Paul Schiernecker

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  • Tips for freshers.

    It hurts to admit but it has been ten years since I was a fresher. I am therefore best placed to give you advice on what to do with the rest of your week/life. There’s something that bothered me about being a fresher. It wasn’t so much that I feared being swirlied (I still fear this, I live in constant fear of this), it was more that it sounds like you’re already the victim of something. That aside, here’s my top tips for making it through and coming out the other side as a reasonable human being.

    1. Don’t take up smoking to be cool or bohemian.

    More than anything this is a cost saving thing. I’m not against smoking although it will cause you any number of problems including death if used for a prolonged period. Cigarettes are really expensive. Even buying tobacco and papers is now out of your price range. If you need to do something with your hands then buy a Rubik’s cube or take up knitting.

    2. It’s okay to sleep with nobody and it’s also okay to sleep with everybody.

    As long as everyone involved is consenting to it and you’ve detailed your hard limits then go for it. If you want to sit in eating microwave pizza and binge-watching Lost cringing at the thought of contact with another human being then go for it.

    3. Don’t even think about the debt.

    Unfortunately we are stuck with a government who think education should be for the privileged and your fees are going nowhere my friend. Each month for seven years a slice of my monthly wage has been taken away before I even see it. I’m clear of storecard and credit card debt so I don’t think about my student loan. It’s just one of those things. Chances are I’ll be dead before I pay it off so I’ll be laughing at the Student Loan Company from Hell.

    4. Don’t buy a kettle, toaster or microwave.

    Every Diana, Blair and Tinky Winky (I’ve based these names on the big stuff that happened in the year you were born if you’re 18 and therefore of university attending age by my understanding) will have been bought a kettle, toaster and/or microwave by their parents (Lyndon and Caroline (again, I’ve based this on the big stuff that happened in the year your parents were born if they were 30 when they had you)). Check into halls and get a feel for the white goods counter before you head to the Value range at Tesco, the Basics range at Sainsburys or Asda.

    5. Go to lectures.

    Take it from someone who didn’t, it won’t help. It doesn’t matter how hard your hangover hits you at eighteen, it’ll hit you a lot harder at twenty-eight and then you’ll still have to go to work and pretend to do some adulting while sweating out ill-advised jagerbombs while you try to grip a venti something-mocha. Go to lectures and learn. Knowledge is power. She will probably still be there when you get back.

    6. Cultivate new friendships but don’t forget those you had before.

    You are going to meet a lot of amazing people. I see my friends from university as often as I can. Some of them have got married. Some of them have kids. Some have grown up adult jobs. Some of them still think they’re nineteen. They’re all great. What you have to remember is that you’ll also come home to your old friends and you might even move back home after university so don’t burn those bridges. Keep everyone who is good to you and for you close. You need them.

    7. Experiment.

    If there’s a time for regrets it is when you are at university. If there is a time to find out what you’re into it is when you are at university. If there is a time to find out what you’re not into it is when you’re at university. If there is a time to assist in finding yourself, it is when you are at university. Kiss a boy (if you’re a boy, or if you’re a girl, again, consent and everything else in point 1), try and start a band, try pilates or kickboxing or crochet or croquet. I kissed a few boys and a few girls, I kissed the Incredible Hulk, I started a band, I tried pilates. Your experience doesn’t have to be the same. You don’t have to do as much or any of those things but work out what you do fancy. Keep your hard limits.

    8. Be a cheap bastard – except when it comes to two commodities; toilet roll and binbags.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you use cheap toilet rolls and binbags you are going to end up putting your finger through it and covering your hand in shit. Buy cheap fruit and vegetables because they’re still fruit and vegetables and you need that shit. Bulk buy pasta and rice because you need cards. Buy cheap bread because how else are you going to make a black pudding sandwich but trust me on the toilet roll and binbags.

    9. Get student discount in as many places as you can.

    There are websites dedicated to lists of stores and restaurants that give you student discount. Try here, here and here. You will miss that when it is gone. I’ve been fortunate enough to recently start a professional qualification which means I have regained the right to an NUS card and it is fantastic. I’m a discount pimp.

    10. Enjoy it.

    People are very quick to tell you that certain times in your life are the best years of your life. That’s bullshit. It’s what you make of it and how you categorise it. What I thought I wanted ten years ago is different from what I want now, that goes for both my life and a night out. I rarely want a Snakebite anymore for example. What I will say is that it’s the last hurrah for a lot of people before you have to get a job and commit and do all of those terrible things you’re partly putting off just by going to university so try and enjoy it. If you’re anything like me you’ll spend the whole time thinking about what a great anecdote it will make one day instead of enjoying the moment. Enjoy the moment and trust me on the toilet paper and binbags.

