Tuesday, December 18, 2012

The Night Is A Tunnel

I have told the sky all my loneliest thoughts of you. And all it does is shine star light back at me. But I guess that's what makes it such a good listener. 

Monday, December 17, 2012

Intentional Dissonance Is Now Available On iTunes & Book Depository

"I wanted to want you like you wanted me to. But I couldn't." 

Intentional Dissonance is now available on iTunes and Book Depository (who will ship for free, anywhere in the world). 

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Nature Of A River Is To Run

When it rains, the river will try and take you away from me.

Which is why, when it rains, we must hold onto each other, just a little tighter.

Friday, December 7, 2012

The Shadows On The Curtain

Sometimes the most important thing you can say is just

"Are you ok?"

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Kindle edition Of Intentional Dissonance is now available through Amazon.


He made lists of things he wanted to feel
when he was younger, big things, small things, ice, snow, the sand
at the beach, someone else’s hands holding his, feeling him feeling
them, a feedback loop of feelings, which is what happens when two
people make love. He wanted to feel things that made him feel safe
and scared and things that ripped his heart out of his chest, things
that made him want to go home and things that made him want to
travel, things that made him proud and things that made him regret
his choices and he, like all people, slowly ticked these things off the
list in his head as he lived, as the world turned until soon, there were
very few things left to feel.
He believed the last thing he would feel, would be nothing, as that
was nearly impossible to feel unless you were dead or hadn’t been
born yet. He wondered what it’d be like to not be able to wonder.
He’d once wanted to know what it felt like to be able to talk to
people properly, to be normal but he’d given up on finding that
feeling, figuring no one ever really found it.

Amazon has jumped the gun a little and the kindle edition of Intentional Dissonance is out! You can get it now and preview the first few chapters here.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Pre-Ordering Is Now Open For Intentional Dissonance OR How I Autographed My Digital Book

[Editor's note: You won't hear my voice when you open the file, the sound of my voice changes the way each cover looks, nothing else - I'm sorry if anyone was confused.]

Dear you,

If you didn't know this yet, I live in South Africa, Jon, the photographer for I Wrote This For You lives in Germany (previously Japan), my publisher lives in Canada and my books are printed in England. The vast majority of my readership resides in America, Asia and the rest of the world.

This is great because I’ve always believed in creating things that are universal and this setup helps keep me true to that.

The problem is, besides a brief book tour at the start of this year and online, I don’t really get to interact with the phenomenal, kind and wonderful people who read what I write.

My new book, Intentional Dissonance, like a lot of the things I do, deals with finding meaning in chaos. It’s about finding something in the noise. And it’s a very noisy book. There are trees that talk, the main character is addicted to a drug that causes sadness and the entire thing takes place in the last city on Earth, 10 years after the official end of the world. There’s also a bunch of ghosts, people caught in horrible teleportation accidents that force them to repeat their last moments over and over again, forever. It’s not I Wrote This For You. It’s something else.

I wanted to do something special for the launch of the book that celebrated and made real the feeling of finding meaning in the noise and so, in currently limited quantities, I have ‘signed’ several digital copies of the book with my voice.

I took the cover design, imported it into an audio editing suite as raw data, then read my name and a few sentences from the book over the noise. The audio was then exported as raw data and converted back into an image. In a time where everything digital is impersonal and generic, it’s a way to do something that makes each copy special.

And it’s the closest I can get to giving something personal and unique back to the readers who have done so much for me.

The book comes out on amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble and everywhere else on the 7th of December but you can preorder one of the digitally signed copies right now from here.

 This is what they look like.























The original.





























Thank you for your time and for reading,

 Me

Intentional Dissonance Launch

Dear You,

My new novel, Intentional Dissonance, is launching on the 7th of December.

I've got something special planned for it and that's going to keep me busy for the next 48 hours or so.

The image below is a hint.

