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Awareness Daze is here

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 12:26:56 GMT

The story of my attempt to celebrate 365 fake holidays and awareness days in a row

My memoir Awareness Daze is now out as an audiobook from WF Howes -- still looking for a print publisher.

It's the story of my attempt to observe 365 fake holidays and awareness days in a row, across the whole of 2022.

Lots more background in this Medium piece .

It's also of course the raw material for my novel Thank You For The Days.

Order now: Apple

Order now: Audible

Updated copywriting portfolio

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:01:10 GMT

Check out examples of my copywriting and content experience

I'm doing a lot more freelance copywriting and content projects now, so I've updated my portfolio.

It hopefully gives a good idea of the sorts of things I can do, and some of the many people I've done them for.

Go to Portfolio

Cover reveal - Thank You For The Days

Tue, 05 Nov 2024 18:21:10 GMT

Pre-order at https://amzn.to/40yOfXr

About 3 years in the making - here's the cover reveal for my new novel, Thank You For The Days.... (And a very happy National Chinese Takeout Day to all who celebrate). Pre-order at https://amzn.to/40yOfXr

Active and Passive Voice rides again

danielbrotzel@gmail.com — Wed, 15 Dec 2021 14:07:30 GMT

Now to appear in Aesthetica Magazine's Creative Writing Award 2021 anthology

I was delighted to hear that my story, 'Active and Passive Voice', made the shortlist of Aesthetica Magazine's 2021 Creative Writing Award . This one is definitely my golden oldie - it was first published by Pithead Chapel , who nominated it for a Pushcart Prize and for the Best of the Net Anthology. As well as appearing in Hotel du Jack , it's been published solo a couple of times since, and also features in Matt Kendrick's new Writing Beyond the Lightbulb course. I have long been obsessed by the flawed demonisation of the passive voice we see everywhere, so only too happy to do my bit for its rehabilitation...

Book signing: Work in Progress

danielbrotzel@gmail.com — Sun, 18 Jul 2021 13:45:16 GMT

Rare sighting of co-authors' knees...

Back in December 2016, my pals Alex, Martin and I began, for a laugh, sending each other silly emails about an eccentric and entirely fictitious groups of would-be writers who for some reason lived in Crawley. This eventually became a full-length manuscript -original title, Kitten on a Fatberg . Five years on, thanks to publishers Unbound and over 200 crowdfunding supporters, we were finally able to get together to sign copies of the renamed Work in Progress at the Red Cross Bookshop, in Palmers Green. I love these guys and it's been a pleasure to make something with them. In keeping with the comic nature of the project, we chose a second-hand shop and gave most of the copies away.... https://amzn.to/3wPHPQS

Work in Progress hits The Pigeonhole

danielbrotzel@gmail.com — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 13:01:41 GMT

Our new book previews with readers of the mobile book club app - much laughter (thank God)

My big news this week is the imminent release of Work in Progress from Unbound. A comic novel-in-emails about an eccentric writer’s group in Crawley, it began life as Kitten on a Fatberg and was crowdfunded by Unbound. My co-authors and I are so grateful to everyone who supported the book.

The book was released early on The Pigeonhole mobile book club, where it's already received some fantastic reviews:

‘This is so cleverly written. I’m enjoying it so much!’

‘This is such an entertaining read! Love this dysfunctional group of characters’

‘This book is a laugh a line’

Also very proud of this quote from Luke Kennard (even if it’s better written than our entire book!):

‘Excruciatingly well-observed, Work in Progress is a deeply funny epistolary novel with the kind of comic timing that caused me frequent physical pain… A masterpiece of passive-aggression that somehow combines skewering the most monstrous kind of mediocrity and delusion with genuine affection, humanity and wit. I couldn’t put it down and read it in one day. I never do that.’

We hope to have details soon of launch events - a bookshop bash and a Zoom sesh too hopefully. Meanwhile, you can order from Amazon , Blackwell’s , Waterstones , my shop and more - hope to have it on Bookshop.org soon too.

[Photo by Sneha Cecil on Unsplash ]

NEW STORY: Turtle-Gate

danielbrotzel@gmail.com — Fri, 07 May 2021 12:14:23 GMT

We shall fight each other on the beaches...

'Turtle-Gate' came to me on a holiday. Thanks to new American literary magazine Flyover Country for putting it out there.

It quickly became clear to him too that the new family did not like his turtle, especially as little sandy avalanches from the creature’s growing shell kept tumbling onto the space they had marked out as theirs.

Read full story

Photo by Kris Mikael Krister on Unsplash

NEW STORY: A Piece of Work

danielbrotzel@gmail.com — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 13:08:07 GMT

American Psycho meets Vicar of Dibley ...

My story, 'A Piece of Work', was published by a new American literary magazine, Flyover Country . One of my fave flash fiction writers, Rick White, calls it '‘American Psycho’ meets ‘Vicar of Dibley’ (which believe me is every bit as awesome as it sounds)'. Thanks Rick!

