It is Monday night at 10.30pm. I have just watched what is, apparently, the last episode of Lewis. I have 'all the feels' for Lewis. I'm sitting in my pants, in my big new room, listening to music that would, in the popular view, be regarded as an unmitigated racket.
I no longer live in the child's room, as I thought of it, in Streatham. This was the flat where I was bitten by a dog in the third in this series of blogs. If you recall I was bitten in the hand, in the hallway, by a Jack Russell, bearing the stupid name 'Tarzan'.
I now live in a large room, that I cannot afford, in Herne Hill. Or North Dulwich. Whichever you think sounds poshest. I've never lived in a room of this size and don't really know what I'm supposed to do with it. One thing I certainly have to do is to keep the door shut, otherwise the cats will, as the landlady helpfully informed me, 'piss on the bed'. Noted. The last thing I want is soggy bye-byes.
On 1st January this year, I started writing a novel, the date chosen specifically as a symbol of my renewed creative intentions.
I did the exact same thing 10 years ago. That enterprise was begun, developed but not concluded. Abandoned, as real life issues took precedence, the rotten bastards.
There were, anyway, indulgences within that particular project, which would, upon any kind of completion, have led irrevocably and ultimately toward disappointment.
In the intervening 10 years, I have read some books. This has been useful and informative. And enjoyable, of course. I have discovered Orwell, Auster, Ishiguro, Lodge, Ballard, Wodehouse, Dickens. Proper writers, as some might think. I know this because somebody said it to me. I was reading an Orwell, Coming Up For Air, I think, in a rest room at one of my many proper jobs.
'What's that you're reading?' Enquired my colleague.
I showed her the cover.
'Oh', she said. 'Proper book'.
 |
| A Proper Book. Monday. |
I have thought about that remark a lot since and have had two, simultaneous, considerations in regard to it. The first is that one must endeavour to rid oneself of the notion that there are proper books and otherwise. That we should consider instead, perhaps, that there are books with which we relate and those with which we simply fail to connect. The other consideration was that I was actually quite glad to be thought of as the kind of person who might be reading 'proper' books. What a snooty, uppity bastard.
TUESDAY, 12 FEBRUARY
It is ten minutes to 11pm, and I have prevented myself from doing anything remotely creative (such as writing the novel I mentioned), instead watching 2 episodes of Doctor Who and also watching the start of Nathan Barley episode 1 on YouTube, which somebody carelessly tweeted a link to earlier.
Last night I made the mistake of trying to write as soon as I got in from the day job. As much I want to be disciplined and dedicated to this new cause of mine, I have to appreciate that sometimes I want two sausage rolls and a yoghurt and Wispa bar just that little bit more. And then a nap. These aren't displacement activites, they are necessary to my functioning as a sane, cognitively useful man. I did, however, make the attempt and managed two sentences, both of poor quality. Not the thousand words per sitting which I favour. They were the kind of sentences, which, had this been the 1970's, and a Cub Scout came round doing bob-a-job, and you asked him to do a bit of writing as his 'bobbed job', he would probably have written something of comparable quality, if not slightly more erudite and interesting:
'The helplesness of this individual is sickening, subbing out his authorial voice to myself, a simple minor. What am I to know of the mind and pretences of a lazy 45 year old tosspot. I doubt he'll pay me per sentence, as promised at the door. Pah, how I regret crossing that threshhold'.I believe this is how the writer Terrance Dicks completed many of his Doctor Who adaptations during the 1970's. I have it on good authority that his 'Planet of the Daleks' was written, by committee, over a weekend's camping. Dib dib dib, Exterminate!
It's been a long time since I had the luxury of being able to write, fresh of mind, during the week day. There are challenges for the novelist, working around the day job, the tiredness and the inevitable desire to relax and be the recipient of pleasure. These are to take it the project seriously and to apply oneself with a degree of discipline, without it becoming an unpleasant chore. To effect some kind of routine, without it becoming routine.
There must always exist the element of play, I keep reminding myself. Otherwise I might as well just punch in when I sit down at this laptop, because, before you know it, it is, as now, time to clean my teeth, put on my nightie and go to cat piss-free bye byes.
To be continued.
Not tomorrow, though, I'm going to see Kraftwerk.
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