A Very Jaded Geordie

Joey Barton is a plank. And no, he hasn’t been out following the latest internet craze of ‘planking’.

Instead he’s been publicly airing the dirty laundry of his employers, Newcastle United, while venting every frustration that pops into his head on the latest forum for rattled Premiership footballers, Twitter. The result? He’s been transfer listed and the club are so fed up of him they’re willing to ship him down south for absolutely bugger all - whether Wenger or Rednapp, his most likely employers, can sort him out is anyone's guess.

You can’t blame Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias for getting bored of his antics and putting their foot down yet because of their no statement policy and Barton’s polar opposite stance to speaking his mind, Barton has managed to gain the support of the notoriously fickle Geordie nation despite the fact he is walking out on the club he is ‘desperate to play for’.

Joey Barton is, frankly, an evil genius. By venting his anger publicly, he has taken advantage of Newcastle’s silence to cast them in a negative light and engineer himself a move away from St. James’ Park with the fans’ backing. Tevez and Fabregas take note because this is how it’s done.

Newcastle offered Barton a new contract earlier this year. A three year deal including a pay cut. Barton’s agent came out today and stated this was turned down because they wanted four years and absolutely refused to take a pay cut. Hey, Joey, if you’re so desperate to stay at the club what’s the harm in three years and a cut from your sixty thousand pound a week cheque?

I’m a fan of Joey Barton, at least, I was a fan until he signed up to Twitter. He looked to be getting himself on track both professionally and personally but alas it turns out he is still the same spoilt, petulant footballer living in a fantasy world of his own that was convicted and sentenced for assault. Good riddance, I say.

Anyhow, the Premiership was fun while it lasted, right?

Newcastle for nPower Championship winners 2012/13.

Flawed

(WARNING: Blog does include minor Doctor Who spoilers from the recent episodes.)

Anyone that has ever written fiction will understand this next statement and all the frustration that comes with it – creating a believable, witty yet flawed character that your reader can sympathize with is one of the hardest tasks you will ever have to undertake.

For all intents and purposes we are talking about creating another human being using aspects from people we know, people we don’t and people we wish we did. It is natural for an author to want their character to be funny, intelligent, beautiful, honest and dependable. In short, we want them to be perfect so we can let them be the shoulder to cry on or the knight in shining armor.

The point is though, people will cheer for your character for a time if they are so splendid they can do no wrong but what you’re then missing is a character arc and the developments that ensure people remember them.

Take, for example, Doctor Who. The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant) was witty, intelligent, handsome and he was full of rage. That rage was a plot device in many episodes and quelled many foe. “I am the Doctor, fear me.” Ring any bells? Tennant’s Doctor became a Deus Ex Machina and when your lead character hits that point, there are very few places you can take the story.

Unless your character is Doctor Who, then you kill the sod off and reinvent him. This is exactly what Steven Moffat has done since taking the reins of the prime time BBC drama series. The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) no longer believes in himself and long in the future even the human race is making war against him. He is weak, he is susceptible and we have seen his death.

The deep lying doubt beneath the façade of the indestructible Time Lord gives doubt not only to the character but the viewer. Will the Doctor truly die? Can he handle anymore heartache? Can he bear the weight of destruction upon his shoulders much longer? We don’t the answers but I guarantee people will be tuning in this autumn to find out when the series returns. And do you know why? Because the character is flawed and he might just fail this time. That is something we have Steven Moffat to thank for and thank him we should.

I could easily sit here and write a story about a young man who faced a dozen different troubles and overcame them all. Broke through the adversity and became a great man. But where is the fun in that? What people want to read is about a character that faced those same obstacles and didn’t overcome them all. A heroin addiction he couldn’t shake despite having a family to care for, the grief of losing his closest friend that consumes him and his life crumbles apart around him.

Your character needs to fall before they can rise again. If you want the ‘perfect’ character, make them flawed. Make them arrogant or ugly, make them a coward or stupid. Give them adversity that their flaw means they can’t face head on. Break them to make them stronger.

Wasting my Breath (finger strokes?!)

So I totally started my new job this week, bro. It's freakin' sweet. I'm riding on a wave of serenity and there is no putting a downer on my vibe, man.

No, I don't know what I mean by this either. In all seriousness though, I genuinely did start my new job this week and it's a breath of fresh air after the constricting world of micro-management that disguises itself as the pride of British advertising or Yell, which ever you prefer. I have the freedom to do what needs to be done without this hovering shadow whispering in my ear about targets and typos.

Which brings me to a point which I reckon is a good one for the blog. And it's another anti-Yell point I'm afraid. I don't hate Yell - I don't have much time for hate in my life, it's rather boring - but they do get on my tits at times and frankly, I'd rather they didn't.

