Loose End

I'M AT A VERY LOOSE END. Feeling depressed. I don't get the buzz out of things that I expect to get. Example: I went into town and bought Chinese books and Paris Match and Stern magazines in French and German. I got all this stuff home and felt distinctly flat. Not depressed. Not angry. Nothing negative; just nothing very positive.

My life goals are to speak and write German, French, Spanish, Chinese and Japanese to as near mother tongue standard as possible. To this end I am using every language course I can get my hands on. It's good to have one in German, even if it is "too easy". Really I need a teacher to correct my writing, because I know it's unidiomatic. Someone once asked in all seriousness whether my German blog was the product of Google Translate ~ which just about says everything about my writing. My vocabulary is pretty good now ~ though nowhere near as good as someone's who has put proper effort in. The Perfect Your German CDs and book promises an active vocab of 5000 words. Using a dictionary and multiplying the number of words familiar with per page by the number of pages I calculated I had a passive vocabulary (that is, I read a word and understand it) of eight to ten thousand words.

I've started my book in ernest. I'm only after a name for my central character but I think I've found one. I googled it and it's not been used. That is the big high jump for all children's characters' names. The more unique they are the less allowable it is for them to have featured in previous books, films, cartoons etc. Mine seemed to check out OK.

I've only written about a page of story but it's a children's book. Not a picture book, as my mother assumed, but a children's book like the Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter are children's books. Totally unreliant on illustrations. A tale spun in spellbinding language. I know I'm not the best writer alive. But I'm unique: I do believe I'm best at being me. I am not writing in the style or genre of anybody else. I hope to bring a breath of mountain-fresh air to the fetid wizard and lesbian-single-parent-obsessed world of children's publishing. Apart from this I'll say nothing until my book is done. I wouldn't say my story is so much amazingly unique as something that's magical for the way it's told. We see the world through the eyes of our little character, who is an amazing character. So it's a magical world to see. And that's all I'm saying about it.

It's my parents I credit for kicking me up the backside and saying YOU CAN WRITE, WRITE THIS TALE. So I am doing. I'm not entirely convinced self-publishing is the way to go forward. Considering half a billion people in the world speak English well enough to enjoy a novel and many of these hundreds of millions have children. How can I hope to market my production to them. I know nothing about promoting children's literature. The way I see it, writing is an art; publishing is a business. Experience as well as everything I have read about my mental situation has told me stress is bad for me. True I find it exhilarating. But that exhilaration can trip into mania very easily. I've told myself I was being hypochondriac so many times before. Only to look back and see I really was manic. When you're up at four in the morning, TV and stereo blaring at top volume, bouncing balls on the floor you're not just "a bit excited" you're manic. Mania has left me in a real mess every time it's come. It's not that mania itself is so terrible; it's the disinhibition, the feiriness of spirit (ie uninhibited agression), and hyperkinetic distractability that cause problems. Ratchet it up a notch or two and agression turns into outright paranoia, the beautiful enhanced sensory pereception trips into hallucinations. When I was truly manic I saw spirals on the walls and ceiling. I heard voices speaking to and about me. I could not tell what was and was not real. Then of course there's the depression. Less than a month ago I felt my life was so useless that lying down in front of an express train was the best favour I could do my family and friends. I was intensely paranoid and very depressed. Then I started popping my pills again and literally by the next morning two thirds of my depression and half the paranoia had dissipated. Isn't life strange.

This is why I seek a career in writing. Not only is it exceedingly trendy to be bipolar and artistic but I know from experience that rare extremes aside, I'm capable of writing almost no matter how high or low or sideways I go.

I intend to take these languges of mine far enough to qualify as a translator at least in German to English. If you calculate languges as GDP and number of speakers; German is number two in the world after English. Chinese is number three. Japanese is number four. So if you wonder why my German obsession: that's it. German is by far the biggest business language in the European Union after English. I phoned around some agecies specializing in placing bilingual temps and headhunting bilingual administrators, secretaries etc. What language had the most openings? I asked. German German German I was told. Every time.

So that's what I'm doing. Writing my intellectual story book, improving my German. Chinese is quite frankly doing my head in at the moment but I'm still slogging away. I'd like to apply my talents to Spanish if I can.

So here's the news. I hope this isn't too much of a tangle. I'm not lost but I'm trying to break free of the inertia and lassitude and apathy that has hemmed me in like a dancer frozen in a paperweight for years and years and years. Like a cage-nibbling hamster I desire escape. I'd like to go on a City Break to Berlin. And I can't wait to finish my Amazing Tale of Adventure and Wonder!

And how was YOUR weekend?

