Well, first blog of the year, and so many exciting things have
happened that would fit right in with the sort of things I have
mainly been writing about here. Freedom of speech, terrorism, the
shouty twatness coming from both left and right, and even the
moderate types are getting shouty etc. etc. ad nauseum. I felt that
along with freedom of speech comes the freedom not to speak about it,
something a lot more of the internet maybe should have thought of,
never has Voltaire been misquoted by so many people simultaneously.
Je
suis silencieuse.
However,
I remembered why I started this blog in the first place. So, if you
are hoping for angry politics, utterly hysterical jokes and some
outrageous statement of intent then go back and read some of last
years stuff. However, if you are hoping for some terribly dull, navel
gazing, self important whining then read on, this is very much for
you.
A year ago, in a
fit of new years motivation, I sat down and wrote this
http://davedoesntwriteanythingever.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-beginning-of-ubridled-lack-of.html
and thus began this here blog. It was intended as a record of just
how badly I was doing at writing a novel, a week by week account of
my ability to do anything other than actually sit down and write the
bloody thing. A hysterically funny compendium of Arnold Rimmer style
ways of avoiding doing the thing you wish to do. I intended to update
it at least once a fortnight, if not exactly weekly, as had always
been the original conception of it. It was supposed to shame me into
doing some actual work. Looking at the control page for the blog, it
says I have 30 entries. This means I managed to update it more often
than I didn't. Which surprises me, clearly my early enthusiasm for it
just about beat my later apathy.
In my own defence,
the terribly quiet patch over November and December was, as always,
the result of my job, which gets horrendously busy at the end of the
year, and thus I have no time to write anything (I tend to find
myself at work for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for those two
months). I also discovered, while researching this blog post, which
is ironically, terribly late for a new years round up of events, that
I had not written much of the actual novel over the last 12 months
either. In fact, since this realisation about 3 weeks ago, I have
doubled it's length, and am now about half way through the word
count, and 3 quarters of the way through the plot (I have a fairly
odd writing process, do not question it). I intend to have my first
draft finished in time to spend the summer drunk, and waiting for
feedback from helpful holidaying readers who own kindles.
Again, I can defend
my lack of productivity, I never set myself very high targets for
ploughing through the work last year, assuming every few words to be
a victory against my procrastination and general idleness. Also, I
was terribly punctual in writing this blog for a long time, assuming
it to be the 'writer's shop front' that works as a show room, and
gets you noticed, and brings offers of other writing work. At the
same time, I took a couple of fairly long online courses, which ate
into my free time, and used them all as excuses to not write the
fucking novel.
In February, I
wrote this
http://davedoesntwriteanythingever.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/i-shall-quit-everything-else-and-be.html
which has turned out to be quite prophetic, since at the end of the
year, I did quit everything else, and I am now more productive. I am
in no gigging bands, and all the people I have said no to for dep
gigs over the last 6 months or so have stopped calling. Which is a
shame, as I would probably say yes now. Sadly the pub that was
mentioned in it as reopening, closed a few short months later, and
will now never be a pub again. And the last song for the Plastic
Squirrel EP that was mentioned didn't get finished until December. I
have an excuse for that as well thanks, and the results will be
coming out soon(ish).
It turned out that
having this blog here did manage to get me noticed, as I was asked to
scrawl some stuff for a money making venture, that has as yet
produced no money. So I knocked out about 4 times as many words as I
had then managed to put into my book for that in about a month. And
then a great deal of knocking it into useable shape, and putting
together some clever advertising blurb and suchlike for it took
another big chunk of time, and before I knew it the summer had waved
a little 'no swimming here' flag and gone away.
The other thing
about the summer, is that it is festival season, and last year, I was
very much still in a band, and we did quite a few festival gigs,
which required a fair bit of rehearsal (particularly as we had to
keep borrowing extra musicians for gigs that regular members couldn't
make it to) and a great deal of driving all over the country and
getting rained on. My visions of sitting in my garden happily writing
away at my book never happened. Mainly because you can't see a laptop
screen in the sun, but also because any time I managed to find during
which I was neither gigging, working, or rehearsing and it was sunny,
I would use it to sit in the sunshine with cider, and my wife. Which
is far more pleasant than trying to wrangle my characters into doing
what they are supposed to when they really want to do something else.
I also have a pile of wood that will eventually be a bike shed which
bears testament to just how much time I spent not doing things that
needed to be done over the summer.
Anyhow, it has been
an interesting year, and this blog failed to be a document of how not
to write a novel, it did, ironically, become an instrument of
procrastination all of its own and ever so occasionally was well
received. I may be a little less prolific this year, on the grounds
that I now have a word count to hit every week before I am allowed to
do anything that isn't writing the novel (and yes I hit this weeks
target about an hour ago, and I am letting the characters do what
they want rather than what I originally intended them to do, which
requires an awful lot of retrospective dicking about) as it is the
only way I can get it done before the weather turns nice again.
Because once the sun is out, I am in it, and I have cider.
By the way, I am
sorry that this blog is neither serves any useful function, informs
you of anything you need to know, or makes you laugh. I had to write
something, and this was what spewed out of my head. Sorry.
