Hi, busy right now doing the new edition of DANNY Volume 1 for the US. All the books are having their covers redesigned to match, and that includes Volume 3/1, and 3/2 which I hope to have out this year, in time for your Christmas presents. Not sure if I’ll get both done – it’s 1,494 pages in total – but I’m going to do my level best. I want all four books out by 2011 so that I can move on and write something/s new – you know, conventional-sized books that will earn me (more) money.

So, with all this activity in place I have no time for blogging. I’ve decided therefore, to give you all a longer piece of work to get your collective teeth into. I have three that I’m happy to give away. One (Satyricon), because it’s old and underdeveloped, and though I love it, I can’t see me ever beefing it up in order to publish it. And the other two are both looooong fragments.

In order, we have:

1 – SATYRICON: This is a magic realist(ish) novella written in the late 1990’s or 2000 (after DANNY, in other words). It’s sexually explicit, a reworking of Greek myth, set in a London department store and has a terrific hero. It’s complete and is 63 pages long.

2 – DELANEY: This was written some time after DANNY too, but is a proper fully-fledged novel running to 182 pages, which is bigger than many people’s finished novels but, for me, is just warming up. This one IS NOT FINISHED, so be warned. It’s about a working class lad who gets ‘adopted’ by a choreographer as his pet project to dance Nijinsky’s most famous role. The boy is not a trained dancer and it’s about his ‘otherness’ and how he fits in – and doesn’t – with the rest of the troupe and, more specifically, with his Svengali. Not sexually explicit, as I recall, but erotic(ish) and a little gay(ish).

3 – DEATH IN VENICE: This was a plot line/idea I ran with for quite a long while (131 pages – again, as long as some people’s ‘full-length’ novels) for DANNY, using a character from Volume 3. It isn’t a spoiler for the ‘real’ DANNY books (I hope) because it’s working from a completely different history for them so it bears no resemblance to the ‘real’ story. I’ve always liked it (that’s why I wrote so much of it, after all), chiefly because I like Alun Waits, the blind hero, and one of Danny’s so far unseen victims. This is the one I’m least inclined to publish, although I don’t know why. I think possibly because you would all enjoy it more if you’d read 3 and met Alun. But it’s your choice. Unless, of course it does prove to be full of spoilers and I have to stop…

So that’s what’s available. Tell me which you want to read. Bear in mind that two of them, although long enough to keep you entertained for months, and me free to work, are not finished. Satyricon, although finished, rushes towards the middle/end, and may leave you more unsatisfied, although it is packed with great characters and a fab (if mystifying) plot.

To help you decide I’m going to give you the opening page(s) of each.

If you don’t decide, I will either pick the one I want myself, or I’ll give you nothing at all and you can do without any fucking blogs. That’s just how bolshie I can get. I am a woman determined to get my work out and circulating this year so pick if you don’t want to be left high and dry (just leave your I,2,3, in order of preference, in the comments).

Some news – rather a lot of news, actually, you can tell I’ve been out of the loop – Max’s new book is out: Max Shares His Artistic Wisdom A New Way. Perfect if you need to self-promote your work. We use postcards all the time; they go in all our mail, book orders, Amazon seller sales, into libraries, shops and restaurants, and are used for special promotions every Christmas, so if you want to be as big and brash as we are, now’s your chance. You can get it from Amazon (above) in a few days, or from us straight away here: BUY FROM US – IT’S CHEAPER!

Max’s other book, Chucking It All, has been voted Best Travel Book of 2009 by WorldHum: “You have to love the concept, as well as Scratchmann’s cojones for skewering a narrative that is getting more and more tired”. Sales are doing very well on both sides of the Atlantic, but we’re pushing it further and harder. Tell your friends to buy a copy today!

You can now share Poison Pixie’s website on Facebook and Twitter. Just visit the site and you’ll find the share buttons. Please use these to send to friends and foes who you think ought to read any, and all, of Pixie’s books. You can start straight away by using it to tell them Danny V1 is available at HALF-PRICE right now, right here: ONLY £8.49? AMAZING!

Obviously, DANNY Volume 3 will be out this year, in an all new (not that there’s an old!) cover design, and DANNY V1 will finally be available in the US, so we can finally start promoting it more heavily on websites. Look out Romance Bloglandia!

DANNY now officially has celebrity fans: one film director and one actor. Unfortunately I can’t tell you who they are, but we’ve finally hooked a couple, and they are ‘proper famous’, none of your B movie types here. If they ever come out the closet and admit their fandom to anyone other than me, I’ll be sure to plaster it all over here and all over my books. You can set your watch by that…

Cult Fiction is due to be withdrawn in March this year, but we have made it available for free download here, on this lovely swanky site. I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M GETTING THIS MUCH FUN FOR NOTHING!
So if you have any friends, or foes, who you think might like to see this/will be terribly offended by it, please feel free to lavish them with links.

