Luton Living Wage

 

There are a lot of media voices asking why the benefits bill is so high.. here is one, localised, answer.

 

I was at a meeting today where a lot of council people were talking about the impact of poverty on communities, and they studiously avoided mentioning this so I thought I would work it out myself.

These are the things you can’t get out of paying if you’re trying to live normally.

 

All sorts of benefits and tax credits are being cut, so this is what you have to earn to keep your head above water and not receive any help from the government. I have made no allowances for drinking, dancing, or fun of any kind. This is the bare minimum a family of 4 needs to keep it’s head above water.

 

Note I have made no allowance for any emergency fund, so the moment a family like this has a problem with its boiler, its car, flooding, or any other problem, it will sink into poverty.

For a family of four, living cautiously, 1 earner:
Rent (or current mortgage)  on a 2 bed flat or house: £600+
Food & household goods for four people (buying carefully) £300
Insurance on home and possessions and employment:  £150
Clothes & school uniform £50 (at most basic)
Pension for two: £150
Gas and electricity: £75
Council tax £110
Water: £30
Transport: £200
Phone and internet: £40

Total cost (before tax): £1,700 or £20,400 a year (per household) (rough estimate after tax £26k)

Remember that if you have children and both of you work, you have to take childcare off this. So both people would need to be earning probably £19k each to break even.

Basically, if a company wants to employ a full time person on a living wage where they won’t have to draw housing benefit or any other benefit, they need to be paying £11.18 an hour. Minimum.

 

Companies in Luton only offer this sort of salary for a managerial or professional role.. there is pretty much no way that a person without a degree could earn enough money to raise a family here without being on benefits.

 

Basically the government is subsidising employers.. the majority of people in Luton cannot survive on their wages without asking for benefits.

I feel that this is the issue nobody is confronting. You can talk about “troubled families”, and continue to lambast the unemployed, but while the state has to subsidise companies to emply the majority of their workers, the GDP sums are never going to add up.

Tips on Self Publishing from Cary Caffrey (author of “The Girls from Alcyone”)

I was chatting on twitter to a couple of self published authors who have done well for themselves recently saleswise. One who stood out was Cary Caffrey, whose science fiction/fantasy book “The Girls from Alcyone” I purchased in hard copy from Amazon a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed reading it – the book was pacy and the plot gave a satisfying arc for the main characters while spanning interplanetary politics in a very plausible future world. Also it had a bit of lesbian sex in it. You can’t go wrong with lesbian sex. It was beautifully written and I read it in a day. It reminded me of the old pulp SF stories I love so much, but with more of an eye to readability. I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending it to my friends (and my children, when they are *cough* a bit older). There is a lot more depth to it than perhaps the blurb would suggest; plenty of action, strong female characters, and a vividly realised world well set up for future sequels. 

Here is the blurb: “Sigrid and Suko are two girls from the impoverished and crime-infested streets of 24th century Earth. Sold into slavery to save their families from financial ruin, the girls are forced to live out their lives in service to the Kimura Corporation, a prestigious mercenary clan with a lineage stretching back long before the formation of the Federated Corporations. Known only to Kimura, the two girls share startling secret-a rare genetic structure not found in tens of millions of other girls. But when their secret becomes known, Sigrid and Suko quickly find themselves at the center of a struggle for power. Now, hunted by men who would seek to control them, Sigrid and Suko are forced to fight for their own survival, and for the freedom of the girls from Alcyone.”

http://www.amazon.com/Girls-From-Alcyone-Cary-Caffrey/dp/1105337278/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331337483&sr=8-1

Anyway, Cary was kind enough to write me some tips for self publishing, which I would like to put down for posterity. They may sound obvious to you, but I haven’t even started absorbing them yet and I think it will lead to me re-publishing the current books under new titles and artwork, and give me a head start on Barnabus.

 

 

As for how I publicized, there’s definitely no trade secrets. I’ve listed five steps I’ve taken that I’m convinced have helped me. Sorry (in advance) for the length of my ramblings – I just wanted to be as specific as I could.

