i am writing a book. would u please review and be my critics

[huggy]

before you read on, this is not your average sailing book and it contains material of a very adult nature. including drug use, sexual referances and very stong language. and if u know of a litterary agent pass it on. this is only the introduction, but it will be all about my journey to oz.( as long as i get a publishing deal) enjoy.

It was the 2nd of august 2008. I was in liverpool marina lock, readying myself for sailing singlehanded to Austrailia.
Now, when you tend to think about people that sail on voyages like this you might think about poeple like Helen Mcarthur, Chay Blithe, Dee Caffery or Sir Robin Knox Johnson. Hero's one and all, experianced sports men (and women) fit, knowledgable, brave and as a rule, rich!
Myself on the other hand. Mmm, im not realy like that. My name is Mark Hughes im 38 years young, 5' 6", 15 stone fat love child, my mates call me Huggy. I come from a land locked village near Warrington called Winwick, im a welder by day, piss head by night and quite partial to a bit of the old nose candy by the gramme.
As for my experiance.... Well, about 2 years ago i accidentaly bought an 18' trailer sailor off ebay when i was pissed and coked out of my brain. It cost £800 and i used the "buy it now" option. Seeing as i had already paid for the fornicating thing i had no choice but to go and pick it up from Whitchurch. So, after a 3 hour self-love i decided i was proberbly sober enough to find my van. Four hours and one puncture later i rolled into our Deryk's farm, sparks flying off one of the trailor's rim's. obviously, i did'nt have a spare. As i pulled up next to the barn, I was warmly greeted by my cousin Tricia shouting " get that off my fornicating yard " and her husband deryk just shaking his head. So after a quick brew and me promising i would help with spud picking (i never helped) they let me keep it on the farm, until I cleared enough space behind my hovel so i could park it there.
Now, having bought this old tub i quickly realised that theres a lot more to yachts than meets the eye. first of all, being a trailor sailor the mast was lying flat along the roof and my first job was to put it up. easier said than done. anybody that knows anything about yachts will know theres a lot of dangly stringy type things that hold the mast up and control the sails, and these things all have a correct home to goto. I did'nt know anything about yachts. So its off to W.H. Smiths for a copy of Yachting Monthly. I then looked at the pictures of other yachts and i copied where each dangly bit went. Lo and behold i got it up, and all without the need of chemical assistance. A first for me. Next stop, Anglesy.
It was a bank holiday weekend, the long one with friday and monday off work. So i decided to take "Mistral" my Alacrity 18 foot trailor sailor out for her (and my) maiden voyage. i had already bought a hand held radio and a chart covering Anglesey and adjoining waters. (I could'nt even read an A to Z) All i needed now was booze, weed, a bit of columbia's finest and a few mates to enjoy a weekend on the water.
the first person to enlist was our kid, Sean he's mad as a box of frogs, fearless and he has a lifejacket. which for some strange reason his mum (my aunty pat) bought him from the car boot sale, just because he was going for a weekend in the lake district. next there was keith. he was only coming cos it was a good excuse to get away from his bird. Next was south african jeff he also is a sandwich short of a picnic and will do anything as long as it involves a near death experiance. Last of the motley crew to join was john. now john likes the finer things in life, fit birds, nice cars, he drves a merc, lives at the gym, nice tan in fact he owns several sunbed shops and he joined without seeing my boat. I think when I said I had a yacht he was thinkng maybe a Sunseeker, snorting coke off a whores tits and then a ride on one of the jet ski's. Boy, was he in for a shock. I did'nt even have a fornicating rubber dingy and the coke was on the back of an old cd box.
It was friday morning and four of us made our way to Amlwyc on the north coast of Anglsey. John was joining us later as he had to find somewhere to dump the kids. We got there around lunchtime and proceded to launch the boat. no major dramas there, this sailings a piece off piss. So we tied the boat up and then remembered we left the food and booze on the campsite we stopped at a few miles down the road. We left the boat tied up and made our way back. We got our gear and went to the pub for a bite to eat and a few beers. after a few hours merrymaking we headed back to the boat. Now, let me tell you. At this stage all i knew about tides were that they left a dirty mark around the top of the bath. When we left the boat we stepped off it straight onto the harbour wall. When we returned we thought the boat had been nicked. It was nowhere to be seen. On closer inspection the tide had gone out and the boat had dropped about 10 meters and the mast was below the wall. When we looked down we were supprised to see a car driving past the boat on what was the sea bed and the boat was hanging by the ropes that we had tied it up with. As these tides take quite a while to go in and out, it was going to be a few hours before the boat would be bouyant again.