Volume 2, dog edition, has now been removed from our inventory so it is no longer available, except for the five copies we have in physical stock. If you want one you can get it at the Poison Pixie website right here: Awww, the last of the doggies… I might even sign it if you ask really really nicely. We’ll probably sell them as Amazon sellers in due course or put them on e-bay, or both, so be aware, as soon as they’ve gone, they’ve gone. The interior of this one is my favourite of the two editions, although I like the Personal Jesus cover best.

We will be building new, better, more stylish web sites this coming year, to match the DANNY refit, so look out for that.

Lastly, Max is bringing out “a book of me (his) pomes” so he has started a blog where you can read them for now’t. They’re very funny (and rather literary-rude) so check ‘em out here: It’s Art, Jim, but not as we know it…
I get a new one of these written for me every night. Isn’t that sweet?

And that’s it, I think.

So here’s your first pages. Get voting………………

P.S. VERY IMPORTANT – with the exception of Satyricon (and it’s more tidied than edited), none of these works is edited. I mean, NOT AT ALL. Remember, none of them were intended for publication, so, please, be tolerant of bad punctuation, mistakes and the odd annoyance. Also be prepared for words/phrases in brackets and odd notes to show up; nothing’s been done to these pieces, so there’s alternatives and ‘memos to me’ all over them. You know this is not polished writing, right? A little charity and tolerance please, after all, it’s free…

Satyricon was a pen name, of sorts. A nickname if you will. He had been given the name at school, but not by his peers. In fact, he had given himself the name one day whilst playing truant. He was fourteen years old and bored with idling around the shops in the dead of winter. He had seen the name on a fruit box, grapes as it so happened, liked its crude little logo, and had named himself on the spot it had simply felt right.

He had not previously had a nickname for the simple reason that no one would dare. They had their private nicknames for him of course; Weirdie, The Creep, which they used behind his back, but never to his face. Perhaps he felt that the possessing of a nickname would popularise him, make him more acceptable, gain him friends and influence people. Even as he moved away from the shop, turning his collar up against the wind, he’d been smiling at the notion.

There were lots of things that alienated him from his peers, not least of which was the way he looked. Tall, dark and possessed of odd vacuous blue eyes, one piercing, one with a caul; a milky white dead thing, tissuey, transparent, still eerily showing the blue beneath, as if you could tear it away, like some wilful obscuring and have a perfectly good eye beneath. But you couldn’t, the eye was dead, completely unseeing. And yet the feeling persisted when he looked at you that he was seeing you with that eye, seeing you better.

The blind eye was on his left side and everything on that side seemed to follow its perverse direction. The brow that grew above it was sleeker, fuller, darker. The musculature of his left arm was heavier, more defined. His mouth turned up the tiniest flick at that side, giving him a look too old for his years, too knowing, like he understood things about you he shouldn’t and that you didn’t. His left foot dragged slightly when he walked giving him a slightly loping look. In fact, there was something vaguely wolverine about him altogether, like some human caught mid change on a moonlit night, some Jekyll and Hyde eternally frozen in the sweep between good and evil. And all this at fourteen, what then was he like at twenty five?

Scary.

That was the verdict at Smith & Wainright, manufacturer of fine fabrics to the Queen. It was something of a mystery to the staff how he had got a job there at all looking, as he did, so obviously deformed. It was almost a disappointment to them when it was discovered he was in window dressing, not sales at all.

“Still, he’s kind of sexy.”

“Ooh, yuk, you’re joking. He’s disgusting.”
The consensus was general after this brief exchange that he was indeed disgusting, and imagine having to sleep with him. As the remarks got deeper, and the revulsion more furtively shivery, the subtle nuance of pleasurable fear could not escape even Percy Nugent, no matter how hard he tried.

Percy Nugent had had a nickname at school, not self chosen. Fatty. There it stood in all its glory. Not original, not glamorous and requiring all of two seconds to think up which just about summed Percy up. At nineteen he was still fat and unglamorous. It was plain to see he had not come on far.

“I saw him in the gym, John – where I find all my best material.”

Aubrey laughed and picked up another grape. He winked at John across the table. “Don’t trust him, Jonathan. It will be some poor white trash he’s cruising.”

Paul turned to him. “I’m telling you seriously, Aubrey, this boy was perfect – (even) built just like him.”

