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| No novel? No problem! Want to be a novelist but don’t have time to write an entire book? Mark Leach's "DIY Novel Kit" is the solution time-challenged writers have been waiting for.
In honor of National Novel Writing Month, the Texas-based writer has issued <YOUR NAME HERE> PRESENTS A LITTLE BIT OF MARIENBAD, a 50,000-word reboot of MARIENBAD MY LOVE, the world’s longest novel. Leach is offering the novel as a free download through a Creative Commons license, which allows authors to offer their copyrighted work to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing and remixing.
Writing is hard, but copying is easy, So if you want to be a novelist you don't have to actually write a novel. You can just copy this one. Insert your name into the manuscript and make it your own. You Can Copy This Novel. It's legal!
"You are invited to copy, distribute and transmit this work, in whole or part. My intent is to encourage others to remix and adapt this work for their own purposes, both personal and commercial. To learn more about how you can make use of this free offer, click on the Creative Commons link above." - Mark Leach
 Synopsis: Exiled on a deserted island, a Christ-haunted journalist-turned-filmmaker attempts to persuade a married women from his past to help him produce a science fiction-themed pastiche to the 1960s French New Wave classic, Last Year at Marienbad. Through this act of artistic creation, he expects to carry out the will of God by prophesizing the death of time and the birth of a new religion. If only he can make the woman remember him. Jacket Quotes: “Electrifying!” – Mark Leach, author of “Marienbad My Love” “A tour de force!” – Mark Leach, author of “Marienbad My Love” “This book will save your marriage!” – Mark Leach, author of “Marienbad My Love” “’Finnegans Wake’ has finally been dethroned!” – Mark Leach, author of “Marienbad My Love” “<YOUR NAME HERE> is my kind of novelist!” – Mark Leach, author of “Marienbad My Love” “A bold new voice in pretentious postmodern narcissism!” – Mark Leach, author of “Marienbad My Love” Excerpts: “A giant orbiting UFO” – It is an incredible sight – a white clock dial is bleeding through the thin cobalt sky. The psychic contrail is suspended in the high, thin stratosphere, an icy cirrus cloud of time. Somehow I understand that the government knows all about it, but has been keeping it a secret. Now that the Clock in the Air has been "de-cloaked," there is no denying its existence. Is it an alien spaceship? Perhaps – or it could be something far more significant: A sign from the Deity.
“Nazi/alien collaborations” - I find myself inside the command module, a clinical, domed room off a metallic hallway, a sleek 1950s B-movie set consisting of a curved corridor of polished steel, assorted German signage – “Actung!” – in a decidedly Luftwaffe font.
“Alien abductions” - I rise from the table and glimpse my reflection in the polished metal walls. I appear exactly as before; the ordeal leaves no unseen marks or scars. And yet, something has changed. I view the future as contained in glowing drawers of human-insect hybrid fetuses.
“Human/alien hybrids” - We have just learned that the DNA of every human on the planet has been converted to that of an insect. We feel unchanged, but I comment to those around me that the outward transformation will begin soon. The new genetic code will transform us into new beings. And sure enough, I am right. The scene changes and I find myself standing over a comatose Allison. She is nude, covered in damp dirt. I am cleaning her with a sponge, revealing the beginning growth of an exoskeletal thorax. “We’ll all look like this soon,” I tell myself.
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“Mind control” - “These technologies can’t be repeated, prevented or even revealed using current market technologies. Onbeam systems have been infiltrated with covert backdoor access points, where the black ops agents use Fluoride9 to gain entrance to the brain’s unconscious processing centers. Those of us who are victims of this mind control have found our attempts to fight the conspiracy regularly thwarted by technology that can penetrate EM and acoustic shielding, move objects at a distance, pull legs out from under people at a distance, propel a moving car sideways, make objects disappear and reappear in a new location, apply enough force to a building that it will make snapping noises, especially at night as you are just falling asleep, make people burp or pass gas when they least expect it, usually in public places around a lot of people, cause consumer appliances to fail shortly after the expiration of the warranty and give people sunburns on cloudy days.”
“Religious insects from outer space” - The giant cicada stands on its back legs, revealing an exoskeletal underbelly of armored plates the tint of washed out gray. A whirring, rasping voice comes out of a vibrating membrane on its thorax. “First remove the log from your own eye, then you can help your neighbor remove the speck from his.” “A mad scientist” – “He’s offering free water, but don’t drink any. It’s just a ruse to introduce a new version of Fluoride9 into the populace and create the world’s first privately-owned deity.”
“An evil CEO” - “Oh, Buckstop is totally insane. He is the quintessential narcissistic CEO. … Buckstop is using Summons Replisystems and Fluoride9 to take control of the onbeam infrastructure and stage a full blown corporate invasion of the collective unconscious. His goal is to rule the world.”