Terbinafine Hydrochloride

FINALLY I BOUGHT the right stuff for my rotting feet: Lamasil (terbinafine hydrochloride 1%). There was a 4g tube for £9 called Lamasil Once ~ as the name suggests just one application is required; then I realized Lamasil normal gives you 15g of 1% cream for £6.69 and even though daily application is required for a week, you're getting nearly four times as much medication for less money. So I went with that one. I had been putting Canesten (clotrimazole) on my feet. Strangely with no positive results. As Canesten is indeed an antifungal, but it's meant for ladies with yeast overgrowth "below stairs". I found my tube in a carrier bag full of sparkly body creams, pregnancy tests and essential oils... When I was buying live yogurt Valium Marilyn mentioned she used to put it on her do-dah from time to time; so I said, "don't the black cherries, raspberries and fruits of the forest come drizzling out during the course of the day? And what if you get a giant strawberry up there? You might die of toxic shock!" Marilyn, Dear Reader, was particularly Valium'd that day and didn't realize I was joking. So anyway my feet shouldn't be smelling like a dead toad this time next week.

I went to NA and shared exactly how much drugs I'm on. I didn't want to put this here because it doesn't sound pretty, but I've found myself using heroin just once per week. I'm not proud of this and do not understand why I insist on taking something I cannot even FEEL. But I do, or rather I have. I tend to use the past tense with heroin as between doses I have effectively given up, never intending to use that crap ever again ~ and am therefore psychologically clean. Next weekend (because it's always at weekends) I intend to just stay home and reason to myself that I feel exactly the same as when heroin's in my system. Ie perfectly normal, sober and straight. I feel next to nothing even as it IVs in ~ that's if I ever manage to get a vein, which is a near-miracle now. If I cannot feel that rubbish I might as well not be taking it. But you try telling a raving addict like me something like that. Once the bug to score has bitten me, nothing puts me off. Oh well, if I have it in me I might feel a LITTLE bit better, I reason. And can reason my way into hell. That's why I'm going to NA every day now. I think THAT might keep me clean.

They don't even seem to mind hearing that I had a "nervous breakdown". I don't go into immense detail but I do label myself a "manic depressive". The term "bipolar" disagrees with me. Or I disagree with it. My philosophy is as quoted in yesterday's post; my "illness" ~ unlike any physical illness like a collapsed pancreas ~ IS who I am. So if I sound like I'm defining myself through sickness you're right. Because the condition ~ which is a better and more accurate word than "sickness", which implies all is bad ~ confers energy, power and perception. As well as messing up my life.

I'm more and more inspired to write my intellectual story. I'm plotting in my head. This is FICTION we're talking about. I'm not up for writing memoirs about myself. There are enough people writing about heroin addiction and even more people writing about mental health issues. I want to write about something else. I have a gift for characterization which would be wasted if I confined myself to fact. Fiction gives me the chance to soar.

I think the most positive thing blogging has brought me has been the experience of writing for an audience. Rather than keeping journals in the dark, what I say is heard and remarked on. This has given me confidence to express myself. I know my writing is prosaic compared to some other bloggers and I do not spend all day agonizing over what word goes where (as you can probably tell). You'll notice that the really well written blogs tend to contain weekly posts and not daily ones. That's because nobody has the time to post five hundred words of highly polished prose daily. With me you get the rainbow-glinting mountain stream of my consciousness. That's on a good day. On a bad day it's the swirling polluted urban river in an over-industrialized former communist city! When I write fiction I really take care to polish what I write. I go in for a lot of onomatapoeia, assonance and alliteration when I write for children. This brings the prose alive without the need for over-arcane vocabulary. I have to write for the inner child in us all, rather than a specific kid. I don't actually know any children I can write for. I'm dead set on writing children's books because I feel I can make a contribution to that field. A lot of adult writing is over-garnished with sex, violence and generalized worldliness; and I'm weary of this world. I'd rather write for a more innocent time. I don't care if I'm called twee for doing this. My story will probably NOT feature lesbian single parents, children's homes or divorce. I had a hunt around WH Smiths ~ Britain's biggest bookseller ~ and realized my ideas are unique. And that's inspired me to go on. I don't want to be a me too, somebody writing in the style of another, more established author. I want to be the first ME. If my writing can be half as unique as I am, I'll blow the competition out of the water! The field is wide open and just asking to be shaken up by a New Voice. And I have such a lot to say. I'm plotting my book (a full-length children's novel) as we speak... Full length for children means 20,000 to 35,000 words. It's for 8-12 year olds. The type of book that would be illustrated every few pages by someone like Quentin Blake (if only!) My Mother assumed I had in mind a picture book. No! Children do read novels. I used to. Anyway this is all I have to say on my project. The great thing about novel writing is that the talking and the doing are one and the same. You tell your tale to the page. Which means revealing almost nothing about it to anyone. If they wanna know my story, they can read it!

Righty-ho it's five to eleven and I'm off. Take care y'all....

Illustrated: Lamasil (terbinafine 1%); Jogobella fruits of the forest ~ my favourite live yogurt at 79p for 500g; lithium; NOT the kind of book I'm writing...