 

 

Reviews: This is a big one. About two months before I published I sent out about twenty copies of my book for people to read. I asked everyone who read the book to (please) post a review on Amazon. Four days after publishing I already had five five-star reviews on my amazon page. I think this helped immensely! After the first month, I think I had about 11 or 14 reviews. Almost all of these were from people who wrote to me saying they read the book, whom I then asked to ‘please post a review!’

 

I still ask people to post reviews (when they write or tweet me). I’d say over half my reviews are from people who have written to me or tweeted me, or people I’ve met on twitter, whom I’ve asked to post reviews.

 

I think the fact that I’m barely selling on Amazon UK, where I only just got my first review the other day, compared to .Com shows how important the reviews are. (or it’s pure coincidence – who knows!)

 

Tweets: 

 

I never spam my book. Mostly, I re-tweet other writers I like and try to pump their books instead of my own. Most writers (if they’re nice) reciprocate and say lots of nice things about my book (it always sounds better when other people mention your book). This approach seems to have worked out pretty well. My book has been tweeted out now to tens of thousands of other twitter followers, writers, bloggers and reviewers. I’d never have been able to do that on my own.

 

These re-tweeters are a great help. 

 

I also participate in a weekly blog where I share snippets from my work. This has helped expose me to other writers (who have been very supportive). http://scififansat.blogspot.com/

 

The Cover:

The whole Amazon system/sales-mechanism does a great job bringing readers to your book. Once there, though, it’s up to us (the writers) to make a good first impression.

 

I did a lot of research, looking at other self-published book covers. What I found didn’t surprise me much: most of the covers out there look pretty much the same. Everybody seems to grab a royalty free photo and put their title over top – not very imaginative. Hey, even I thought about doing that! It was pretty easy to see that if I wanted to stand out I needed to do something different.

 

I decided to commission some original art for my book cover. I don’t think my cover’s perfect by any means, but I think it stands out from most (I get lot’s of comments on that cover), and I’m convinced it’s helping with the sales. It wasn’t cheap, but it’s definitely paid for itself. 

 

I was also careful, in designing the cover, not to show the girls faces (readers like to decide for themselves how characters look, often putting themselves in the place of characters – that’s why I really don’t like photos of models on book covers). The image works well with the title too (I think).

 

The Title:

 

A great teacher I had (way back) pointed out that, while the cover is the first thing people see, it’s the title that’s the first thing people read. A really good title always asks a question, begging people to want to find out more.

 

I like my title for a couple of reasons. I think it’s pulpy enough that you know you’re going to be reading a good old-style action-adventure. I think it also gives a good hint at the story – you know right away that these girls are going to be different and dangerous (at least, I think).

 

(I mention the title because I’ve received a lot of positive comments on that too).

 

Editing:

 

I think most importantly, I hired a professional editor. I tried seven different editors before finding one I felt compatible with. This editor was great. He didn’t just fix grammar issues or the occasional typo, he was terrific at pointing out echoes in my writing (using the same word or phrase too much), and highlighting awkward phrasing, even making lots of helpful suggestions a long the way. It was a lot of work (and time), but it was worth it. It was also a lot of fun.

 

I think this relates directly to sales because of the whole free sample system on Amazon. No one’s going to buy a book without first reading the free sample (I’d imagine), so taking the steps to make sure it was well-edited was a must.

 

The bottom line is (and I freely admit this) I don’t know why my book is selling. It could be because of the things I mentioned, or it could be a pure stroke of luck.”

 

 

 

Short Story – Deja Vu

I awake; yawn; stretch like a cat. Light shafts in through the window, catching sparkling motes of dust like fairies stirred up by my movement. I take pleasure in the feeling of my muscles complaining as I shrug out the kinks in my body, knotted up from unaccustomed exercise the day before. Curled next to me, you tilt your head up sleepily for a kiss, and I oblige, soft lips meeting and hesitating briefly, breathing the same air. I raise my hand and trace my fingertips lightly across your cheekbone and down the smooth skin of your neck, and you purr, your eyes flickering closed, nuzzling into the clean sheets.

