Ups and Downs

My neck hurts.

Here's some hilarious topical material:

Sandra: Ooooooooooo!

Man Dressed As Skeleton: Oooooooooo!

Mark Clattenburg: Oooooooooooo?

Lord October: Well. Hasn't this been fun?

I have no interest in anything anyone has to say about that.

***

As I get older, I'm becoming more and more less convinced.


Oh right. I forgot I was writing this. I forgot some time after "convinced", and remembered just before "Oh right". That's how my brain works.

The best thing about getting old is that it legitimises my permanent state of fatigue. In your twenties, it is a concern. In your thirties, it's par for the course. I'm looking forward to that. All of my inadequacies will become expected. It will be brave for me to even get out of bed every morning.

So, on the frequent occasions when I don't get out of bed, I'll have no reason to chastise myself.

I'm happy to salute the flag of reduced expectations, even if it's not as big as I'd hoped and my arms are too tired to salute above waist-height.

It's nearly lunchtime. I'll eat seven hard-boiled eggs and a tea bag. By the time I'm back, I'll be in tip-top shape, and ready to tell you all about how I lost my lustre, where I found it, and why I decided I was better off without it.

***

I'm back, and boy am I.

Sorry to keep you hanging on the whole "lustre" story. To sum up: I lost it whilst queueing for a bus festival, I found it taped to the inside of my right thigh, and I decided I was better off without it because it sounds all Gallic. I'd rather have luster.

***

People like writers who resent having to write.

That's why I'm so popular.

I'm annoyed at having to do this, even though I don't have to do it. Pretty much nobody will be reading this, and anyone who is will be actively wanting me to stop.

Writers need to hate writing. They should also hate reading, if possible.

A good writer hates first, and writes second. They should also hate what they've written.

I'm a pretty skilled writer. I'm now at the stage where I can hate what I'm writing as I'm writing it. It's almost simultaneous. I also hate my formatting, but there's more of a lag with that.

I have to be finely honed when it comes to hating my writing, because it can be difficult to make out specific hatred against a background of continual negativity. It's like static: it's always there, but you can learn to tune it out.

You wouldn't want to hate the wrong thing in the confusion.

I could represent my country at Precision Hatred. I can hate a Tory mosquito from six hundred yards, even if it's during an episode of Jeremy Kyle. You can't teach that.

I'm just going to scan what I've written so far, and check that I hate it all.

Yep.

I'm going to slam my foot in a door!

***

OK. I need to salvage something from this. It's not acceptable in its current condition.

What I'll do, right, is not post this now, but will leave it as a draft. Then, later on, when I'm in a better state of mind, I'll come back to it, finishing it off with a flourish of such beauty and pathos that we'll all become monks.

I'll see you then.

***

The rain is falling. It is always falling. By the time it rises again, it will no longer be rain. It will be something else.

It can only return to the sky as vapour - only the vaguest recollection of its previous self. What was once a proud and sturdy raindrop is now a shimmering residue. It is back, but it is not back. It is rain, but it is not rain. It is home. But it can never be home.

We are like the raindrop. We must forever fall. Our only ascent is through our memories: melancholy, intangible, familiar, inconsequential.

To remember is to turn our lives to vapour, to feel the moistness of the past on our cheek, to realise our oneness with the past and future, without ever quenching our thirst.

We are caught in an ever-fading cycle, looking to grasp the solidity of the self, but eternally destined to fall.

***

See? It's now over a day since that opening disaster.

I feel a lot better now. It's funny what ten hours of sleep will do for you. And some tea. And some sandwiches.

The rain is falling. That's where I got the idea. I got it from the sky.

I'm starting my novel tomorrow. I still haven't the foggiest (another sky idea) notion of what it will be about. Other people seem to have a clear idea. They have planned this for months.

I have no characters, no settings, no plot, no premise. But that's how I roll. Unprepared is the harvest that yields the worthiest wheat.

You see? I didn't plan that harvest thing. It just happened. And it was beautiful.

I'll just throw myself in tomorrow. Sink or swim. Fish or cut bait. Shit or get off the pot. (Of those, I'm instinctively draw towards sink, cut bait, and get off the pot, but my plans may change)

Whilst I have no idea what my novel will be about, I've decided what it won't be about. This is my via negativa. Rule out what it is not, and you will have ruled in what it is is.

The following things will not feature in my novel:

• vampires
• werewolves
• zombies
• aliens
• the FBI
• extra-marital affairs
• first-person narration
• lots of adverbs
• haunted hice
• a character who is basically me, or any other Charlie Kaufman bullshit
• the word "bullshit"
• Turks
• any deus ex machinis
• bullet-pointed lists
• self-referential lists
• a link to the various other self-referential lists I've done in the past
• Latin
• Americans
• cigars
• sex scenes
• a scene where two characters are fighting and fall into a giant vat of stew
• Star Wars

By following these guidelines, I have quite a narrow remit. That will make things easier.

By the way, I reserve the right to include any of the above if things get difficult.

I'm supposed to write 50,000 words in thirty days. It's very possible that I won't be able to do that without at least some Turkish content.

***

This has been extremely encouraging. I've already written 532 words in this blog post today. If I include that whiny stuff I did yesterday, it's over a thousand!

Word counts are easy. You can throw down words as easily as the man with a diamond allergy throws down a playing card.

I think I'll have NO TROUBLE WRITING A NOVEL WHATSOEVER.

I'm trying to double-bluff Fate. It never works. ;-)

:-(

8-O=

Hmm...

None of these emoticons are properly capturing my Fate-challenge. I need something a bit more expressive.

That's better.