SOMEONE THAT I USED TO LOVE



ALL I ASK OF YOU
live studio session



PS THIS is why I am so into German. Look at the GDP of $9.5 billion compared to $6.7 billion for Spanish with all those hundreds of millions of speakers...

Flight of the Blue Tits

DOES ANY OF MY WRITING ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE? Or is it just me reading it back wonky? It seems to be all biddybangingbong: all over the place. I don't judge other people's writing as good or bad; I just read it. Also, my attention span is all over the place. I'm having a bash at reading a fictionalized biog later on; it's in short sections with rotating perspective (ie one person speaks, then another does, so it's easier to stick with). I need to get my attention span back.

And what was I on about earlier? Akh, I was a bit hyper. I was playing the music you see in youtube screens below today's earlier post which brought back memories of love doves and mitsubishi ecstasy. My mood was up so the music took me higher into full-blown "euphoric recall". It was more than the tingly neck you get from dance music once you get into it, it was a reliving of the E-state. I think that's why I'm now called "bipolar".

Akh, how did me and words like bipolar and schizophrenia ever get together? I always knew there was something wrong and that it wasn't plain depression. Those nauseatingly repeated dsm diagnostic criteria that pop up whenever you google "depression" somehow never described me even when I felt hopeless and suicidal. Partly this was depression deluding me, partly it was having got so used to being in a negative mind-state I couldn't see the positive one required to make sense of diagnostic criteria.

I fit the manic ones far more easily than the depressed ones. Ukh. Me? Manic?? A maniac is a crazy person and crazy people are Somebody Else.

I have been trying to read up on my medical condition because apart from knowing what it is I didn't know anything about it. Now I know a little bit about it. The European and American versions of schizoaffective differ. I have the European version that is, in the language of psychiatrists, mood episodes with mood-incongruent psychotic features. I also do have symptoms of schizophrenia but didn't even know it. I never delved into schizophrenia before: you can't know if you've got it. Stuff like obsessive-compulsive or bipolar you could know about because the patterns are really clear. Schizophrenia just feels like extreme dissociation with everything taking huge effort, even simple things. That's schizophrenia. That's why schizophrenics seem lazy, they're actually stressed. It's a big thing to do a little thing. That's why things don't get done. That's why I'm in chaos. Now I get all these people helping me.

Ukh. People helping me. I just want to crawl away and hide.

I want a bird feeder for all these blue tits. I haven't actually seen a blue tit around here. They're so tiny, they're like blue sparrows only slightly smaller (more wren-like) and highly agile. They hang out more at bird-tables and are frequently seen feeding upside down. They form mixed flocks with great tits, according to Wikipedia.

I can't wait for tomorrow because tomorrow I can get some paints. Whether I actually will get them is anyone's guess. Usually I don't do anything I actually plan to. I know I should do it but get lost in the detail. There is too much gory detail in life. There is too much gore. That is why I hate life. That is why I have to win the euromillions lottery. It's £50 million next week. I need enough to get a house with high prison walls to keep the world OUT.

Well I don't feel depressed any more. I felt depressed last night so I took a load of methadone and slept deeply. Then I woke up feeling fine. There are FAR worse things you can get diagnosed with than "elevated mood" (and my mood is elevated far more than it is low) so I'm not complaining. As Serious Illnesses go I think I got just about the best one. I keep hearing about, thinking about, seeing all sorts of physical injury and disease that scares the living shit out of me. Then I'm really glad I don't have to deal with that. I might be thinking that because I'm ill, but at least I am just thinking it not being it. (And I could get lost from here on in, as I get lost in what I think... ukkkk is that why my Dr thinks I'm crazy?)

O I have to go I don't know where I'm going now. Blue tits! There ya go. Left it on a positive note didn't I!!


Illustrated: tiny tits in various positions in British gardens

The Goblin is dead!

I HAVE VANQUISHED THE GOBLIN... the computer-goblin, that is. Hopefully. Should be back online properly within about a week or so.
Thanks for all your the comments, I've not been able to do much visiting. But hopefully things should all be back to normal soon.
The druggie goblin has been causing me gyp ~ but what's new?
I have been using my time constructively by WRITING INTELLECUAL LITERATURE. OK, not intellectual and not literature. But I've been writing. I completed nearly an entire story!
Sorry I must dash as I'm in a cafe and about to be terminated as per usual.
See yous all soon again, I promise. Take care everyone. I miss you!

THE GOBLIN IS DEAD.
LONG LIVE THE GOBLIN!!

Oriental Style Chicken Curry £1 etc

ICELAND "ORIENTAL STYLE CHICKEN CURRY" tonight. Boil int' bag (but of course). And only £1. Much nicer than yesterday's noodles, which were a bit "school dinners". Very pleasant indeed.

The me-shaped hole yesterday means not only that I felt I had a place on the shelves, but (and this really surprised me) I could find nobody else writing like me. Most extraordinary.

I deleted a big rant about the state of modern publishing, but I deleted so much of it, I deleted my main point too, ha-har!

