The "R" word.

It was quite scary watching the news when I go home last night. Talk of recession on every bulletin, jobs cut left, right and centre, food and fuel prices sky high. And where's our glorious leader Brown? Over in japan tucking in to a lunch of dinner consisting of a whopping 19 courses! And telling us back home not to waste food at the same time.

I don't know, I really don't. This isn't meant to be a political blog - it really isn't - but it's hard not to pass comment of the state this country finds itself in at the moment, and this travesty that GB is making of the top job. I didn't like Tony Blair, anyone who knows me, knows that fact cause I don't exactly hide it, but you have to give the man credit for having style. I don't think we'd be any better off if he were still in charge, but I think we might feel a bit better about it, simply because he'd tell us that we did and he's so damn charming that most people would believe him.

When Brown ducked out of calling an early election last autumn, I was a bit pissed off cause I wanted shot of him - even though it was unlikely as labour were still ahead in the polls at the time. But now I'm glad he didn't, cause he's pretty much guaranteed us a change in government when the next election is called (2010 is the last date, I think - but don't quote me on that). And I genuinely think it will take a change in government - and the change in sentiment that goes with it, to turn things around.

So, all things considered, I'm feeling pretty bad about the state of things right now. I need some cheering up. So here's a piece of flash fiction that appeared at Ruthie's Club a couple of years back. It's not connected to this post in any way - but it might make you laugh, which is what counts in these troubled times.

Mark, Benny and Jim watched Steve and Julie at the bar. “Don’t know why he’s bothering. That girl’s a slapper,” said Mark.

“Easy shag,” said Jim.

Steve and Julie headed for the exit.

“Hey, Steve, you off to Lover’s Lane?” Mark called.

“I’m gonna show Julie my new sound system.”

“Yeah, right. A likely story.” Mark burst out laughing.

Two pints after Steve and Julie had left, the three friends were depressed. “Why does Steve always get the birds?” Jim asked.

“Must be his winning smile,” said Mark.

“Hey, I got an idea,” said Benny. “Let’s go ruin his lovin’.”

Lover’s Lane was a ten minute drunken stagger away. Steve’s Ford Escort was parked there. The lights were off and it rocked gently. They sneaked up to the car and peered inside. Julie’s legs were wrapped around Steve’s waist. His bare arse bounced energetically.

“Knock on the window,” Benny whispered.

“I ain’t. You do it,” said Jim.

“I’ll do it,” said Mark. He raised his fist to strike the window.

“‘Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello. What do we have ‘ere, then?”

Mark turned around. Touch light shone in his eyes.

“I caught me some doggers. Oh, the sarge is gonna love this.”

“Wait,” said Mark. “He’s our mate. It’s just a practical joke.”

“Course he is, Sonny-Jim.”

“Ask him.”

The copper knocked on the window. Steve looked around. Julie screamed and tried desperately to cover up.

“‘Scuse me, Sir. Miss. These perverts claim you know ‘em.”

Steve looked at his friends. Mark silently pleaded with him. Steve shook his head. “Nah. Never seen ‘em before in my life.”

“Thought as much. Right you three, you’re nicked. Come with me.” He marched them away. Steve turned his attention back to Julie, his arse thrusting even faster than before.

A scary thought

Did anyone see the show "Life after people" when it was broadcast earlier this year? (It was on C4 in the UK in May and on the History Channel in the States in January) It was, to my mind, a fascinating speculative exploration of what might happen if humans suddenly disappeared from the face of the planet.

It talked about how long it would take buildings to collapse, nature to take over again and what might happen to the wildlife.

But to me, the most interesting thing was in the section "100 Years after people." Here's a quote from the C4 microsite about the show.

Books will absorb moisture from the humid conditions inside fallen-down buildings. Mould spores will thrive and grow on the books. The Dead Sea Scrolls survived for 2000 years in an arid environment without the damaging effects of sunlight, but most books will degrade along will celluloid acetate film and DVDs and CDs. The whole visual record of the human race will be gone, apart from a few special cases.

How scary is that thought?  All the cultural evidence of our modern society could disappear after just one hundred years if we stopped reproducing it. In the past humans scratched art onto cave walls or chiseled it into marble tablets - and it survived for thousands of years. But paper, analogue and digital media would only last a tenth of that.

Shakespeare,, Hollywood, Harry Potter, Eastenders, Marc Nobbs - all gone. In the western world today, there are probably more people being creative and adding to the cultural wealth of our society than at any point in history - but it could all be for nothing. Surely it's about time that our wonderful techno-bods got their heads together and came up with some media that could last forever. Well, maybe not forever, but at least as long as stone tablets and cave paintings.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you need to get hold of copies of Charlotte's Secret and Lost & Found before they disappear.

