The Poet

This is The Poet. He originally appeared in a series of very sleazy pictures I did in 2005. It starts off with him being arrested for covering the city in graffiti and it all goes downhill from there on. I'm really not going to go into details but if I say Matsumoto's involved, those who are reading my story Cold Case on Gay Authors will probably have an inkling as to what I mean.

All consensual, folks, nothing to see here, move along!

 Anyway, this is the updated version of him that I just finished, the original one was crap. The pose he's in here is because he's part of a bigger picture when I get it finished.

He's got a knitted hat as well. I don't think I'd have the patience to make one that big.

All behind

No, that's not - does my bum look big in this? Behind in the sense of - where is my chapter 3? Where is my chapter 6? Boss me is getting really pissed off with worker me and here I am updating my blog instead of writing either chapter 3 or chapter 6. Dear me.

I had a picture to post here but I left it on my PC and I'm on my laptop... will go network it over, hang on a minute.

 While we're waiting - I like this guy:

http://brooklyntweed.blogspot.co.uk/

He makes knitting patterns. A lot of them are kind of girly but he does some nice guys' stuff as well. I'm making a hat that's a free pattern. Free because I'm cheap. And making it because it's fucking cold here, like, I have the heat on, I have double glazing, I have the gas fire on, it is STILL cold. 

Not that I'm suggesting I'm going to sit in my room with a hat on. Because that would be weird kind of homeless-person behaviour. I was, for a while, a homeless person. It was years ago and I don't care to be reminded of those halcyon days. 

I realise now that I've named one of the characters in the Gay Authors story after somebody I knew in London around that time. Bill. I liked him. He was kind to me at a time when that was a rarity. Gods know whatever happened to him, he was a Dilly boy or whatever the fuck the PC term is for that. Sex worker? Well, you should work at it, that's what I say. Make some fucking effort there, don't leave it all to the top! :D

My character Billy has actually been around for ages. He was part of a project I was doing with ffabris to make a comic about homeless kids that had been thrown out of their homes for being gay. That never got finished as both fab and I had personal stuff going on at the time. Maybe I should do that myself? I could put it on my website. The one I don't have right now. I have a couple of domain names but neither of them is appropriate.

Lol, I did an absolutely atrocious comic a few years back about a bunch of rednecks who were all called Billy- something. Billy-Jean, Billy-Bob and Billy-Joe, I think. Oh, and the baby was called Billy-Jesus. 

Okay, this is getting way too stream-of-consciousness now. I'm going to go find that picture and post it. Back in a mo.

Matt rebuild

Matt Lakowski, the guy who drives my two detectives around. I changed his whole body base for another one. This is him in his uniform. Actually, it's not his uniform it's - another uniform.  Um. No, he's really not with the NYPD. But it's similar. 

I need to sort him out another uniform that's actually from the (fictional) place where he works. Or maybe just paint the damn thing on, it could be simpler.

I dunno if I mentioned before but book 2 or 3 is from Matt's viewpoint. It's probably going to be first person as well. I don't know if it's 2 or 3 because I forgot where I put my notes about all that.

 

What is it with Matt, no matter what I do with him he gets himself into a sexy pose and looks like a stripper... oh well. There are worse things :P

More Matsumoto. And a little Pygmalion musing.

Just a scribble. I seem to have got rid of the horrible whiteout he was suffering from before. I'm working up to a finished picture of him now I've got his skin sorted out and stuff.

I think he looks hot now. Well, why not? If I'm gonna make a guy, why not make a guy I'd like to --- shame he's not real. I'd order a dozen.

Writing excerpt 2

Just a little bit of what's going on further along in the story :)

Dante turned to Matsumoto.

“What did you say to each other?” he asked.

“I said, your place or mine. He said, bring your handcuffs.”

“You liar.”

“Yeah. Shame. I just said, thanks because I’m busy, he said, you’re welcome. You interested in learning Cantonese?”

“Maybe.” Dante waved away clouds of steam. The room they’d entered was even hotter than out in the corridor. “I mean, we work in Chinatown, right? It seems a good idea to be able to talk to people in at least one of their own languages.”

“It’s an even better idea to know what they’re saying when they think you don’t understand them,” Matsumoto said. “I’m half Hong Kong Chinese anyway. I come prepacked with Cantonese.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dante said. He coughed as he breathed in steam. “I hate to think what this is doing to the crime scene.”

“M E should be here any minute,” Joe said. “There you are.”

Dante looked down at the body on the floor, trying to make out details. The young man was half-wearing a white towelling robe, which had been pulled nearly off him, presumably when he was struggling with his attacker.

“I’ve got your crime scene tape, Sarge.” Another rookie arrived, belting into the room like Pheidippides turning up in Athens.

