2009 is the year that all decent bloggers will get a publishing deal. I can feel it in my bones.
But seriously, this is the year that I want to see some of my stuff on the printed page. I just want something on our bookshelf that has been entirely written by me.
I know it sounds silly. After all, my ambition to write and communicate has been realised on this blog. I love doing it. It is the most pleasurable form of written communication there is.
So why do I feel the need to write a book? And what on earth would I publish?
Why? I honestly don't know. My idea of creative writing is messing about with words. I can't take myself seriously enough to plan things and see them through to the end. I couldn't write a novel! I just write any old shit that comes into my head. I always have done. It's getting out all the jumbled crap that comes in. I've tried to start novels, screenplays and plays and I always give up. There is no plan there, just a load of dialogue that goes nowhere. I decided a few years ago not to start another novel or script because I knew how it would end up. In the bin.
So what can I write? There's my autobiography.
I started my autobiography earlier this week. Christ, was it depressing! I got to the age of four and I wanted to drown my beautiful little brown body in the sea at Bournemouth. I didn't want to come back to South East London and have to socialise with relatives and other children. I was happy with my mummy and daddy and my toy cars. I wanted to sink to the bottom of the sea, my little hand clutching a two inch bubble car.
So what else is there? There's my dream blog which might make a good stocking filler for myself if I had some decent illustrations to go along with the dreams. But I haven't. By the way, did I tell you about the Radio 4 researcher who e-mailed me to ask me if the dreams were real? Weirdo or creative genius? What do you think?
So I'm left with an anthology of my poems, my least popular blog writings but what I enjoy doing almost as much as this blog. So this year I'm going to write some more funny rhymes and have a good laugh with myself and upload them to Lulu. That's if Lulu will have me.
The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig
12 hours ago
Waterstones is jam packed with misery memoirs Geoff. It's referred to in the book retail trade as "the boo-fucking-hoo section".
ReplyDeleteGet in there!
Keep at it Geoff, playing with words is fun.
ReplyDeleteSx
Murph - There's the harrowing story of the bloke at Oxford University: Boo Hoo! (A Dean's Story). I'm afraid my life doesn't involve wicked nuns or suchlike. Though I was once given a Chinese burn by a girl.
ReplyDeleteScarlet - It's certainly preferable to working with numbers.
Though I love Beryl's poems - I like your blog writing better. I can already see you with your little bubble car in Bournemouth.
ReplyDeleteWhy not write about your story with a great deal of poetic licence.
Just discovered Beryl, an extraordinary New Year's treat. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteKeep at it. It'll all work out. How could it be otherwise if we're all behind you?
(Being published's a bit like money, or women, or brandy butter, or fags. You just crave for more until satiety or heart disease takes over, when you have a mighty struggle to give it up. And when you succeed somehow you feel a lot fresher.)
I'm with Kaz. Autobiographical half-truths interspersed with poetic dreams. Very 2009.
ReplyDeleteKaz - That sounds like a lot of work and I haven't got a lot of time between sleeping and working. Miles Kington did a similar thing in his Someone Like Me autobiography. I enjoyed that.
ReplyDeleteChristopher - I wish I didn't feel the need. Betty has got no such ambition so I'm glad we're not in competition with each other to finish first.
Beth - At the speed I write it will hopefully be very 2014.
wv - opentin
We're all getting published!!
ReplyDeleteI received a copy of Stuff White People Like..which was weird because I have actually commented on that blog. It's funny enough but it comes across as blogstuff...the people in the room reading out loud thought that it was hilarious...if they read blogs they's know that there are thousands of people out here writing even funnier stuff.
So basically these blog-books are written for white people who don't read blogs and need to BUY everything that they read...because white people love the idea of books.
I couldn't just upload my blog posts. I think that would be cheating.
ReplyDelete(Apart, of course, from all those poems that few people were interested in).
I ought to get myself together and sort out the book-of-the-website, I've been asked often enough if the stories are available as a book.
ReplyDeleteNot even my mum's asked me :(
ReplyDelete"I've tried to start novels, screenplays and plays and I always give up. There is no plan there, just a load of dialogue that goes nowhere. I decided a few years ago not to start another novel or script because I knew how it would end up. In the bin.
ReplyDeleteSo what can I write?"
Short stories.
Seriously, it's the best way to start and I mean that in a totally un-condescending way. Novels and novellas have so many structural and organisational problems associated with them because of their size that they can quickly become a logistical nightmare. Short stories are the way to go. Preferably flash fiction even - that's a real artform. Start small and slowly build towards longer pieces as you gain confidence and find a 'voice'...
That would be my advice, for what it's worth.
Thanks, Kek.
ReplyDelete