Drew Payne
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Simon is rather self-absorbed but he is only sixteen. His life so far has been reacting against the things that happen to him but which he has no power of over. He's also still deeply unsure about his sexuality. But he enjoys his relationship with Niki, he doesn't want to lose her from his life, and rightly so (Oops, spoilers). To make Simon saintly good and caring of everyone just won't have been honest, and with his parents he's already developed a very good survival instinct.
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Matthew is certainly not handling any of this well, he's lost his job, his home and then his wife. He's also got his awful mother behind him, pushing at him and telling what is right and wrong He is certainly behaving like an A-Hole but he has been scared off by a muscle queen, and this story is set in England were getting a legal hand gun is next to impossible. Plus Matthew is too much of a self-centred wimp to even know how to use a hand gun. Unfortunately, the British police and justice system are only just waking up to the dangers of stalkers, and so far Matthew hasn't done anything to set off red lights, he'd just be ignored as an upset, abandoned husband.
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Simon lay on the sofa, his feet actually up on the armrest, as some soap opera played on the television, unwatched. He had slumped down on the sofa, after dinner, to carry on reading the e-book on his phone. He’d started that e-book over a week ago but he had barely touched it since Max had dumped him. He'd not had the concentration or motivation to read it. The book was about a gay, former boy band member, with an eating disorder. The book had held his attention at first, but that had been when
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Monday (Afternoon) – part 1
Drew Payne commented on Drew Payne's story chapter in Monday (Afternoon) – part 1
You get it! I wanted to show why Simon behaves like this. His first boyfriend is just using him, he's such a loner at college and he lives with his mother and her girlfriend and isn't out to either of them. I also wanted to explain his dysfunctional family life. So often we can be prisoners to the ghosts of our childhoods, and it’s a subject that appears again and again in my writing. -
Monday (Afternoon) - part 2
Drew Payne commented on Drew Payne's story chapter in Monday (Afternoon) - part 2
Thanks for your wonderful feedback. I don't want to give anything away ("Spoilers sweetie," as the Great River Song says), I'm further on with the story, but I just want to say, wait and see. Niki is great fun to write, and I've given her so many of my own views, but I do love her confidence and pure good heart (Which I wish I had more of) which is so wonderful to write. Sometime I hit on characters that are a joy to write, and fortunately this story has several of them. -
But it was a very one-side relationship. Max decided what they did Simon followed behind him because Simon was the one who had the much stronger emotions. This was Simon's first relationship and he throw himself into it, but it was with the wrong person.
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Simon is at a low point here, but this low point will be a catalyst for him to change his life and build a life for himself. Saying that, this won't be an easy journey and he won't get over Max that easily. The relationship might not have been the best but it was his first and his only contact with gay life. On a technical point, at sixteen Simon isn't underage because this story is set in Britain were the age of consent is 16.
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Monday (Afternoon) - part 2
Drew Payne commented on Drew Payne's story chapter in Monday (Afternoon) - part 2
The grandmother is a horrible character, and she certainly picked her church to reflect her awful views. She was an awful character to write, I so wanted to just kill her off, but that would have taken the story in a very different direction. I'm afraid this isn't the last we've heard of Simon's father, but the man has real issues (I am well ahead with the chapters I've already written, and this isn't an easy journey). -
Monday (Afternoon) - part 2
Drew Payne commented on Drew Payne's story chapter in Monday (Afternoon) - part 2
See, I can be nice to my characters. Having Simon living with his mum and her girlfriend, Niki, gives a whole different dymanic to the story, and I found the idea of him not coming out to his mum and her girlfriend interesting and wanted to explore it. And Niki just leapt off the page as someone I wanted to write more about. Also, I like exploring different family dynamics, and I haven't written about someone having two mothers before (Though I know several Lesbian couples with children). -
Monday (Afternoon) – part 1
Drew Payne commented on Drew Payne's story chapter in Monday (Afternoon) – part 1
His grandmother is rather a monster, I can't say she was fun to write. Wait untill you read what happens after his fourteenth birthday... -
After the film, which Simon had loved, allowing him to become lost in a completely different world for nearly two hours, his mum had taken him to the American burger style restaurant next to the cinema. She'd ordered them both two large and very messy burgers, and thick fries. As they chomped through the burgers, his mum had said: “Simon, there’s something I need to tell you.” Simon swallowed his mouthful of burger and waited to hear what he had done wrong now. His mum always used that t
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He’d taken his usual seat on the bus home, upstairs and just back from the front. He didn’t like sitting in the very front seat on the top deck, as that was where little kids sat and pretended to drive the bus, and he was beyond that. Again, he stared out of the window as the bus pulled away from the stop. All week, so far, he’d had little interest in reading or listening to whatever he had downloaded onto his phone. He just spent his journeys, to and from college, staring out of the bus window
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Thank you Dave. My job does give me an unique prospective, and it is an amazing opportunity for the writer in me. Of course I'm always professional, but that computer clip at the back of my mind seems to record so much of it, from patients, from colleagues, from so many people I meet. So many different things get lodged in my mind and sets my imagination off (Of course I've got to be so careful change any identifies). Please don't think of me as anything special, I just do an unusual job, which I've had a lot of training to do. There are many jobs I just couldn't do, for lots of reasons, but I am fortunate enough to have found a job I enjoy. Thanks for your comments, I does me the power of good to hear that someone enjoys what I have written. Drew
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Dave, Thank you for such wonderful feedback. I wrote this story to vent my frustrations at people who dish out those stupid, cliched and completely inappropriate "buzzwords" as advice. I wanted to show how useless they are, especially when the advise-giver doesn't take the time to listen to the person they are dumping their advise onto.