Well the Goods Train of Entertainment trundles on, I can't go on about it. Writing's for writing. Not writing about..!

Well this is a nonpost. Tomorrow I'll tell you a true furry story about Pandable my old hammy, which is really entertaining.

The mysterious illness I have had for over a fortnight is still diarrhoeaing out, intermittently and unpredictably (as I'm sure you wanted to know). I'm so tired. I'm not in my sick bed but a sick armchair. I slept in the sick armchair, like a pensioner, all day. Ukh.



MUSICAL INTERLUDE

In the VIP. It's not called "clubbing" for nothing. A club really is a club. Like any other social group you have inner and outer circles. Nightlife is hierarchical and full of snobbery. Do you stand in the endless line, or swan right in? Do you pay? Get a comp? Or best of all, are you on the Guest List?

Then once you get in, are you just one of the common, vulgar herd, or in the "proper" room ~ the VIP room.

I avoided such clubs like the plague!

In the VIP:
WIDEBOYS & MAJESTIC (IN THE VIP REMIX) FEAT B-LIVE and BOY BETTER KNOW



The Streets: Fit (But You Know It)
He wrote an entire album about Ibiza party isle memories. Kicking off with this track ~

Songwriter

I'M WORKING on a hit record. Here are the lyrics. As you can see, I've made every effort to avoid pop clichés... I'm thinking of phoning Andrew Lloyd Webber or Elton John and asking whether they couldn't come up with a tune for this masterpiece.

Here goes:

LOVE WAS BLIND

You didn't call on the phone
and I'm here all alone
and it cuts like a knife
coz you're out of my life

yeah yeah yeah
those words you told me
come back and hold me
babe warm me, I'm cold me

turn off the light
we can rock through the night


yeah, oh yeah yeah yeah

tonight is the darkest night
but you are my star-light
from sunset till dawn
I'll honk on your horn

but you're out of my life
and it cuts like a knife
I was too blind to see
it was all about me


no no no
my my baby don't go
I'll hug ya and hold ya
and whisper things i never told ya

it was all about me
I was too blind to see

(repeat chorus:)
and you're out of my life
and it cuts like a knife
I was too blind to see
it was all about me

ooo-wooah me me me
yeah me me me
yeah me

baby get into me
forever we'll be...
together in luurve
it's a beautiful night

in luuurve
in luurve yeah yeah luuurve
I love ya baby
love ya baby
oh baby
love me please

please call on the phone
coz I'm still all alone
and it cuts like a knife
coz you're out of my life ...

(fade-out)

I'm having a crisis of confidence over who should perform this. Although obviously I'm rock star material myself I'd really like to hear this belted out by a diva of unrivalled melodic powers... But WHO? Whitney's voice has gone thanks to all that crack... Mariah Carey's a bit old now and her whispy wobbly style annoys me... Celine Dion: NO! Christina Aguilera ~ no way. Lady GaGa?... What could she wear? She's done a song called telephone, but she could illustrate that highly original lyric "cuts like a knife" with one of those "dagger through skull" joke shop headbands... oh I know what about Beyoncé? I don't particularly dig her but she sells... Oh I don't know. I know nothing about music. IDEAS PLEASE!

AS WELL AS FLATTERING CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM AND MELODY IDEAS. I've already got a tune going round my head going dur-dur-dur durdur durdur DUUUR...! Maybe that will do..?

What do you think?