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Who would you cast?

You know those long nights when you just can’t sleep but you’re too tired to get up and write and you don’t want to do it in your head as you’ll forget what you made up by the time I get to a keyboard? I do. And I’ll admit that at those times, when my characters are running around my head (usually naked I should add) and not letting me sleep, I do something a little unusual – I cast the movie version of my books and short stories.

Am I the only one that does that? Am I just nuts? Or do all writers dream that one day they’ll get to see their work on the silver screen?

Take, for example, Charlotte’s Secret (Available now from Phaze Books). I believe I’ve come up with the perfect cast for that. There are four main characters here that need casting. Charlotte, David, Susie and Mike. Here are my picks. (Naturally, they’re all Brits since this is a story set in Britain – it’d be interesting to see how the American version would be cast though)

• Charlotte – the heroine. Strong & independent, but vulnerable and still hurting after David married her sister. I guess this part is perfect for Kiera Knightly.
• David – the hero. Trapped into marriage because he wanted to do the right thing by his unborn son. Quietly intelligent even though his wife thinks he’s naive. At one point I’d have said this part belonged to Robert Carlyle, but now I’d have to go with Daniel Craig (the new Mr Bond)
• Susie – the bitch. Stole her sister’s boyfriend, but only wants him for his money. Sweet & sexy but devious and selfish. Samantha Janus (from Brit Soap Eastenders) would be great.
• Mike – Susie’s bit of rough. All brawn and not much brain. Could I possibly cast anyone but Vinnie Jones?

My other Phaze Book release is Lost & Found. Set in the fictional American town of Rivers Crossing it has three main characters to be cast.

• Chris – The Brit who crosses the Atlantic to comfort his cyber-lover after her brother’s killing in Iraq. Charming and intelligent, I’d play this part myself, but I’m not an actor. I’ll give it to Orlando Bloom.
• Beth – the smart, strong, fiesty American girl. Sarah Michelle Gellar anyone?
• The Colonel – retired military man. Proud, stubborn, willing to kill to protect his daughter. It has to be Jack Nicholson.

I could go on doing this for ever.

In Reunion, I'd have to cast Matt, Kelly, Jerry and Roy.

• Matt - hot shot young lawyer - Nigel Harman, formally of Eastenders fame
• Kelly - Rachel Stevens. No explanation needed - I wrote this character with her in mind.
• Jerry - intelligent but a bit goofy - has to be Kris Marshall.
• Roy - overweight, over confident, bit of a bastard. Hard one this, but I think Peter Kay would be good.

 

 

 

Lost & Found and Charlotte's Secret are available now from Phaze Book. Reunion is available from Lulu.com

Technorati Tags: marc nobbs,erotica,erotic fiction,romantic fiction,romance,fiction,charlotte's secret,lost & found,reunion,writing,e-books,publishing,movies

 

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Ladz "Local Lovelies"

The third story in the Ladz "Local Lovelies" series has finished its six-month exclusive period at Ruthie's Club and is now available to download on my website, or if you're a member of StoriesOnline or EroticStories.com you can find it there too.

Ladz is a (fictional) weekly magazine aimed at men in their late teens to early thirties. It features a mixture of pub jokes, sport and lots of pictures of young, attractive women in their underwear. The magazine’s most popular feature is Ladz ‘Local Lovelies’. Ordinary girls from around Britain send in pictures of themselves to the magazine in the hope of becoming the next big thing. Each week one of them is invited to do a professional photo shoot that includes the magazine’s centrefold spread. And each of those women has a story to tell.

Episode #56 was about Laura - a student from Leicester. Episode #58 was all about Emma from Northampton. The latest story, episode #62, is about Rebecca from London. Click on any of the covers below to read the stories. (These are .pdf documents and you'll need Adobe reader or similar to view them)

Technorati Tags: marc nobbs,fiction,erotica,erotic fiction,lads magazines,writing,website,storiesonline,erotic stories

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A.W.G.E.

Technorati Tags: marc nobbs,lost & found,erotica,romance,erotic romance,erotic fiction,romantic fiction,phaze books,e-books,writing,life

For the past few weeks I've been A.W.G.E. from many of the online forums of which I am a member. The Britwriters blog, the various Yahoo! groups. I've even been neglecting MySpace and my own blog to some extent. And I certainly haven't done any promoting for Lost & Found.

What is A.W.G.E.? Absent With a Good Excuse.

That excuse, of course, is real life - or should I say my professional life. My job (the one I get a salary for) has been monopolising my time and wearing me out. It's got to the point that on Tuesday night, I home at 7pm and went straight to bed without any tea. I was in bed before Nobbs Jr for pity's sake and he's only two and a half!