     

    Former me:

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  • Schiernecker on Schiernecker

  • The Stamp Brotherhood is here.

    I’m so pleased to be able to announce my new book The Stamp Brotherhood is available on Amazon now in paperback and on Kindle.

    I’ve kept the cover under wraps for the longest time and it wasn’t until I saw it in all its glossy glory that I realised how special the work Adam had done on it was. LOOK!

    The Stamp Brotherhood cover

    The book will be free to download, along with the rest of my work, for the next five days.

    I’m using the hashtag #FreePaulSchiernecker to promote it.

  • Newstalgia. 

    When I was at school people insisted on telling me they were the best days of my life. Not the people I was actually at school with, they were too busy tripping me up, spitting in my hair and trying to dislocate my shoulder each time they walked past me in a corridor, but adults. Those mystical and wonderful creatures with their stale coffee breath and bags under their eyes. “These are the best days of your life, it’s all downhill from here” my dad once said to me, elaborating further on the sentiment. This came from a man I respect not just because he managed to not kill and eat any of his offspring but also because he continues working the same job he has for the last forty years. That’s the kind of commitment that makes me feel dizzy. Being at school were not the best years of my life and nobody ever told me it was okay that I didn’t enjoy the experience. I made friends and I will never regret not knowing how to deconstruct the poetry of Robert Browning but the best days of my life did not take place until much later than my supposed salad days – “Anyone for tennis, bleurrrrghhh!”

    I wish people had not told me those were the best days of my life like every single one of them was fucking Bryan Adams  because I subsequently felt I needed to detract myself from the situation and look at it with all this misty Wonder Years sentiment thinking constantly that one day it would make a worthwhile anecdote. Maybe that is what provided me with the tools to be such a gifted and handsome storyteller. School is terribly organised bullshit of the highest order and I got a hell of a lot better once I was done with the lot of it. What would have been more useful to me as a growing Schierneckerling is if someone told me how surreal it is for the stuff that happened within your lifetime to suddenly become worthy of being celebrated as nostalgia. 1993 is not history. Don’t try and celebrate it like it was over tweeennnttyyy yeaaarsss aggggoooo. Oh hang on… Ford unveiled the Mondeo in 1993, a stellar year for the future of family rows, especially for us on the confusing roads of France on our way to another static caravan ready for butter to be flicked down its longside (This is a very niche joke that possibly four other people will get but maybe two will read).

    What I never realised when I was growing up is that all of the odd little things that happened in pop culture would eventually fade only to come back at me through a number of memes aimed at making me feel terribly old. Diana died eighteen years ago. That’s a whole adult person’s lifetime now. A person born in the same year Diana died can now go into a pub and order gin. That’s the kind of mindpoke I do not need on a Tuesday. Diana’s death hit us all in a way. I remember everything coming to a halt, literally. People didn’t seem to be able to function. It made me question the very nature of existence which is dangerous to do when you’re ten and wearing glow in the dark pyjamas. My folks tried to fob me off with some kind of nonsense about heaven but I was yet to see the Swayze/Moore paranormal porn epic that is Ghost so didn’t believe in such things. What was my point? Oh yes, nostalgia.

    If you’re young and using the Internet and my blog as a source of news and light entertainment, well done, I have no doubt  you are both young and funky fresh, but this my warning to you, like the ghost of future past but with nicer hair. Don’t let other people bombard you with new nostalgia or newstalgia if you will. Your lifetime is short. In the history of time we have been here for the last second of the last minute of the first day. That’s some Carl Sagan shit I just dropped right there. Appreciate.

    It doesn’t matter if you remember growing up watching Hey Arnold or if your diet was solely Panda Pops and asbestos, you’re a person living your life and doing what you can. Make every day your last but don’t cry over the fragility of it all. You can start anything today. You can achieve and be great. Don’t be blindsided by newstalgia and keep on trucking. Just don’t think about Screech from Saved By The Bell’s sex tape.

  • The Stamp Brotherhood – teaser trailer

    What a beautiful morning in god’s county (Essex). I’ve had my dippy eggs on toast and a mug of green tea and I am excited to reveal the teaser for my new novel The Stamp Brotherhood.