Tubby trotterdonkey west highland terrier

I SAW THE BEAUTIFULLEST TUBBY TROTTERDONKEY WEST HIGHLAND TERRIER outside the methadone chemists' this morning. He was so cute (surely it has to be a "he" without bits to be that lardy in a little white dog ~ he was like a beer barrel sprouting Daz-white terrier fur!)... I just wanted to take him home. Why on earth I've become so pets-broody of late is beyond me. I am telling myself to be sensible and careful as I have every intention of publishing this bestseller, becoming FAR too rich to reside in the UK and fleeing to foreign shores as soon as possible (remember I've always had this dream ~ rich or not). I dream constantly of Paris and all things French. Monte Carlo and Switzerland are both "tax havens" and both French speaking... and it would be most inconvenient to bring pets there. Of course I have to FINISH the blinkin' thing first. But a boy can dream....
Apart from (exceedingly slowly) penning this novel, I am scheming original (and not too expensive) ways of promoting my book. I am not naive enough to believe that just because a first novel is as good as I can make it people will automatically flock to buy it. No! It needs push push PUSH ~ promote, promote PROMOTE!! And if my publishers won't do it (and I wouldn't count on them to, except in a gentlemanly publisher-like way, I shall have to take charge and bring my genius to the world's notice!
Except in teenage daydreams (but of course!) ~ I have never really wanted to be famous and certainly not a "celebrity". I would like to be a famous NAME, of course ~ like any successful writer. But tacky constantly "Hello" magazine-featured, desperate to dish the latest revelations of my boring life to a queasy public-type desperate celebrity...? No thanks. When I get old (or young, for that matter) I wish to be well known and popular enough to pack out theatres with my one-man show where I'll perch on a blue velvet armchair and proclaim philosophies on life, raconteur funny (true) stories everyone will assume are far more embroidered than they actually are, because my if I wrote my life in a book nobody would believe it (another thing I had against becoming a memoirist rather than novelist)... then I shall take questions from the audience for the last hour... and everyone shall go home in their multiple hundreds feeling that's an afternoon's wages well spent. And I shall be able to go out shopping at Harrods on the proceeds. So you see ~ far from being lettuce-limp and sappy as the nasty MAPLE SYRUP supposed I actually am brimming with ambitions. I simply refused to tell a Hitleress like HER any details at all. Bitch!
Anyway ding-dong the old cow is gone! And I'm so happy about it. I've an appointment with Maple's replacement tomorrow, so I'll let you know how things go...
The drug habit IS still going, I hope you realize. I just got bored posting about it. It just feels, increasingly as winter slowly, eventually drags to its long-eeeked out end... that a new and golden dawn is rising... I can feel it in my veins, my bones, my water. I can feel it. Heroin is nowhere near as exciting as it used to be (like an injection of life itself ~ how I adored it!) Now it only makes me feel dull and tired. And I only take it out of habit. The days off are often my better days now... which just about says everything... I only wish I could take the rest of my life off. That's what I intend to do, but getting to that point seems so incredibly hard... I don't know. I don't know. What can I do except push myself forward? What can I do? "It is what it is!" as Ivana Trump likes to say.

To any fans of Celebrity Big Brother out there (Channel 4, UK television, but you can see updates here) ~ I would say my personality is a cross between nervy Ivana and the laid-back to the point of irritating Jonas-Basshunter.


And that's all I can say for today... Cheerybye all!!


IN THE NEWS: SMITHSONIAN Institute, Washington DC, USA have, for a short time the Wittelsbach-Graff Blue Diamond, reputed to be an offcut of the same giant stone as the Hope Diamond which was stolen from the French Crown Jewels after the French Revolution and cut in two to disguise the theft... Curators have but a few days to perform necessary tests on the two 50 carat and 31 (formerly 35 but it had to be recut as some idiot dropped and chipped it ~ yes you CAN chip diamonds, they are ultra hard but BRITTLE... if science establishes the stones to be related that will be an age-old mystery solved...!

Taking Notes

THAT'S ALL I'VE BEEN DOING... all night... (somehow it feels real meaningful, staying up most of the night doing something ~~ dunno precisely why!) Making copious "notes" re this erstwhile book of mine. Or: put another way ~ huge sections of upcoming chapters written out in the wrong order ahead of time so I'm going to have to fiddle to fit them in. Annoying, but less annoying than not knowing what to say when the time comes to complete my "tome". I feel constipated with bestselling fiction. If I don't get it out of me, I'll die. I can't go on like this. Everything has to be finished, so everything can change. That's all I'm focusing on. Even Maple Syrup can see the change in me. She agrees that if you can't give up heroin you can never move forward. I'm preparing the place to move to when I am totally clean. Just bear in mind I was sick both mentally and physically for years before heroin addiction totally waylaid everything about me. In American terms, if my life is a car-crash, then I'm "totalled". And I've had enough of all this. Had enough and want out. And I'm NOT moving on into a blank void, not if I can possibly help it. All I ever wanted to do in life was be a writer of novels. I mean since childhood. Yes there have been other ambitions and distractions but in truth writing is all I really wanted to do. So I reason: if I can do that, I have my distraction from drugs already up and running. I've already noticed I write much better on methadone than heroin. I don't need to take the drug to write the lifestyle. I lost more than a decade "researching" that one... My unabridged flirtations with drugs now go back about eighteen years. That particular chapter of my life has run on far too long and needs bringing to closure ASAP.
And I don't know how to end this post, except by saying: and that's that!

Illustrated: coloured notes, as illustrated at Mouserunner.Com; the so-called Fleetwood Diary, as penned by Christian Fleetwood in 1964...

Clear Space

SEE, I'M GLAD my Mum came by now. My house now seems incredibly spacious and clear... Someone asked me why I couldn't just clear up anyway ~ but I'm never any good at that. I keep things clean for someone ~ and I'm afraid my own self isn't a good enough candidate!

So now I'm sat in a chair not really watching TV, because I'm telling my own torrid tale. I keep worrying it might sell less than 10,000,000 in the first year... what a horror that would be. But these are crosses we writers must bear.

Apart from that I've nothing else to say. My creative juices are flowing into fiction... Must dash ~ I have a funeral to describe!

Famous literary agents: Morton Janklow , Lynn Nesbit (Janklow & Nesbit, New York) Ed Victor, London ...

