On Me Todd

By Jay Haughton

Meet Todd an 11 year old school boy, a very happy 11 year old school boy.

He doesn’t have any friends, and that doesn’t bother him one bit. It does however, seem to bother other people.

His school teachers and his parents all want him to make and have friends. But does having friends matter, if you are already happy? And, does having friends change anything?

The pseudo-sequel to 'Happy as Larry'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Nov 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781326876647

Book preview

On Me Todd

On Me Todd

On Me Todd

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Illustrated by Sophia Haughton

Jay Haughton Publishing

2016

On Me Todd © 2016 Jay Haughton

The Crossing © 2016 Jay Haughton

The Accident © 2016 Jay Haughton

Illustrations © 2016 Sophia Haughton

Lettering of author’s name © 2016 Jay Haughton

Cover design © 2016 Jay Haughton

Jay Haughton and Sophia Haughton assert the moral right to

be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

First Printing: 2016

ISBN 978-1-326-87664-7

Published by Jay Haughton Publishing

[e-mail]

Dedication

To my late brother John Haughton.

As I write this dedication, twenty-one years exactly since that fateful day in 1995. I never told you what you meant to me, and maybe at the time I was unaware of it too.

Twenty-one years later I think about you a lot, you would have loved the technology of today. Your nephew and nieces are amazing and it fills me with great sadness to think that they never got the opportunity to meet you (and you, them).

I just received a text from my wife a moment ago (who, incidentally you would have loved. She’s crazy and beautiful and I know you would have got on really well) I am sure he would be proud of all his brother has achieved over the years I’m sure that’s true, but then I guess you’d be proud of your little brother no matter what.

I miss you, dude. Words can’t express how much.

Your little brother

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all these amazing people. My children Ella, Sophia and Johnathan, your support is beyond love. To my Suzanne, your input was immeasurable and my novel is all the better for it. I love your objectiveness, but at times I wish you were a little gentler! To my Mum, you promote me like my very own personal (unpaid) agent! Respect! Luke Richardson, as always for putting up with me (again) whilst I went on and on about my book pestering you. David Ainsworth, your support and encouragement means so much to me. To all the people who bought ‘Happy as Larry’, I appreciate your support and I hope I’ve not let you down with this sequel. A second and extra-special thank you to Luke again! Since I became an author I have leaned on you so much for help and support. I have felt myself grow through my writing; and it is you that is my guide as I go on this journey of growth, I owe you very a special debt.

Finally, me again as I wrote this one too!

Where would a book be without its author?

Foreword

You'll read a preface from the author in a minute in which he'll talk about his 'difficult second album', but what I want to know is: what about me? My foreword to 'Happy as Larry' was very well received, just as much so as the story itself, I reckon. Monsignor Haughton (and who matters more?) was moved to tears by my words (a fair paraphrasing, I think) and lots of people, as many as five, have come to tell me in person that they enjoyed them. It's not often that a book's foreword gets a mention in an online review, so I haven't been disappointed that there's been no mention of mine anywhere, and I'm smart enough to know it was probably down to word limits or something.  But then I'm reasonably sure one critic took her cue from me and my foreword in shaping the key message of her review.  So in a sense I did enjoy online approval. But anyway, the point is I'm feeling the pressure just as much as Jay to match the standard of my previous efforts, and he gets more pages in which to prove himself.

I don't know why I get asked to write these things. If I had to guess, I'd say Jay chose me to write the first one because he had no better option, and also perhaps because no one else was left as sodden by the torrential precipitate of his internal/external monologue while he was writing. My insight was unmatched. This time the same truths hold strong while my allure can only have been heightened by the fact that I said such nice things last time. Jay is probably hoping for more of the same.

And he'll get it, I suppose. I have the utmost respect for Jay Haughton, author. Already two novels to my, and probably your, none, and in such a short space of time. I envy his dedication, covet his focus and, most importantly, enjoy his work.

Reading 'On Me Todd', I thought about something I read recently in Playing to the Gallery by Grayson Perry, which is an excellent book. In it, Perry talks about art and the nature of creativity and he suggests that in order to create good art the artist must do away with all self-consciousness; but at the same time, artists develop that self-consciousness in the art education that is so necessary to any sort of success in the art world. I know this is all sounding a bit lofty but bear with me. I mention this because to me Jay's work is self-conscious, but not in a way that detracts from its artistry. Self-consciousness, a kind of hyper-awareness, is both the style and the subject of Jay's work. It's like he's reading himself as he writes and recording his comments on the story as it comes into being. His novels are full of in-jokes, asides, and so many violations of that fourth wall that when he built his world I think he just left it out altogether. It can be quite exhausting sometimes. I marvel at how meticulously imagined his universe is; how he knows and shares so much about every character, whether it's relevant to the story or not. If this novel were a colouring book, there would be no white anywhere, on any page. And so the experience of reading this book is like experiencing the world as Todd experiences it, with all the over-thinking, unfiltered abandon you can handle. It works on two levels, and it's quite clever. I just don't know how Jay does it without his brain turning runny.

So enjoy On Me Todd, reader, and thank you, Jay, for letting me put some of my words in a book, your book, at your expense -- ha ha! And well done again.

As a kind of endnote, you lucky lot will find some more of Jay's style displayed in the 'bonus material' short stories at the end, and I believe they're preceded by a kind of foreword in which our gentleman author makes some kind of ungentlemanly joke at my expense. Well … We decided to write a 500 word story each to have a go before suggesting to our group of young writers that they do the same. Jay wrote two in a day. Weeks later, my first effort is 800 words long and nowhere near finished. I make no apologies. When it's done, it'll be good. Perhaps you'll read it in the back of Jay's 5th novel or whatever. I did this foreword in a couple of hours, didn't I, Jay? Yeah, so shut up.

(note from Jay: You did, I am impressed… and I will! For about five minutes!)

Luke Richardson

27th November 2016

Preface: A Difficult Second Album

As I sit here taking a short break from writing my second novel I thought it would be a nice time to reflect on the thoughts and feelings I’ve had since I wrote ‘Happy as Larry’.

When I completed and published my first novel I was shocked by the initial feedback I received, children and adults alike were saying nice things about my book, and about me also! I’m not lying when I say it took me totally by surprise.

Shortly afterwards I began to get people asking what was next for Larry, next for me? And to be completely honest I had absolutely no idea. I hadn’t thought about anything other than writing and editing for eight weeks solid, which incidentally brings me on to my next point…

I wrote, edited and published a book in eight weeks which I didn’t think very much of at the time, it’s only now that I’m tasked with working on the sequel that I realise how much of an achievement that was for me.

Every day I would sit down and write, without any idea of what the end of my writing experience would be. Originally it started out as a story for my son that I had no intention of publishing.

I was very naive, clueless and ignorant of what lay ahead of me at the time, and I think those were the very reasons that I coped very well. There was no pressure, no stress. The story… as it seemed to be doing at the time, wrote itself.

I’ve had amazing support post publishing ‘Happy as Larry’ which has kept my motivation and determination high.

Now that a new school year has begun, and I’m well rested from my holidays. I thought now would be a good time to begin a new chapter (or book to be more precise).

When thinking about starting my next book I began writing a few things down. I had had a few ideas since ‘Happy as Larry’ came out but none of them really seemed to grab me, but one thing was for certain…

I needed to come up with another story about a boy with Asperger’s and it needed to be a REAL issue (an issue to me anyway). So I looked at myself and saw a possible story.

So here I am three months after ‘Happy as Larry’ came out and I’m now