So with no chance of getting out onto old briney that day, we were forced back into the local watering hole for some more beer and a few liveners off the back of the pubs toilet. After we'd had a skinfull all that was left now was a visit to the chippy next door. Im sure my kebab and chips was very nice, but after all the crap i'd put up my nose that day, which proberbly included, vim, rat, poison, anthrax and topped off with with some dirty fishermans piss. I was'nt very hungry, so my food went to the dog. Oh, i never mentioned my dog.
Well, her name is Sheila and she is the love of my life. She is an Australian cattle dog or Blue Heeler and I never go anywhere without her. So, when i said i was sailing single handed to Oz, that wasnt exactly true. She is very friendly in a dingo type of way, and will eat anything, including, stones, plastic bottles, fag butts and even the odd baby, if the news papers are to be believed. (I still blame the mother) So my kebab and chips with hot chilli sauce was no problem.
On returning to the boat we were happy to see that it was floating again. All that was left to do was sort out sleeping arangements. As you can imagine, on an 18' boat this was never going to be the Ritz. It had 3 berths. Me being he skipper had to have 1, our kid, being the 1st mate and having the one and only lifejacket had to be close to me so he had the next. Jeff was faster than keith to the last one so Keith was left outside in the cold. After a shitty nights sleep we woke up to find Keith had gone home. I guess he just was'nt cut out for a life on the ocean waves. Sheila on the other hand, made herself at home and had excrement in one of jeff's shoes. How we laughed. Well, Jeff did'nt. Sean soon cheered him up with a full english, cooked on a one burner camping stove, followed with a breakfast line and a can of carling. Renourished and fully charged we were finaly ready to cast off.
We motored out of the harbour and managed to put up the sails. There was a good breeze blowing from the west that suited us perfectly because we were heading for a place called Molfrie, about eight miles to the east of us. The sea was'nt too bumpy, that is untill we passed this lighthouse that was on a rocky headland jutting out into the sea. The waves were coming from behind us and for some reason they all of a sudden became quite big, but once we got used to the fact that the boat went over them and not the other way around it wasnt too bad. After about half an hour, as quick as these waves appeared they died away. We continued to sail on the inside of this island which we did'nt have a name for, so, due to the fact that that it's only decernable feature was what apeared to be either an anciant light house or single tower from an old monestery, we decided, much to our amusement to call it Dildo Island. A couple of hours and a few beers later we motored into the little bay of Molfrie, where we were to pick up John.
He was waiting for us on some rocks, but not having a dingy we were going to have a problem getting him aboard. fortunatly somebody had kindly left a rowing boat tied to a mooring bouy in the bay. We tied upto the bouy and it was decided that Jeff and Sean go and get John, some petrol and a cheep rubber dingy and I wait with the boat. This was'nt the Oxford rowing team, the boat was never overloaded with excessive braincells aboard so after about twenty minuets of going around in circles, going backwards and going in compleatly the wrong direction, they finaly made it the 30 meters to the beach. A great achievment going by the state they were in.
They piled into Johns merc and off they went, leaving me all alone with my boat and and a pile of nose bag the size of Mont Blanc. so i proceeded to rack up a line the lengh of the M6 motorway. Just about the time i was snorting past Hilton Park services at 90 miles an hour
I heard a noise on the hard shoulder. i sort of came to my senses and realised it was actually a fishing boat next to me with a very rude fisherman shouting get off my bouy and wheres my fornicating dinghy? Without once looking him in the eye, I said, sorry mate i hope you dont mind, it was an emergency. One of my crew had an accident and had to be rushed to the hospital, I dont think its too serious they should'nt be long. He said, sorry to hear that mate, i hope he will be ok. no problem, you just wait there then and ill sort out my net while im waiting. Cheers mate, I said, and went back inside to finish my line and crack open another can of carling. This was my first encounter with fishermen. Over the coming month's and years i will grow to hate them with a passion. The sort of hatred I normally reserve for liverpool football club. I myself am an armchair Man u fan




