writer's glock

Chapter 2 - Living In My Brother's Toilet

If you ever thought that your writing belonged in the same room as a toilet, I hope it's comforting to know that the first ten years of my adult life (at least the ones where I wasn't in prison) I lived in the bathroom of my more successful brother - J.S. Gunn, a romance novelist. He was kind enough to set up a make-shift bed in the bathtub, meaning that showers were a hassle to orchestrate, deeming me unworthy of the fancy couch in his living room or one of his five bedrooms. His mansion was built on half-written and borderline incoherent "love books," ten of which turned into movies for Hallmark and one of which adapted into the critically acclaimed "(500) Days of Summer." A book so good I'm very convinced that he stole it.

Writing manuscripts next to a toilet is very humbling to say the least. You're constantly tempted to throw your laptop in and flush it, or - if you've spent as long as I have in there - try and drown your head in it. Like being kept prisoner, I was to keep the doors locked in case he had any publishing companies or girls over and all of my meals were delivered through the small gap between the door and the carpet. All my food was usually flat, at most a 3cm slab of meat covered in orange juice in case I get thirsty. On the rare occasion that I did get out it was for pleasant evening walks at the park or in case he wanted me to pretend to be him at a meeting he doesn't want to go to. 

I recall an occasion where I was typing too loudly and had to quiet it down because J.K. Rowling was there. That was the day the bathroom flooded.

I never thought of killing him once, however. He's my brother, and though we have our major differences in literary taste we're there for each other no matter which one of us decides to go on a spontaneous killing spree.

That being said, I still hate him. I wish he spent more time actually hiring a plumber then finding out how a rich boy from Westminster meets a poor girl from Leeds. Perhaps in Essex? He complains that I don't write from life. A book is a book. It doesn't portray life. It exists in its own world. J.S. writes from life too much, if you're a girl and you bump into him in the street you'll be lucky if the novella series he writes about you only has 5 instalments. He's also a raging misogynist, the only reason he writes romance novels is to impress girls by making them think he's dark and mysterious. He's always liked writing horror, really gruesome stuff too. But Lovecraft never got much girls.

His criticisms make the press sound like my biggest fan. Support your brother! You've cramped him in a bathroom with poor plumbing, the least you can do is be constructive. One time I wrote a crime novel about a drug dealer with a speech impediment, gave J.S. my latest draft, and he said he loathed every word of it because a) "that's not what drugs taste like," and b) I should've called it "mess" because someone with a lisp would call it "meth." Not helpful! On the receiving side, he can't take the slightest negative comment about his work - of which I have plenty - and is constantly throwing me with "yeah, but"s, "but that's the point"s, and "remind me how many bestsellers you've written"s.

He also never bought toilet paper for my bathroom. Sometimes I found myself using pages of my notebook, and there's bloody good ideas for books on those!

"M.D.!" He barked at me one day, in an even-tempered voice that sounded happy to see me but I knew it was the act he put on whenever he wanted something, "How you doing?"

"Bad. I'm doing bad. It's never been worse."

"Right. Right. Whatcha working on?"

"Novel about a farmer turned gang leader."

"You should call it Shepherd's Pie!"

I refused to laugh and took another bite of my meat slab. "You don't have any real food here, do you?"

"Write a decent book and I'll think about it."

"What do you want then?"

"Eh, just checking in."

It was better then sleeping on the streets, I guess. 

"But there is one thing!" Actually, scratch that. Much worse.

"Go on..."

"Well," J.S. Gunn scratched his salt and pepper beard leisurely like he was deep in thought or really wanted to touch his beard, "you know my new novel, right?"

"No. I don't know what you're....OH! The one you've been talking about for five months non-stop, hm, maybe I've heard something about it."

"I'm hosting a reading."

"Okay. Do you want me to come?"

"You're gonna have to come, mate."

"Why? Where is it?"

"Let's just say you're already there..."

"Ugh. It's not in the bathtub, is it?" I enjoyed writing from the tub, it was a chill and contained space with no distractions other then my extremely wet mattress, the shower-head, and the bath taps on both sides which I could activate any moment by leaning back.

"Warm! It's actually in this house! Thought I'd save you the trouble of straying too far from your writing sanctuary."

"That's very kind of you. You know, I've been struggling to catch up on sleep lately. And I hope you're doing it in the living room because there's a nice couch I can recline on as your 50 Shades of Grey rip-off guys me riiiiiiiiight to sleep."

"I will kill you. You couldn't write to save your life."

"I will END your life. Your book is so bad, it'll make me commit manslaughter."

I'd later eat my own words.