I brush a few strands of hair from your face, tuck them gently behind your ear, and rise nakedly, picking my way through discarded clothes to the kitchen. A butterfly beats against the window, trapped outside, soft body knocking futilely against the glass. My thoughts are dissipate as I reach for the cafetiere; the Kenyan coffee, the brown sugar, dun crystals catching the light and my eye as they tip lazily into the cup, disappearing in the whirlpool raised by the spoon. Contentment, happy piecemeal snapshot recollections of the night before: the restaurant, the club, the taxi home, the front door opening beneath your keys as we swept through into the bedroom, discarding clothes and shoes and bags and falling together into the bed, holding and moving urgently together of one mind and body, skin melting into skin, then falling apart exhausted with your arm across my chest as if you could not bear to lose the contact, and my face buried deep in your slightly smokey hair.

My gaze lands on the crumpled packet of cigarettes on the side table; shrugging on your dressing gown I crack open the window and lean out on my elbows, coffee steam and cigarette smoke coiling lazily in the slight breeze, aware of the breath in my throat and the stretch of my lungs, and the sharpness of the air makes me shiver just enough to feel my skin, feel alive, and the sun snaps through the trees at the bottom of the garden making me squint across the lines of fire to focus on the gate at the bottom, where something is moving…

..And then violence and pain and darkness and blood. Something punches me back from the window with unbelievable force, caught tearing between my ribs and even as I fall backward another blow snaps my head backwards and I am lying on the floor warm and damp and broken and stunned and paralysed with shock, and the world ebbs around the edges and my vision grows darker and smaller and less defined as I hear your voice raised in a sharp wail from the other room, and the bubble from my throat as i try to call out to you to comfort you is the last thing I hear..

*
I awake; yawn; stretch luxuriously. Shards of light shaft in through the window, catching bright motes of dust like snowflakes stirred up by a flurry of wind. I take pleasure in the sensation of my muscles aching as I shrug out the kinks in my neck and shoulders, knotted up from overenthusiastic exercise the day before. Curled next to me on your side, you tilt your face towards me for a kiss, and I oblige, drawn to your soft lips, holding the touch for a heartbeat, breathing the same air, imagining electricity flowing between our mouths. I raise my hand and trace my fingertips lightly across your beautiful face, tracing the bone delicately, and you purr, your eyes flickering, nuzzling into the clean sheets with your mouth turned into a contented smile.

I brush hairs from your face, tuck them gently behind your ear, kiss you featherlight on your brow, and rise nakedly, picking my way through discarded clothes and shoes to the kitchen. A butterfly beats against the window, trapped outside, soft body knocking futilely against the glass, and the soft thumping sends a chill of pity and apprehension though me. I reach for the caffetiere; the kenyan coffee, the brown sugar, dun crystals catching the light and my eye as
they tip lazily into the cup, forming familiar patterns as they disappear in the tiny whirlpool raised by the spoon. My thoughts follow the spiral, forming patterns of their own – piecemeal snapshot recollections of the night before: the restaurent, the club, the taxi home, the front door opening beneath your keys as we swept through into the bedroom, discarding clothes and shoes and bags and falling together into the bed, holding and moving urgently together of one mind and body, skin melting into skin, then falling apart exhausted with your arm across my chest as if you could not bear to lose the contact, and my face buried deep in your slightly smokey hair.

The tapping.. the moth on the window. A movement in the garden, masked by the snapping brightness of the rising sun. Blackness. Fear. Pain. This has happened before. Terror as i look up, and catch sight of my own hand moving inexorably towards the packet of cigarettes, ignoring my frantic compulsions to stop, to run, to call out to you in the other room, and my body shrugs into your gown and walks calmly to the window and leans outside into the danger taking deep and claming breaths while i scream and i scream and i tug at my
muscles but I cannot change a thing, not a tic of a muscle as my movements are predestined, and i know that I have precisely four seconds to live even as I squint through the sunlight to catch a glimps of a figure, a van, and, in the fraction of a second as the first bullet rips painfully into my unprotected flesh, a gun cocked against a swarthy face -

*

“Gotcha!” says the forensics specialist, hoary finger hovering over mouse button to zoom in to a blurry smudge of face. You gasp, reddened eyes widening through tears. “Recognise him?”
You hesitate, looking at the image, and frown and squint and shudder. “Its not focussed enough – I think – I couldn’t be sure – “
“Well, I think we have a few more reruns left before the nerves decay irreparably. Maybe 10, 20… Lucky we got there so quickly, really. And lucky most of the frontal lobes are still there – we might even get the numberplate of the van..” He reaches out and resets the machinery, refining the focus, changing the search pattern minutely. “Lets try with this one..”
“Are you sure this doesn’t hurt?” you ask nervously. “It seems wrong, somehow – those last few minutes over and over again..”
The specialist smiles reassuringly. “The brain is dead, you know. Consciousness has fled. We’re simply replaying old memories from an organic chip. There’s no awareness, don’t worry.”
He reaches forward and clicks a switch.

