The order. A first stab at it, at least. I've always thought that so much effort must go into deciding album song orders. The way t...

The order. A first stab at it, at least.

I've always thought that so much effort must go into deciding album song orders. The way the songs in ...Like Clockwork flow into each other is a prime example - the album is so cohesive, so meticulously planned out, that the instant it ends, you want to begin it again. And while I can't hope to give the purchaser of a cheap, possibly crappy totally awesome future eBook the same level of pleasure that album gives me, I do think that the order in which they read the 23 stories I've written for this collection is very important. If the reader starts on a downer, they won't want to continue; and if they finish on a high, they'll forgive any dips they felt along the way because they'll be left with a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside. This is probably damn obvious to anyone with half a brain, so I'm sorry if you're bored; but if you are, then you should really be off watching Arrested Development or something instead.

So I've been thinking carefully about the order of the stories. I thought I'd start and end with two of my favourites; and between, I'd spread out my other favourites between stories that I don't love quite as much, in anticipation that the reader will feel exactly the same as me, which they definitely won't will. Also, stories which are about me being drunk and self pitying need to be spread evenly so that they're not in a clump and the reader doesn't form the wrong impression of me, so I've thrown in some stories about mutilation and abduction and jumping from great heights onto concrete, just to level it all out.

And this is the order I've come up with:
  1. Town Hall
  2. Hole in One
  3. The Beauregard Wishlist
  4. She has a Boyfriend
  5. The Street Magician
  6. The Carriage
  7. That Girl
  8. Real Monsters
  9. Reliving the Future
  10. The Harshness of Life
  11. A Note to a Former Lover or Friend or Pet or Piece of Furniture
  12. I was sick to death of masturbating my nights away
  13. The Writing Club
  14. Against Nature
  15. An Imagined Affair
  16. Saved
  17. Scud
  18. Watch This
  19. Against Nature
  20. The Girl with the Riddler Tattoo
  21. The Girl from the Station
  22. The Slightest Hint of Moisture
  23. Alley Dogs
This, I've compiled into a rough draft and sent to a number of close friends to assess. Their feedback will shape future revisions to the order. To be honest, just sending it to that small group was daunting enough, what with there being so many stories no one has ever read in there... so only Derren Brown knows how I'll feel when I release it to the hyperglobalblogosphere.

And yes, I realise that you're not getting much from that list since some of the stories you can't find on the Interweb, but one day you'll look back on this list and say, 'Wow, I can't believe the order of stories on the world's best-selling eBook ever was going to look like that, once upon a time... can you imagine how different history would have been?! All hail Aaron!' and then you'll bow to me and I will say unto you, 'Get up.'

At the beginning of the year, as well as some ridiculous new year's resolutions , I came up with one that I actually aimed to do: relea...

At the beginning of the year, as well as some ridiculous new year's resolutions, I came up with one that I actually aimed to do: release an eBook of short stories before 2014. It was part vanity and part ambition, I guess, because half of me just wants to see my name on a Kindle screen, and the other half hopes that there's something deeper within me than blind love of Lady Gaga, tattoos and Batman. So I set about writing some stories, or in most cases, collecting them from around this site (and fixing up the cracks I left in them, in my rush to post them online and gain attention for them). And now, nearly 6 months down, I have 23 stories ready for an eBook.
Yay! I hear you saying. When can we buy it?! Well, not yet. I've come up with the title of the collection, but I don't intend to shout about it yet. I've written the stories, but you're not seeing the exclusive ones yet. I don't have a cover, and I'm yet to work out how exactly I'm going to get it online (in case you've never published an eBook - you're probably in the minority by now - the choice I face now is Amazon, or a million other services which all promise me instant fame and fortune. But I don't know if I'm READY for fame and fortune yet!); so for now, I'm just opening up a series of blog posts in which I'll write about all the snags and funtimes of preparing and self-publishing an eBook, in the hope that it will help someone somewhere sometime in some way.

Then you have to buy it. You cheeky bastard.