I suppose it's all
over then. As I plough my way into the final revisions of my novel, I
realise that this blog no longer has any purpose. Dave does write
stuff, he has written stuff, and now he has nothing to procrastinate
over. Farewell to Dave Doesn't Write Anything Ever, and possibly good
riddance, right kids?
Well, probably not,
but I may run out of things to rant about eventually. I may have
already, this is more of a space filler than actually something worth
reading. It is in fact, an actual, genuine, bona fide, last ditch bit
of procrastination, no word of a lie.
It has become
painfully apparent that the book is going to need working on again
soon. I realised this because despite having spent the last month
(while it's been with my small select group of trusted proof readers)
going over the plot in my head, thinking of ways to work in a couple
of gags that only just occurred to me, and working out how to attack
the next round of revisions with the least amount of distractions.
This week, I have mostly been fiddling around with my guitar effects
pedal board, trying to find the best sounds for songs I will probably
never play, and restringing guitars I do not need for anything I am
currently doing. I've also written a bunch of new Dave
Not The Cat songs, always a sure sign I should be doing something
else.
All this was
prompted by the return of my manuscript from my favourite proof
reader, it has some very useful notes scrawled on it. Along with a
conversation last week with another of my trusted readers, this means
it is definitely time for me to get on with it, and do the last
couple of sweeps of this book before I have to actually decide where
it is going to end up.
That's where the
real problem suddenly reared its head. I have been so busy
concentrating on getting the thing written, and as good as it
possibly could be, and a thing I could be proud of, etc. etc. I had
not really given serious thought as to what to do with the bloody
thing once it was finished (probably because of the surfeit of
unfinished novels I've got lying around the house already, I never
thought it would get finished). It should have occurred to me at some
point that just as many people are trying to get to be novelists as
are wanting to be rock stars, and I didn't manage that one either.
Once again I feel irony's bitter sting as I abandon one impossible
pipe dream for another. There is a small (okay, quite big really)
chance that an unread novel will sit on amazon's self publishing
service alongside all the albums I have littered the internet with
that nobody ever listens to (if
this has filled you with sympathy there are some for download here).
I have also had to
cope with a few truths about my writing style, and its unnecessary
wordiness (which has been utterly deliberate so far in this blog, and
shall remain so). There is a great deal of crap to scythe away from
my tale of derring do, (not actual crap apparently, just excessive
sesquipedalianism
really)
and with every stroke of the
editor's pencil that I see, I realise how much needs to go. I
apologise for the amount of extravagant verbosity that I am vomiting
all over this piece, I need to get it out of my system.
It's not just that
though. I have been alerted to some colloquialisms that I assume
everybody uses (apparently not everybody is 'made up' when they are
happy, and I should keep such things to the dialogue, and out of the
narration really) my grammar is occasionally shocking (expensive
education utterly wasted, sorry Dad) and certain things when seen
from a completely different viewpoint look terribly wrong, or right,
depending on which side you're on. I have however been very pleased
to have the note 'unlikely' put to the side of an incident that
actually happened in Barnstaple in 1997. I shall not recount the
tale, but if you had ever been in Sherry's Tavern back then, it would
not have seemed so unlikely that a bouncer would behave in such a
fashion.
Equally, my own
personality defects are affecting my characterisation somewhat. The
fact that I do not ever remember what people look like, or ask them
anything important about their lives has led to me sometimes
forgetting to describe characters visually, or bother with what some
would call their vital life details. It is genuinely just due to my
own world view and priorities, you can ask my wife. If I come home
and tell her that I have met somebody interesting in the pub, she
will immediately ask me their name (which I usually have not bothered
to ask) followed by what they do for a living (which I have never
found important enough to ask anybody about) and whether they are
married or not (similarly not interested). I can then go on to tell
her their favourite episode of Star Trek, what they like to drink,
what they think about the current government, and their top five
track one side ones of all time. I think these things are more
important, I am realising that not everybody does, and rewriting
accordingly. Sadly, just like the rest of the country, many of my
characters need jobs.
Anyhow, I am clearly
just thinking out loud here again, sorry. I must get on and finish
the revisions before deciding what to do with it all. Goodbye
forever, I shall procrastinate here no longer, Dave really doesn't
write anything ever.
Except he does, and
he almost certainly will again.
:Edited for brevity,
honest:
No comments:
Post a Comment