Scratching The Itch
I made a New Years Resolution back in the sixties.
I resolved to never make another New Years Resolution.
I have kept to it religiously over the years. I have never resolved to do anything or for that matter, never resolved not to do anything in the years since. I feel good about that. I feel a sense of achievement having kept a resolution for fifty of so years?
For a moment today I nearly forgot myself and I very nearly made a resolution for the coming year. However I checked myself in time and made a decision instead. I have decided that this here site has to take a drop in my list of priorities.
Though you may not think it, I have quite a few things going on in my life. One of them is The Book which I have been not writing for God knows how many years. It has been through several false starts and even more abandonments. However I have a feeling in my water that I'm on the right track at last.
Why bother, you ask? It's not as if it is ever going to be published after all? So why waste time writing a hundred thousand words that no one will ever read? The simple answer is that it's The Itch. I have this itch at the back of my head all the time that The Book hasn't been written. The Itch wants me to write it and frankly I don't think anything will appease The Itch until I sit down and write the fucking thing.
So am going to spend more time writing a useless novel that no one will ever read and something has to make way for that. I'm not going to abandon this site, have no fear. But I am going to take things a little easier on the old Interweb. Maybe post every second day? Or a couple of times a week? The big problem is that daily writing here takes up so much time. It's a mental deadline where I have to find a topic and then write about it. So from now on, I will no longer search for topics – I'll wait for them to find me.
I know I have said all this before but this time is different. I hope. I won't say I have resolved [see the start of this ramble] but I will say I am determined.
Happy New Year everyone and don't make any resolutions you won't keep.
Heh!
Dont be such a prat. You know you enjoy being abused/ encouraged by so many people. Why waste such a golden opportunity by writing a novel?
Just keep unloading your thoughts on your many slavering minions. And have a very happy New Year.
One of the problems, BD – the thoughts don't come as quick and fast as they used to.
As for the abuse, I get all I need from Herself, thanks.
Could you publish bits and pieces of the novel on here as you go GD? Why not! I've seen it done.
This book looks good – "releasing the creative genius within you"?
http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Writing-Releasing-Creative/dp/0553296345
I was looking for a Ted Talk I listened to recently on creatitivy for you… this is pretty good too though – if you're interested in that sort of thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRXn71QS7vI
My new year's resolution.. No more bombarding of shite..:)
Posting stuff chapter by chapter would be a disaster, for the simple reason that I may want to scrap it and rewrite. I rarely write a chapter and leave it alone. I occasionally go back and add little bits or tweak it to suit some action later in the story. I won't be happy with any chapter until the whole thing is complete.
Happy New Year, GD. Whatever you decide to do will be worth doing. If and when a new article appears here I'll be reading it. You do just what YOU want to do.
Steve
Don't worry – I'll be around. Just probably not on a daily basis.
I resolve to keep checking your site twice a day anyway !!!
Twice? Even in the good times I would rarely brain-fart more than once a day.
Characterisation, plot, place and pace are all-important to help a novel get into the bestseller lists. May I suggest ingredients for the opening chapter? It has to be an attention grabber. So here goes:- a rural bishop arrives from Paris at Cork Airport, in the company of an existentialist poet, a redheaded gangster's moll wearing an expensive necklace, the deputy CEO of a semi-state company and the managing director of a bankrupt company that built a chain of ghost estates. The customs officer orders everybody in the party to open their main suitcases. Inside the bishop's suitcase is discovered a stack of Russian bibles and assorted French lingerie. The existentialist poet is carrying the collected works of Albert Camus, a screwdriver and 25g of low-grade cannabis. The gangster's moll has three flicknives and several two-hundreds packs of cheap Turkish cigarettes. The semi-state bod is carrying ten pairs of handcuffs and a bundle of Swiss bank bearer bonds. The bankrupt builder has ten books about Medjugorje and $35.000 in cash. The customs officer has an urgent puzzle to solve: which one of these characters should he order to be arrested? Which one should be immediately let through with a confiscation and light reprimand? And which two characters should he order to be tailed discreetly by Special Branch? The plot develops, thickens and twists in subsequent chapters until it reaches a breathless existentialist conclusion.
Sounds great! When do you plan on publishing? I can't wait…….
Actually I thought you were going to write it. If it ever got published I imagine it would be dismissed by Eileen Battersby in the Irish Times reviews section as "a load of neo-existentialist pseudo-literary twaddle. That feebleminded customs officer should never have confiscated the French lingerie and mildly reprimanded the bishop for importing Russian bibles without an import certificate. Rather the other way round. This first time novelist should have taken lessons in irony from John Banville and Colm Toibin before ever dreaming of winning the Booker Prize. The scene in Chapter 7 where the existentialist poet has a momentary dalliance with the gangster's moll deserves a nomination for this year's Bad Sex Award."
Wishing you a very Happy New Year!:-)
And many happy returns to you, Sir.
My Mammy went to Medjugorje back in the eighties to look for Our Lady in The Sky. Does anyone else remember " Our Lady of Ballinspittal Sway For Us"?
I'll read your useless novel that no one will ever read. Hell, I'll even pay for it. And I actually like the idea of you not posting every day since it's becoming very apparent that I haven't been able to keep up of late–in anything.
Write on, sir. Write on.