[9.8.21:} Delighted to receive a Best of the Net nomination for this story from Flyover Country. Details here

Later that night, as the village bathes in the unpolluted skies of a full moon, I rise from my place next to Nicholas (a man who could sleep through a bombing raid) and let two men in to the grannexe. I explain that I have sinned and need to do urgent penance. They understand, as they are paid to, and I take my carefully defined punishment like a man.

Read full story

Photo by Kyler Nixon on Unsplash

NEW STORY: Just Passing Through

danielbrotzel@gmail.com — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 09:15:05 GMT

New story shortlisted for The Phare's WriterWords competition...

A man and a woman, lying together by the poolside, one wrapped in the other, a red swimsuit, a confusion of limbs. Conspiracy of giggles and tender silences. When they speak, the woman’s voice is the one I know best of all in my whole little world...

Delighted to make the shortlist for The Phare Magazine's Spring 2021 WriteWords competition with 'Just Passing Through', a short story about a man and his frail mother who revist their old home, now completely remodelled but still able to trigger complex , long-buried memories...

Read full story here

Pic: Photo by Carlos Felipe Vericat Sanz on Unsplash

Music while you write

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 13:57:57 GMT

An idiosyncratic selection of favourite writing soundtracks...

Carnage Visors – This early Cure soundscape was composed to accompany an abstract film that the band played on some of their first tours. The name ‘carnage visors’ is said to be a dark inversion of the idea of rose-tinted spectacles. A nice retro slice of hauntingly easy-listen electronica.

John Carpenter – Film soundtracks are a great writing background. I often think back to a film I’ve enjoyed, then look up the soundtrack online. One I come back to again and again is Escape from New York. I like this version , which just plays the main theme over and over with slight variations. Carpenter has released other albums too, like the synthwave soundscapes of Lost Themes .

Derek Bailey – Plink, Plonk and Scratch is the apt subtitle of Trevor Barre’s witty history of the London Free Music movement . One of the best-known figures was Derek Bailey. This is guitar music, Jim, but not as we know it. As Wikipedia puts it: ‘Bailey’s distinctive style can be challenging. Its most noticeable feature is its extreme discontinuity, often from note to note.’ Strangely addictive.

Brian Eno – Ambient 1: Music for Airports – Obviously this whole article could just really be about Brian Eno. His experimental ‘non-musical’ albums offer a lifetime’s writing background. I often listen to this, one of the first-ever self-styled ambient albums. It’s made up of four compositions created by layering tape loops of differing lengths. It was meant to be played on a loop as a sound installation — in airports. Ambient music, said Eno, is meant to be ‘as ignorable as it is interesting’. It should ‘induce calm and a space to think’.

Gurdjieff – De Hauptmann piano music – Part Svengali, part charlatan, GI Gurdjieff (pictured) has always fascinated me. After years of reading I still don’t have much of a clue about his philosophy. But central to it was music, which he gave a special spiritual significance. His piano music — composed with long-time disciple and pianist Thomas de Hartmann — was designed to accompany ancient temple dances. The dances combine movement and breathing in such a way as to raise people out of habitual patterns of thinking and awaken to themselves. This particular soundtrack is my secret writing weapon. I have listened to it exclusively for months on end, and written three full-length manuscripts to it. There is a Keith Jarrett version called Sacred Hymns, if you can access it. On Youtube you can even find some original recordings. You briefly hear the man himself and the applause of his entourage.

Read the full article on Writers Write

New Paragraph

Big in Brazil

Mon, 08 Feb 2021 11:11:40 GMT

Hotel du Jack now available in Brazilian Portugese...

Hotel du Jack is now available on audible in Brazilian Portugese. Here's what they've done with the cover...

RIP Kitten on a Fatberg

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 15:22:28 GMT

Well, the title anyway...

In case you were wondering, Kitten on a Fatberg has now been renamed Work in Progress .

As part of the editing process, we had a conflab with the publishers, and it was decided to change it.

This was a little tough for us co-authors to get our heads round at first - the title has been there for so long, it seemed almost older than the book itself.

But it felt like Kitten on a Fatberg was quite limiting for Design to visualise and Sales to market - and, as our editor put it: 'The term itself is no more than a fleeting reference in the book (though a funny one!), and I worry that at present it isn't doing the work of presenting the book to its potential audience as it might – it's just a little too oblique. I worry also that it feels a little too self-consciously zany; the book itself, to my mind (and having participated in exactly these writing workshop groups myself...), is more wry, more brutally observant than Kitten on a Fatberg suggests, and I'd love to see that reflected in the title.

Well, naturally, she had us at 'brutally observant', and we set about coming up with a new title. After an intense pub debate or two (remember those?), we drew up a long list, then a shortlist, and finally all agreed on Work in Progress . Why? Well, each of our characters is writing away hard at their own Work in Progress (or WIP, as writers like to say); but equally, each as a personality is a bit of a Work in Progress too.

Having lived with it for a while now, I can say that we're all really happy with the new title and hope that you will come to like it as much as we do.