You can name my upcoming comedy book.
You can name my upcoming comedy book.
+ 20 things I'm doing in 2024 + An excerpt of a comedy poem
Turn your time-telescope to the distant year 2024.
The crab-men have taken over the cities, but nobody has noticed because we’re all freaking out about some drama between two celebrities we didn’t know existed until three minutes ago.
And I am still here, working on my ever-increasing multiverse of Sci-Fi, Comedy, and Poetry.
Your song of the day today is Arcade Fire’s Creature Comfort, unless you would rather listen to this Substack post as read by me with a fever, in which case you want this big orange button and not the Youtube link.
20 things I’m doing in 2024
Travelling to Utah to help my pal Zaak set up his shop. I’ll be doing some improv comedy about the experience over on instagram and tiktok (realphillipcarter)
Returning to the UK just in time for Telford Sci-Fi convention, in March
Trying to post one writing excerpt per day on social media, so tiktok and instagram, for all of 2024
Publishing THE PROFESSOR AND THE TARDIGRADE, a short story from Who Killed The Humans?, as a standalone short to all eBook platforms.
Running a single ad that leads to my Draft2Digital author page, where people can find every single book I’ve published. This will help my visibility, and get books I have co-authored (such as The Cosmic Comedy Collection) in front of more people.
Getting my books into independent bookstores. I couldn’t manage it until late 2023 as they use the Gardners system to buy books, which I couldn’t access myself until recently.
Getting my books into the big physical bookstores. Turns out Waterstones uses the same system, but there’s a catch: I need to be pretty popular to get my books featured there. Working on that.
Practicing stand-up comedy at least once every week, whether that’s outside (expensive) or on the internet (chance of having content deleted). This ties into point 3, as a lot of my writing is comedy.
Bringing back Phillip Carter’s Awkward Re-Entry, my sci-fi comedy show, as an online thing. Anyone who attended my Manchester Fringe show in July 2023, gets free entry to this one, whether it’s an online or in-person show.
Publish that comedy/poetry book. Read it at serious, pretentious events. Play it deadpan, try to convince people the stories are true.
I’m going to republish a novella and a short story from Who Built The Humans (Beyond Uncertain Stars and Solipsism, respectively) in the hopes I can reach a wider readership for the full collection.
I’m going to publish my new novella, THE COSMONAUT WHO DIED TWICE, as an eBook basically everywhere.
Think quite seriously about the Architects universe from WBTH, and if its sequel in WHO KILLED THE HUMANS? is so long the whole story is now basically a novella, or not. That’s a weird one.
I’m going to publish a short story collection called FIVE FUTURES FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, which collects old and new writings around the topic of AI into a single, easy-to-find volume. It’s also part of a new series of books, which I might give the uninspiring title ‘short collections’ so it’s easy to track down online.
Talk to fellow authors from THE COSMIC COMEDY COLLECTION about whether they would like to be part of FIVE FUTURES, as we could make the collection permanently free, so you can all enjoy it and it helps advertise our other work. (EDIT: I HAVE ALREADY DONE THIS)
On the topic of renaming series’, now I’ve confirmed the existence of WHO KILLED THE HUMANS? I am thinking of simplifying my online descriptions and simply calling the books’ series ‘story collections’ so that anyone who scrolls past it online know what its outermost, simplest surface is. Obviously, the books have a lot more depth than that (with their stories crossing over, intermingling, and being readable in different directions) but that’s probably intimidating for some people. I say this from experience, tried pitching it at honestly a book fair and gave some poor lady a migraine, but if you look at the reviews people love it.
I will make tiktok and instagram content about how, this time last year, I was pretty convinced I wanted to quit writing, as I was tired of being broke. The content will cover what helped me realise I should keep going, and how I plan to put out ten books this year, as opposed to 2020’s one book.
I’ll buy a £400 pack of 100 ISBN codes, so I can confidently get round to launching my paperback and ebooks for my upcoming poetry books and sci-fi books.
I’ll ask for your opinion on more things. When I’m not 100% confident about a writing choice, I’ll come here and see what you think. This will mean things get done quicker, and you’ve had a part to play in naming stories.
More podcast episodes, more guests, more funny.
Comedy poem
Here’s part of a poem about leeches, from my upcoming comedy poetry collection. It is one of the tamer poems in the collection, which is why I’ve posted it, and not some of the others. I’ve not even found an open mic suitable for some of them yet, they get spicy.
This poem was not sponsored by leeches
You’ve heard it before you know all the puns
About which one’s the parasite and which one’s the fun
But there’s truth in the statements so here is another
It’s better to have a leech than a lacklustre lover
Yes it’s better to love those slimy old creatures
Than some lacklustre lover with comparable features
Because leeches are better, I’ve known from the start
That they might take your blood but they won’t take your heart
It’s people like you who push me too far
Who fall for any guy in a nice enough car
Who waste all their time on some girl from some bar
Who strums her… heartstrings to any guy with a guitar
Yeah, find them in the bookstore browsing romance
But they’re only in there to get into your pants
He wants you uncovered from cover to cover
it’s better to love a leech than some lacklustre lover
Name the book
The original title for the book was going to be THOUGHTS I THUNK NEAR A STREETLAMP THAT ONE TIME, a satire of the armchair philosopher poet, but I’ve more recently discovered that any successful poetry book says pretty plainly what it does in its title. They are often titled “POEMS FOR (thing)” and there is r
And if you know anyone who might want to vote on this, please do invite them to do so. The more people vote, the better the results will be.
Just from reading the poem alone. I would title it "Sought Eros, Ignored Pragma, then chose Philautia over both." Using Greek words to describe the different types of loves embolden in the verse. (I read it thrice...thus this is how it read to me.)
If you are anywhere near Swindon, have a word with Clive Osman. He is aBrummie exile who, with Nick Lurvell, founded Ooh, Beehive, based at the Beehive pub in Swindon. During Covidd it went online. It is generally performance poetry, but does include a lot of funny stuff. Clives poem where he acccidentally transposed B and P is hilarious.