*

I awake, screaming silently with terror as my mouth curls into a beatific smile.

Short Story – Narcissus

“Mirror, mirror,” I say plaintively, but before the words are out of my mouth I know that they have made no difference. My image stares back at me, pale and bland and freckled, lacking depth. There is no fire in my eyes, no sensuousness about my mouth. Everything about me seems slightly out of proportion – eyes to nose, mouth to chin, breasts to hips – pinched where I should be generous, wide where I should be slim. And yet, perhaps, another wouldn’t notice it.
I dress with care to flatter, apply makeup which slims and plumps, although my eyes still pierce through the reflection to my naked flaws.

My phone bleeps with a text message – it’s sleek and black, and has GPRS, although I haven’t bothered to figure out how to use it. I know who it’s from without looking – there have been four similar within the last hour.

“I told you,” I send back irritably, “I’m working late tonight. Please stop bothering me. We’ll do something tomorrow.” As an afterthought I add “I love you,” and an X. Clingy people irritate me so. But I’m too kind hearted to tell him. I’ll have fun tonight, and go see him tomorrow, and he can take me to dinner or something. It’ll cheer him up.

The taxi pulls up outside, and I skip out of the house, slipping the phone into my black rubber bobble bag.

Later, in the bar, I relax in the glow of my friends. I recount an incident at work; they laugh. “You’re so clever,” says Lynn. “I wish I had a way with words like you.” I bask, although I have to concede that Lynn probably never will have fluency and subtlety like me. Possibly because I work at it, possibly because she is by nature clumsy. She’s a loyal friend, though. I like her, although she irritates me somewhat. The conversation turns to Abby’s genetics paper. It doesn’t interest me a lot – I don’t know much about it. Abby is explaining it at great length and hogging conversation time. I look around the table, but everyone else appears to be riveted. I draw a little doodle with my fingertip on the bar.

My eyes wander to the next table – and I catch the eye of a youngish guy, looking across at our table. Was he looking at me..? He is now. I smile, and lean back towards my friends, artfully sliding a quip into the conversation. People laugh. Abby looks annoyed, but she’ll get over it. I keep sliding my eyes back to the guy in the corner – every time I see him looking at me I get a little thrill. I look around the table at my friends, considering them – Abby tall and red haired, beautiful and intelligent; Lynn curvy and well dressed, Beth dark haired and dark skinned, all of them beautiful, and he’s looking at me. Me.

I make my excuses and go to the bathroom, smiling at him as I sway past. The reflection in the mirror looks sadly similar to the one that greeted me at home, although I note the eyes sparkle, the mouth twists slightly with confidence, the image itself looks very slightly sexier, glowing. Reassured, I slink back to the table, ordering another bottle of wine from the barman, who also holds my eye for longer than necessary, I feel.

“Who is that man..?” whispers Abby, raising an eyebrow toward the corner table. “He’s gorgeous.” I’m lost.

Later that night, as he props himself up on his wrists, leaning post coitally over me with his hair touselled over his forehead, he gazes transfixed into my eyes. “I think I might be falling in love,” he says.

I look back up at him, at his large, dark eyes, like deep pools, at the reflection I see there, and suddenly my proportions click into place – my nose is not too wide, my cheeks are not too slender, my mouth is generous without being too large – reflected In his lucid eyes I look sultry, sexy, alluring, bewitching. I make a little moue with my lips and am entranced by what I see. My face – designed to be viewed through your eyes.

“Me too,” I say.

In the hall, smothered by the bag, my phone bleeps twice, and then is silent.

Short Story – Paranoid

I saw another one on the way to work today.