“What? A stocky little peasant with over-developed thighs?”

“It’s what he was.” Jonathan Delmore said reasonably. He picked up the decanter and topped up his glass, tilting his head at the other two in offering. Aubrey put his hand over his glass, Paul shook his head. Aubrey took his hand away and took a sip. “Anyway, Paul, be intelligent. Can the boy even dance?”

“I should very much doubt it – I’d think he’d think it a dirty word. But that’s what Jonathan wants, isn’t it?” He looked at him.

Jonathan smiled. “Let’s not get too literal, Paul. That was said in temper.”

Aubrey threw his head back. “And what a temper. Exquisite boy,” he laughed.

Jonathan Delmore pulled a long-suffering face.

Aubrey sat forward abruptly and clasped his hand. “Marry me, John. Life would never be boring.”

Jonathan pulled his hand away with a jerk, trying to cover (his distaste) the betraying movement with a smile.

Aubrey slapped a palm on the table. “See? He hates it. I’ll never win him, never. I’m going to drink myself to death,” and he drained his glass.

Paul gave him a withering look. “Always the Prima Donna.” He looked at Delmore again. “I’m serious, John, the boy’s a natural.

“Oh come on, Paul. There’s no such thing.”

“No, seriously. I think you were right. You do need a completely untrained dancer.”

“There are limits, Paul. Untrained is one thing, but he still has to be able to make certain movements.”

“He could do it.”

“Now how the hell do you know that?”

“I told you, he was in a karate class…”

Aubrey snorted. Paul ignored him, went on, “He could leap like a monkey. I swear he hovered up there.”

“Oooh.” Aubrey gave a moué of sarcasm. “Word for word.”

“Shut up, Aubrey,” Paul snapped.

Aubrey lifted his eyebrows. “Sorry, I’m sure.”

Paul turned back to John. “At least come and see him.”

John shook his head, a faint smile on his mouth. “I have my sponsors to consider, Paul, can’t be done. They’d have a fit if we cast/used a nobody.”

“Then use somebodies for the nymphs. God knows there are enough somebodies that would be glad to do it. Anyway, think of the publicity. See the big picture, for God’s sake, John.”

“No. Sorry, Paul, I appreciate the effort.”

Aubrey reached over for a peppermint and said, ” And Has he Vaslav’s tastes too, as well as his charms/demeanour?”

Paul looked at him and said dryly, “In what?”

Aubrey gave his famous leer. “Is he ripe pickings for our Svengali here, our Diaghilev?”

“I didn’t ask, Aubrey. No, I’d say.”

“Won’t do then, must have authenticity.”

“Nijinsky wasn’t gay, Aubrey, and you know it.”

“We know nothing, Paul, sweetheart.”

Paul made a face. Jonathan, hastening/keen to (avoid) an avert yet another argument on Nijinsky’s sexual preferences said quickly, “I’d thought of Christopher Lambert.”

Both of them looked at him. “He’s too fragile (John),” Paul said.

“And he (can’t jump) jumps like he’s afraid for his ankles.” Aubrey helped himself to another mint.

“It’s not exactly a balletic role, Aubrey,” John said dryly.

Aubrey pulled another face, said nothing.

Paul said, “André Delacroix?”

Jonathan shook his head. “He’s too ‘danseur noble.’ Anyway, he looks like a faggot.”

Aubrey gave a small shriek, pointing at him. “He said it, he said it, you heard him. Homophobe.”

Paul laughed, watched Jonathan colour up slightly. He said softly, “Tsk tsk.”

Jonathan coloured a little more and lifted a pacifying hand. “I meant it in the nicest way.”

Aubrey spluttered disbelief.

“Well, come on, there isn’t any point in doing the Faune if he looks like he’d rather chase other fauns, is there?”

“The boy’s an actor, dear,” Aubrey said.

“No, he isn’t, that’s the problem.”

Paul laughed then said, “Okay, so how about that little Spanish boy, what’s his name?”

“Aranjiez?”

“That’s him.”

Jonathan shook his head. “He’s working in Berlin, some new operatic thing. I’ve already asked him.”

Paul clucked. There was a silence then the large cloisonné clock on the mantel chimed. Aubrey said, “My God, is that the time? I’ve got to rush, darlings, miss my train.”

Paul said, “All the money in Egypt and he won’t buy a car.”

“Can’t be doing, sweetheart, just can’t.” He grinned evilly. “Anyway, I hope some big black boy will rape me one night.”

“You should be so lucky.” Paul’s face was derisory. He got up, saying, “I’ve got to go too, John. Been a long night.”

“Gorgeous meal, Jonathan, give my regards/compliments to Amy.”