Novel

I'M BACK TO WRITING MY BOOK ~ again... with nothing to distract me. I told Mumzy and Branzie (my stepdad) they could read the finished product, just as soon as it's bashed out.

From a dismal start last night, when I felt no inspiration at all, I managed about 1500 words. I'm portraying a situation in decay, so each scene must be calibrated against a gradual deterioration, with movement forward as well as back, like a gradually withdrawing tide...

I'm trying to make my work (not just the prose, but its message) as far superior to the average pop fiction than I feel I can manage. You got to try. Surely if you only try and be "average" ~ that's all you'll achieve. I'm reaching for the stars! And I'm hoping my characters come across in 3D. A big pet hate of mine is wooden characterization!

Well, we'll see ...

I'm drawing up a shortlist of agents already. I have dillydallied for long enough. I have wasted enough of my life, so I haven't a moment to lose!


PS: George Orwell was well into making corrections... if you wanna see this page of 1984 close up, just clickonit... 1984 is one of my favourite books of all time. Why oh why British schools insist on teaching the far-less-exciting Animal Farm instead, I've absolutely no idea...

PS I read this interview with a published writer... very strange, she takes the diametrical opposite approach to the one I do. I love pop fiction but never feel unduly swayed by anyone else's scribblings... I can only be myself ~ thank God!

PPS I saw the movie QUILLS last night for the Nth time. Luvverly... though I always forget how horrible the ending is.... And isn't Michael Caine a bastard innit!!
PPPS note the decorator with triangular face-topiary played by True Blood/NYLon's Stephen Moyer ...



DOWN WITH LOVE
I also saw some of this, starring Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellwegger. It's crap!

Quandry

I only had 15 mins to bash in the above without thought or pause but~
I DID EXACTLY WHAT WALTER MOSLEY SAID in his guide, having written my first draft three years ago. I had assumed it was rubbish because every time I opened a page my eye seemed to fall on something trite or stilted. The fact that it was in my own handwriting was also very offputting.

Then I forced myself actually to sit down and begin reading from chapter two. (Not chapter one because I spent so long hacking it about I know it by heart.) And was shocked. The prose was not bland. The characters sprang out. The dialogue was quite good. So my ideas of scrapping the whole thing and writing another draft in parallel without reference to the first goes out the window.

I'm not someone who believes in redoing anything for the sake of it. So I think what I'm going to have to do is just keep the good bits and weave in the new stuff around that. Gwendolina, the hellhound who lies in a corner chewing a baby doll's face and snarling, for example, features nowhere at all. So I gotta put her in. I said I wanted a horrible dog in my story so in she goes!

So onwards and upwards and all that. And I've got to rush again as the computer's faulted and I'm getting chucked off in three minutes.

Illustrated: Agatha Christie, who sold two billion books ~ one billion in English, yet died leaving about £170,000 ~ under £2,000,000 in today's money. That's bad business sense for you!

Becoming A Writer.

"Nobody Ever Got Published by Writing A Good Book" ~ well that gives me hope!

My Creative Writing teacher is called Dianne Doubtfire, who wrote what is by far the best how-to book for beginners, called The Craft of Novel Writing. Anyone looking for a good guidebook can do worse than read this. Unlike so very many others on the market it does not push the author's personal agenda and preferences. A rare gem indeed!

Actually another good one is Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande. Also very good.

By clicking on the above titles you can read the Amazon UK reviews. Dianne Doubtfire's book appears to be unknown in the USA (shame!); but you can read Dorothea Brande's reviews on American Amazon by clicking here.

Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft ~ it has been recommended to me several times but I haven't read it. I don't need another excuse to procrastinate my prose! All in all I would say these are the three best guides to writing, and this coming from a country where the "how to" industry regarding novel-writing and the like is still in its infancy compared to America where big colleges offer degree courses in the subject. Over here this would be considered a "soft subject" (ie an indulgent waste of time). Unless a student from the course produced a hit of Da Vinci Code proportions (The Davinci Code, incidentally outsold Michael Jackson's Thriller) in which case there'd be queues at the admission office door.

And you can read the 883 American customer reviews here.

Personally I feel all the advice I need has sunk in. And all I'm doing now is tinkering yet again with chapter one. (The first rewrite, done before the book hit the back of a closet three years ago was actually considerably worse than the original!) And wondering if and what manner of "sub-plots" I need to weave in. As I said before, this book is pretty much a ficitionalized memoir (which does not mean disguised autobiography ~ if I wanted to write a memoir I'd have finished scribbling out my own) so the plot is pretty much and then - and then - and then. I don't think I will ever be a master plotter. I like to consider myself a "novelist of character" and poor literary agents all around London will be laughing at that one, once the finished book is inflicted on them ~ hahar!

The writer's guide I really need is "how to write a synopsis that sells" (and there probably IS a book with this title but I don't necessarily mean it. I just mean the best guide to that particular subject. Because I got asked to do that when I tried to sell my ridiculous first novel. I won't tell you what it's about in case you fall off your chair laughing.

