Me and The Monkey: Chronicles of the Monkey God began as an exercise in writing discipline. I had been writing for a few years, on and off, and could never seem to find the time or commitment to sit down and give it the energy and space it needed. Working in the live events industry, I always found myself either in transit to or from a venue, either in the UK or abroad, working with clients on site or in their offices, or when home, trying to have a ‘home life’ with my young daughter. But I still wanted to write, and this kept nagging at me while I was spending all that dead time travelling. So… I decided that I would make myself write something every day, even if only a few lines, and to give myself the necessary sense of urgency I would post each day’s writing onto a Facebook page as a blog so that if I got any followers, they could give me a hard time if I failed to write. What followed was approximately twelve months of writing blog posts on my phone or iPad or laptop while sitting on trains, in airports and on planes, in motorway service stations, in hotel rooms, backstage at events, and even sometimes while sitting at home with a glass of Jack Daniels. I enjoyed the episodic nature of it, almost like writing for a TV series, and I managed to get a few followers who enjoyed what I was writing; they kept me motivated and even made suggestions for what should happen at times. And so was born Me and The Monkey.
Why Me and The Monkey, you ask? Well, I had always been fascinated by the way, as humans, we have different aspects of ourselves that come to the fore depending upon the circumstances. The monkey brain is that part of us which takes over when we feel threatened or insulted, and is always that part of us which causes those bad decisions. The monkey brain seeks instant gratification, regardless of what that might be, and is often on show late at night when the pubs close and shirtless men square up to each other in the street over some imagined insult, or women (not usually shirtless) shout abuse and pull hair over the attention or lack of, of a prospective mate. So, The Monkey is that part of all of us that we would rather deny. I just made him a physical entity with all the uncontrolled madness that entails, but I didn’t want The Monkey to remain just crazy as that can get boring very quickly; I wanted The Monkey to evolve. And so, The Monkey becomes self-aware as the story progresses and he discovers more about himself, his past, and the world in which he finds himself. This applies equally to the long-suffering narrator, the ‘Me’ of Me and The Monkey, who finds himself, not totally unwillingly, along for the ride.
At first the posts were of a random comedic nature that fitted in with whatever popped into my mind or was happening in the world, so when it was Christmas they did Christmas type things, but after a while I realised that a sort of narrative was beginning to form beyond that and that I would have to give that narrative some consideration if I was going to be able to find something interesting to write about (yes, I really did begin this with no plan!). As the weeks progressed, I began to develop a plot and supporting characters along with a back story for or heroes, and then I would find myself mentioning something in the story that required research to pad it out and the plot really began to thicken and get more bizarre, along with the Google searches (must remember to leave instructions in my will for my search history to be deleted!). I drew more and more upon situations I have been in and people I have known and their experiences (that might seem kind of worrying when you read the blogs but the Vietnam section particularly I owe in large part to a friend and martial arts master who served in the war in Vietnam), along with the vast amount of reading material I have in my library, that sounds very grand but there is at least one full bookcase in every room of the house. I also wove in world mythology, the occult, global conspiracy, good and bad TV and movies, music, games, drink, drugs, guns, and Cornwall, where I live. Into this mix, I then introduced an alternative world history that begins to leak out as the story progresses.
When I finished writing, I decided to put all of the posts into one document as they had all been written individually, and it was at that point that I realised I actually had a book’s worth of words – good or bad – and so I self-published and sold a few copies. Then I just forgot about it… Until a global pandemic left me with a huge amount of time on my hands (the live events industry was the first to close and would be the last to open when we finally got back to some normality), and after a reread I decided it was time for a rewrite and to try and get Me and The Monkey published. The lovely people at Bad Press Ink took me on, and it was decided to release the book as a series of blog posts as it had originally been put out (ah, the joys of episodic writing), and then the physical book launch, but this time with illustrations! It was great seeing my twisted thoughts coming to life in picture form, and I think they complete volume one of the chronicles rather nicely!
The Monkey would approve…