“A time-traveling, green-skinned monster of the unconscious” - A strange wind sings down into the concrete silo, filling my nostrils with the salt air of 1942 and the corroded metal stench of the U.S.S. Ethan Allen Hitchcock. I can hear the ozone gas hissing and crackling from the main reactor of the ship as the green-toned Fiend steps forward, exhaling crimson smoke and bits of sparking magnesium.
“The end of the world” - We shoot up into the sunlight like Lucifer blasted out of Hell. The alien sets me on my feet just in time to see the tornado tower collapse. It is a horror, a tangle of metal and anguished machinery cries. The turboprop detaches from its moorings and becomes airborne, flying into the neighboring pasture. Suddenly the ground rumbles. Buckstop’s missile is screaming into the sky on a surging pillar of fire. The stuttering roar of the rocket blast shakes the earth for miles around, flushing birds out of surrounding pastures and setting off nearby car alarms. A moment later there is a brilliant flash, a tremendous explosion just beyond the tree line. It is the dramatic volcanic eruption of my dream, another incredible revelation. Crimson fire rains down upon Strangers Rest. Rooftops are ablaze – including presumably my house. I picture its multi-gabled roof exploding in flames.
 News Release
Author Offers Copy-And-Paste Novel For National Writing Contest
Mark Leach giving away submission-ready manuscripts during NaNoWriMo … copyright protections waved on 50,000-word work … “I want a copier-ship.”
Oct. 31, 2010 – Coppell, TX - Want to participate in National Novel Writing Month but don’t have time to write an entire book? Mark Leach has an app for you.
The Texas-based writer has issued a 50,000-word reboot of “Marienbad My Love,” the world’s longest novel, which he is making available as a free download for everyone who wants to submit it as their own entry in the month-long contest that begins Nov. 1.
“Writing is hard,” Leach said. “You could spend all your spare time in the month of November writing a novel and still not amass the 50,000 words it takes to win NaNoWriMo. But I’m letting you off the hook. I’m saying if you want to be a novelist you don't have to write a novel. You can just copy mine.”
Titled “<YOUR NAME HERE> PRESENTS A LITTLE BIT OF MARIENBAD,” the submission-ready manuscript is part of a do-it-yourself novel kit – including a synopsis, excerpts and supportive jacket quotes – available on the author’s website at http://marienbadmylove.com/DIYNovelKit.aspx. Leach is making the manuscript available through a Creative Commons license, which allows authors to offer their copyrighted work to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing and remixing.
Leach first employed a Creative Commons license last year in connection with “Marienbad My Love,” a 17 million-word novel he published in 2008. He lifted copyright protections on the massive work in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of William Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch,” a novel that famously remixed snippets of other writers' texts into a new and unique work.
“I used to secretly hope people would read my novel,” Leach admitted. “But at 17 million words, ‘Marienbad My Love’ is impossible to read in the conventional sense. So I am not interested in having a readership anymore. I want a copier-ship.”
Leach says his goal is to awaken a new generation of writers to the vast possibilities of literary appropriation as a valid creative endeavor.
“Literary appropriation is the new black,” Leach said. “This is a great time to explore the creative aspects of what the cool people are calling uncreative writing. Look at David Shields’ ‘Reality Hunger’ or Helene Hegemann’s ‘Axolotl Roadkill.’ It’s so easy to make a mark in literature these days.
“I say have a little fun, for goodness’ sake,” Leach continued. “Here’s an idea: Copy and paste my words, then replace the names of the characters with those of your rich aunts and uncles. Put your personalized version of ‘<YOUR NAME HERE> PRESENTS A LITTLE BIT OF MARIENBAD’ up for sale on CreateSpace or Lulu. Your family and friends will see you are a real, published novelist. They’ll want to buy your book to read about themselves. You could make some money.”
National Novel Writing Month is an annual creative writing contest in which participants try to write an entire novel (at least 50,000 words) in the month of November. During the 2008 competition, Leach enraged some participants and observers with his submission of “The President Who Exploded”, a 2.5-million-word manuscript he described as a “non-linear literary collage” consisting of content mined from various blogs, chat rooms and fan fiction sites.
“I had no idea I would make so many people so angry,” Leach said. “One NaNo participant even said he wished I would commit suicide. His scatological attacks were so entertainingly over the top that I gleefully incorporated them into a parodic re-write as part of my submission for the 2009 contest. As I told Adam Callaway in an interview earlier this year I had great fun, though it did get me kicked out of the competition. Writing is hard, but it’s not always easy to be a scissors-and-paste man, either.
About "Marienbad My Love"
"Marienbad My Love" by Mark Leach is a love story for the end of the world. The novel features a protagonist who attempts to film a science-fiction-themed pastiche to "Last Year at Marienbad." A free ebook download of "Marienbad My Love" is available at marienbadmylove.com.
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