Jonathan smiled and got up to see them out.

Aubrey went first in a swoop of the large ridiculous coat he wore, his hat pulled down rakishly over one eye. He looked like a painter from a 1930’s detective novel(’s idea of a painter.)

Paul stood with him in the silence of the hall. It seemed almost deserted without Aubrey’s (bulk) bulky perpetual motion. He pulled his kid gloves on, easing them into the spaces between his fingers. Jonathan stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing into space. Paul watched him for a while then said in a soft voice, “You really are a waste, John.”

Jonathan looked at him, startled, then laughed, colouring up again.

Paul smiled and patted the top of his arm. “If you ever change your mind…”

John grinned, it was an old joke.
Paul opened the door, said goodnight and was gone.

Venice in the winter. Cold, bleak. One of the 17 million who pass through each year, but only half that who stay there longer, and certainly one of the few wealthy enough to stay there indefinitely.

But in the winter?

No.

A decaying indulgence for the rich and eccentric. Usually both.

The boy was only one. He wasn’t even really a boy. He was 19 years old, almost 20, but he walked like an old man, heavily, leaning on the only eccentric thing about him, an ornate carved Austrian cane.

And perhaps the dark glasses. Perhaps they too were a little eccentric.

“You should see the pigeons here. It is a pigeon, isn’t it?”

The boy laughed. His tan was dark and strong, his hair almost white-blonde. His teeth were very white, his accent very American. “You don’t sound too sure, baby.”

His wife looked at him. “Baby?” Not his word, his style, his family.

His smile faded oddly. He turned his head as if he were looking out over the piazza. “Now there’s a hell of a thing,” he said.

His wife watched him, waited. “What?” she asked when he said nothing else.

He shrugged the heavy squared shoulders of his cashmere coat – part of his trousseau. She’d bought him one as a joke, right down to white silk pyjamas, as if he’d been the bride.

“I’d forgotten that.”

She made an exasperated noise. “What?” She was surprised to hear the irritation in her own voice. This place was getting to her, with its damn sea fogs and unexpected bursts of snow and sleet. Not California, and frankly she didn’t care for it. But Alun had wanted to come here, and come they did.

“Nothing.” He was still looking out over the square.

“What other dark secrets do you have tucked away in there?”

He smiled suddenly. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She studied his face, so healthy on this dismal grey day. “I don’t think I would, not today. Come on, let’s go get some lunch.”

She got up and waited for him to climb carefully to his feet. He did it steadily enough, just stiffly. She took his arm, they moved away.

The pigeons watched them for a brief space then began pecking the ground.

The restaurant was busy, full of locals. They had stumbled on it in the best tradition of all the ‘little private places’ of romantic books. It was only right they should on a honeymoon, just unlikely. But nevertheless…

They had the privilege of being treated as regulars, with everything it entailed, from forthright questions, to accepting the meal of the day without being asked. It was a triumph of will over Americanism that they managed it.

Alun shrugged out his coat.

Ann watched him, marvelling again at just how beautiful he was, marvelling again at her good luck. Beautiful, sensitive – she hated the word but it was true – and enough anger and pain in him to give him an edge.

Sex with him wasn’t great but getting better. He was too hung up, inhibited. Oddly, she felt that coming here, to Venice, had made it worse again. He’d seemed more relaxed in California. But she couldn’t talk to him about it. He was so sensitive about his ‘performance’ that she knew any discussion of it was out of the question until he trusted her more. Especially as it wasn’t his ‘performance’ as such that was wrong. Just him. Too tense and miserable. Too self-loathing. All those times with egoed-out guys she’d wished to Hell and now here she was desperately wishing her man would get a little. She fed him all the compliments she could, but it was like throwing stones down a deep well: you didn’t even hear it drop.

She looked up at him as their meal arrived. He was listening to the conversation around him. He often did. Italian or no, it didn’t seem to matter. He’d even picked up a smattering already. She teased him about it but she envied him a little.

When she’d betrayed her pique he’d flattened her by saying, “Yeah, but look at the price I’ve paid for it,” and his milky blue eyes had seemed to see her for an instant and she felt an inch tall.

Now she kept her petty jealousies to herself.

She began to talk to him about the church they’d visited that morning, distracting him from his idle eavesdropping. He was immediately attentive, arguing with her over every petty disagreement. Life, at any rate, wasn’t going to be boring.