and everybody loves us.

[Ocklepoint]

Great!

At last, an honest account of modern yachting life.

I thought that was a great read.

When do we see some more?

[huggy]

thank you for your reply. your the first person to get back to me and i am very happy that you enjoyed it. for this reason, when ever i do a significant amount of writing i will be sure to send it to you first for your approval. cheers mate.

[Silkie]

huggy's back - and move over Hunter S.

I think it's great. Spelling and grammar are much overrated anyway (and I speak as one who is pedantic by both instinct and training) BUT ya gotta spell the famous sailing names correctly; Ellen Macarthur, Chay Blyth, Dee Caffrey or Robin Knox-Johnston.

I've no idea what your chances are of getting published but you'll need to stop giving it away for free on the web if you want to make money out of it rather than just entertaining your fans.

How about a quick update on where you are and what's happened since we last heard from you?

[Telo]

At last, the antidote to smug sailing. Well, might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'll certainly buy it if you can find a publisher.

Any publishing contacts here, someone who could give advice? Anyone know Will Self?

[Alan_D]

Spelling and grammar are much overrated anyway

That's what Publishers' Editors are for.

[Nick]

.
Huggy,

I have proofread and edited a book before and would be happy to assist. I suggest self-publishing on Kindle and selling through Amazon. Happy to advise on this, and of course there would be lots of free advertising here once the book is published.

[huggy]

thanks nick i will proberbly take you up on that, as i know absolutly nothing about stuff like this. but first i need to write a bit more. ill post some more when i've writen it so you can tell me if its still any good. cheers m8. oh and what is proofread? heres the next bit for you. btw its not all about drugs as you will later learn as the book develops. one of the reasons i left england was because of coke. i didnt want it but it was rife where i lived and it was very hard to resist. there are instances that i return to old ways and when i do it will be very funny, but in general the book will be about my travels. which get even funnier and interesting.

and everybody loves us.
About an hour later i saw them coming down the beach carring a new twenty quid kids dinghy, already inflated, a can of petrol and a crate of carling. Sean and Jeff jumped in the rowing boat with the supplies and John got in the dingy and they slowly made there way back to the yacht. By now I was quite fucked and I greeted John with a chorus of the Ace of Base classic." All that she wants, is a rubber dingy" and shouting " Look! Its a fornicating rubber johnny".
On hearing the comotion, the fisherman returned and on seeing my crew, he said " whoever it was that got hurt, seams to have made a good recovery" I said "it was'nt one of these it was Nigel and the've kept him in for observation" He said "Bollocks, you've had a laugh, now give me my dingy back and flip off!
I untied the boat and we headed out for a sail to Dildo Island. Unfortunatly there was no wind so we had to motor. Which did'nt seem to bother us cos we were more interested in getting pissed and wrecked. When we got there we decided to go ashore in pairs as the dingy was'nt big enough for us all, so i went first because Sheila was looking at Jeffs shoes so she must have needed a excrement. I got in the Dingy and Sheila jumped in after me and instantly popped it with her claws. Brilliant! That was a waist of twenty quid. We got back on the boat and headed back to molfrie. Luckily when we got there the fisherman had gone. Its a good job because we were all pissed and we would have proberbly ended up fighting. We found another empty bouy, tied the boat up and got out the fishing gear. I promised that if we caught anything, that we would eat it. A couple of hours went by without a bite, we'd finished the ale and Mont Blank was now the size of four very small lines. Then Bang! the rod bent. We got a bite. I grabbed the rod and started to reel it in. I'm not a very good fisherman as you will later learn. The way i was reeling it in you would have thought i had a two hundred pound marlin. when i eventually got it onboard it was about a foot long and weighed less than a pound. It fell off the hook and a promise is a promise, so i grabbed an adjustable spanner and proceded to cave its head in. Everyone went quiet, there was blood everywhere. and our kid then said "you tight love child. There was no need for that. It proberbly has kids at home." "flip off" i said "it was a fornicating kid" at this everyone started laughing. Our kid said "right, what you going to do with it?" I replied "flip knows, I'm not hungry after all that beak" So over the side it went. We polished off what was left of the sniff then we all settled down for a good nights talking excrement.
Morning eventualy came and John and Jeff decided to get off. once again we were without a decent dingy to get them ashore, so we got out the first aid kit and temporaraly fixed it with a few plasters. Off they went and and dumped the dingy on the beach. It was knackered anyway. Our kid cooked up another cracking breakfast so we were alright for food but we had no beer left and the dingy was on the beach. So i decided we were going to beach the yacht. Mistral, is what is known a a bilge keeler, that means it has 2 keels (the heavy fin's under the boat) one on each side, so the boat should be able to sit on the beach without falling over. the problem was that Molfrie has a very steep beach so we decided to go to red wharf bay which was just a couple of miles away. On with the engine again and off we went. Half an our later we slowly approached the beach, waiting for the boat to botom out. when it did i put out the anchor and we waited for the tide to go out. all was going well untill the front of the boat started to point up into the air. We moved ourselves and anything heavy to the front to try and balance her out but it did'nt work. Next thing the rudder fell off and the front of the boat ended up pointing nearly fourty five degrees into the air. The problem was, i had forgot to put the locking pins into the rudder. If i did the boat would have rested on its keels and the rudder and it would have stayed perfectly level. Well, you live and learn.
While waiting for the water to go out far enough for us to jump off the boat without getting our feet wet, our kid went down below to make a brew. While he was down there we had a few visitors. First of all a bunch of Japaneze tourist's came over laughing and taking photo's. next, this bloke comes running towards the boat and asks if we are ok and do i want him to ring the coast gaurd. I thanked him for his concern and i told him that we were ok and did'nt need the emergency sevices as i had deliberatly "parked" it there. I do'nt tthink he believed me but he walked off anyway and no helicoptors came to save the day. our kid came up with the brews and i told him about the good samaritan. We finished our coffee and went off to get some more beer. We walked into town and by now the pubs were open, so we went in for a quick hair of the dog. After a couple of pints we left to continue our resupply mission. We got some Booze, fags and a packet of skins and made our way back to the boat. Unfortunatly we we got there the tide had turned and the boat was about hundred meters out to sea. Non of us are good swimmers so we had to leave it and wait for the tide to come in then go out and then come in a bit again so we could sail it away. At this point i made a mental note to learn just what the crack is with these fornicating tides.

