Luke Labern

Ever since I decided that I absolutely had to be a writer, I have been postponing the business of sending my work out to would-be publishers (magazines, competitions, publishing houses, etc.) and focused instead on building up a wealth of material and just practicing, bleeding all over the page — doing it for the passion, for the art. Never for the intention of making money or anything like that. However, things have changed in the past seven or so years since I realised that I wanted to be a writer. I have long held the number 21 as the most significant number in my life, and I knew that it was at this age, in this year, that things would happen. Read the rest of this entry »

2012 continues to be the year of fulfilled promise. Ploughing onwards after a very thoughtful few days — quite sombre, it must be admitted — I have found myself on the other side of what appeared to be a dip with all the momentum needed to take things to yet another level.

Of the books I took out of the library the other day, a number of them were about the profession of being a writer — that is, the logical, time-consuming job aspect of the job. I’ve read half the most acclaimed book so far, and it has been incredibly useful. Among its key exercises it the idea that one should write as soon as they wake, for fifteen minutes. All reading or interaction should be avoided, as should stimulants: simply, from the sleeping state to the cognitive one should the writer throw himself and put whatever spills from his mind onto the page. I started this today and expanded an idea I had a couple of days ago. It’s very appealing — I must write it. My only ‘worry’ is, I fleshed it out so much — teased out so many intricacies — that it almost seems better as a novel than a short story. However, I do not want to commit that much time to just one story or idea at the moment. Perhaps I will begin to write it in the mornings, or this evening — I do not yet know. I have so many ideas swimming around my head that I want to get as many of them out as soon as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

It goes without saying that January 2012 (and by extension, the ongoing year) was one of the best months of my life. I am at the age which I have promised myself that ‘things will happen‘, and I achieved so much in four weeks that it takes me a few moments to read back through my various notebooks to comprehend most of the things I did.

I often find myself disagreeing with people who place happiness as their sole aim in life. I’m not trying to enter an extended philosophical dialogue (right now), but for me that simply isn’t true. Happiness, of course, is essential: life would be unbearable without. But for me, I cannot be happy or satisfied unless it is based on extreme productivity. This falls in various categories: physical health (which is why I go to the gym four times a week, minimum — much to the horror of many people); intellectual stimulation/creative output (this has often been a nagging worry in my mind and is precisely why this website exists, to give me a place to pour myself into — with no excuse not to, and quantitative ways of measuring the success, both in the number of posts and in hits) and, amongst the various other drives I could list, especially productivity. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first time, I have moved the list of all my works from my brain to something in reality: if you check the navigation bar you will now find the ‘Portfolio‘ menu: here I will list all of my short stories and poems in chronological order (from newest to oldest) with a link to each piece of work. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I received the second-most hits this site has ever gotten, most likely because of the short story I posted. This reminded me of two things: firstly, it seems that people really do enjoy stories that trace the relationship between the sexes. I’ll bear this in mind. Secondly, one thing that I always intended to do was to explain the creative process behind my writing: the themes, how I constructed it, its meaning, its purpose, etc..

So I’ll give a quick example: having received a request the day after I made the site live, I received a request to write the story in question. I immediately accepted and spent the next week mulling over the idea, waiting for the perfect time to write it. It worked: last night, whilst reading Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’, an image came to my head. An image and a question: the same question I began the story with: ‘what was she?’ From there, I leapt up and began typing away: twenty minutes later I had the story there, in full. I spent another ten, twenty minutes correcting any typos, changing the syntax here and there and coming up with a nice, alliterative title — then it went live. Then, within two hours, I’d had a beautiful amount of hits. I made sure to post this particular story on tumblr and facebook also, in an attempt to direct traffic here.

This has given rise to further ideas: as I said before, I’m always up for requests. So please, do request anything you would like to see: more of the same; a particular genre, idea, character, plot — whatever. I’m open to anything. One idea I came up with on the way to my lecture today was that, in order to established 2012 as the year things happen, I’m going to construct ten stories which could theoretically fill an anthology book. Ten of the best stories I’ve ever written, all in 2012. Then I’m going to truly hound the publishers: magazines, websites, wherever, whoever. That is my official goal, as of now. And that doesn’t include the one I just wrote: make that eleven, if you wish.

