Marvellous Marvin Mung Bean

Hiya, literature lovers.

Yesterday I revealed that the Secret Seed Society in inviting entires for a competition to become a published children's author. A top prize of a massive £700 awaits. Well, I was so excited by the challenge that I literally spent a couple of hours working on my materpiece.

As per the very strict criteria I have split my story into 12 sections, which for 700 words makes chapters of no more than 58.3 words per chapter. Which is harder than it sounds, readers. Brevity is the mother of invention here!

The story had to be about a personified mung bean and I had to give it an alliterative name with Mung as the surname. That's to say, I needed to give my character to have a name that started with the letter M. As a practiced writer of nigh on seven and half months, I have to say I found this part of the challenge quite straightforward. There are literally dozens of names that start with the letter M. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Next, I needed to set the story in an imaginary place called Seed City. Once again, I found this part of the story writing process very easy. The story was practically writing itself.

Next up, I was instructed to give my chracter some real human issues to resolve with a sprinkle of fantasy. It's a personified mung bean for fuck's sake, that sounds like a fantasy issue enough for me. Still, I know that the sectret of drama is conflict. So I decided to make my character's raison d'etre conflict itself.

I also needed to introduce some other characters. Well, that was pretty easy too, I gave my character a girlfriend and a foe. Love and conflict intertwinned.

It was shaping up to be a timeless classic. Once I started writing the story, I pretty soon ran over the 700 word allowance. All I needed to do now was edit the story down.

Anyay, here's my first draft...

1. Marvin Mung Bean stared forlornly out of the cracked and rain splattered window pane of his tiny grey, rat-infested, bedsit above the betting shop next to the railway station of Seed City’s seedier Lower East Side.
“How did it come to this?” he asked himself, “I could have been someone, I could have been a contender.”

2. Meanwhile, prancing menacingly on the balls of his feet in the boxing ring of his purpose built gym at his out of town millionaire’s mansion, the undisputed world heavyweight champion of the world, Fabulous Frederick Fava Bean, was pummelling yet another sparring legume into the canvas.
“I is the greatest!” he proclaimed.

3. Lesley Lentil was in the backroom of her shop when she heard the ‘tinkle’ of the doorbell that she had installed after she was once robbed by an intruder sneaking into the shop one night while she was cashing up. Lesley reached for her sawn-off shotgun and tip-toed towards the door.
“Lesley, it’s me, Marvin,” came the call.

4. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Marvin excitedly, pointing at the newspaper he held. “Fabulous Frederick Fava Bean is taking on all-comers in a chance to take his crown.”
“But what about your detached retina? You could go blind!” said Lesley.
“I’ve got to give it another shot to buy us a better life.”

5. Meanwhile, lounging on the sumptuous white leather sofa in the spacious living room of his out of town millionaire’s mansion, the undisputed world heavyweight champion of the world, Fabulous Frederick Fava Bean, was idly flicking through a selection of CVs featuring flabby out of shape former boxers. He stopped suddenly.
“This is the sucker I is gonna fight!”

6. Looking at Marvin’s most recent bank statement, Lesley could see that her beloved had been spending freely on such things as bejewelled dog collars, sports cars and jackets featuring big cats, ever since being selected as the contender in the forthcoming world championship fight against Fabulous Frederick Fava Bean. A tear welled up in her eyes.

7. Marvin trained like never before in the gym. He did push-ups, pulls-ups, sit-ups, squat thrusts, skipping, jogging and sparring. He ate raw eggs in the morning and punched raw sides of beef down at the abattoir in the afternoon. He was floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee.

8. Meanwhile, the undisputed world heavyweight champion of the world, Fabulous Frederick Fava Bean, was also doing plenty of training. He did push-ups, pulls-ups, sit-ups, squat thrusts, skipping, jogging and sparring. But then he’d spend the rest of the day lounging by the pool at his out of town millionaire’s mansion.

9. Lesley was proud of Marvin. But more than that, she was proud of her needlework creating his fighting cape. With golden tassels taken from her curtains, sequins spelling out the legend “Marvellous Marvin Mung ‘the Merciless’ Lean Mean Fighting Bean” and the bell from her shop door attached as the cape’s clasp, he’d look a proper bobby dazzler.

10. As Marvellous Marvin Mung ‘the Merciless’ Lean Mean Fighting Bean made his way to the red corner of the ring at Seed City’s Sporting Coliseum, the crowd of healthy, organic, personified, home-grown foodstuffs went absolutely nuts and bananas. Marvin removed his cape to reveal the glistening, be-muscled, torso of a fearsome gladiatorial legume. He feared no one.

11. Meanwhile, in the blue corner, Fabulous Frederick Fava Bean was planning to come out fighting like never before. The two combatants came towards one another at the start of round one - the immovable object versus the irresistible force. Frederick’s blows rained down on Marvin like sledgehammers with gloves.

12. Lesley Lentil couldn’t watch Marvin take a battering so she opted to listen to the fight commentary on her radio in the back room of her shop. Round after round went by, and yet Marvin was surviving. The fight was so engrossing that Lesley didn’t even hear the robbers sneak into the shop and steal her takings.

Whaddayareckon??