She was three years older than him, but he felt older than her. He always had. She’d met him at a Swiss ski resort with his family. She’d been with a group of girlfriends. She’d been to school in Switzerland. Just as he had. He’d easily been the best-looking boy there. What he hadn’t been, was easy to catch. He’d been almost impossibly shy. But both families had helped. They’d wanted the match. Her father had voiced some misgivings about his disabilities, but that was all. He’d liked Alun and had given in gracefully. Her parents had never been able to say no to her. Not and mean it.

They were wealthy. As only children they were going to be a hell of a lot wealthier when their parents died. But they didn’t need it. She planned to open a store when she got back to California. Alun said he didn’t plan to do anything, he was going to be a gentleman of leisure. She wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, and she didn’t care.

They’d fallen silent again. She finished dessert before him. He was a picky eater. She sat watching him slowly eating the cassata. He seemed to be concentrating on it intently. She found this intriguing. Sometimes it was almost as if he’d been here before, was reliving something. She asked him after the first week they’d arrived and he’d said, “No, I’ve never been. I heard a lot about it, I’ve always wanted to come. I told you.”

She accepted it. Assumably he was taking in the actuality of things he’d heard and read. The difference in his senses confused her a little, almost like he saw things differently from sighted people. It had taken her a while to realise that he did. He saw with his mouth, his hands, his ears.

She watched him with a new interest. She saw him become suddenly still, spoon arrested, head held in that odd way, as if he were listening again.

“What is it?” she asked curiously.

He held the pose a second or two longer then shook his head. “Nothing… I thought I…” He shook his head again, smiled. “Nothing. I’m getting spaced out in this place. I thought I heard someone talking in English.”

She scanned the restaurant. She looked back at him. “We’re the only Americans here.”

He nodded, pushed his plate away, unfinished.

She almost asked him if she could finish it, but she didn’t. She was eating too much. Her mother had warned her about contentment eating. She’d put on 7lbs when she’d married Ann’s father.

Coffee came for them. The restaurant had grown busier in the time since they’d arrived. There were no empty seats.

“I thought maybe we’d go to X today. I don’t know about you, but if I see one more holy relic.” She looked up at him. “Alun, it can’t be that interesting.”

He wasn’t listening to her. “What? Sorry, I didn’t catch.”

She made a small moué of annoyance, but before she could say anything she saw he was listening again, head obviously cocked. “Alun, what is it?”

“I’m sure I can hear someone talking in English.”

“Well you can’t.”

He shook his head, obviously straining to hear.

She looked over his shoulder. The restaurant was divided with pillars, plants between them. She could see no-one who looked remotely American. She looked back at him. “Maybe it’s an Italian.”

“No. No accent. It’s English,” he said suddenly, with an odd nervousness, head jerking away. “There’s no-one with red hair here, is there?”

She looked at him, saw his skin was darkened a little, embarrassed.

She let her eyes flick round the room quickly, back to him. “No, there isn’t,” she said levelly.

He nodded. His hand, unerring, found his spoon and he stirred his coffee. She watched him, irritated. It would be cold by now.

She tried talking to him again but she could see he was only halfheartedly listening. His mind was elsewhere. She had a suspicion his ears were too. She gave up, sitting back and folding her arms petulantly.

Not for the first time, she appreciated how difficult it was to sulk with a blind man. He judged your silences, and if he wasn’t listening, as God knew Alun wasn’t, well you might as well go to Hell. You weren’t getting any place.

She sat there, mouth pursed, staring at the checked marble floor, seething a little. Alun didn’t notice, he was openly listening again.

She pushed up out her chair. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

He nodded indifferently.

She went.

Not yet discovered the wonder of The DANNY Quadrilogy? You can check out all the volumes currently in print at Poison Pixie where you can read an extract of Volume 1 for FREE! Or start your collection on Amazon here where you can also buy a ’sampler’, entitled CULT Fiction, containing an introduction to The DANNY Quadrilogy along with an excerpt from Volume 1, for only £2.99. But hurry, the sampler is being discontinued at the end of this year so you gotta move fast!

If you are a new fan who wants to know more about the background and history of DANNY, then visit The DANNY ‘Wikipedia’

You can also see me in person on my YouTube site (as well as DANNY’s various trailers and ads) here or you can see the same material on the Poison Pixie film site.

To subscribe to this blog, without divulging your email address, scroll down the page and you will find a button marked “Entries RSS” under Meta in the left hand sidebar. You can also sign up to follow comments here. Or you can simply post the following text into your RSS browser: http://www.chancery-is-god.com/?feed=rss2

Lastly, there is a DANNY Discussion Board run by fans, C Stone’s DANNY haphazardly hosted by Jodie. It’s haphazard because the poor soul never has anyone to talk to, so go along and pester her; she likes it. Don’t you want to belong to a really elite club?

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