Serious business is on the agenda this morning.
Today I join the hordes of wannabes out there who long for fame, fortune and a mantelpiece full of accolades. Today I begin my journey towards literary stardom and a life of fulfilling creative freedom. Or - if we pay a quick visit to the Real World for a moment - today I join the slush pile.
Tediously, I've written a book. Actually I've written two books, but the first one is a dog's dinner of which Winalot would be tearfully proud. At least I think it is. I don't really know what it's about to be honest and the two of us have never really connected, like some accidental first child that just kind of popped out after a trouble-free pregnancy, but then looked a bit off, so we just politely avoided each other once it was old enough to feed and dress itself.
It's probably too late to save that one from a life of crime and drug abuse, but this one was my second bite at the cherry. Conceived with patience and care, it has been nurtured with all the right vitamins; gently told off when it misbehaved instead of being slapped into next week; encouraged, mollycoddled and carefully groomed for Oxbridge and a career in biochemistry. This one is going places.
I suspect these places might only be the waste paper bins of assorted literary agents across London, but places none the less. For today is the day I tackle what is probably the one defining aspect of my personality - all-conquering, all-trembling cowardice. Constantly striving for positive change, yet terrified of stepping out of my comfort zone, I am a particularly annoying individual in that respect. From career to relationships and back again, I'd give the most watery jellyfish a damn good run for its money.
I've 'wanted to write' since I was a child, but never really started doing it with any sense of commitment until about 12 months ago. All my life I've snapped and groaned at myself, abandoning projects at 5,000 words and thinking "if only I just had something full-length, something finished - however rough - that I could work with and send out to people. If only I could get started on 'being a novelist". Well, now I have. And I can tell you that life does not get any easier. It only gets scarier.
For now is the moment of truth. Once you have battled all those many, many doubts - is it snappy enough, will it grip people, have I done enough rewriting, have I done too much rewriting, is it in fact a steaming dog turd masquerading as literature and should I drown myself in the toilet before I can infect the cultural world with this festering pigswill - there is nothing left but the getting on with it.
By taking the plunge and drawing my wafflings to the attention of people who might actually be able to do something about my ambitions to be a writer, I might be taking the first step to greatness. More probably, I will be leading my dream out into some cold prison yard, loading a pistol and asking if it has any last words.
So I dig the garden. I clean out the kitchen cupboards. I take long walks in the country. I write this blog. Anything to avoid packing it up and sending it out to real human beings who will actually read it and then probably crack my dreams like a walnut, trampling the pieces under foot as they hurry to keep their lunch appointment with Joanna Trollop at The Ivy.
But today I say 'pah' to Joanna Trollop (well, I don't - she's never done me any harm and in fact I rather admire her turn of phrase). I say 'pah' to the Gormless Idiot within. And I say 'here's to finding out the hard way. Now where the hell did I put those envelopes? Oh balls, I forgot to buy stamps...'
Look out world.
Sunday 21 February 2010
Saturday 20 February 2010
Got To Dance...But Probably Shouldn't
In the interests of postponing my foray into the garden, where I have to pot up some primroses - ugh, hate the twee little things, can't think why I bought them, though at least I rebelled and got blue ones instead of those little yellow patches of fairy vomit - I thought I'd put down some thoughts on dancing.
While enjoying a bit of sneaky daytime telly over breakfast this morning, I stumbled across the repeated final of Sky's Got To Dance and found myself sticking it out to the bitter end, even though I already knew who'd won. A little chap who looks like he's being remotely animated by the Devil's fiddle and has more talent than is fair or natural in a squirt that age. Still, I don't mind dance shows. The ice-skating one is pushing things a bit too far; there's only so much exposed gusset one can take on a Saturday teatime. But I quite like Strictly and stuff like that, so on the rare occasions when I'm allowed to watch these shows, I find myself drifting off into the old 'oh, what might have been' territory that lurks in the internal landscape of us all.
