Welcome to my blog which is the visible manifestation of my self-obsession(s) although it claims to be a regular dip into the life of a writer as he closes in on his goal of success. Or doesn’t. In between irregular and inaccurate reports of his progress, we learn far too much about what he has been thinking about.
Two days ago I completed the first draft of a novella that I shall perhaps advertise as the 21st Century Portnoy’s Complaint. It is titled ‘Sad Sam’s Sexual Adventures in Cyberspace.’ I actually began it, writing 13,000 words, sometime last year and then put it aside because although I thought it was going well, I couldn’t imagine a publisher taking it on. Indeed when I began this account and drew up a list of what I might work on, Sad Sam wasn’t even on it. I don’t know why, therefore, I sent along the unchecked first bit on spec to a publisher asking for submissions. He said he loved it and would like to make an ebook of it when it was finished. I’ll know soon whether, now that it is completed, he will still want to do it.
On July 10th I re-read the first 13,000 words. Since then I have added a further 17,000 and brought it to a point whether it can either be the end or the end of part one. Mostly I am pleased with a day if I can get 1,000 words done. Towards the end, however, I speed up because the plot all comes to a head and suddenly I can feel the final pieces of the jigsaw in place. In fact I probably finish too quickly (no jokes please) because a few scenes from the end I start to intuit the last lines and they pull me forward.
When I write ‘THE END’ I feel both happy and sad: Happy to have being on the crest of a wave, in the zone as it were, and to have brought things to a satisfactory conclusion: Sad because I’m suddenly bereft of my companions and the tension that has remained within suddenly collapses. I know there are a host of emendations and corrections to make but once the first draft is done the uncertainties are over.
If my potential publisher deserts me I will turn this into an ebook myself. Quite what an ebook is, I don’t know. Obviously it isn’t the same as having a publisher invest in you and make sure your book is reviewed, displayed, and hopefully bought. On the other hand an ebook puts me in a global market straightaway without the need of anyone’s permission. It’ll be particularly appropriate for ‘Sad Sam’ because it is partly, or mostly, about internet porn, and partly because it is utterly filthy.
At some point other than now, I’ll apply rasa theory to the novella. Right now I can’t think about because the head gasket has blown in my car. My car that I’ve only had two weeks but had already come to love. For three and half hours I have been waiting for the garage from six miles away to come and do something about it. At six in the morning I have to go to Birmingham for two days to look after my grandson. How am I going to do that if they won’t give me a courtesy car?
And it is raining yet again. No summer, yet again. Vitamin D deficiency all around.
Yesterday I was told that someone has discovered a link between lack of vitamin B12 and cancer. Must be good if true, no? Okay, I’ll get informed.
Last night I got home from a day’s looking after my grandson in Birmingham and an hour spent in a traffic jam in Bristol and parked opposite my house to unload the car (which is now working again). This small Council House estate road has a convention that we park on one side of the road, the other side to mine. Since the building the road in the 1960s car ownership has become the norm and many people have turned their front gardens into car parks, thereby preventing the road space in front of these gardens from being used by anyone else for parking (as well as taking away the land which is meant to drain the water). Consequently finding somewhere to park on the road is becoming increasingly difficult. On the day I first moved in here, some twenty years ago, I’d been here about five minutes when there was a thunderous knocking on the front door. When I opened it I was greeted with a torrent of angry abuse from the man who lived opposite because, he said, I was blocking the entrance to his car park garden. Did he need to get out or in at that moment? No. Unable to get sense out of him I probably responded in kind. Over the following ten years the scene was repeated two or three times when friends of mine, not realizing the heinous nature of the deed, would briefly park in front of his house. He died. His widow doesn’t drive. I moved away, came back eight years later. For moments during the moving-in process we’d block the entrance, then move the car. No problem. So why did the stupid woman come sailing out of house last night to whinge about the entrance being blocked when it fact it wasn’t at all? Maybe I shouldn’t have immediately shouted at her, ‘Don’t start woman,’ and maybe I shouldn’t have called her stupid cow and maybe I should have remembered about petty tyrants but for fuck’s sake…
…Then some other neighbour shouted at me that I should calm down. Twat. It’s a weird place to live, this street, with its super inbred rednecks and a few spaced out hippies. Not a happy mix.
So this morning, even as I continue to fume, I buy some flowers for the cow. Can I bring myself to take them over to her?
...I did but she wasn't in. I didn't try again.
...I did but she wasn't in. I didn't try again.
No comments:
Post a Comment