I’d been looking at the lean legs driving us forward, the little shorts. So sue me, if I take a little pleasure in my surroundings. There wasn’t much else attractive to see as we crawled bumper to bumper with bicycles and dented rustbuckets belching fumes – faster to walk probably, although after today I’m even less inclined to try the pavements. The sun is burning the clouds off earlier and earlier each day – I remember when all this was fields. I do. The human is adaptable, our memories blurring over time. I sometimes feel a little – herded, when I think of the changes over the last thirty or forty years. Claustrophobic. But sometimes there isn’t any other way to go, except with the rest of the sheep. Even though you catch yourself glancing wistfully in other directions. What are the odds of a sheep winning a scrap against a collie? Ah, I’m just old, and bitter, and too eager to pin blame. This structure protects as well as contains us. I’m scared of terrorists too, of simulants carrying bombs, of foreign diseases, of the Outside. I keep my head down and do my job, and I’m pastured and protected. I guess that makes me part of the system. Aren’t we all?

I turn my hands over in my lap, palms facing upwards. A black dot glistens in the centre of my right hand. You might be mistaken for thinking it was a splinter, or a speck of dirt. But it is far more important than that. Without this chip, I couldn’t open my own front door, I couldn’t withdraw money, I couldn’t access the building where I work. I’m still not really used to having it – I was one of the last wave to have implants. I think I was hoping that the bill wouldn’t be passed, but it was. I guess its not so bad. Its convenient not having to worry about losing my credit card, or my keys. But I still have nightmares about losing or breaking it, about being erased from the system. Its probably a result of all the science fiction books I used to read. Liberal authors didn’t really lean towards exploring the positive aspects of total government. You’ll find the fiction a lot more forward thinking these days…. Automated things still bother me, though. Probably because I’m old and ornery and untrusting in technology. Too much to go wrong. I wonder whatever happened to Mr Schneier?

The percussion steals my attention away – and although i don’t want to look, I do, along with the rest of the filthy hooting queuing shouting dusty mid morning rush hour traffic. My conscious brain already knows what I’ll see, but its not fast enough to counter the instinctive twist of my neck. I’m forcing myself to see it all, to take it all in and make it part of me, images to relive in slow motion on auto repeat through my sleepless sweat drenched nights, as the young Asian man bursts out of a side street, arms pumping, legs pounding, face contorted with fear, cheap sportswear flying out behind him, and I can still see the expression on his face – mouth open, gasping for air – as the second shot snaps his thigh and he goes down, and then the officer pulling up fractionally later, standing over him as he writhes on the ground, the mercy shot to the head. Perfunctorary. Businesslike. Professional. They do it all the time. It must be a hard job, being a policeman in a martial state.

The brains sure look realistic for simulants. I wonder how the police tell them apart from humans.