    When I wrote The Stamp Collective I thought I was using a lot of myself up. It is no secret that the book is in part based on the relationship I share with my own brothers and anyone close to us is able to identify which of the three Stamp brothers we have become. As I drew towards finishing The Stamp Collective I had an idea for a sequel. There was a lot going on in the lives of the Schiernecker brothers at the time and they were giving me a wealth of new material. I was also so pleased with the reception to TSC that I figured it should continue. I am hoping to get it out as soon as possible and have another travel journal out by the end of the year. Thank you for your support and continued patience and I hope it pays off.

  • Secret Cinema presents The Empire Strikes Back

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    Say what you want about Secret Cinema, and you do, at length, they know how to put on a good show. On Friday I was lucky enough to attend a screening of the down note that is The Empire Strikes Back in a secret location somewhere in our nation’s capital.
    Now, a lot of people have said the ticket price could not possibly reflect the event. They said this before the first screenings had taken place and with the wonderful power of assumption. As Under Siege 2: Dark Territory taught us, assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. While it has to be said, if you are looking to Secret Cinema for a cheap night out then you are searching in Alderaan places, the immersive experience they offer cannot be beaten. There were times when I genuinely forgot I was on Earth. I experience this a lot but had barely been drinking at this point.

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    For nearly a decade there has been one man who is guaranteed to return the correct responses to my quotes and I was lucky enough to have him by my side, in a beige wrap from Topman and a packet of organic seeds. I’m doing my best not to ruin it for anyone who may still be set to go. Cameras are a complete no-no once you are inside and mobile phones are heat-sealed in foil bags to keep tweeting grounded. If you’re a fan of the galaxy far, far away and you want the kind of geeky night out that money can actually buy then it is definitely for you. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

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  • Judgement Day

    Last weekend we were standing in a queue for an ATM in the small market town of Hay-on-Wye. I was convinced to go to the small market town of Hay-on-Wye because it is a pilgrimage for bibliophiles. What is it about the suffix -phile that still makes me feel a bit dirty? I love books. I love every kind of books. Oh my god I’m thinking about books again. I really love books.

    We were standing in a queue for an ATM in the small market town of Hay-on-Wye because I was desperate for money for books. It turns out that Powys is yet to catch up on the flash-in-the-pan fad that is card-based transactions. While in the queue, giving the licking of a lifetime to a two scoop from Shepherds Ice Cream Parlour, we heard a woman in the queue behind us comment (loudly) on my girlfriend’s calf tattoo – a calligraphy-looking quote from the (confusing to me at least) world of DragonAge. Specifically, the comment was derogatory towards us but addressed towards her young daughter. “Don’t ever do anything like that to yourself when you’re older” we and the rest of the queue heard her say.

    Now I’m all for people saying what they want but only if it isn’t to belittle the appearance of another. There are any number of reasons that people get tattoos. There could be something they are celebrating, something they are covering, something they find inspirational or something they just wanted for the sake of wanting. It isn’t for anyone else to decide whether it is appropriate. Here is my open letter to that rude woman.

    Dear rude women in a queue for an ATM in the small market town of Hay-on-Wye,

    I do not appreciate your attitude. When I was a young Schierneckerling, my brothers and I were given a series of similar life lessons from mother dearest. She has since come off the boil a tad and now just worries about me getting murked by killer bees in Arizona. She would see someone with a mohawk, someone with a neck tattoo, someone with a pierced nose and instantly condemn them openly to us. She worried we would become a motorcycle gang full of  rent boys or something. There are much worse things to be, like a politician. The problem was that each time she pointed one of these people out, someone who had decided to make a mark, stand out, be brave, be different, it only served to warm them to our little hearts. They say girls love a bad boy, well, so did we.
    When you (loudly) told your young and highly impressionable daughter that you didn’t approve of my girlfriend’s tattoo, which is neither unsuitable or vulgar to have on display in any way, shape or form, you gave your daughter a way to rebel. One day that little girl will be a teenager and she will be overwhelmed by a desire to do something to royally piss you off, even if you have only ever done well by her and served her food from M&S. I hope she invests in whatever sub-culture is kicking about in a decade. I hope she realises that you’re a fallible human being like the rest of us and can make her own opinion on things.
    My brothers and I all have tattoos. They mean something to us. They show where we have come from. Yes, even that one on the back of Edd’s arm of a spider being sick on itself. I’m not going to go into the reason for all of them. I know I have the least (currently six).
    We also all have piercings.
    We have broken bones.
    We have broken laws.
    We have made mistakes.

    All I am saying is that it goes both ways. You have a lot of responsibility as a mother but don’t expect to not have to change. You are going to have to question the things you have thought and your expectations. Your daughter will no doubt do amazing things but that doesn’t mean she won’t be doing it without a bunch of shit pierced through her face.