Stay close,

Me


Monday, December 3, 2012

The Time Keeps Twisting Me

The seconds take a part of me with them. Hopefully to you.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Things I Would've Said

If you're strong enough to take that blade and draw it across your skin. 

If you're strong enough to take those pills and swallow them when no one's home.

If you're strong enough to tie that rope and hang it from the ceiling fan.

If you're strong enough to jump off that bridge, my friend.

You are strong enough, to live.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

The Danger Of Dreaming


Shhh...

Danger isn't always loud and angry.

Red, fire engine, fire, clouds.

A fight doesn't always end when you've been knocked down.

Fight, punch, fruit juice, islands.

Sometimes, the world will try and convince you that dying is the most polite thing you could do.

Please, thank you, no I don't mind at all, go ahead. 

Sometimes, they will make giving up feel just like going to sleep.

You've done enough, rest now, there's no need to carry on. 

You are not in your bed. You are on the street. And you need to wake up and fight.

Now.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The Sound That Ends The World

I'm only quiet because I'm worried that if you push me too far, one day I will open my mouth and I will scream so loudly, it will shatter and break the whole world.

Monday, November 19, 2012

The Difference Between Paint And Blood

I know you think you define me.

But each brush stroke thinks it's important when it's on the canvas and each brush stroke thinks that it's the last and that the painting will be done when the brush leaves the canvas again.

But it isn't. You are just the shading. You are a dot. And I am the one holding the paintbrush.

Friday, November 16, 2012

The Words On A Tombstone

Do practical things if you want your tombstone to read

"They were practical."

Do what makes sense if you think it should say

"Their life made sense."

Do what the world wants if you believe in the epitaph

"They did what the world wanted them to do."

But if you want it to read

"They lived every second they were given 
and touched the sky every chance they had, 
they burned and blazed in all the colours the eye can see 
and left a hole shaped like them in the world 
when they left."

Then do something else.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The Person You Meet At The End Is You

The universe curves, as does the Earth. And as hard as you try and run away from everything you are, you'll find yourself where you left yourself when you come home. Just tired.

Fix yourself before you try and outrun yourself.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

The Centre Of The Universe

"How do you feel?"

"Cold and lonely. Since the beginning of time, everything's been moving away from me. That's what it means to be at the centre. I don't understand why anyone would want to be me."

Friday, November 9, 2012

The Experience Becomes A Story

The horror you face today will become the funny story you tell tomorrow.

In the end, everything is overcome and a life is lived.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The Way We're Measured

My worry is that what you measure yourself with ends up defining you. You pour yourself into the thing that measures you and it defines you. And I just hope that one day you find out that you're fuller when you measure yourself in love and people and moments, instead of things, adoration and money.

Monday, November 5, 2012

The Efficiency And Perfection Of The Lost

Yet you still value the things you've lost the most. Because the things you've lost are still perfect in your head. They never rusted. They never broke. They are made of the memories you once had, which only grow rosier and brighter, day by day. They are made of the dreams of how wonderful things could have been and must never suffer the indignity of actually still existing. Of being real. Of having flaws. Of breaking and deteriorating.

Only the things you no longer have will always be perfect.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

A Letter To New York

I read this in New York on the 19th of March this year at the start of a book signing/reading.

I hope you are all safe.


Dear New York, 

You are in your subways, where your earbuds whisper softly to each other. Where you are rocked to sleep, gently as the trains move, and you are part of some great everyone. So you are a city that walks on top of another city, a city of people dreaming, you put your foot down on dreams when you cross the street, your children play, on dreams. You go to work each day, on layers of moving dreams. You are pieces of life from subway to skyscraper. And I wish you could hear the way your voices sing like I hear them, but you can't anymore than I can hear what my voice sounds like. None of us have accents inside our heads. Our voices and words are water and tasteless and colourless because of how much of them we drink. 

Only other people can hear what we sound like. Tonight, thank you for being those other people New York. 

