This is something I wrote in 2001, that’s nearly twenty-one years ago as I write this. It’s either genius or a piece of shit. I suppose it could even be both.
What it is see, is that I’m a lazy writer. No, it’s true, I know that I could work much harder and craft every sentence, every paragraph, every chapter, every verse, every simile or metaphor into something that is entirely professional and rock solid. No, I could, I really could do it – every time.
Thing is, I don’t.
Why is that?
More importantly, does it matter?
And, in any case, lazy people deserve to have their voices heard too. After all, there are a lot of them about. Yeah, I know, there are a lot more people who don’t have the skills or experience to write well, whose voices are never heard, and it’s not their fault, so you could say, so what if your voice is unheard, for every one of you, lazy writers, there are a million others who will never have their voices heard and it’s not even their fault, it’s not their choice, they just don’t have the option. They may even be illiterate through no fault of their own.
But you do, you do have the choice, and the opportunities and still you produce sub-standard work simply because you’re lazy.. And don’t try and say that you have produced millions of words, published novels, short stories, poetry, articles, opinion pieces, musings and whatever else. They are lazy words. A million lazy words are less than equivalent to a thousand well-crafted.
You could say all that couldn’t you? But, what the hell, I still say that even lazy writers deserve their voices heard or at least out there in the ethers of life in the twenty-first century.
You don’t have to listen you know.
Illustration from The Dreamer – a short story – Click to read
I recently completed writing a new novel. The title of the book is ‘Skin and Bones’ . More news on that soon, but in the meantime here is an update on a major work-in-progress.
It’s a book with the working title of ‘The Flying Boy’. The title refers to a recurring dream I used to have when I as a boy, probably no more than eight or nine years old, possibly younger.
The dream involved me flying along the street where I lived at rooftop height. I think it influenced me a lot, in fact I am influenced a lot by the recurring dreams of my childhood. There were a lot of them.
I already wrote a book based on the one about The Three Bears and much of my other thoughts about what the universe is, how time works, reincarnation, spirituality, morality and so on, originate in my childhood dreams.
There will be more info about The Flying Boy in future I’m sure and one day the book will be published. Don’t expect a ‘normal’ novel-like thing, but it is a novel. In the meantime, here’s an extract from the work-in-progress. Continue reading “The Flying Boy”
if I don’t paint I can’t write, in fact if I don’t paint I lose the plot . . . it takes a while, months, sometimes longer, but here it comes again . . . sorry, got to go and paint . . . if anything decent comes out of my forthcoming painting session I’ll post it here, you’ll be the first to know . . . back in a bit . . . . . . it’s later . . . well, that didn’t go very far, there was a fair bit of tidying up and sorting out paints and brushes and canvases, not to mention collecting all the other stuff that had accumulated in the shed and putting it out of the way . . . then it was too hot to paint in there so very little got done (painting-wise) . . . then there was cooking and generally mooching about and just being unfocused . . . and now . . . here’s the result . . .
I had one of those writerly moments earlier; you know, when you have a brilliant idea for a piece of writing; something clever and insightful, something entertaining and wise, something beautiful and exciting, and all encapsulated in the same simple concept.
The words blossomed in my head, metaphors leapt about like lemurs and stunning similes smiled at me.
Right, I thought, I’m going to blog this. This’ll have ‘em dancing on their keyboards – now how do I begin? Ah yes – fantastic, that opening sentence will slay them, and then I’ll say that, and then I’ll bring that in and then I’ll end it like that – wow.
So, I hopped out of the armchair and skipped jauntily over to the laptop.
I’ll put the kettle on, I thought. Now where’s that box of cheating chai, and I’m sure there are some of those melt-in-the-mouth chocolate coated ginger biscuits left in the cupboard.
Damn ants, you only need a grain of sugar to escape from the spoon and they’re all over the place like an army of Eng-er-land supporters on speed. Better clean up a bit.
(This is a personal note to myself – please ignore.)
I’m a writer. There’s no doubt about that, as you would see if you bothered to explore my website. It’s mostly about writing and most of it has been written – by me of course. Problem is ‘writer’ is too wide a term to be meaningful to anyone who doesn’t identify as a ‘writer’. I mean, what am I? I write blog posts like this, and . . . well . . . here’s a list of the other things I write:
Poems
Short Stories
Articles
Plays for the theatre
Television Scripts
Jokes
Monologues
Rants
Rambles
blah
blah
But if I was forced to define more finely what it is that makes me a writer then I would say: “Call me a novelist”. I would say this even though I have not published a new novel for three years because there is something divine about writing a novel, something that takes a direct line to the absolute essence of my being – it is an experience, or a conglomeration of experiences, that means everything, forever.