“Watch that fucking body, O’Reilly!” Joe said.

O’Rielly skidded to a stop, then looked down at the corpse he’d nearly run over. “Urgh!” he said, pointing a trembling finger. “Is that what he does? The killer?”

“What?” Dante said, leaning over to look.

“The body - he’s got no – his dick’s gone! He’s got no dick!”

“You’re right,” Dante said, suppressing a smile.

“Where is it?” O’Rielly looked around as if he expected to see the missing body part hanging on the wall somewhere, along with the towels, robes and shelves holding massage oil.

“He never had one,” Matsumoto said, taking a look for himself. “Those are female genitals.”

“What?” O’Rielly didn’t seem much reassured by this news.

“See that’s the problem with having a lot of gay officers in a precinct,” Joe said. “They see naked woman parts, they’ve no idea what they’re looking at.”

Notional Health Service

Took my daughter to Minor Injuries unit yesterday as she had resprained ankle that first went three weeks ago. Was told if I wanted elastic bandage for her, to buy my own as NHS can't afford to give them out any more.

Admittedly, the nurse says the 'research' proves that she won't get better any faster with a bandage on. When I asked if the extra support would help prevent further incidents of sprain, was answered with vague mutterings.

Went and bought one from the chemist. I'm a great believer in belt, braces - and elastic bandage. 

Fucking Cameron should give the NHS some money instead of keeping it all for himself. But given track record so far, AND IN MY OPINION, he and his cronies shouldn't be in power, they should be in prison.

Year of the Snake

Chinese New Year yesterday - lots of lion and dragon dancing, they went around all the Chinese businesses in the city centre here. So I took photos - and used one as the background of this picture.
Happy New Year, everybody! :)

The dragon has just been inside the largest Chinese supermarket we have here - there were firecrackers. That's it you can see whizzing around behind their heads :)

Double, double, here comes trouble...

Yay, I finally sorted out Dante so here are both my detectives - well, both the detectives investigating the case I'm writing about. I have plenty more of them inside those double doors.

 

Fools rush in...

Yeah, I was that fool. Am that fool... I started writing another story - for the Gay Authors site. It's a long time since I posted stories online so I thought it might be fun.

When I say writing, I'm not actually writing two stories at once, I'm writing the novel with Shou and Kenji in it and the other one is pretty much already written. I remembered writing it a few years back, so I dug it out and started to piece all the longhand bits together.

What I didn't remember, what I really could have done with remembering, before I posted the first chapter in public, was how long and complex this damn story is. Oh, look, a bit of gay fiction, thought I. Oh, bugger, I've got a novel of Stephen King proportions, thought I; I thought this latter at some point I will now call too late.

It has three viewpoints as well, which I don't normally do. I have one or two. Sometimes I even first-person it, which keeps it even more firmly in one viewpoint and makes sure you don't even know half of the stuff that's happening behind your back. I like this one for paranoid characters.

Well, I need to post a chapter a week or so of this monster thing. Which should give me chance to sort out what's going on with it - but it's so massive, I'm worried that I'll write myself into a corner in the first part and then find another bit lying around in the primordial paper ooze that tells me something quite different should have happened.

Not that I'm, you know, tied to the outline. In fact, I regard the outline more as a kind of avatar of stern parenthood. You know what it's going to say and then you ignore it. Unless it's pocket money day.

I'm just hoping that by the time I've posted the first three chapters - which introduce everybody and set the scene - I'll have found all the rest of it and it's in good enough shape that I can see where I'm going. But, then again, I'll no doubt want to change what I wrote. That always happens. 

Wish me luck :)

Just a little nonsense...

I don't remember what font I used for this, but the U doesn't look too good.

testing testing

I needed to upload this image so I can link to it for a sig on another site... that's why it's sideways at the top.

Watching the Detective

Mikio outside his precinct house, with the aforementioned rainbow t-shirt on his buff bod. This is when he had long hair.

It's a funny shaped image because I cut off the surrounding. Like when you have a good photo of yourself, but on the other side of it is a bf you now hate. So you cut the photo in two and stuff him through the bars of the gas fire.

Uhhh - just me, then?

Blast from the past

I've got Crosby Stills Nash and Young on YouTube. One of my guys must like listening to that. I feel I should open the window and let some fresh air in, pretend I'm at Woodstock or something. Roll a joint, have unsafe sex with several cute guys I just met. Sigh. Nostalgia...

When I say my guys, I mean the guys I'm writing about. Not my multiple personalities. Although, my guys are pretty much like multiple personalities. I tend to channel them. Lol. Not always that much fun.

You... who are on the road... must have a code.. that you can live by... fuck, this is abysmally catchy music! Who listens to this? I'm gonna make him or her stand in the corner! BAD MIND-CHILD!