 Sincerely, 

 Me

Monday, October 29, 2012

Here Then There

I am moving cities this week. Large boxes everywhere. Moving trucks and so on. I will do my best to be here.

I will miss you. Thank you for your time.

Friday, October 26, 2012

The Winter Child

In bright white snow, when everything sleeps.

And hope has left you lonely.

When all you ever remember about summer is how it ended.

I send hope back to you, wherever you are.

I hope you remember all the people you still have time to be.

I hope the little things in your life inspire you to do big things with it.

I hope you remember that summer comes every year and that the sun, is still sweet.

I hope you learn to hope again.

I, still, hope.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

The Story Can Neither Be Created Nor Destroyed

As you fall, remember that you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

Remember that you are the universe exhaling, a breeze waiting to blow across a field of tall grass.

Remember, you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

As your body cuts through the air, think of only the things that made you smile, the people that made you love, the ideas that made you strong.

Remember, those things will never happen again but they cannot unhappen.

Remember, you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

Remember, what you felt can't ever be taken away.

Remember, you are part of a beautiful story that did not start when you were born.

And it will not end when you die.

Remember.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The Importance Of Correctly Numbering Things

There are more grains of sand in the soles of your shoes than you will be given winters to dream or summers to make those dreams real.

And there are more stars in the sky than there are grains of sand on Earth.

We live in a universe so big that a dying star, in the greater scheme of things, is as significant as spilled milk or an unkissed kiss. In an infinite amount of time, everything that can be forgotten, will be forgotten.

In infinity, spilled milk and dying stars matter the same.

And if you're just someone brushing your teeth late at night or you're a planet breathing your last breath as you disappear into a black hole, everything you do matters just the same. Every breath you take is as important or unimportant as the sun in the sky or the moon in the night.

Scratching your ear, is a kind of miracle, depending on how you look at it.



Monday, October 22, 2012

The World Would Be Easier

The world would be easier if the homeless were all just lazy and all they needed to do was just get a fucking job.

The world would be easier if evil were a real thing, instead of just confusion, misunderstanding, miscommunication and misplaced desire.

The world would be easier if you could just be happy for what you had, while you had it. If you could eat memories like flowers to keep your heart alive.

The world would be easier if comfort didn't rest on the backs of the broken, if your swimming pool was dug by soft hands that never worked a day in their life.

The world would be easier if we all just got rich and famous and we were all each other's #1 fan.

The world would be easier if it were an automatic.

The world would be easier.

But it isn't.

The world is hard because it requires real human effort to make it turn.

The world is hard because you may wake up today but not tomorrow. And yet no one will accept "fear of death and a futile existence" as a reasonable excuse to miss work.

The world is hard because you will have to fight for the things you love or worse, fight the things you love.

The world is hard because the things you love will kill you.

The world is hard because it was made that way by thousands upon thousands of hard men and no one wants to admit we have no idea why we're doing the things we're doing anymore.

The world is hard because it's hard to forgive and even harder to forget.

The world is hard and you should just give up, right now. Just lay down and die. Nothing will ever be easier.

But, you don't.


Thursday, October 18, 2012

The Night Holds The Day So Softly


You own this hand now.
Because when I close my hand around your hand, I can feel your hand, feeling mine. And it feels the same.

Monday, October 15, 2012

The Sun Leaves The Earth

I am so selfish, so greedy and so spoiled.

How can I ask for one more day with you, when I've already had so many?

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

The Bandages Are Made Of Shadows

You and I both know, the dark doesn't make the bruises disappear.

It just makes them harder to see.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Intentional Dissonance


Intentional Dissonance is my new novel.

It’s a love story that takes place in the last city on Earth, after (and before) the end of the world.

There’s a man called Jon Salt, a doctor who wants to kill him or at least abuse a gift he has, a tree called Edward, a girl called Michelle, another girl called Emily who sells a drug that makes you sad (called Sadness) which Jon Salt is addicted to and a mute assassin called One Eye.

