Other Writing — Unlimited Miles
I’ve spent most of my adult life trying not to be a one-trick pony — and that applies to my writing too. So here are a few examples of my work that have nothing to do with dementia or adult social care reform. More to follow.
Short Stories
As a rule, it’s personal experience that shapes my writing. But Gray Plays Vegas is a short story that sent me spinning off into the unknown. It’s a whimsical sci-fi satire (never written sci-fi before) set in Las Vegas (never visited) and written in American (I’m a Brit, so not writing in English is potentially a treasonable offence).
I thought it would be a tough assignment, but I needn’t have worried. My protagonist, Gray, took over right from the start, and we had a blast together. Here’s Gray, in his inimitable style. (Try reading him aloud just the way he speaks — in a slow drawl, like a young Jack Nicholson.)
“Till then I never really gave a damn about people, couldn’t see the point of them. Oh they were smart, sure enough. Tiny little two-legged critters with their fancy homes and their speedy little vehicles. And a pretty fancy opinion of themselves too. Said they spoke to God, who was — wait for it — created in their image. Can you imagine? God with two legs? Ha — do me a favour! So they walk with God and think that entitles them to screw the planet. Including us.”
So has that whetted your appetite for the rest of Gray’s story? Do you want to hear the honest truth about The Climate Wars, from the very first shot fired?
If so, then I’m delighted to announce that I’ve managed to negotiate an exclusive for my Miles Posts readers. Read Gray Plays Vegas for free and in its entirety right here. Enjoy the romp!
Novels
In 1974, I was working as an English language teacher at a wonderful school in central London, International House. IH had schools all over the world, and with a couple of years’ experience under my belt, I was ready to travel. But where?
“They’re looking for a teacher trainer in Cordoba”, they suggested. Cordoba in then-still-Franco-ruled Spain. I didn’t fancy it.
“Anywhere else?”
“What about Beirut?”
Ah, France. That was more like it. “OK. Let’s do it. Beirut sounds great.”
And although Beirut turned out to be in Lebanon instead of France, it really was great. A beautiful Mediterranean city, famous for its food and fashion, skiing in the mountains less than an hour’s drive away. Idyllic.
Until civil war broke out, 6 months after my arrival. Suddenly I found myself a bewildered, naive Western expat in the middle of somebody else’s war. And Lebanon was big news. Now everyone knew where Beirut was.
I was always going to write about Lebanon, but life and career got in the way and it was 2010 — 35 years later — before I was finally ready to publish my novel, The Lebanese Troubles. Yes, it was me who was ready to publish. I knew my book was good enough: I’d workshopped it with other up-and-coming writers, and they seemed to love the story. So what need did I have for a publisher in this exciting new age of the ebook? Why wait months or years trying to find a literary agent when I could publish in minutes on Amazon?
But I made three big mistakes. My workshop colleagues warned me about the first. “Don’t call it ‘The Lebanese Troubles’. You’ve written a story brimming with magic and mystery, but your title makes it sound like a dry academic work about a place that nobody really cares about these days.”
The second mistake was the book cover: self-designed and awful, more likely to put readers off than entice them in.
But my most serious mistake was the third. Foolishly and arrogantly I believed that if I just put my ebook out there, readers would come and find it. They don’t. Writers need to go and find their readers. Consistently. Again and again and again. Publishing is the easy part; it’s the marketing that’s so hard.
15 years later, The Lebanese Troubles (written by Alain Miles — the pen-name is another story) is still listed on Amazon, unmarked, unnoticed, and mostly unread. But I’m still proud of my book, and with conflict raging right across the Middle East, it seems a good time for a relaunch. There’s a new title — The Foreign Aide — a new cover from a proper designer, my good friend Martin O’Neill, and for the first time, a paperback edition …. all coming soon.
Poetry
After 40 years away, I went back to the home where I spent my childhood. So much has changed — not least me.
Gatekeepers
Maybe we exaggerated: wide enough
for paddles not for oars, green and languid
summer-shaded drifter, hobo, friend
of swans, dragonflies, rats, the big old pike
and fearless urchin-adventurers, Rich and me.
Over the garden fence, tackle and bait,
nets and knowledge — fathers’ hand-me-downs
to the bank where we balanced floats, maggotted hooks,
assessed the current, searched for hidden depth
and weed and silent darting shadows, cast
in the role of real serious fisher men.
Not all we caught was treasure: a shoe, a root,
the opposite bank, sometimes ourselves; but then
a quiver, tension, repetitive bob, and the line
jerked away upstream, our wit and strength
tested by the silver-scaled, rose-tipped
beauty, the largest landed in our small history.
Boys will be men, and nature will be tamed —
The gatekeepers move in, divert the flow:
“The threat of flooding needs to be contained;
Your child can’t drown now that the water’s low.”
The pike’s long gone, and where we caught the rudd
A supermarket trolley’s stuck in mud.
