Neurotic Literature

• The Perspex Vault

  It's a tough business, writing. All those hours, days, years even, of sweat and toil, writing and rewriting to turn out something heartfelt, original and possibly even brilliant, only to discover that you have merely completed the first leg of a far more arduous journey, one that will probably end with your finely wrought prose being discarded and read by nobody. Take this podcast, for instance. Blimmin' ages, it takes. The writing, the recording, the editing, the coming up with something pithy and enticing for the blurb (is this one succeeding? probably not). And for what? A handful of listeners, a few compliments, a modicum of attention in the ghastly vastness that is the world wide web. Mere crumbs, dear listeners - and you can't live on crumbs. (I am, by the way, most grateful for the listeners, the compliments and the attention. Do keep them coming.) Publication, though: that's the Holy Grail for many an author, and in this day and age it is not easily won. Still, if you have talent, if you're prepared to learn the market and perservere, if you can counter rejection with resilience, and keep making your writing stronger and more marketable, then you're in with a chance. That's what they say. But what if they're not telling you quite everything you need to know...? A story (as yet, unpublished) about the murky underworld of literature, and why you can't always trust your agent.

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• The New Member

  "You know what I reckon? They’re so up against it, right, with the state of the hospitals and underfunding and so on, that they don’t know who’s in for what. So they do everything on everyone to be on the safe side." You will, no doubt, have your own views on the state of the NHS and the reasons (calculated or otherwise) for its 14 years (coincidental or otherwise) of neglect and underfunding. Do feel free to bang some pots and pans on your doorstep if it makes you feel better, but whatever your political viewpoint, I think we can all agree that our health service has been through some rough times lately. Even so, there are some things one doesn't expect from a routine operation. But mistakes happen, don't they?

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• Rectangles

  Folklore tells of a town where everyone was a mathematician. Each person was an expert, whether in arithmetic, algebra, geometry or topology; thanks to this expertise, measurements were always very precisely measured, definitions very precisely defined and costs very precisely calculated.  Yet, as a mathematician called Simplex discovered, just because people think they've got everything worked out, doesn't mean they won't find themselves confronted by new ideas... A story about quadrilaterals, and the difference between knowledge and understanding.

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• The Ten Shameful Memories That Kill You

  Shame. Most of us experience it. A few of us are burdened with it in unusually (and, some would say, unfairly) high quantities. Whilst religious and political authorities have at times encouraged shame as a means of self-control (or, frankly, a way of ensuring that fun things feel less fun), these days it is generally felt that shame is a bad thing - that negative self-evaluation can stunt our ability to make progress, can be a motivation to quit, can cause pain, distrust, and feelings of worthlessness. But according to an obscure text by Edward J. Peng, the impact of shame is worse even than that. Much, much worse. A deep dive into Peng's theories opens up a world of startling implications for the way in which we ought to understand life and death itself. It suggests reasons for some of the deepest injustices in human society. But they also leave a lot of questions unanswered, and when one advocate for his work begins digging for answers, it leads to more horrifying possibilities than even Edward J. Peng could have imagined... A story about living with shame. And dying from it.

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• Let's Pretend

  It's a wonderful thing, a school. A place that allows you to learn, to be taught concepts that enable you to move beyond your experience, a place to develop skills and knowledge, and to grow as a person. But what is even more wonderful is a school where you are allowed to live as well. A school with your own bed, where you can go to sleep with your head full of learning, and wake up ready to carry on being educated. Every night a sleepover with your friends! The fun it must be. It is rather perplexing, then, when young Thomas Jenkins decides that he doesn't want to go back to his school, even though it promises all kinds of unbridled fun on his return. What are his parents supposed to make of such ingratitude? And even if for some bizarre reason he doesn't like his school, surely he could at least pretend that he does.....? A story about learning, playing, and the things that make grown-ups turn out so well.

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