... 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!)
Where is the lake with reeds and trees?
ReplyDeletehttp://sixtyfivewhatnow.blogspot.com/
cleaned your oven, cleaning up your book. now that's what i consider a good day!
ReplyDeleteThe oven needs going over again. I only had plastic bags to protect my hands and was too paranoid to spend too long wiping. So the residue has surely made it ultra-clean by now. Hopefully I won't die of noxious fumes when I turn the eejut thing ON again ...
ReplyDelete;->...
Good Luck with your book!
ReplyDeleteThank you. Hopefully I won't need it ~!! It'll be so talentedly good and well written and pageturningly gripping and all that shyte international publishers will snap it up for £££multimillions~ hahhar!
ReplyDeleteGleddy,
ReplyDeleteIt's miserable here in Ohio, too. No sun for several days--just gray and windy. It's making me really depressed. I left work early yesterday and went home and took a 3-hour nap. I guess I needed it. I'm much less depressed when the sun is out.
Would you mind cleaning my oven, too? It's overdue.
Love you,
SB
Oh, heavens, it is so much nicer to have a self cleaning oven. Don't know whether that is environmentally better, but it comes out spotlessly clean and there are none of those disgusting fumes!
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by my blog. Not sure how you got there.
Bravo for you on starting over with the book. You're young enough, you should be able to get it finished one of these days.
Today, here at my mother's in GA, rivals monsoon India. I will be happy to touch down in San Francisco early Thursday A.M. I've been away from home almost 17 days, trying to get my 85-year-old mother situated.
It's about 70 F here today with overcast skies. The rain bands from a hurricane in the Gulf are coming this way.
ReplyDeleteBright, sunny and cool in Toronto. Hope you enjoy your writing, you are good at it :)
ReplyDeleteI clean my ovens every week without fail - it makes it easy work. :)
ReplyDeleteNice to hear you have returned to the novel.
You really do vasillate from one project to another Gleds. But I'm glad you've revived the book and yes, write about what you know. As for ovens, cleaned mine for the first time in 4 years a month ago, self-cleaning is an oxymoron in my book. Now I daren't use it for fear of getting it dirty!
ReplyDeleteIt's mostly cloudy and 12 C here in the village, but at least it is not raining. Not much to do this time of year except wait for the Holidays to arrive.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like the pic of the manuscript says Madame Bovary or something in really tiny letters at the top, maybe. What is it really? It looks interesting.
ReplyDeleteI hate oven cleaner. I've started using only vinegar, lemon juice and baking soda to clean my house because I'm afraid regular cleaners are going to give me cancer or something. Plus, vinegar is so acidic it practically kills everything.
SarcBast: one day I might surprise you turning up on the doorstep Mr Muscle in hand (so to speak)... ps not to be rude, but I can't even picture where Ohio is!
ReplyDeleteInsane: how on earth does a selfcleaning oven operate? My tin of jollop specifically said don't use on these types... I found your blog by hopping out of someone's I know (can't even remember whose now) and on and on and on through their friends and followers till I came to yours ...
Syd: Sounds much nicer your end than mine though.
Elaine-Reeny: I should be better at fiction than blogging. I actually read back what I've written and try & improve it!
Akelamalu: every week!??! That's commitment!!
ReplyDeleteBaino: I know I do. Bear in mind though I'm doing this book on top of the languages stuff with German and Japanese. I figured I cannot afford university. Writing a successful book just MIGHT get me some finances I desperately need and would certainly open doors for me... you never know what's round the next corner. If I think I'm talented I gotta put myself out there and prove it and stop feeling bitter. Because that is how I was starting to feel and it is not my style at all.
I had another project (fictional) "that Jeffrey Archer would kill for" but though I want to do it I feel no spark at all. I'm not up for ploughing through acres of research on TOP of writing a book. That's 2 jobs in 1. I just want to write the bloody thing that's burning inside me. And it is burning. I know the feeling ~ the last draft I finished in 6 weeks and I don't wanna spend v much longer on this one!
Molson: you mean Xmas? That's 6 weeks away!
Nellie: yes it is an original Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Whether he actually wrote in bound books I don't know. I suspect someone bound the MS up after his death. Also how pernicketty, scrawling on 1 side of the paper only and not so much as a smudge on the back!
Talking of vinegar and lemon. Things we're told NOT to use to break down our Afghan heroin for injection. I have about a berzillion sachets of citric acid in a drawer I was going thinking of dissolving 20 or so into half a teacup of boiling water and going over the oven in that. If it can break down nasty brown heroin ~ and I know it can unblock sinks because I've tried! Esp. with bicarb ~ it's like a fizzy dream. It can surely clean my cooker. Next year. As I'm not really that into cleaning at all. I only do it when the situation gets desperate haha!!
;->...
Gleddy,
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome anytime. Ohio is in Buttfuck, USA. Just kidding. It's in the mid-West. Think corn fields, Gledds. Think corn fields.
Love,
SB
In the States we added that extra holiday in November just to kick things off... Thanksgiving. It's only two weeks away.
ReplyDeleteSB: you mean corn on the cob fields? Wow, I've only been ONCE in one of them. Our corn is standing grain. It's a different thing and I never know quite what anyone means now when they say "corn" it's one of those tomato tomayto things
ReplyDeleteMolson: I have done thanksgiving once!... In Kings Cross, London!