Point Five
I hate starting novels. Short stories, when they’re feeling generous and playful, can pop into being like you’re opening a bottle of champagne. Or, as is more my experience, they can budge into being like opening the stubborn lid of a fairly decent jar of coffee.
Maybe a better metaphor for this involves cars. Starting a short story can be like starting a car. The idea comes to you with some sense of theme and ending, if you’re lucky and you’re not trying to ignore the deadline breathing down your neck and asking why you’ve not got your shoes on yet.
You set out with a sense of the whole journey in your head. You step out the front door, get into the driver’s seat and make yourself before turning the ignition. If it all goes to plan, the engine will run dependably and get you from A to B without too much consulting your A - Z.
Starting a novel always tricks me into thinking it will follow the exact same process. Only, when I get outside, there’s no car on the drive. There’s just a large pile of parts and the instruction book for the previous car I built. Which was a totally different model and whose success was, at best, debatable. As you try to remember what bit goes where, more parts keep being delivered. The fiendish thing being, of course, that you won’t need every part you have in front of you. Oh no. Some of those parts are appearing just to give you options.
Once you’ve constructed the thing, you have to get in and hunt out the ignition, which has normally ended up under a seat or located outside and somewhere towards the boot. Plus let’s not forget, once you’ve got the damn thing started, you’re by no means done. You’re expected to keep building it or throwing bits away as you drive towards your destination. Not only that, but sometimes it will completely fall apart and you’ll be forced to gather all the pieces you can carry and sprint back to where you started. It’s one of the few processes where your destination can get further away the longer you take to reach it.
It doesn’t help to look in popular, high street bookshops these days either. They’re turning into garages of the most benign, safely played, boring ideas on offer. And occasionally a coffee shop. There’s shelf after shelf of beige, conservative, family friendly, overpriced models.
The other week, I was browsing around a shop who’s name is reminiscent of rivers and rocks and it really didn’t do much to ease my sulking. Eight out of ten people were going straight to the celebrity biography sections to see which comedian or pop star or chef had decided to either tell their story or dash down a few thoughts about getting old or tackle the tricky subject of losing a parent over a couple of hundred pages plus photos.
Imagine being the eighty year old mother who’s famous child has already written a straight autobiography, penned a quick book on having kids and is now desperately seeking that third bestseller to keep their agent off their backs. You’d never trust any food or beverage they brought you ever again and you’d forever be checking the top of your stairs for roller skates, marbles or banana skins..
In case you’re wondering, the ninth out of the ten people was there to pick up an official bestseller or TV certified classic. It seems that River Rocks is no longer worried about stocking a whole career. They’re not going to waste space on the interesting oddities in an author’s career. Or their trickier, deeper stuff. Nope. They’ve clearly set their sights on books that have been on TV, books that are on lists of a 100 books you need to read before shuffling off this mortal coil and books that live primarily in the realm of a syllabus, either educational or book club.
The tenth out of ten people were there to buy board games. Naturally.
I know there’s more to writing than craving a staff recommendation stashed your book on the shelves of River Rocks. I know there’s meant to be pleasure in taking an idea and building it up and seeing if it runs all the way to end of the road. But I also know that a grown man should be able to leave the news on in the car (the actual car, not the metaphorical one he tinkers with every morning) without turning into a howling rage baby. It’s just that it isn’t that way for everyone.
I’m starting to see some fantastic authors lose their faith and step away from writing. It’s either that or they have to risk it all and change the delivery system. The world is drowning in podcasts and blogs (ahem). The shores of social media are becoming clogged with heaving, teetering mounds of bottles. Each one crammed full of messages assuring people that we all have wares to peddle, in all sorts of flavours, sizes and textures.
Maybe the greatest tip you can offer to any young kid who wants to be a successful writer today is to become a famous athlete or comedian. Then they can write a book about that and not have to worry about the dreaded moment when a publisher asks exactly what genre they were aiming for..
These days, I keep catching myself remembering that often misquoted piece of wisdom Einstein had to offer. He said something along the lines of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. To a certain extent, Albert had a point. Although we don’t know how many times that long haired loon stuck his tongue out at a camera before someone finally paid attention.
I definitely have nights when I wonder exactly what I’m trying to achieve. I’ll be watching TV, listening to a long deceased author talk about their fame as if it was something they’d never wanted and found waiting on their doorstep one morning along with the milk and post. Either that or I’ve ended up watching some dreary adaptation of a crime novel again and I’m wondering if this simply bad TV or whether all bad crime novels are allowed to be turned into television as along as they tick every trope available.
It’s amazing how many murders happen inside locked rooms without obvious weapons or motives. You’d think the detective and his quirky Holmes clone would be more surprised to be find the door kicked open and a cleaver still lodged deep into the skull of some soul’s skull.
“That’s a turn up for the books, Inspector. They didn’t even try to make it look like she drowned in a bone dry room. They just shot her through the eye.”
Anyway, as I consider changing channels and dream careers, I’ll catch sight of my glass of water. Half full, or thereabouts. I know what I’m meant to think in that moment. Is it half full? Or, as most people would expect me to think, is it half empty. Only that’s not the thought that comes into my head. No, I find myself wondering what if that was the last half a glass of water in the world.
Imagine the person who had it beside them when the TV announced all the water had run out. Picture them trying to hide it, trying to ignore their own thirst. Perhaps even going on the run, moving deep into a world where gangs of raving thirst addicts are trying to extract water from their herds of terrified victims.
“Turn the rack again. I swear they said something in school about us being seventy percent water.”
There could be a new religion. Some wild eyed salesman, an ex politician perhaps, claiming they’ve been shown by a higher power how to get water from a stone.
Our water carrying lead could be captured, perhaps tortured or tempted. Perhaps a bidding war would escalate for their final half a glass. Maybe the army would become involved. Or every religion.
“The Dalai Lama has a tickle at the back of his throat, you selfish monster!”
It’s possible that our person could become a folk hero for a while. A celebrity of a sort. The world waiting to see what they will do with those final couple of mouthfuls. Maybe they even write a book about it. A bestseller, if only because everyone wants to stay on their good side and in these troubled times a shop with a name like River Rocks is always worth checking to see if their tap still drips.
Of course, it feels almost inevitable that there’d be a spillage coming and an unfortunate attempt to cover it up. Or perhaps, even worse, some well meaning prophet could turn those last few mouthfuls of into wine. Granted, it would be an impressive miracle to show people they’ve not been abandoned, but one that would lead to no end of trouble.
It’s at times like this that I realise the engine does still run when I’m not ranting and wringing the ignition in vain hope that one good book would fix all my problems.
Yes, writing novel is hard. Yes, selling a novel is like offering expensive spring water to a drowning diver, but not writing a novel? That’s simply far too painful to even consider.