NOTE: This is a BRAND NEW BLOG! Read it to find out why I'm super-excited about my latest project.
Photo by Michael Balint from The Smithsonian website (yes, before you say it, I know it isn't an oak tree!)
There is an old and well-worn phrase about success that goes something like ‘from small acorns, mighty oaks grow’ – it sounds nice, but honestly, I think those acorns need to be pretty damn mighty in the first place...
At this time of the year especially, I get to thinking about stuff like that. You pick up a discarded seed and look at the tree it just fell from and think ‘wow, all that potential is packed into this tiny little shell’.
That’s exactly how I feel about my latest writing assignment.
See, I know this guy. His name is Jim Chapman, I’ve known his older brother, Sam, since we were both in our teens and they are both great guys. Jim is a talented young writer, who also acts whenever he gets the time. I keep an eye on Jim, because I think he has great potential, he’s one of my ‘mighty acorns’. Anyway, one day, I was talking to Jim about a project he was doing (it was a touching, mature and heartfelt obituary for the sadly departed Robin Williams, which took a serious look at depression instead of simply talking about his career highlights). Jim sent me the link, which I then linked in my own Robin Williams obit a couple of weeks later.
Anyway, he’d written his piece for a website called FLiCK, which immediately caught my attention. FLiCK was a pop culture site, but it also featured sections on science and law (amongst a great many other topics). The site was staffed, almost exclusively, by prodigious young talents like Jim – it was one of those times I wished I’d had access to such Internet opportunities when I was 18.
It was a fascinating site, which benefited from a trendy, minimalist design, an instantly recognisable logo and a wealth of top young talent, writing with passion, zeal and audacity.
I wanted in.
I talked to Jim (who serves as one of the site’s editors) and he seemed surprised that I’d be interested in joining this intrepid little venture. They couldn’t pay me, he said, and besides, he couldn’t see why I’d want to join the fun and frivolities at a relatively small site like FLiCK.
...But that’s just it, I didn’t get into writing to make money. Anybody who does is, to put it politely, a fucking moron. Seriously, be a banker or a politician or some other kind of bastard. Unless you happen to be JK Rowling or Stephen King, you aren’t going to make much money from putting pen to paper.
So Jim put me in touch with Jamie Bellinger, a University student studying marketing of some kind. Jamie initially put the site together as a side project, but he’s a smart cookie and, apparently, even his side projects are infused with unreal levels of tangible potential.
I felt like Jamie was open to new ideas and concepts in a way that most other editors I’ve worked with are not. He has a fresh pair of eyes – and, most importantly, he’s willing to give things a go. The problem with the bigger sites is that, after a while, they become stuck in their ways and unable to shake things up. They become terrified of risk taking and focus so intently on what made money for them last week that they fail to look up in time to notice what could work for today’s market.
So, I joined the FLiCK family.
Upon doing so, I immediately reached out to four of the most talented creatives I know and got them involved.
Mighty acorns, every one of them.
Firstly, there was my best friend, Alexander King. Alex and I have known each other since we were 9 years old (in fact, we have been friends for 20 years as of last month) – and I love him like a brother. Alex, who can freestyle rap on any given subject for well over an hour without stopping, has forgotten more about music than most of us will ever know. He works as a professional animator/artist and has contributed to adverts, feature films and, most recently, a series of YouTube shorts.
As a writer, Alex does a lot of album reviews, he also writes songs and scripts his animated films. However, the thing I was mainly interested in was a superb piece of serial fiction that Alex published from 2007 – 2009, via Myspace, of all places. ‘Tales of the Kai’ was a deeply personal adventure story that combined all the best features of modern fantasy and video games, with the accessibility and informality of a weblog.
So bleeding edge was this story, that it even came with its own playlist.
Sadly, ‘Tales of the Kai’, despite being one of my favourite stories I’ve ever read, failed to find an audience the first time out. Now, however, with Jamie agreeing to run a ‘FLiCKtion’ portion of the site, the time seems right for Alex’s unique, fresh approach to fiction. He’s been tinkering away at it for years now, improving it all the while – and FLiCK appears to be the perfect home for this amazing adventure story.
The second name on my list was an American kid by the name of Jacob De Paz. I first ‘met’ Jacob when he was a message board member of the (sadly missed) comics website iFanboy.com. We clicked instantly and I felt a rapport with him straight away. Later on, we worked together as staffers on another comic book site. It was here that I first read his work.
That guy is seriously talented. I’m utterly jealous of him, but I can’t hate him, because a) I enjoy his writing so much and b) he’s such a nice guy. Jacob is just a fountain of talent and skill – and he hasn’t even peaked as a storyteller yet. In fact, he’s still in school.