Short Story – Split Second

Its not something that comes easily to me, believe me. I work at it. I didn’t even realise it was an option, you know. Initially. I’d wonder why I was so good at one on one games, but average at group games. Tennis would fox me – how could I be so amazing at singles, lame at doubles? It wasn’t just that my partner got in my way, wrong footed me. “Does not work well with others.” “Not a team player”. All the way through school.
And the bullying. Jesus. There was one term when I was afraid to go into school. But they have this rule now, don’t they? You dodge school, they slam your mum in jail. That’s civilised. I couldn’t imagine a care home being any better than school – at least here I get to go home. And there’s my sister to worry about, too. Shannon isn’t bright like me. She has problems. People take advantage of her – she’s only 13. I do what I can, but its not easy. Mostly we try to keep her indoors. Mum gave up work a couple of years ago when Simon left, and Shannon got a lot worse, suddenly, and needed more attention. Its not been that easy since. As I said, we do what we can. I dream of growing up and getting a job, and a house. You know, with a garden. And my own room. Somewhere safe for us. At the moment, I have to stay in school. You don’t get a good job without A levels, especially not around here. But I’m bright. If I can just stick out the next two years..
Anyway. The bullying. You know, I’m grateful for it in a way. Because that’s how I realised what it was about me, what I could do. It started off as group bullying, you know the kind, jeering and pushing on the way home, or if they found me anywhere quiet during the day. I had a whole avoidance plan worked out: I’d hang around inside the school as much as possible, until I got thrown out, and then lurk near to teachers, moving from one to another when they told me to go away. Everyone thought I was odd. Well, you would. I twitched a lot, looking over my shoulder. I fidgeted. I couldn’t concentrate. I hardly spoke. Even the staff didn’t much like me. I don’t blame them for not talking to me, for not standing up for me. I don’t. I wasn’t one of them, and people only ever look after their own.
After a while, though, it got personal. One of them took a real dislike to me, and he’d come looking for me, without the others. He’d put his arm around my shoulder, as if we were friends, and walk me away from where people could see. I was too terrified to resist. Nobody noticed. And later, when I dragged myself out of the bathrooms, having cleaned myself up as best I could, he’d have told them. They’d be laughing at me. I can’t describe the shame. After a while it seemed to become a part of me, something I carried around always and couldn’t shake.
And if it had been just me, well I don’t know if I ever would. But he’d followed me home on time, and he’d seen Shannon. And he told me. While he was holding me down. He told me what he was going to do to her. And I knew that he would.. and I had to do something, only I didn’t know what, and he was hurting me and he was stronger than me and faster and I was pushed up against the wall by my neck, choking and bleeding and the way that time was spinning for me I think I was just on the verge of passing out – everything became textured and the air was sort of greasy, and then – the bell went for break, and his grip relaxed just fractionally, and I can’t describe what I did, but I sort of lunged mentally back out of the base of my skull against him, and as the bell rang and rang and rang and rang and tore up the insides of my ears I twisted out of his grip and turned to see him standing motionless, looking past me with glazed eyes and an ugly snarl, and I didn’t think about it, I swear, or I would never have done what I did, but I pushed him as hard as I could with the flats of both of my palms – GET AWAY FROM ME – and he spun and toppled backwards, and as the bell stopped ringing and the air seemed to change back to normal, I saw a brief flash of awareness – fear and surprise – just a fraction of a second before his head cracked open on the gray tiles and I bolted out of the toilets, retching at what I’d seen and done and been.

Of course, nobody thought it was me. He looked as if he’d slipped. The way his fly was unzipped as he’d fallen – it looked like he’d been otherwise occupied. But after that, you see, I knew how to do it. I could reach into the back of my head and make the air go greasy again. Any time I wanted. It still doesn’t work with big groups of people, but if you’re clever, you only ever need to stop a couple at a time. First I used it just to get out of trouble, and then for shoplifting, but it’s useful for other things as well. I’m working out a way of winning a bet at the grand national for a few days – I’ve saved up the money for a seat just before the finish line, and I’ve been practising on the horses down the road. When I look a bit older, I’ll be able to visit casinos as well – not too long, I should think, given that my hair is graying anyway. I think it was the shock, although it worries me a bit that the streaks seem to be growing. I’ve been able to plant money, things we can sell, around the house for mum to find so that she thinks they were just there – she’s sending Sharon to therapy in a couple of weeks, we think maybe that’ll help. Things are looking up. As Simon used to tell me, before Mum made him leave – When you know what you want, you’ll always find a way to get it.

Poem – Karma

A couple of weeks ago,
Abi and I and Anna and Steve
Were walking back along the underpass.
There was a man, pushing his girlfriend against the wall.
Hard;
“That’s awful,” we said, and went to walk past.
But
A few metres on I turned on my heel
And went back.
And the man shouted at me, and he waved his fist
and he called me an interfering cow,
But he stopped hitting his girlfriend,
And she stopped crying
And he apologised to her
And we went off.
And I was glad to have my friends behind me,
So that I had the confidence to step forward and help,
Because many times I am too frightened, and I hate that I walk past
Looking at my feet.

This weekend
A male friend of mine, a skinhead
Rescued a girl from a man who was kicking her on the ground.
The man called the armed police
Who kept my friend with his face pressed to the floor for twenty minutes
Until they finished interviewing the girl
Later she got a text message:
“Sorry luv”
And went back to the bloke anyway.
Sometimes Karma doesn’t work the way it should.

I sometimes wonder why these women
Bleeding
Go back
I guess they don’t realise there’s a choice.

If I had one wish today
It would be that every woman in the world
Felt confident to be alone.