So there’s a quick update: as always, thank you for sharing my work on your facebook and twitter timeline: it makes all the difference. I also updated my cover photo on facebook to inform everyone that new material will be posted here at 6:30pm. This is the case: I hope that my consistency will entice you all back, day after day. You are all wonderful.

First of all — apologies for the lack of updates. I’ve been plowing through a whole bunch of reading for uni and am up to some absurd rate of 50-70 pages a day at minimum. I have not been idle, though. If you looked at the archives you will have seen me mention the Jane Martin poetry prize a while ago.

I’ve come up with the four poems which I think are my strongest, all from 2011 onwards. Even though 2011 was the worst year for me creatively, professionally and artistically, I still feel like these poems have the perfect blend of passion, control of form (skill) and flair. I’ll put the four up in chronological order, I think — or maybe not; maybe I’ll submit them in a four-day cluster. Anyway, the competition closes in March and the first round of judging is May, I believe.

I have an odd history with competitions: I’ve only entered one, a national writing competition where the prize was £10, 000 and I got to the very last stage before the final short list. So that was a rather nice feeling, especially as the eventual shortlist of six authors were all in their thirties and I was only 19. Two years older, now, there can be no excuses! It is time to attack the world of writing and to muscle my way in, no matter what.

In some respects the idea of art being a competition comes across quite abrasively — but this is a misnomer. The best art has often been created under stress, in anger, in desperation: Shakespeare, for example, wrote solely for money to keep the Globe theatre alive — not just for art’s sake. So I musn’t romanticise. The great Greek tragedians, also, wrote in competition: that’s how Oedipus and the other classic tales were conceived. So competition is the perfect way to write excellently. This brings me to two further points:

Firstly, on the the idea of necessity breeding excellence, I am completely open to requests. In fact, I positively encourage it: writing with a frame or a guide makes things a lot easier: it’s easier to be creative within a set frame, rather than erroneously playing with the very form rather than the actual writing content. So if you wish me to write about a theme, motif, idea, event or character, I will be more than happy to. I’m currently thinking over one such request which I shall be publishing soon, when I get a suitable time. You can do this via private facebook message, twitter, commenting on any of the posts on this site, etc..

Secondly, a la the title: poetry collections. I’ve collated a few dozen of my poems into collections with colour schemes, an order — delightful little packages. I haven’t done it in a long time, but I feel it may be the best way to share my poetry. To have it presented in exactly the way I intend them to be read, in a particular order and with their own unique design: all for free of course. You’d simply have to print them off and staple it together. The idea was quite popular before, and it would make it even easier to spread the word. So I think I’ll be working on that also — after I load up another batch of posts for the site, of course.

Lastly, I just want to thank everyone (yet again) for visiting the site, sharing the links over facebook and twitter, and just generally being wonderfully complimentary. I’ve been wondering about how to kick-start this career of mine and take it from ambitious hobby to realistic goal, and obviously this was an excellent way to go about it. I can only assure you that your support is not mis-placed: you have helped support something which has genuine weight behind it; you have supported genuine love of literature and underlined my will to succeed, and desire to affect the world for the better.

I’m going to be writing a number of pieces on my opinion on the decriminalisation of narcotics, most specifically on the legalisation of Cannabis, in a variety of mediums: from a literary perspective; from personal experience; from a political standpoint; from an angry standpoint, and others: all backed up by science, of course.

For now, I thoroughly recommend this link and commend Sir Richard Branson for speaking the truth. Luckily, he won’t get the sack like Prof. David Nutt who also spoke common sense. Definitely worth a read.

Allow me to indulge in cliches for a moment.

Today was the perfect example of a day threatening to spoil what has been a sensational week, but which, thanks to resolve, has become another excellent set of memories. And so, I’m afraid, cliches best fit the situation. Here are a few of the awful things which work well: ‘I fell, but I got back up‘; I came ‘back from the brink‘; I thoroughly ‘would not give up‘; I ‘looked into oblivion‘ but did not jump.

Horrible. Disgusting. Putrid. Read the rest of this entry »