    Peace.

    Paul.

     

  • Poo-ru

    This week I have started redrafting my book about my time trekking in Peru. It is between titles at the moment. I was shocked to discover the level of exposure I had given to how poorly I became on my trek. I’m concerned it might be a bit much for a travel journal but wanted to share it and get some feedback now. Here is an excerpt from the Peru Journal…

    I awoke sweating in the darkness. Something was terribly wrong. I started to take off layers of clothing. Each direction I moved in made my stomach churn. I had been in such a deep sleep it took a while for me to recognise the symptoms of what I was going through. I unzipped my sleeping bag and lay in my boxer shorts in the mountains trying not to think about it.
    Believing makes it so.
    I could hear the ache in my guts. I was in a bad way. I worried the noise would wake Matt. I scrambled out of my bed, kicking down the sleeping bag, threw a t-shirt and my trousers on and wandered out into what I took to be approximately four am. The air was cold but felt good against my skin. I was prickly with sweat. My entire being was pulsating. Realising I had left the safety of our womb with just my iPhone for company, I switched the flashlight function on and gave the whole camp a cursory once over with the beam. Not a creature was stirring except for a turd. I walked straight across the camp in search of salvation. Eddie had said the toilet tent was shaped like a rocket. It stood just behind the row of tents and was easy to spot in the half-light. I didn’t fancy my chances given what I figured I was about to expel. I decided to test out the toilet tent in the next field. That way it would be the problem of another group when the sun rose on a new day. I realised I wasn’t in the desert anymore and couldn’t refer to it as the happy room. There was nothing happy about the situation. On the top of a hill were two fixed toilets belonging to the campsite. I opened the door on what looked like a barn from a low-budget Nativity. I was ready to deliver my own immaculate conception. When the iPhone flashlight caught on the stained plastic of the toilet and the brimming activity within I knew it wasn’t to be and continued up to the outhouse-looking motherfucker at the top of the incline. Here I hoped I would find my tranquillity. I opened the door and discovered there was just a hole in the ground with two risen feet shapes above a tray where the goods were to be delivered. The system was filtered by a garden hose running up the hill, under the door and trickling water into the hole. It was a McGyver job at best. I closed the door and lowered my trousers without letting them become victim to the mess of ground-in shit left on the floor. I gagged on the remnants of the last few occupants and then squatted back, trying to make sure I wasn’t about to unload into my own pants and let the bullets fly. The scattergun effect my body returned for the favour of finding somewhere nice and serene for a shit was not natural. It was real horror show. It was both barrels of a shotgun being blasted through an arse. I was a brown Jackson Pollock.

    I took a fresh pack of Kleenex from my pocket and started a clean up job equivalent to clearing a dead body from the train tracks with tweezers. There was a carrier bag in the corner full of discarded tissue because when in the mountains, you can’t be flushing shitty toilet paper down the system. It would be an underestimate to call it full. It would have been impossible to fit another tissue in without touching the others. I wondered how much hand sanitiser I had. I worried I would never feel clean again. One sheet at a time was applied to my pulsing anus as I tried to conduct the kind of damage control you wouldn’t wish upon your worst enemy. I was reminded of when Vince and Jules have to clean the dead body out the back of the car in Pulp Fiction. We are talking Tarantino levels of excrement.
    When I turned around to inspect my hard work, feeling a refreshing wave of nausea in my throat and creeping sweat on my skin I discovered it hadn’t been the neat departure into the hole I had been hoping for. They had a smaller target when they blew up the Death Star. Here I was shitting on womp rats in my T-16 (niche gag).
    There was no way I could leave things in the way my bowels had intended. It was the definition of everywhere. It was almost impressive. I was one Roy Castle short of being a Record Breaker. I knew I was going to have to do a rush clean up job, like a battered spouse attempting to mop up the blood after bludgeoning their partner to death with a household object. With the light in one hand I bent down and picked up the hose supplying the only flow of water in what was fast becoming a tomb dedicated to the memory of my shit. I expected to find mourners outside laying flowers. I started trying to spray down the back wall and pipework I had recently decorated. Each time I moved the hose there was a drop in water pressure and it dribbled out. I yanked a further couple of feet in from wherever the source was and draped it over my head. I was getting desperate. Every second I remained in that shitty outhouse was another second I was about to be discovered. The water, thankfully, started to flow. I cleaned up as best I could in the light I had available, swinging my iPhone torch around the space and then weeping internally, I returned to my tent.
    The problem with having the shits of course is that it’s never over. The best comparison would be the death of Michael Myers at the end of every Halloween film made for over twenty years. You know that fucker will return. It doesn’t matter how dead you think the matter is, how final the score, it’s coming back for another sequel.