It's been one thing after another in the office. And I've still got piles of work scattered around the room waiting 9not particularly patiently either) to be attended to.

This has meant no time to work on any stories - Chloe's Education or the shorts I've got stuck in my head. But the biggest 'crime' has been my inability to adequately promote my last release from Phaze Books - Lost & Found. This is a damn pity, because it's a story I really want to do well. I guess we'll have to see what the sales figures are like - has my absence made the blind bit of difference? If it hasn't, doesn't it make all the online promotion efforts that we writers make something of a waste of time? Or if it has, does that mean if I put a lot more effort into it over the summer, the sales figures will pick up? Guess I'll have to wait and see.

In the mean time, here are two short excerpts. The first is from Chloe's Education. The second from Lost & Found.

Chloe's Education - a work in Progress.

It was half-way through a particularly boring two-hour lecture from the university's foremost authority on the exceeding dull. During his more tedious lectures, Chloe and Adam kept each other entertained while the professor's monotone threatened to induce mass coma. Chloe slipped a piece of paper onto the bench in front of them and scribbled something on it. Adam craned his neck to read it: I’m bored!

He picked up his pen, reached over and wrote his reply: Me too!

Chloe giggled under her breath as she scribbled again: Entertain me!

Adam grinned and winked. He made his “thinking” face—as if genuinely considering how to entertain her. In actuality, he was picturing the body she hid beneath her tight white top and skinny-jeans. It was, in his opinion, just about perfect. Smooth, lightly tanned skin stretched tightly over her generously proportioned curves. He wanted the lecture to end so that he could take her home and pay homage to it. When he realised he was starting to drool, he snapped back to reality and wrote his answer: I’d love to entertain you, babe. But not here!

Chloe raised her eyebrows, as if in anticipation of the entertainment to come. She licked her lips as she wrote: How would you entertain me?

Adam’s brain shot straight to his cock—it did that a lot around Chloe. His pen hovered over the paper. He wanted to write “by stripping you naked, licking your pussy ‘til you come and then fucking you to heaven and back. Twice.” Instead, he wrote: That’s for me to know and you to wonder about.

Chloe grinned and her eyes dipped to the bulge in Adam’s jeans. Then she scribbled again: Would our mothers approve?

Adam quickly wrote: Absolutely not!

Chloe scribbled again: Would it take long?

Adam chuckled as he wrote: Only if you want it to.

Chloe again: Would we need to be alone?

Adam: Yep!

Chloe: Naked?

Adam: Defo.

Chloe smiled her most wicked smile, winked and then turned the paper over. She drew out a noughts and crosses board and slapped a nought in the centre square. Adam looked at his watch. It was ten to one—not long before he could take his sweetheart home and make good on his promise. He put a cross in the top left box.

Chloe won the first game then Adam won three in a row before Chloe pulled it back to three all. Dr. Dullness was winding up the lecture. There was time for just one more game. Chloe leaned over and whispered in Adam’s ear. “Winner gets oral from the loser. Deal?”

Lost & Found - a contemporary erotic novel by Marc Nobbs. Available now from Phaze Books.

They had a better time at the roulette table. Through some cautious betting, Chris managed to stay just ahead of the house. He split bets, bet on columns and rows. Beth stuck to betting on red or black.

“Looks like The Lady is back with us,” said Chris after collecting on another winning four number split.

“Seems so,” said Beth. She smiled her wicked smile and raised her eyebrows. Chris had discovered that this signaled she was about to do something unexpected. “But it would be more fun if the stakes were higher.”

“What d’you mean?”

“This…” She took a hundred dollar chip from him and planted it in the centre of box thirty-two. “My age,” she said, by way of explanation.

“You know the odds are thirty-eight to one.”

“Like I said, it’s more exciting that way.”

The croupier spun the wheel and released the ball. There was a flurry of betting from the others at the table before he called no more bets. Everyone went silent while they waited for the ball to settle in a slot.

“Red—Thirty-two.”

Beth cheered. “Ha ha. How much did I win?”

“Thirty-five times your stake. Three-and-a-half thousand.”

“In one go! Told you this was more exciting. Think I can do it again?”

“The odds are nearly fifteen-hundred-to-one against.”

Beth took one of the thousand dollar chips and placed it on number twelve. “My birthday.”

Once more the wheel and ball were set in motion and once more the croupier called no more bets. The ball seemed to refuse to slow down. It hurtled around the wheel, bouncing in all directions. Beth gripped Chris’ hand so tightly it hurt. Finally, the ball settled.