To call him a major new voice in writing (which I have) is an understatement. Jacob is a fine artist and words are his colours. I am thrilled to be working with him once again and his first short piece for FLiCK, ‘Dirty Work’ had all the other contributors’ heads spinning. A gritty, uncompromising, character driven noir, ‘Dirty Work’ is a lost David Fincher movie crammed into a thousand words or less. The story is as hard and unflinching as the prose is economical and light; Jacob builds the scenario in our heads, placing us directly within the darkest parts of his lead character’s mind. Put simply, it’s a treat.
Next up, was my old college friend Shaun Davis. Shaun decided that he wanted to be a writer long before I did – and he really learned his craft. He learned it so well, in fact, that he was eventually employed at a major magazine publisher and actually wrote for a number of film and culture mags.
Shaun’s interest in literature, film and music fuelled my own. Without his influence, I might never have read ‘Dracula’ or ‘Crime & Punishment’ and I would never have seen movies like ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ and ‘Raging Bull’. It was in Shaun’s car that I first listened to many of the bands that would influence my thinking and my life in the years to come, bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Pixies, The Doors and Love.
Shaun is a true professional, with a wealth of experience behind him and a great reputation. Luckily for us, he was interested in joining FLiCK...
Finally, I contacted another American, Terry Smith. Terry is a huge comics fan that I came into contact with when he was trying to put an ambitious comic book project together. The plan was to publish several comic books at once (all with different writer/artist teams) and build a shared universe around a concept that Terry had created. The project never quite made it off the ground, mainly because there were no artists we could entice to it. Still, Terry and I kept in touch via Facebook and, in addition to being a funny guy; he also has a pretty sharp mind. As with Jacob, he’s younger than me, but could easily carve out a big future for himself if he wants to.
He seemed like another good FLiCK candidate to me.
These four ‘mighty acorns’ join Jim, Jamie and other hot young writers like Kit Marsden, (author of the ‘F**kit Blog’), Andy Sharp (science) and Hollie Wilkinson (fashion), on a site that, I think, has the potential to become one of the number one sites of its kind out there.
The site is unique, not another also-ran with a predictable business model and a swarm of adverts everywhere you look. This is a site written by passionate, talented and knowledgeable people, reflecting the world around them with skill, guts and a sense of fun.
All the articles are compact and concise and everything is designed to be easily digestible, as well as thoroughly accessible. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, probably the coolest site on the net right now.
To get in on the action and give us a bookmark, go to
http://www.flickonline.co.uk/home
Or, for FLiCKtion (where most of my writing is), go to
http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion
Also, follow us on Twitter @FLiCKmag
Go on, give us a go!
PS - For an exclusive chapter of my FLiCKtion serial ‘A Body of Hope’, scroll down to the blog immediately under this one.
- CQ
Photo by Michael Balint from The Smithsonian website (yes, before you say it, I know it isn't an oak tree!)
There is an old and well-worn phrase about success that goes something like ‘from small acorns, mighty oaks grow’ – it sounds nice, but honestly, I think those acorns need to be pretty damn mighty in the first place...
At this time of the year especially, I get to thinking about stuff like that. You pick up a discarded seed and look at the tree it just fell from and think ‘wow, all that potential is packed into this tiny little shell’.
That’s exactly how I feel about my latest writing assignment.
See, I know this guy. His name is Jim Chapman, I’ve known his older brother, Sam, since we were both in our teens and they are both great guys. Jim is a talented young writer, who also acts whenever he gets the time. I keep an eye on Jim, because I think he has great potential, he’s one of my ‘mighty acorns’. Anyway, one day, I was talking to Jim about a project he was doing (it was a touching, mature and heartfelt obituary for the sadly departed Robin Williams, which took a serious look at depression instead of simply talking about his career highlights). Jim sent me the link, which I then linked in my own Robin Williams obit a couple of weeks later.
Anyway, he’d written his piece for a website called FLiCK, which immediately caught my attention. FLiCK was a pop culture site, but it also featured sections on science and law (amongst a great many other topics). The site was staffed, almost exclusively, by prodigious young talents like Jim – it was one of those times I wished I’d had access to such Internet opportunities when I was 18.
It was a fascinating site, which benefited from a trendy, minimalist design, an instantly recognisable logo and a wealth of top young talent, writing with passion, zeal and audacity.
I wanted in.
I talked to Jim (who serves as one of the site’s editors) and he seemed surprised that I’d be interested in joining this intrepid little venture. They couldn’t pay me, he said, and besides, he couldn’t see why I’d want to join the fun and frivolities at a relatively small site like FLiCK.
...But that’s just it, I didn’t get into writing to make money. Anybody who does is, to put it politely, a fucking moron. Seriously, be a banker or a politician or some other kind of bastard. Unless you happen to be JK Rowling or Stephen King, you aren’t going to make much money from putting pen to paper.
So Jim put me in touch with Jamie Bellinger, a University student studying marketing of some kind. Jamie initially put the site together as a side project, but he’s a smart cookie and, apparently, even his side projects are infused with unreal levels of tangible potential.
