Tuesday 26 April 2016

How I became a best-selling author

Yes, it took me by surprise too; one of the perks of occasionally writing in Welsh, I guess.

'Coed Y Brenin' is a book I wrote a while ago, for Welsh learners. I'd never published it until 2016 as I wasn't happy with the format. It was originally Welsh and English side-by-side, but I thought that people were in danger of becoming a little lazy.

Anyhow, the book seemed to fill a need, as ten days or so after release it found itself at the top of the Amazon UK Welsh-language e-books chart.

Croeso i Aberarthur, pentref bach cysglyd yn y De. 
Mae llawer o bobl yn byw yma, ac mae stori gyda phob un. Credwch chi fi.

Welcome to Aberarthur, a small sleepy village in the South. Lots of people live here, and each has a story. Believe you me.

Apparently Aberarthur is a fictional village, in that it exists only in my mind. The funny thing is that as you read this book it will exist in your mind too, but entirely through the medium of Welsh.

Friday 22 April 2016

Where does the future go to die?

The future is an unwritten country. I think that's what Timmy Flux said on the Deadpan Channel last night.

Me, I've got a ton of unfinished business to trifle with and a collection of papers to rifle through which claim to be my diary. Like they say, if you can even remember there was a Tranquil Generation you are almost certainly confused. Even way back then, in the Endless Summer of Tomorrow.

So where does the future go to die? And how come there are people in my diary who I've never even met, at least that's what they tell me.

I write this from my cell in Amnesia Towers, where the guards are very kind, on the third Tuesday of each month. There's a shadow on my window, and an echo of a daydream on the radio; Tom Thugg and the Violets sing a golfing melody like they always did, even way back then. When?

If a tree falls in a barbershop and there's no-one there to plant it, does it really rain on the moon? And just what is the sound of one hand scratching, and why do stars suddenly disappear, every time you walk by?

Donny Moonshot, April 2016