bothered to learn had her beaming yet concerned face angled around it, and in at me. I smiled weakly at her, feeling the loose, aged skin of my cheeks tighten momentarily. This was enough for her, she had done her duty, ensured I was still with them in the land of the living, just another tick as she made her rounds, once satisfied she left again. It annoyed me that they checked on me in such a way, it felt so itrusive, that they couldn’t give me a chance to get on with it. I decided this was the time, I had a gap of two hours to get out before the next check, to set my spirit free, I was going to be the contortionist hero of my childhood Harry Houdini, I would find a way out of my many binds and I would break out of this world that calls darkness light.

    I didn’t squeeze my eyes shut again, I just let them fall down with the weight of my life, those seventy beautiful years and then I took a deep breath and I started to drift like a dream, swirls of light ebbing like a dance. I felt myself rise up from the bed, but not make it onto my feet, I just rose as a line, as a horizon. I lost all of the weight and the pain, the tests and the notes, the tubes and the uncomfort, and I felt the space where my empty stomach had been roll over in the excitement of it all and I kept on rising. I gathered speed and specks of light that could have been stars transformed themselves into beams rushing past me as I gathered momentum. It was everything I had hoped for, and beyond anything I could have read of the experience or anything I could even describe. I felt refreshed and anew and then I reached a plateau where the light gathered together and shone in a brilliant circle, there was nothing else, just the pure wonder of white, it became me and I became it and I flattened out, tipping up onto my naked feet. I opened my eyes.

    It wasn’t angels and it wasn’t clouds, it wasn’t pearly gates and it wasn’t choirs, there was just him, in a ballroom under candlelight and we danced, oh how we danced.

  • Last post on the bugle.

    I’ve just sent ten copies of my novel out to literary agents. I’m really pleased with myself for getting it done and I’m not completely destroyed by the idea that I could get ten rejection letters, the important thing is that it is out there now.

    I believe in the story and think that at some point and in some form it will be published, I just need to hold out. My next task is to complete the set of short stories I’ve started and stopped a couple of times in recent months. The plan for those is to launch them as a free download through eBooks or Kindle, just to get something out there and to have people reading my work. The short stories collection is currently called Where Did All The Money Go?, I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it to you before but it’s a number of adventures, anecdotes and incidents which I couldn’t squeeze into the novel itself, it will include some of the same characters and explore those mentioned in the novel. I’m quite excited about doing it because I feel a lot more comfortable with short stories than I do with a novel, it’s a lot less pressure to string the story out, you can get straight to the nuts and bolts of it.
    In the meantime if anyone wants to read my novel Situation One then please let me know.

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  • Mancrush Friday – Tom Hardy.

    Tom Hardy is the kind of mental older brother you always wanted at school, the kind who would kick the shit out of anyone that gave you a hard time for wearing a Nirvana hoodie. He’s equal parts animal and machine and I bet he’d give an amazing cuddle.

    The winning thing about Hardy is that he is quite forthright about his misspent youth. He will happily open up about his joyriding, subsequent arrest, drug problems, rehabilitation and eventual sobriety. He’s not another cookie-cut leading man, he’s a bit different and comes across as being on the edge constantly. His portrayal of characters like Bronson and Bane reveal a man who is completely comfortable with appearing right on the brink of crazy, a mass of muscle but with brains to see him through.

    I think the appealing thing about Hardy is that he gets completely sucked into what he is doing, you’ll see him interviewed one week and he’ll be twitchy and closed and the next he can be open and hilarious. There’s an obvious talent to it and it could be described as ‘method’ which in recent years has just been used to describe Christian Bale’s ability to gain and lose weight for a role, or to shout at people he wants off the set.

    Hardy gets so encapsulated that it comes across, at no point during Dark Knight Rises did I think I was watching a man, it was a comic book creation and I hope he has many more, and many different roles to come.

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  • An ode to feeling appreciated.

    Yesterday I received my first ever piece of fanmail as a writer, that’s what I’m considering it to be anyway. Somebody I do not know personally took the time to say how much they had enjoyed my writing and it was very sweet of her and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

    Trying to find a literary agent or publisher is a gruelling task, there’s very little sense of achievement and it takes far too long to do, I like to get things done but for some reason compiling manuscripts, finding an agency, finding the correct person within that agency, writing a cover letter, trying to work out what should be in a synopsis, whether it’s worth paying a reading fee…. it’s all just thankless.

    I appreciate it whenever anyone shows any interest in my writing, I really do, and friends and family and particularly my girlfriend give me a lot of support but I feel, and this is one of my many faults, that I don’t deserve that support or congratulations or whatever else, or that they are obliged to provide that support through their proximity to me and my life. It makes it hard to accept good feedback and creative criticism knocks more than it should but that’s my own thing and I’m dealing with it.

    I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s a very lonely existence being ‘creative’ so anyone that reaches in is very much appreciated in turn. One of my friends recently told me that if she enjoys a book she will write to the author and tell them so. It’s something I had never considered (possibly because I read Salinger, Orwell, Hemingway, Kerouac) but I think it’s an amazing idea.
    What I propose is that if you enjoy someone’s output whether that be a story, a poem, a song, photography, painting, an essay, whatever, please let them know, we all crave recognition.

  • Menthol Kisses – a review.

    The world really has it in for Logan Day.
    Menthol Kisses is the debut novel by Abby Stewart, available to buy here. It tells the story of Logan, a high school girl in Texas completely swamped by the melodrama that seems drawn to her like a magnet. It’s a story that follows what I will call her ‘lost weekends’, that period in a teenager’s life when they quite spectacularly fall out with themselves.