Unseen Versity

Those poems are ancient. I have a bunch of newer ones but I dunno where they are at the moment. I have a habit of writing them on scraps of stuff and in pads that are meant for something else
.
I decided to take the day off today and spring clean my desk, it's covered in old papers and other useless shit. It's probably gonna take me the whole day, meanwhile I have the neighbours inviting me to a cut-the-hedge party so I'm hoping it rains.

I might find those new poems while I'm cleaning. I need to find something before the 15th as I'm going to poetry workshop - at least, I think I am. When I sent email for details it bounced :(
I found my guy's body - hm, if only it was so easy - so I'll probably do a new picture of him in a while when I've picked up some of the piles of crap I now have scattered all around me like a fucking typhoon in W H Smiths.

My crow's shouting at me now, I need to go feed him.

Have you seen my little red rooster?

I'm looking for the 3d version of this guy - name of Shing, forgotten his second name or maybe his first one since he's Chinese. I wanted to do a new picture of him since he's Kenji's bodyguard. 

As I said, pictures help me write, yada yada - why does Kenji need a bodyguard, you may ask? You'll have to read the book to find out. And you can't because I haven't written it yet. Never will if I don't get on with it either. Unforgiveable procrastination! I spank myself! Ooh, that was nice, do it again!

Open your books at page 69...

What's that? It's Sunday? You don't get weekends off at Master Alex's Palace of Pain, dear! Now get your spoon and read up your poetry!

I want to call you, talking.
Serious stuff, you know?
Subtext phone sex
I'm saying, read me
I mean, fuck you

I want to wring you
till the last drops shake free,
Drink you, lick you, have you
drench me so I'm
drowning in your sea.
Tasting the salt
Waves slapping, dolphins grounded
Crashing on the rocks
Breaking to pieces,
eaten by mermaids.

I want to scuba
in your deep, you know.
Subtext.
Nice to hear from you.

Copyright Alex Sweeney 2013


That was fun, wasn't it? This, not so much - I wrote this when Cumbria was being wrecked by foot and mouth disease in 2001.


Fly in the body of a black carrion bird
Over this green, this pleasant land
Where there are no
crisp packets, pop bottles,
condoms, baby wipes,
phlegmed tissues, crusts,
crumbs, even of hope.
Nobody picnics, no kids to scream.
Nobody hiking
No gods. No dreams.

Now caved inside
the bones of a sheep's ribs,
prisoner waiting, unforgiven,
for the flame
in a druid's wicker basket.
The still heart does not bang
and beat, like an underwater clock.
Looking out through a maggot's eye
Through a burned and eaten space,
see empty fields through hell's keyhole.

No one man and his dog
No work for them to do.
Across the blood-stained hills,
Warless battlefield
where a thousand corpses
did not fight back, 
the farmer's in his den.
His neck stretched out for sacrifice,
lamb of God.
One useless, work-hardened hand
reaches for the gun.


Copyright Alex Sweeney 2013

Dear gods, that was depressing! Let's have a night out. It's - what is it, nearly six in the morning? I've only been up two hours, I should have the energy to dance!


I want to dance with you
Take your hand from time to time
Touch your bleached hair
say words I may or may not mean.
I like a man, or a woman
who likes to dance.
What Scorpio doesn't?

The clock circles, waits to spring,
time for fierce beating hearts
pump blood, pump iron,
jog around the milkman morning streets,
training to perform.
Waiting for the late. Let's find a club
open as long as life.

We'll ask for Fat Boy Slim
Or Rammstein
Or the Pogues.
Go to that place in my mind
where it always snows.
And dance, as they say,
the everlasting night away. 

Copyright Alex Sweeney 2013


Did I pick the Pogues because it almost rhymes with snows? I'm not sure I can see another reason - apart from Fairytale of New York. Kind of. I'm not sure using faggot as an insult is something I want to endorse.
 

Driving Miss Dante

This is Matty. Not a main character - but he's my main character's driver. My character, Dante, got injured in chapter 1 so he needs a uniformed guy to drive him around. Which is Matty, although this is him sans uniform and about to be sans everything by the look of it.
The second book in the series, which, strangely enough, is already partly written, is from Matty's point of view. Unless I change my mind, but I don't see why I should. He's an interesting character.
I will, at some point, post some writing about Dante. My book has two separate threads that intertwine and two POV characters to go with them. One of the guys is Kenji, whom you've already met and Dante is the main one, but I haven't written that much about him yet that I'd like to post anywhere. I don't want to give away the plot!

This may be totally disappointing, but whatever's going on here, and I'm not going to tell you, it's not gonna happen until maybe book five or six.