John Lennon once said ‘life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans’. This sort of describes what’s been going on with me since I last updated this page. The thing is that balancing the different elements of life is incredibly time consuming. So here I am trying to promote ‘After Alyson’, trying to get on with the day job of making the world a better place and doing all the things in between. Sometimes the things in between become more important than anything else so that they become ‘the things’ to the exclusion of all else. Then the things that matter get squeezed and then suddenly you wake up and it’s November 2013. ‘What they hey!’ as Kermit would say. ‘After Alyson’ is doing OK, although I am painfully aware that I am not doing enough to promote the book. The occasional tweet and Facebook post don’t really add up to a campaign for global domination do they? I mean there is a BBC feature coming out sometime in 2014 but that seems to have been delayed for so long it feels like they pre-recorded an obituary! I need a bit of help to get more sales churning in the run up to Christmas. That having been said the feedback I have had from people who have read ‘After Alyson’ is overwhelmingly positive. So far nobody has accosted me in the street and beaten me into a bloody pulp. The Devon Tourist board have not sued me for blighting the good image of their County, Social Workers have not organised a Fatwa against me and West Brom fans have been kind about Mark Garvey’s love of all things Baggies. So, as far as I am concerned, these are all pluses. The negatives are more to do with ego stuff. Like, I am sorry to say, I am somewhat disappointed that neither Stephen Speilberg nor Richard Curtis have beat a path to my door demanding we turn ‘After Alyson’ into a movie. It is also somewhat depressing that the range of literary chat shows and daytime TV broadcasters have yet to pick up on my status of “slightly obscure writer of the year”. I suppose there is still time for all of these things to happen, it’s just that if they haven’t happened yet I wonder if they ever will (note to self – make things happen, when did you last see a film producer knocking on doors looking for books to adapt?). In the meantime I am continuing to run away from writing my 2nd novel. It has the working title of ‘First Divi’ which had a deadline of having the first draft completed by the end of October this year. Well , Halloween came and went and there is still no finished novel. I suspect I am about a quarter of the way through and whilst I know where the plot is going I don’t know where the time will come to write it. I’m reminded of the Nanni Moretti movie ‘Aprile’, where a film producer keeps everybody waiting whilst he never makes a film about the history of pastry making in the cold war. If you have ever had creative vacillation I highly recommend it. Even if you haven’t its well worth catching. When I do manage to tear myself away from all the other ‘things’ in life that are going on, I am quite happy with what I’ve written so far. Both words are a masterpiece, conveying so much in less than three syllables. Only joking, there are about 20K words at the moment and some of them even have a relationship to each other that form a narrative. This is moderately satisfying and occasionally, usually in the small hours of the morning, I hear them calling out asking for more words to join them so that they grow into the much awaited second novel. I feel guilty for the loneliness of those words. They are like the wallflowers in a nightclub when then slow music comes on, desperate for love but tragically not quite ready to experience anything more than contemplating what might be once they are released from their solitude. Occasionally I add a few paragraphs, but this is like touching up their makeup. They really are impatient for the party to begin. I am slightly worried that Social Services will come around and take them away from me, putting them into the care of another writer who could lavish love on them and enable them to become a fully fledged novel. Still, this is no time for self pity. I am confident that I will find time to finish the new book, that soon you will be reading it and enjoying the life of Reggie Kellison in the same way that you enjoyed Mark Garvey’s adventures. In the meantime keep encouraging friends, relatives and strangers who you pluck up the courage to accost, to buy ‘After Alyson. Each time a new copy is sold the lonely words in the new novel breathe a sigh of contentment; they know that their liberation is coming. Eventually.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:39:07 +0000