[Fingal]

Dear Huggy
You are definitely a natural storyteller, as anyone who has seen any of your videos must recognise. However if you want to hold people's attention over the length of a book, say 60,000 -80,000 words you will need to work on a few things. You might think a bit about who might want to buy your book and what they will be interested in or entertained by. You should definitely think quite carefully about the kind of language you use; the 'effing and blinding' that might be perfectly OK face to face in the pub will almost certainly put some readers right off so you need to save the strongest language for when it's really essential. The third thing to think about is the overall shape of the book. If it's just a series of lengthy anecdotes like the ones above, then even though they are quite entertaining I doubt if many readers would stay interested for long. Maybe there is a 'big story' about how (no offence intended) a coke-head loser learns a new way of life through messing about in boats. If that's the story you will need to think about how you tell it, the beginning, the middle and the end.

My last piece of advice is always to think about what you have written so far as 'work in progress' that you can and should go back to again and again and keep improving it until you can do no more.

Best of Luck

[huggy]

cheers m 8. thats good constructive critisism, and i will keep it it mind. as the book develops you will learn that i no longer take drugs (well, not very often) infact one of the reasons i left england was it was to hard to get away from them and all this will be revealed. thanks again huggy.

[bosun higgs]

Great!

At last, an honest account of modern yachting life.

Obscenity spouting drunken druggies? There's obviously a side of yachting I havent yet discovered.

[bosun higgs]

OK Huggy. I read a lot of novels - mostly detective story trash, some bio, some sci fi. Anything that takes my fancy to be honest. But I wouldnt read a book written like the samples above for several reasons.

Firstly I wouldnt read it because the writing is poor - lots of superfluous adjectives, poor sentence construction and bad grammar. I'm assuming that the spelling would be corrected before printing anyway.
Secondly I wouldnt read it because it hasnt got a story. Any book needs a story, and drunken drug induced fumbling in a boat isnt a story.
Thirdly I wouldnt read it because its peppered with redundant obscenities and I say that as someone who worked in heavy industry where every other word began with an F.
But most of all I would discard it because it makes drug use and drunkenness a norm rather than depravity.

Maybe others would happily lap it up but you did ask for criticism and this post is mine.

[claymore]

You are speaking about the Huggy we know and love. There is a very real and often moving story in there about self development and the personal inner journey that huggy has been undertaking. It is brutally frank and open - not always about a world that I would want or be brave enough to live in. I cried with laughter when he forgot the dog on one of the french canals and then marvelled at the kindness of the people who did their bit to reunite him. It has been a real adventure in a world where adventuring gets ever more rare.
I think with a decent bit of editing, structuring and marketing and a well written foreword, this book has a great deal of potential.It isn't a work of fiction.

[bosun higgs]

You are speaking about the Huggy we know and love.

No - I wrote about the short samples in the first post, and I gave an opinion that is purely personal and reads, in retrospect, quite harshly. Few of us ever get so far as to start writing a book so I do wish Huggy the best with his project. I just wish he wrote in a different way and didnt give drug taking the slightest air of being normal or acceptable behaviour.

And yes, I do know that sounds pious and maybe even pompous but that doesnt make it wrong

[claymore]

I think perhaps drug taking was part of the Huggs normal behaviour...
as for acceptable - who are we to judge?