Category: Works In Progress

Insufficiently Worshipful

5/1/2017

Continuing the theme of how needy writers are, this from Alan Bennett's latest book - Keeping on, Keeping on.

2 April 2010. Notes on Ian Hamilton's Against Oblivion:

Of Randall Jarrell; 'he had in 1952 - and with stunningly abrupt efficiency - exchanged an insufficiently worshipful first wife for one who was prepared to dedicate herself to Randall's adoration.'
'Insufficiently worshipful' such a good phrase and so apt.
The insufficiently worshipful wives (and families) of writers.

And friends!

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Tread Softly...

3/1/2017

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Karin was always the first person to whom I turned when I’d written something new. She was the greatest ‘first reader’. She knew that her main job was not honesty (nor falsity) but to be a tailwind. She understood that to a writer a new piece of work is like a treasured pet. And she understood that writers are full of self-doubt about their work, particularly if, like us, they lacked the validation of publication, sales and an adoring audience.

She always found some words of encouragement, was never in the cheap seats throwing rotten veg. I’d know if she genuinely loved it or not but, even if not, she’d leave me feeling good about myself in general and the piece of writing in particular. She gave me enough of a tailwind so that I could launch myself back into the project anew.

When we were writing Farewell Trip, we were, of course, each other’s first readers, but also felt we needed some first readers from amongst our friends. One of these hit the brief perfectly. Another three gave woolly encouragement, which was fine. And one woman wrote back “I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to read something like this.” I like to think we took it like grown-ups, although it’s also true to say that Karin never spoke to her again.

For us, the role of the first reader was to reassure us that the work was not a pile of poo. That indeed it was brilliant and, with the odd tweak, was a racing certainty for the Booker. Once our loins had been girded by such friendly validation we would be strong enough to give the work to a ‘second reader’ – an editor probably – who would point out that, no, we were right all along, it really is a pile of poo.

Us non-league writers probably need a phalanx of kindly first readers, long before we can bear the savaging of a second reader. What mustn’t happen is for the readers to become mixed-up – in this instance that a first reader should act like a second reader. What we mustn’t have is a first reader coming on all Craig Revel Horwood when we what we need is some of Bruno Tonioli’s hot-loving.

Which brings me to my latest novel, or pile of poo, as we might as well have it. For I sent it out to a few old friends for first reader comments and the first, first reader has responded. The book is loosely - sort of - about bankers, and other voices, and set in London 2015. The first reader, let’s call him John, wrote to say that basically I

a) hadn’t got the bankers right
b) hadn’t got the other voices right
c) hadn’t got London right.

So, that’s alright then.

There’s a scene in Quadrophenia where Phil Daniels is at his lowest ebb, and has a road traffic accident where a postal van runs over his Lambretta. He sits in the road, effing and blinding in anger, cradles his bike in his arms, and whines “You’ve killed me scooter.”

If any of you ever get the chance to be a first reader, here’s what I’d say – watch out for the scooter.

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My Second Novel

20/12/2016

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Strangely, I appear to have written another novel. Well, a first draft but, to be fair, that’s more than I ever have before. Yes, of course, there’s Farewell Trip but, let’s be honest, when it comes to word count my contribution to Farewell Trip wasn’t even a novella, barely a short story.

This is the first time I’ve banged out 80,000 words on my own. I don’t think I’m really a novel-writing kinda guy. To Karin, 80,000 words was just warming-up. To me, it’s longer than the history of the world. Even my short stories get impatient with me after 3000 words, and my poems stubbornly refuse to turn over a page. Hard narrative yardage has always proven beyond me hitherto.

What makes this even more remarkable to me, is that I appear to have written this novel almost entirely by accident. My intention was to tidy up a load of loose ends before the end of the year. 2017 needs to see me head in a new direction, one that pays me some money and, whatever joys writing may bring me, money ain’t one of them.

I was clearing the decks. I was merely putting some unpublished, some long-forgotten, some vanity-type stuff into book form, and shoving it into the vast digital hinterland of the world’s consciousness, before wiping the dirt from my hands and walking away from the grave of my literary ambition. Sometimes you need to know when to quit.

At the same time, I’d read some advice about writer’s block, or about writing generally. The advice was simple. Just write for 15 minutes every day. At least 15 minutes, every day. Write, not stare at a piece of paper, for at least 15 minutes every day. Longhand, preferably.

Which is what I did. And in 75 days I had turned a long-festering 10,000 words of poo into the first draft of a novel, one with 84 different voices. Of course, it’s now probably 80,000 words of poo, though I hope not. Who knows? And who will ever know?

Even so, it’s an accomplishment of sorts.

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Indifferent Voices - Where's the Ouzo?

26/4/2016

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The drinking, yes the drinking. The drinking is very different to the drinking in my country. You English drink a lot. All the time. In the week you are going out after work and drinking. And one thing I notice. When you sit down in a restaurant, always someone is jumping up and down wanting to order some drinks, to keep you going, during you read the menu. What is that? You cannot wait?

You drink a lot and you drink so quickly. You drink wine like it is water. In Greece we do not do this. In Greece, say it is a sunny day. Yes, in Greece it is always a sunny day, and so we sit in the sun and it is nice, and we are relaxing and we are talking and we are happy and so, sometimes, only sometimes, we say shall we have a drink, and sometimes we do. We have one drink. Because it is sunny and we are happy.

In England, it is different. In England, sometimes it is a sunny day, so people sit outside and they drink and they drink and they drink. And then they are happy.

(Eleni Gianopolos – derivatives trader)

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Insufficiently Worshipful

Tread Softly...

My Second Novel

Indifferent Voices - Where's the Ouzo?

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Insufficiently Worshipful

Tread Softly...

My Second Novel

Indifferent Voices - Where's the Ouzo?﻿

Writing

Archives

Categories

Indifferent Voices - Where's the Ouzo?