    Logan becomes swept up in a world of questionable influences, drugs and the service industry and as she continues on this downward spiral you can’t help but wonder where salvation is going to come from. While she hates her surroundings she appears simultaneously drawn to them, every person she comes into contact with seems doomed and every party she attends could be her last.

    The real honesty of the piece is in Logan’s relationship with her sister Shannon who heads off to college at the start of the novella and could be seen as being the tipping point. Without the calming influence of her older sister and with the knowledge that she escaped, Logan feels more trapped than she could have done when there were the two of them. While Logan turns to anger over her abandonment, as a reader it highlights the importance of breaking free of those small town shackles and seeing the world, trying something new, finding yourself, and any other new age cliche you can think of.

    The story also brings to light some of the terrifying judgemental and racist views still being practised in the southern states of America today. Logan’s friend Javonte, who is one of only a few positive things in her life is often the victim of some terrible words and actions as a result of the colour of his skin. He acts as a conscience when everyone else seems so hellbent on fucking themselves and Logan up.

    As you read, and as Logan disappears from her description of herself in the opening chapter you can’t help but wonder where Abby Stewart drew all of this from, and hope it isn’t too personal, because if so, it’s an incredible story to be able to tell.

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  • The reign of the rain – a flash fiction piece.

    She watched the pavement slide by when she should have obviously been paying attention to the road. It was gone midnight and the only people out were too pissed to even find their car keys. Rain bounced off of the windshield like cups of water thrown down a marathon runner. The gun lay on the passenger seat. Each time she negotiated a corner she carefully placed her hand over it to stop it sliding on the cream leather. She had one more job before she could go home.

  • Getting back on track.

    My thoughts this morning have been consumed with my project, an attempt to bring together all my efforts. For some reason I’ve lost focus in the last couple of weeks but we will see what comes of it. I’ve got one of my songs on a loop in my head which I always take as being a positive thing.

    I had an excellent weekend but don’t feel rested enough to be headed for work again. I wonder how the buzz of the Olympics has really effected London, I’ve already caught wind of people growing tired of the constant slow traffic of tourists across our capital but I take that as a given considering the size of the event.

    Went for a run this morning. Calculated that I should be eating about three thousand calories a day to balance out the amount I burn running. So far I’ve eaten nothing.

    Sorry, that was a bit all over the place today. I’ve got a new book to read which I’m happy about, I’ll let you know my progress.

  • A tribute to good friends.

    Gummy mouth and scratchy eyes,can’t work out if it’s a two day hangover or hayfever or both. I got to spend last night with some of my favourite people in all the world and it’s caused me to wake up full of the joys of Spring.

    The wonder of these friends is that we haven’t been together for a year (almost to the day) and yet as soon as that first round is placed on the table it is as if no time has passed at all, as if we are in Bar One, as if we have finished lectures for the day. The dynamic is just as good if not better with the wonder of hindsight. We tell each other stories that we had kept secret or that the others had blocked for various reasons, we laugh at some of the other characters and at ourselves and we make promises to get together more often.

    In an ideal world there would be a small village that we could all live in, like we did five years ago but unfortunately lives move on and people have to move on but when we are together we regress in the best possible way.

    X.

  • Fight McCartney’s corner.

    I’m nursing a big black coffee.
    You thought I was going to say something else.
    You’re sick.
    Last night I drunk too much J&B and it’s taken me a couple of hours to get back into my own head. I really want to watch the Olympics opening ceremony because I’m defending McCartney to the max right now and I haven’t even seen his performance. I don’t like the way people describe him as being ‘wheeled out’ for national events. There’s a reason for it. He’s a living legend. I don’t use that word lightly in the way that a lot of people will get drunk and describe their friends as being legends, I mean it.

    The Beatles are the most important band of all time, that cannot be swayed. Their music is still better than the pulp being churned out today. They changed everything. Paul McCartney has earned his place at these events because with John, George and Ringo he wrote some of the most important songs of modern times. I don’t understand the mentality of people towards older musicians at all. These people should be treasured and embraced, we should walk in their footsteps but instead they’re belittled for it. RESPECT YOUR ELDERS. That’s one of the few occasions where America have it right about something, they cherish their legacy of musicians and I don’t see why people should feel any different about the surviving Beatles or the Stones or anyone else. They shaped the way we are, the way a lot of us grew up, the music we listen to, it runs deep and it should be adored.

  • Mancrush Friday – Liam Neeson.

    It’s sort of like when you accidentally start fancying your friends dad isn’t it? Some of you may think I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel with this weeks man crush but Neeson is a force to be reckoned with so hold your judgement for another two hundred words.

    Here’s Neeson’s CV:
    – Saved over a thousand Polish Jews from Nazi concentration camps.
    – Trained Obi Wan (Ben) Kenobi and Batman.
    – Was a magical lion with Christ/Doctor Who like regeneration powers.
    – Killed the population of a small European country whilst on the hunt for his kidnapped daughter.
    I know people will say ‘Oh they are just films’ but quite frankly I won’t stand for that kind of nonsense. I believe that Liam Neeson did those things, which were somehow captured on film, and they built the rest of the story ( or in Phantom Menace’s case the lack of story (Ooh ZING!)) around that. Neeson gives off the air that he could do anything. I imagine he could erect a flatpack wardrobe without using the instructions, or break a man’s neck with a pipe cleaner. He’s just cool as fuck and that’s why I’ve got a crush on him.

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