And on that note I'd better flee. I had the most shocking diarrhoea yesterday but it's all slurried out now. And I woke up bright and early this morning, watched Everybody Loves Raymond and Frasier (because they come on between 7:30 and 9:00) then put on Vanessa Felz on the radio and started scrubbing the floors. Just like my Mum does. She always does housework to the radio so I feel most grown up attempting to do the same. Well I'd better run before the morning's over. It's 10 to 11 as we speak ...

Illustrated: Dorothea Brande, Stephen King. No picture appears to exist online for Dianne Doubtfire ~ shame! And my 2 favourite characters from my book: "Polly wants a crackhead!" ~ my talking parrot. And Gwendolina the slavering hellhound. I can never find a picture that looks anything like her ~ she's meant to look something like a cross between a wild boar and a bear... And might even look cute, were it not for her ceaseless malevolent snarling ...

Attitude Is A Decision...

OR, the way I'd phrase it: there are many things you cannot change, but you CAN change your attitude to them..!

I wrote out a long post last night, but left it on my chair. It was 2500 words anyhow. I'd have to top up time twice in this internet café to bash in that much ...

I did another 500 words last night, introducing Gwendolina, that savage hellhound you may have read about in my side bar (said I'd put her in my book didn't I?~ and in she goes, confined to the kitchen for her usual bad behaviour, werewolf silhouette baying sorrowfully at the striplight through the frosted door). I also added a parrot who says "sort us out with a pipe, mate," and other crackhead phrases. I can only write what I know so it's drugs galore I'm afraid. Or rather, I'm writing about the theme of addiction. There are very few good books on this subject, fiction or non-fiction. And I am inspired to go on. So inspired in fact that once pen hits paper entire passages flow out ~ easier than a shopping list.

My one reservation is against writing anything that could be construed as "drug porn". This is a difficult one because to someone determined to find glamour in grunge nothing I say will ever disgust them. I just hope I manage to portray my situations in enough fullness that only a fool could ever say "I read your book and had to give heroin a try!"

I got out three how-to books from the library. Two on screenwriting, which I haven't the SLIGHTEST desire to get involved in because 1. I hate reading scripts and the thin dialogue and wouldn't want to write it (novel dialogue is quite different) 2. the novel is a far superior art form, playing as it does without constraints of time, technicians, cast or budget on the greatest stage of all ~ the theatre of the mind and 3. less than 300 films a year are made in Hollywood, let alone anywhere else in the English-speaking world ~ against several thousand new novels published so the chances of minimal success at least with a novel are greater. And 4. the writer is BOTTOM of the pack in Hollywood, has no creative control ~ will likely be asked to rewrite a perfecly good script over and over at the whim of the stars even if this weakens or destroys the storytelling and 5. how many famous screenwriters can YOU name?

Sorry I had to let off that particular burst steam. It's been building inside for some time...

So anyway I got these screenwriting books because I thought they might teach me something about structuring a story, which I'd say is one of my weaker points as a "writer". When I did one unit in Creative Writing: The Novel at university, our teacher, a Booker/etc nominated fictioneer of some renown told me she particularly liked my characterization and use of language. I couldn't have been more flattered. I write to the philosophy that "character is plot", but I know I have a lot to learn about particularly deft and clever plotting. So I flicked through these guides, both by successful Hollywood big and small screen writers. They phrase commonsense into technical-sounding jargon about "character triangles" and "protagonist-antagonist" ... etc. But it's all cowshite. Character triangles are just the situations you get in any story. People have varying feelings and play various roles in relation to one another. Of course. Our protagonist is our main character. The antagonist is the somebody who stands in his or her way, opposes his or her desires, possibly manipulating him/her for his/her own ends. You get the gist.

In other words it's all stuff that comes naturally to us all, whether we call ourselves "novelists" or not!

The third book, This Year You Write Your Novel (ISBN 9780316065412) by Walter Mosley told me just what I needed to hear at just the right time ~ it's about how to turn a first draft of mush into a blindingly good published tale. And he is what I call a "successful" writer. Ie not just one who got into print, which seems to be the only credential the vast majority of "creative writing" teachers offer, but a renowned and respected author. Once I picked up the knack of scribbling out pages of fiction ~ and there is a very definite knack to it. It now comes easier than blogging or letter-writing or any other type of writing ~ and I mean on a page-by-page basis. I now can see the humungous error I was making was to convince myself that the inevitable baloonings, crossings-out and tinkerings with the text constituted rewriting. Which means in times past I never got beyond a rather polished first draft. The present second draft dispaches entire characters (e.g. the protagonist's mother), adds others and most importantly will hopefully tie together a whole lot of episodic scenes into a whizz-bang tale.

In previous years I used to tell myself: I'd rather write another book than rewrite this one ... yet somehow these follow-up books never came as easy as I told myself they ought to. And complacency set in. And drugs. And my whole life went tits-up anyhow.

