Wednesday 16 May 2012

Giant nuclear ape

In an earlier post, I mooted the idea of changing the banner at the top of this blog to better reflect its nature now that I am teetotal, debt free and no longer writing a novel. Okay I lied about the first two and the third is the subject of this entry.

How on earth did I think, three years ago, that writing a novel would be a good thing to do with a hangover and that it might solve my debt problems? Everybody knows the only way to pay off debts is to borrow more from another provider and hope that your future self will be better equipped to deal with the problem than you are. Hangovers are even easier: just wash down a double dose of ibuprofen with my patented ratio of orange juice and bubbly water and you'll be back down the pub in no time.

Hangovers and debts are BAD reasons to write a novel. A plausible good reason might be that you can't work out how to change the banner at the top of your blog or that you are a self-obsessed pseudo-existentialist with too much time on his hands. As I fit both these categories, I thought it high time I had another go at a longer project. And this time, I thought, just for a different challenge: no time-travel, spaceships or zombies.

You are probably thinking that I have set too hard a task for myself and you're probably right. I'll probably run out of steam and have to introduce an improbable apocalyptic event (supervolcano, anyone?) at about 15000 words, but for the time being my theme is rural decline due to the evils of capitalism (and definitely not the ravishings of a giant nuclear ape created in a secret government experiment).

As an inveterate city dweller who tends to rise at the crack of noon, I am obviously ill-suited to tackle this subject on imagination alone. So I e-mailed one of my contacts in the farming industry (oh alright, my brother) and asked him to describe milking procedures to me in a few brief lines which he duly did and, well, I never drank that much milk anyway and its amazing what they can do with almonds these days.     

8 comments:

  1. Why don't you just bite the bullet and write about you. Drop the bullshit marxist tendancies and stop trying to say something with your work. If you want it to be tangible, how about a novel that speaks of why someone with your intellect can't be arsed to deal with the so called real world...

    ReplyDelete
  2. At last! Someone has commented on one of my posts, I didn't realise anybody actually read them! Thanks for the input but speaking of why someone with my intellect can't be arsed with the so-called real world is what my blog is for. As only you and I read it, I don't think it would make a very good novel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The interplay between you and your emotions would be what makes it work. See the novel as an exercise in coming to terms with what you really feel...

      Delete
    2. I'm enjoying the mystery of this conversation. You are an insightful stranger. And you end your comments with three dots...

      Delete
  3. Hello again dear heart,

    Perhaps you are writing for the wrong reasons? It seems you like to put pen to paper merely for the course of distraction, as opposed to crafting something new and bold. Ask yourself if you find contentment in playing with the same motifs and tropes that every other Hollywood B writer is juggling? Don't you ever even for a moment imagine that every combination on this cultural Rubik's Cube has been played out?

    By writing the story of your life as it happens, whilst carefully avoiding the dreary diary diorama, my dear heart, will allow you to have fun with your life. Adopt the Gonzo stance and wear an outrageous hat or talk for a day with an intense modesty to strangers you meet in the park. Become an experiment in the laboratory of your life and write it all down, because you'll never be able to capture this change in you again.

    I always like to leave the crowd wanting more, dear heart...

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1. Wolfram Alpha informs me there are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 possible combinations on a Rubik's cube so, if I follow your analogy correctly, then we agree that not every combination has been played out.

    2. Calling me 'dear heart' from your position of anonymity is a little creepy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Aha. What amazing skills of avoidance you've pulled out here. Not just a writer, but a player of social games and positions. Touche.

    1. It was a cultural Rubik's cube that was mentioned. Your using a literal, or pedantic Rubik's cube as we like to address it on this side of the globe.

    2. Well I can accept that. How about I call you Finn from now on?

    So now I've done you the pleasure of chipping off my edges and thus become the round peg, will you find an answer to my last posting. It did take oh so long for my poor, frail hands to write...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Looks like I lost you. Only myself to blame, I suppose.

    ReplyDelete