  • Riding in cars with boys.

    This week I was asked to go and see a new production of a play with my friend. I have noticed that recently I struggle to find the time to fit in good time with my friends and I know I’m mostly to blame for it. As we get older, people are harder to draw together and track down. I feel like I’m still in the loop because of the constant feed of their social media but it just isn’t the same. At a friend’s party in February I tried to do the catching up thing with an old friend and we both realised, over a couple of gins, that we already knew the trials and tribulations of each others lives because of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and our blogs keeping us in touch. FaceTime can’t compare to face time.

    We met in the pub, the best meeting places for friends, particularly when one is stuck in traffic and the other is me and has a healthy supply of literature and lager to hand. It was then he confessed the play wasn’t on until ten. Bloody thespians, we both had work the following morning. What was this 10pm nonsense. The arts should be confined and curfewed to meet my demands.

    We eloped to a nearby Italian restaurant and for the next two hours we caught up on everything that had been happening in the couple of months since we had last seen each other. It is crazy to think how much my life has changed in the last three months. How I have gone from questioning what I was doing and who I was doing it for to feeling in the best mental spot I’ve been in this year at least. I’ve written at length in the past about my history of anxiety and depression and to be in a moment of clarity like the one I am enjoying at the moment is blissful.
    We sat and we talked and we laughed. We tried to work out whether the waitress assumed we were a couple. We both ordered tiramisu and coffee and I realised that it didn’t matter how long the time in between us seeing each other was, we were still able to jump in on the friendship. I’m fortunate to have that capacity with a number of my friends. What was there stays there.

    After the play, which was excellent, and watched from behind a bassist, we joined two of the cast for a quick drink and then high-tailed it out of Islington for the long drive home. This was where things became interesting. There is something beautiful about two friends with a common destination (home) bearing down upon it in a great car. Train journeys are best railed solo. Planes need entertainment but you sit me in a car with a good friend and just watch us fly. It explains why there are so many great stories which take place between buddies on road trips – The Puffy Chair, Little Miss Sunshine, Easy Rider, National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Stamp Collective.
    With nothing but the strobing streetlights, the long A13 ahead of us and one another we started to tell stories. They would meander and overlap and we would get caught up on stupid details and then come back to the crux of the matter but when we pulled up outside my flat I wasn’t ready for it to end, even if I did have to be up for work in around four hours. There’s a lot to be gained from putting yourself in close proximity to someone you truly enjoy the company of. I’ve done what I can to preserve to anonymity of our conversational content because we would both be for the high jump but I’m glad I got to be that particular navigator.

  • Happy 1st birthday to The Stamp Collective.

    COVERsized
    A year ago this weekend I was waking up with a pretty heavy head after the successful launch of my first novel, The Stamp Collective. Somehow the evening descended to karaoke and many wines. Since then the book has gone on to top the Kindle downloads in its category, I have personally sold, exchanged or given away over a hundred copies and it has got as far as Los Angeles, Australia and Peru. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has a copy from the bottom of my heart. I never thought I would be in a position where I could share something I had written on such a grand scale and I know in future how I can adapt and change that to ensure I get more attention and more exposure as a result of my writing. I love what I do and I love that I live in an age when it is so easy to make your work available around the world.

    Over the last year a lot has changed in my life but seeing that little blue paperback with the incredible design by Adam Gardner has reminded me of what the common goal the different parts of me are striving for. I want more of that. That’s why I’m really pleased to announce that I have finished redrafting the sequel; The Stamp Brotherhood, I have asked Adam to design another cover and it is currently with the proof reader. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you all and letting you in a little further to the lives of the Stamp brothers. You can expect more of the same and a little extra, quite literally, as the Brotherhood packs a serious girth upgrade on the Collective. I’m also hopeful I can get another of my travel journals out this year, this time about my time in Peru and ahead of my next trek through the Grand Canyon in October 2015.

    With a year of The Stamp Collective under my belt I have this to say, this book has opened my world to a number of new and interesting people, I will forever be grateful to anyone who has cared and shared when it comes to my work and encourage anyone to do the same. If you have any questions about the process of writing, editing, redrafting or independently publishing then I will do my utmost to share the knowledge I have.

    Thank you.

Paul Schiernecker

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