I felt like Jamie was open to new ideas and concepts in a way that most other editors I’ve worked with are not. He has a fresh pair of eyes – and, most importantly, he’s willing to give things a go. The problem with the bigger sites is that, after a while, they become stuck in their ways and unable to shake things up. They become terrified of risk taking and focus so intently on what made money for them last week that they fail to look up in time to notice what could work for today’s market.
So, I joined the FLiCK family.
Upon doing so, I immediately reached out to four of the most talented creatives I know and got them involved.
Mighty acorns, every one of them.
Firstly, there was my best friend, Alexander King. Alex and I have known each other since we were 9 years old (in fact, we have been friends for 20 years as of last month) – and I love him like a brother. Alex, who can freestyle rap on any given subject for well over an hour without stopping, has forgotten more about music than most of us will ever know. He works as a professional animator/artist and has contributed to adverts, feature films and, most recently, a series of YouTube shorts.
As a writer, Alex does a lot of album reviews, he also writes songs and scripts his animated films. However, the thing I was mainly interested in was a superb piece of serial fiction that Alex published from 2007 – 2009, via Myspace, of all places. ‘Tales of the Kai’ was a deeply personal adventure story that combined all the best features of modern fantasy and video games, with the accessibility and informality of a weblog.
So bleeding edge was this story, that it even came with its own playlist.
Sadly, ‘Tales of the Kai’, despite being one of my favourite stories I’ve ever read, failed to find an audience the first time out. Now, however, with Jamie agreeing to run a ‘FLiCKtion’ portion of the site, the time seems right for Alex’s unique, fresh approach to fiction. He’s been tinkering away at it for years now, improving it all the while – and FLiCK appears to be the perfect home for this amazing adventure story.
The second name on my list was an American kid by the name of Jacob De Paz. I first ‘met’ Jacob when he was a message board member of the (sadly missed) comics website iFanboy.com. We clicked instantly and I felt a rapport with him straight away. Later on, we worked together as staffers on another comic book site. It was here that I first read his work.
That guy is seriously talented. I’m utterly jealous of him, but I can’t hate him, because a) I enjoy his writing so much and b) he’s such a nice guy. Jacob is just a fountain of talent and skill – and he hasn’t even peaked as a storyteller yet. In fact, he’s still in school.
To call him a major new voice in writing (which I have) is an understatement. Jacob is a fine artist and words are his colours. I am thrilled to be working with him once again and his first short piece for FLiCK, ‘Dirty Work’ had all the other contributors’ heads spinning. A gritty, uncompromising, character driven noir, ‘Dirty Work’ is a lost David Fincher movie crammed into a thousand words or less. The story is as hard and unflinching as the prose is economical and light; Jacob builds the scenario in our heads, placing us directly within the darkest parts of his lead character’s mind. Put simply, it’s a treat.
Next up, was my old college friend Shaun Davis. Shaun decided that he wanted to be a writer long before I did – and he really learned his craft. He learned it so well, in fact, that he was eventually employed at a major magazine publisher and actually wrote for a number of film and culture mags.
Shaun’s interest in literature, film and music fuelled my own. Without his influence, I might never have read ‘Dracula’ or ‘Crime & Punishment’ and I would never have seen movies like ‘Taxi Driver’, ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ and ‘Raging Bull’. It was in Shaun’s car that I first listened to many of the bands that would influence my thinking and my life in the years to come, bands like The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Pixies, The Doors and Love.
Shaun is a true professional, with a wealth of experience behind him and a great reputation. Luckily for us, he was interested in joining FLiCK...
Finally, I contacted another American, Terry Smith. Terry is a huge comics fan that I came into contact with when he was trying to put an ambitious comic book project together. The plan was to publish several comic books at once (all with different writer/artist teams) and build a shared universe around a concept that Terry had created. The project never quite made it off the ground, mainly because there were no artists we could entice to it. Still, Terry and I kept in touch via Facebook and, in addition to being a funny guy; he also has a pretty sharp mind. As with Jacob, he’s younger than me, but could easily carve out a big future for himself if he wants to.
He seemed like another good FLiCK candidate to me.
These four ‘mighty acorns’ join Jim, Jamie and other hot young writers like Kit Marsden, (author of the ‘F**kit Blog’), Andy Sharp (science) and Hollie Wilkinson (fashion), on a site that, I think, has the potential to become one of the number one sites of its kind out there.
The site is unique, not another also-ran with a predictable business model and a swarm of adverts everywhere you look. This is a site written by passionate, talented and knowledgeable people, reflecting the world around them with skill, guts and a sense of fun.
All the articles are compact and concise and everything is designed to be easily digestible, as well as thoroughly accessible. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, probably the coolest site on the net right now.
To get in on the action and give us a bookmark, go to
http://www.flickonline.co.uk/home
Or, for FLiCKtion (where most of my writing is), go to
http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion
Also, follow us on Twitter @FLiCKmag
Go on, give us a go!
PS - For an exclusive chapter of my FLiCKtion serial ‘A Body of Hope’, scroll down to the blog immediately under this one.
- CQ