Essentially we were expected to write perfect copy every time we wrote anything. No typos, no spelling mistakes, no mistructured sentences. We would pass on the copy to QA and if I had a 'blonde'* moment by typing 'there' instead of 'their', or some such bollocks, that copy would come hurtling back at me with the splendid word 'FAIL' attached to it - yes, some people even used capitals to really get across the point, most of us were 'mainprized' at some point - and I'd have to correct a minor mistake, taking away my prescious bloody time and wasting it. And my time was prescious, I had targets to meet dammit!

I don't claim to be an expert about the publishing world or the editing process. I do know, however, that an editor is responsible for making sure the work is appropiate for the market upon publication. Sure, the QA teams weren't editors but they had the same general principle.

This comes back to a point I made in my last blog about the vast majority of the management not being writers. They can't comprehend that writers make mistakes all the bloody time. Even after proofing the text one more time than the clinically sane really should. Point me to any publication without one spelling mistake in it and I'll point you towards an eskimo wearing a bikini - it just ain't hapenning. (Writer's note: According to Google spell check, 'ain't' is really a word. It's not a spelling mistake and for some reason, this makes me sad.)

I'm going to try and steer myself away from down talking Yell so much in the future. I won't be speaking highly of them but I won't waste valuable time of my own writing about them. Some things I had to say because they ran my life for a long time and drained it of any pleasure for eight hours a day. But fuck me, I'm free now and that's something to celebrate.

So next blog, expect talk about me being a proper silly bastard and how a 'new' car however old is always exciting (and I don't even like cars that much!)

G.

*I mean no disrespect towards the blondes of the world. It's an expression, promise!

Breaking the Shackles

One follower? Holy shit balls, someone likes me! ... Wait, hang on, quell the excitement ... it's only me. Yes, I followed myself.

So I'm leaving my current job with the devil tomorrow and I genuinely can't wait to get the hell away from here. Granted there's no eternal agony, fiery brimstone or big red naked dudes with pitchforks but it has been a soul destroying experience none the less. Okay, fine, that's going too far again but it drained my passion for writing to its very depths and I've only recently recovered from that. I reckon it's the knowledge that from 4:30pm I'm free that helps. Weight of the world off my shoulders and all of that. Splendid (great word, you'll notice I use it a lot).

Let me explain a little bit. Eight months ago I applied from a job titled 'Creative Writer' and to be fair that should have set the alarms bells ringing immediately. I mean who actually advertises real writing roles like that? I'll tell you who; no one. Yell, however, have no problem bending the truth.

As you've probably surmised I got the job. And I enjoyed it for a week, maybe two? The problem here is Yell promote their websites as a fully bespoke customer driven product yet we work to templates, we directly tell the customer that our way is better than theirs down to the finest, irrelevant details (if they want a picture of a pretty pony, by Gawd, let them have one!) and essentially give most of our customers a rather undignified 'fuck you, we're doing it our way' with each website. Not very bespoke.

The management are on us constantly about hitting targets, targets that just aren't feasible. I understand you get this is every job but Yell are incredibly talented at being dicks about it. It dawned on me long ago that our managers don't truly understand what it takes to create fully optimised, bespoke content for a 6+ page website. They aren't writers and that is there first major failing.

I'm not here to complain though. Well, not really. I'll do my fair share of complaining but it's not my primary reason for blogging. It's just a rather nice side benefit because frankly I love a good whine. Actually, now that I've got this far I've realised that I really did come here to complain.

Good riddance, Yell.

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs

Okay, so I have never even thought about how to go about running a blog. There's a few reasons for that and guess I'll list them for you, simply because lists are cool and appeasing to the eyes of fickle internet readers such as ourselves.

1. I don't expect many people will read it. Call it self-deprecation but why would a complete stranger care about my opinion? It's not a professional opinion, that's for sure.
2. Until recently I haven't had much reason to want to bring anything to anyone's attention. Nothing I wanted to scream out from the roof tops. Saying that, can we make an effort to replace that saying to 'blog about on the internet'? It's obviously a much more effective and common place method of letting your feelings be known in today's social media obsessed world. Really, who shouts from the roof tops any more?
3. I was too lazy.
4. I didn't know how to use the internet to promote such a thing. Thanks to the devil (and by the devil I mean Yell) I now understand the concepts of SEO, social media marketing and various other techniques to try get myself noticed. And if anyone with their own blog says they're not doing this to get noticed, do them a favour and call them on their bullshit.

Anyway, thanks to seeing various friends succeeding on a pretty decent level (howlblog.co.uk - check these guys out, unique writers and a very talented editor), I decided to have a pop at blogging for myself. I've written a blog or two for HOWL but this is simply here to discuss whatever the hell is bounding around the fringes of my mind. That means music, sports, love, life and wrestling (yes, wrestling!).

Oh, my name's Greg and it is bloody splendid to meet you.