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Thank you but I have the actor Russell Tovey to thank for this story. I read an interview with him where he talked about how monotonous being in a long running play was. And that set off my imagination.
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Those Moments of Silence
Drew Payne commented on Drew Payne's story chapter in Those Moments of Silence
I wrote this story back in 2005, and I wanted to look at how denying a person's sexuality can destroy a child/parent relationship, but writing it I realised the child would be complicit in it too, going along with the parent's denial. I don't blame the central character here for doing this, challenging someone's complete denial like this would be so difficult. I hope this story is happening less often now but I fear there are still people who use denial when faced with something they don't want to deal with, but denial can have such a creeping, destructive affect. -
He looked out of train’s window as it crawled through the city’s outskirts. It was row upon row of squat red brick terraced houses. They all seemed the same, those little terraced houses, with rectangle extensions sticking out from the back of them, their tiny walled in gardens, with all their woodwork painted in the same bright white paint. He didn’t dislike these houses, in general he didn’t have any opinion about them, but seeing them out of the train’s window meant he was only a handful of m
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Of course they did, but also remember Freddie Brockman stood up to those bigots, and he led them out into the college's courtyard were everyone could see how they were behaving. Plus Freddie wouldn't take the blame for the bigots' behaviour. Guess who liked writing about Freddie Brockman.
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Thank you. Simon isn't a coward, he's seen the world around him and seen how to keep himself safe. At this point, there's only one person in his life who is positive about their sexuality, and no one has told them that he is good, and accepts his sexuality without any questions (Well he'as only told one person he's gay and that person rejected him). This is only the beginning of Simon's journey, not the home stretch.
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The concrete bench was hard against his buttocks but he didn’t mind too much, as sitting out here meant that he was alone so didn't feel too much of a failure. If he sat in the college canteen then he’d have to sit by himself at one of the tables, and he always felt a failure doing that, even if he sat at one of the small two person tables. If anyone saw him like that he was obviously Billy no Mates. At least sitting alone out here in the college courtyard people barely gave him a second glance.
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I don't want to give away any spoilers, but some situations are so bad that the only way is up, you can't go lower, and being dumped will be a catalyist for change with Simon. I want to explore coming out with this story and that all involves change, and there are a lot more characters to introduce in this story.
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I wanted to write about how living in a homophobic society can affect a young gay man, especially one who has so little support. Outside of big cities, there is still very patchy support for young LGBT people, so many organisations have closed after having their funding cut. Simon is so alone in his suburb, there is no gay life anywhere near him, and that's a big factor in his poor choices.
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Wait until we get to Simon's Saturday spent with his father, that day is real fun (!!). I don't want to give anything away but I wanted to write here about the challenges of coming out that still remain.
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More will be explained in later chapters, there are reasons for his behaviour, but Simon is seriously lacking in friendships. Simon isn't a happy soul, that's why he jumped at the poor relationship he had with Max.
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Simon stared out of the window but his eyes were not taking in the view that passed by. He was on his morning bus ride to college, when normally he’d be listening to something he'd downloaded to his phone, through its rubber ear-buds, or be reading something off his phone. That morning he didn’t want to do either, his mood was too low. His mood had been low and flat for days now, ever since Max had dumped him. He didn’t feel sad and teary, like the characters in those gay romance eBooks on h
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