I've had a breakthrough with my creative writing, something I've been working on for at least 21 years, my magnum opus as it were, a novel about my formative years with the working title of "In the Freakzone." I actually do have the final title but I'm not revealing it yet as everything I've ever done in my creative life has been stolen from me and as I think my secret title is HOT I'm not letting go of it so easily.
My breakthrough is that I could never finish the dam thing, forever rewriting it, like a labour of Sisyphus, just as I get to the summit it rolls back down the hill and I start all over again, 2100 times. Now I've decided to post it chapter by chapter on the WEB, plagiarists be damned, where I can feel it will get gradually finalised, once posted there's no going back, and if I die tomorrow at least this wild story will be out there. I've already had published two short versions of the story, "Welcome to the Men's" in 1983 in an anthology edited by Gary Dunne, "Edge City on Two Different Plans". Then in 1985 "Alec Farthing" in the anthology "Being Different" edited by Garry Witherspoon. In both short stories I used the third person impersonal "he" instead of "I" and I called him Alec Farthing but since then I've noticed an amazing number of characters in literature named "Alec" so in my big novel of the complete picaresque adventures I've changed his name to Arthur which is a much closer fit to my personality.
I created the character and refer to him as "he" instead of writing "me, me, me" and "I" as if the novel is a diary because my memories, knowledge and attitudes about my early life are suspect, filtered through my fears, dislikes, desires, fixations, delusions, lies, mistakes, dreams, obfuscations etc, it's hard to tell real history, and much can be deciphered from my imaginings anyway. Writing about "Arthur" from a distance gives me a kind of freedom, I can fantasise more and add creative flair, making the narrative more fun, than if I was seriously trying to tell it how it is/was.
The writing is relentlessly tough, maybe overstating the violence and perversion because I want to drive home the horror of child abuse, children beaten to death mentioned in the News too frequently, the subject needing to be dealt with in our modern times, in Art as well as sociology, not hidden away as unmentionable. And battered children can grow into certain lifestyles and behaviours that some might condemn them for, but they were made that way, they shouldn't be tortured any further, every one is equal in their humanity. The other theme that is relentlessly addressed, homophobia, might turn off so called straight heterosexuals and only appeal to a "Gay" readership but I'm hoping I've got a universal story, of the human condition, nature and nurture participating in the formation of sexuality, whatever variety it turns out to be. And yet my story is different, unique, wild, adventurous, a rollicking good yarn and something like a roller-coaster ride through a theme park on Sex and the Spirit.
Even now in 2011, in many works of art, movies, pop music, novels and magazine stories or simple quotidian conversations, anti-gay terms are constantly bandied about as put-downs, dislikes, antipathies, insults: faggot, fairy, poofter, diesel dyke, lezzo, homo, sissy, on and on and on, in spite of "gay liberation" and the right of all people to the pursuit of happiness. Forgive me if I go on and on about growing up a homosexual, a story that's been told so many times, as I'm hoping to explain, describe, tell what it's like and hope to get some sympathy, respect and dignity.
So from here on in there will be about 49 stories telling of the freaky adventures of a character named Arthur Farthing, who grew up a freak on the edge of society, surfing the chaos of the gutter hoping to be a cutting artist, all of it to be differentiated from my Blogs about my contemporary life by being written in the third person. I'm compelled to tell these stories, not just mine but all the beautiful, sorry, flawed, amazing people I've met along the way who cannot tell of theirs, it's up to me. I think the tales are fascinating, scary, informative and fun, but I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to find a way through the maze, if you want.
If you enjoyed this story please go to the WEB
address above and consider buying my book of tales about growing up
anarcho-queer, rock and roll punter and mystic adventurer in Australia and India
of the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