It also involves ghosts, Sylvia Plath’s diary and Kurt Cobain’s guitar.

If I’m really honest, it’s a book about what it feels like to fall forever.

So it’s quite complicated. But I’m happy and I feel like I wrote the book I wanted to write.

It should be available early December. Between now and then, every now and again, I’ll be posting different snippets from the manuscript in different places.


On I Wrote This For You.



Thank you for your patience and support, I honestly can’t wait for you to read it.

- pleasefindthis 

The Waiting Chair

If it hurts you, if not being who you want to be kills you inside, just close your eyes and remember

"Somewhere else, I'm something else.

Somewhere else, I'm something else."

And soon you will be here.

Soon, you will be you.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

The Language Stripped Naked

And I'm sorry I ever learned any words that make you cry.

I'm still doing my best to learn the ones that make you smile.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Away

I'm taking a breather after finishing off my new novel, Intentional Dissonance. More news soon.

I miss you,

Me.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The Dark Words You Walk Down At Night

This is why it hurts the way it hurts.

You have too many words in your head. There are too many ways to describe the way you feel. You will never have the luxury of a dull ache.

You must suffer through the intricacy of feeling too much.

Thursday, September 20, 2012

The Ghost Factory

If you let your ghost kill me, then you'll have two ghosts.

And the two of us will kill whoever's next.

Then there'll be three ghosts.

And the three of us will kill a fourth.

Then there'll be more.

And if you let your ghosts kill the people around you, you will spend your life surrounded by ghosts.

Monday, September 17, 2012

The Ship Made Of Broken Parts Can Still Go Anywhere

You only fix the things you feel deserve to be fixed, as if you're a special kind of person who doesn't deserve to sort their own life out because of who they are. Like your brokenness is a symptom of being you.

"I can let that wait, I don't need to do this because I don't deserve to have it done. My life is always only ever incomplete."

And yet, no one deserves the full benefit of being you, more than you.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

The Past Keeps Going Away

After you're gone, people will forget your name, no matter how important it was, and your face, no matter how pretty it was, and what you said, no matter how clever any of it sounded.

The things you've done will crumble and fade and the places you once loved, will change and be given new names.


You are only here for one moment and it lasts exactly one lifetime.

Monday, September 10, 2012

The Child With The Invisible Head

And what still shocks me, is how often the thing that hurts you, looks like the thing that helps you.

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Ships Pass As Swans

If you ever find yourself looking at the person next to you and wondering if you can do better, leave.

Because they can definitely do better than you.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Peace I Won When I Stopped Fighting

I'm sorry, but no gun can frighten me and no word can hurt me. No wave can knock me over and no rain can slow me. No night can tire me and no fire can burn me.

Because I have found the strength to do the things I believe in, and the will to stop doing the things I don't believe in.

So I have discovered what it means, to be at peace.

And you, my friend, will never find a big enough gun.

Monday, September 3, 2012

The Heart Can Not Be Discounted

If they put you back on the shelf, in exchange for someone else, don't worry.

Someone better's coming along.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Away

I'm going to Greece for two weeks for a friend's wedding and a bit of a break. The first draft of Intentional Dissonance, my new novel, is at the editor and I'll be finishing up editing the text-version of I Wrote This For You soon.

Here is the prologue to the new novel. You can find a snippet from Chapter 3 on facebook and tumblr.

I'll miss you.

___________


Intentional Dissonance

A Book About Falling. 

The End 

You have read this all before and you will again. Do you think you're in the bookshop now, just browsing? Are you in front of your computer, previewing the first few pages? Or is this a well-thumbed tattered old thing that lives next to your bed? Am I sleeping, lost and forgotten at the back of a bookshelf? No matter. You have read this all before and you will again. Have you ever stopped and wondered if, really, you're just living the same few seconds over and over again and you just don't know? You’d never know. Maybe you’ve been doing the same thing for 1000 years. Sometimes that happens. Like when you're reading and you get a thought stuck in your head and you find your eyes just glazing over the words and you have to go back and read the same thing again. No matter. You have read this all before and you will again.