Straight to bookshelf

Jobs are funny aren’t they? I mean we’ve all got to have one, but so many people don’t like theirs, it makes you wonder why they bother. I absolutely love my job at Blockbusters, but like it says in the song, love don’t pay the rent. I’m on the breadline and I really should start thinking a bit more about how I can bring in a few more spondulicks.

When I was a nipper up in Lincoln I used to dream of being a policeman, but back in those days you needed to be at least 5’11” in order to qualify. I looked long and hard at my Mum and Dad, 5’8” and 5’2” respectively and realised I’d be hard pushed to make the Force. My Mum being little didn’t matter so much, but it would be my Dad’s lack of stature that would let me down. It wouldn’t be the first time he let me down or the last either readers, but that’s a different story, for another time.

Pretty soon though I was glad that I wouldn’t be a copper. My friend Steve’s Dad was a copper and pretty much no one trusted him. Steve got pretty badly bullied for a while, then it stopped abruptly when the Dad of one of the bullies was pulled over for speeding and some cannabis was ‘discovered’ during a rectal investigation back at the local station.

No one bullied Steve anymore, but no one talked to him either. Apart from me, I wasn’t scared. Mind, I did suggest to Steve’s Dad more than once that I thought my Dad was a secret weed smoker and he was never pulled over, apart from the time he ran a red light, then the copper just let him off with a warning.

Pretty soon I decided that I wanted to be a footballer and play for Notts Forest. Although, to be honest, sports weren’t really my strong point, well, not until I took up judo, which I only took up when the bullies’ attention moved from Steve to me. I’m a black belt now readers, I’d love to run into those bastards again in a dark alley. Even though I’m a pacifist, I think I’d probably put my resolve to one side this time and give them a well-overdue pasting.

When I took up judo, the only professional judo exponent was Brian Jacks. Man, he really was the king of the dippers. Not surprisingly, I never really harboured ambitions to be a professional judo fighter.

Pretty soon I discovered girls and music. I bought a bass guitar and joined a band. Well, I formed one anyway, with Steve. We were called Cut ‘n’ Run, and played electro-funk goth fusion. We did a gig at the church hall, it went down well, but in all honesty, it was highly unlikely that I’d carve myself a career in the business. When I saw that character in the League of Gentlemen, the bassist in Crème Brulee, it reminded me a lot of Cut ‘n’ Run! You’ve got to laugh sometimes haven’t you? If you didn’t you’d cry. :-(

Anyway, I don’t want to go into too much detail about my search for a job from childhood to adulthood. Suffice to say I went to college and got a Desmond (as in Desmond Tu-Tu) in Mineral Processing and Material Reclamation. I qualified just in time for the UK mining industry to collapse. NICE ONE MAGGIE!!!

I ended up in media sales, more by accident than design, and that’s where I stayed for the next 15 years until I was made redundant and started out on my quest to become a Citizen Journalist – that was under five months and over 70 posts ago, and here we are. I’ve had over 1100 hits and 11 great followers (welcome aboard Jimmy!! - you can read my latest follower Jim's blog at this link here. It's well worth a trip.)

I have to admit, I’ve not really seen much financial reward in journalism. Not a single one of my submissions to The Metro has resulted in payment and my freesheet adult entertainment magazine, The Oyster, has proven the old adage that ‘sex sells’ to be inaccurate. All this recent talk of sponsorship opportunities looked promising, but amounted to nothing.

I was starting to think that maybe writing is not that great a career after all. There aren’t that many superstar journalists are there? Apart from Paxman, natch.

Then I thought, ‘but journalists are writers Barry, there are loads of famous writers and quite a few rich ones too’. Look at JK Rowling. I LOVE Harry Potter. They’re great, they’re so addictive, they’re meant for kids I know, but I’ve got the ones with the ‘adult’ sleeves (they’re not covered in pictures of boobs ;-) they’re just plain and serious, so when you’re reading them in public, it looks like you’re reading a proper grown-up’s book).

Writing books is not as hard as you’d imagine readers, the trick is coming up with something no one else has ever thought of that taps into a market hungry for something they didn’t realise they were hungry for. I mean to say, who would ever had thought a book series about a wizard would have been successful?! And Rowling’s books have all been turned into films, so now she’s a multi-millionnairess ten times over. Thanks books. She had a secret up her sleeve all right, or should that be wizard’s sleeve??! lol ;-))

I started thinking about what I could write about that no one has realised they want yet. I went into the local library to do some research. I basically took a pad and pen and then wrote down all the types of books they stock. It took flippin ages!!! I thought I’d write down everything and then whatever was left would be a market as yet untapped.

I stumbled across a whole section full of books that are based on films. But not the actual films, different stories featuring the same characters as in the films like Star Wars and Star Trek. There are loads of famous films that were actually books first. Most people reckon the books are better than the films, but obviously they take a lot more time to consume so people opt for the film version.

Anyway, I thought to myself ‘rather than write a book that I hope gets turned into a film, like JK Rowling, and rather than writing a new story with the same characters that were in successful films. I would write a book version of a successful film’. The beauty of this is all I have to do is sit and watch a film and write down exactly what I see.

It’s targeted at people who think that books are better than films, but they’ve read all the books that have been turned into films and they don’t want to waste their time reading books that feature the same characters that are in films, but doing different stuff.

I just need to find a popular film that hasn’t been turned into a book! It’s harder than you’d think readers. Any ideas?