So I'm rewriting and rewriting. Short and bittersweet. That's what I'm hoping for.

Better stop blabbering now. I've writing to do.

Illustrated ~ hellhounds; movie script (you're warned these are judged partly on the amount of WHITE SPACE which surely says it all); novel typescript (click on each if you want to read more closely); the Mosley book; Ugly Betty's sister Hilda: eyecandy...

The Plunge

Niagra falls, USA/Canada. I once dreamed I was on a boat such as this one ...
DEEP BREATH... TAKE PLUNGE..! I'M WRITING... I started without knowing it. Thinking I was taking notes I actually wrote out a whole chunk of dialogue. Only 500 words (bear in mind 1000 words is only 2.5 pages from an average novel in ordinarily spaced type ~ so it's not that much.) But it's a start, and remember this is my second draft. Draft 1 is already in the can and unpublishable, because it's amateurish throughout and as I said before, has a massive plot flaw that invalidates more than half of the book. This time round I'm concentrating on linking my scenes together a little better and weaving the background characters, who suddenly popped up and vanished in the first version, deeper into the story, which is very much one character's story. In a sense it's a fictionalized memoir, I suppose you could say.

The big plunge I take later today when I start my new chapter 2. (Chapter 1 can wait till the end...)

I'M READING To Kill A Mockingbird ~ it's survived four house moves (most of my books never get left behind) and I know it's a classic but I hadn't realized how good it was. Maybe that will inspire me. I tried an old Jackie Collins the other day that had been sitting next to Harper Lee for almost as much time and couldn't stand the crass language. That went sailing across the room. Perhaps I'm getting old ...

A New Project...

... or an old one revisited.

IT CAME TO THE POINT WHERE I JUST WANTED TO CURL UP AND DIE before I reached inside and grabbed a handful of the inner strength. I knew I had it somewhere but it hurt too much to use. (And why bother?)

I know I have been shillyshallying back and forth. I would do this. I would like to do that. I should do something else. And I could do yet another thing. I was looking for a project and finally fixed upon writing the second draft of the book that has been lying in the bottom of a cupboard for months on end. The first draft, let me explain, is so howlingly terrible no self-respecting publisher would light their stove with it, let alone print it.

This is my novel, not the drug-memoirs I also threatened to inflict on the world. The memoirs ground to a halt some time ago when I came up against twin dead weights. 1: I didn't like or enjoy remembering my own life; 2: there's the second quandary of whether/what/how much I say about real people who came into my life. At least fiction gives the freedom of talking in as much detail about anyone you please because the characters are all made up. Anyway the problem with the first version of this book was a major plot flaw. Basically I made something happen to my main character without researching thoroughly enough what this would entail. This time I'm sticking to that maxim "write what you know". I'm not feeling up to doing the job of researcher on top. Writing 100,000 pristine words shall be enough. So wish me luck, I've started already.

Also I cleaned my oven today. I have never used oven cleaner in my life. The chemicals always looked too scary. And why bother cleaning something you barely glimpse inside at the best of times. It's only because it's got so dirty it let off the main fire alarm that I got spurred into £2.50 Mr Muscle action.

Cheery-bye all. It's a miserable, crisp autumn day. What's it like your end?

Heroin in Brunei Darussalam in Asian English

Top: what famous novel do you think this manuscript belongs to?

NEW LINK: Erowid "how to purify street heroin" (I can't vouch for this!)

Sleeping... Eating...

THE WEATHER'S extremely chilly. Fallen leaves everywhere in a brown mush. A "nip" in the air, if I can say that without being racist about the Japanese (according to the Official Politically Correct Handbook, not ...)

All I want to do is eat and sleep. Eat stodge, that is and go to bed in the day. And sleep all night into the bargain. And then when I'm awake all I think about most of the time is doom and gloom. This is depression (again).

I saw a documentary on Japan last night. Japan and Japanese things barely ever come on British telly. Well, nowhere near as frequently as I'd like. Of course there are people from all over the world in London and the UK, but no great community of Japanese expats, so Japan and Japanese things are pretty exotic here.

But there was this British man, who motorcycled (and ferryboated) from Sydney Australia to Tokyo Japan. He was on telly last night. Id' seen some of it before, but this was was the last episode, the Japanese instalment. I sat glued to the screen and nearly fell over when a couple of street signs appeared and I could read them!

京都駅: 京 kyō means "capital city" ... this is the same character used in Tōkyō 東京 ("East Capital"). The second character 都 can be read to or miyako, meaning "the seat of Imperial palace" or "capital".) (Kyōto, by the way, was capital of Japan before Tōkyō took on the title in the modern era.) Railway station eki = a horse 馬 (lefthandside) coming to a halt on the right, 駅 where they say the R should be used as a mnemonic for Railwaystation ...


THIS IS IT: Charlie Boorman ~ Sydney to Tokyo By Any Means ...