 You have read this before.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Reason They Don't Listen

There's no beauty in your truth because there's no truth in your beauty.

Monday, August 13, 2012

The Limited Opportunity

There are only so many of us born at a time and we are thrown into the world to find each other, to find the other ones who don't think you're strange, who understand your jokes, your smile, the way you talk.

There are only so many of us born at a time and we only have so long to find each other before we die.

But we have to try.

Monday, August 6, 2012

The Last Land I Stood On

And my fingers are ships sailing on your skin, slowly drifting and hoping against hope that they fall off the edge of the earth.

And your heart is nothing but the gravity pulling me towards you.

Monday, July 30, 2012

The First Day On Earth

First, you need to relax. I know it's not as warm as it once was but you get used to the cold and warmth can be found in the people around you. Secondly, do not get used to crying to get things. Some people never grow out of it. Avoid them. Spend time around people who smile in the face of despair. Learn from them all you can. Everyone is a lesson. A story. A unique and wondrous perspective on the chaos that is human existence. The more people you talk to, the more you understand it. But never speak if you have the opportunity to listen. Especially if you want someone to like you. There's nothing you can say that'll endear someone to you as much as really and truly listening to them. You are on day one of a sometimes remarkable, sometimes terrible, sometimes beautiful, strange and always completely unknown journey. Be ok with this. Worrying about what happens next will ruin the surprise. You will meet strange people along the way, some good, some bad. This is a pattern that will more than likely repeat constantly as you grow up. Some things will be good, some things will be bad. Neither will ever last forever. Nothing will stay the same. Appreciate every moment of happiness and remember it when you despair. Hold them close. And when you are happy, remember the moments of despair and think to yourself, "I told you so." Never let someone else define you. You are your own creation and only you decide how you feel, who you are and what you want. This can be scary at first but it is liberating to truly and utterly embrace your own identity. People who hate you for not being like them are not worth hating back. Please, let go of hate whenever you can. Accept love whenever it is given and give it out freely. It is the most powerful force on earth.

Enjoy your stay.

For my niece, C.R.T.W. Welcome. I love you without ever having known you. 

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The Colours Of Stolen Sleep


Now I'm awake and you're here. 
Now I'm dreaming and you're here. 
Now I have nothing but days.

Never nights.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Purpose Of Love

When I don't know how I'm supposed to feel, you're the only person that can remind me.

Monday, July 23, 2012

The Dearly Discarded


Late at night, when your brain is tired of thinking of everything else, you will find me there. You cannot throw me far enough away.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

The Train Hit Me And I Didn't Feel It

You shouldn't fall asleep on your heart. It'll go numb.

Friday, July 13, 2012

The Desire To Live Underwater Forever

If I breathe you in and you breathe me out, I swear we can breathe forever. I swear I'll find summer in your winter and spring in your autumn and always, hands at the ends of your fingers, arms at the ends of your shoulders and I swear, when we run out of forever, when we run out of air, your name will be the last word that my lungs make air for.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Things Which Aren't Love

Your salary is not love and your word is not love. Your clothes are not love and holding hands is not love. Sex is not love and a kiss is not love. Long letters are not love and a text is not love. Flowers are not love and a box of chocolates is not love. Sunsets are not love and photographs are not love. The stars are not love and a beach under the moonlight is not love. The smell of someone else on your pillow is not love and the feeling of their skin touching your skin is not love. Heart-shaped candy is not love and an overseas holiday is not love. The truth is not love and winning an argument is not love. Warm coffee isn't love and cheap cards bought from stores are not love.  Tears are not love and laughter is not love. A head on a shoulder is not love and messages written at the front of books given as gifts are not love. Apathy is not love and numbness is not love. A pain in your chest is not love and clenching your fist is not love. Rain is not love.

Only you. Only you, are love.