I should point out the delusional nature of this daydreaming. There is no abandoned potential or tragic knee-injury that cut short a wondrous career in showbiz. As a child I inflicted my presence on a tap dancing class in my village and infected the creative atmosphere for two or three years. All that time, the teacher kindly turned a blind eye to the fact that a new-born calf seemed to have stumbled into her class and was attempting to execute a heel-step, ball-change while being repeatedly bitten in the arse by a snake.
Needless to say, it became apparent that my future did not lie on the stage and the tap shoes were eventually hung up, or more accurately, flung into a skip with some relief by my long-suffering parents. I have never revisited that little corner of the cupboard in which I keep my unfulfilled dreams but, like many of the population, the resurgence of dance-based shows in recent years has inspired me to think about pushing those creaking hips back into service.
Until this morning that is, when Got To Dance finished and the new documentary about London's Pineapple Dance Studio started immediately afterwards. Fifteen minutes in and I had decided, once and for all, that the dance community was not a place where I would find my natural home. Putting aside for a moment the complete lack of talent and co-ordination that would possibly hinder my progress anyway, I found myself ogling a world of extraordinary numbskulls.
Beautiful bodies and fluid movements abound in the place - sadly, collective sanity appears to have been surrendered at the door in some sort of unspoken amnesty. Somewhere in a darkened back room at Pineapple, there must a box stuffed full of humility, self-awareness and realism, while their former owners bop, grind and jazz-hand their way towards an imagined life of fame, fortune and all the leotards they can fit in their Gucci hand luggage.
The life of the dancer is not for me. I'll just stick to embarassing the cats by jigging about in the kitchen to Stevie Wonder's Do I Do, imagining what might have been....
While enjoying a bit of sneaky daytime telly over breakfast this morning, I stumbled across the repeated final of Sky's Got To Dance and found myself sticking it out to the bitter end, even though I already knew who'd won. A little chap who looks like he's being remotely animated by the Devil's fiddle and has more talent than is fair or natural in a squirt that age. Still, I don't mind dance shows. The ice-skating one is pushing things a bit too far; there's only so much exposed gusset one can take on a Saturday teatime. But I quite like Strictly and stuff like that, so on the rare occasions when I'm allowed to watch these shows, I find myself drifting off into the old 'oh, what might have been' territory that lurks in the internal landscape of us all.
I should point out the delusional nature of this daydreaming. There is no abandoned potential or tragic knee-injury that cut short a wondrous career in showbiz. As a child I inflicted my presence on a tap dancing class in my village and infected the creative atmosphere for two or three years. All that time, the teacher kindly turned a blind eye to the fact that a new-born calf seemed to have stumbled into her class and was attempting to execute a heel-step, ball-change while being repeatedly bitten in the arse by a snake.
Needless to say, it became apparent that my future did not lie on the stage and the tap shoes were eventually hung up, or more accurately, flung into a skip with some relief by my long-suffering parents. I have never revisited that little corner of the cupboard in which I keep my unfulfilled dreams but, like many of the population, the resurgence of dance-based shows in recent years has inspired me to think about pushing those creaking hips back into service.
Until this morning that is, when Got To Dance finished and the new documentary about London's Pineapple Dance Studio started immediately afterwards. Fifteen minutes in and I had decided, once and for all, that the dance community was not a place where I would find my natural home. Putting aside for a moment the complete lack of talent and co-ordination that would possibly hinder my progress anyway, I found myself ogling a world of extraordinary numbskulls.
Beautiful bodies and fluid movements abound in the place - sadly, collective sanity appears to have been surrendered at the door in some sort of unspoken amnesty. Somewhere in a darkened back room at Pineapple, there must a box stuffed full of humility, self-awareness and realism, while their former owners bop, grind and jazz-hand their way towards an imagined life of fame, fortune and all the leotards they can fit in their Gucci hand luggage.
The life of the dancer is not for me. I'll just stick to embarassing the cats by jigging about in the kitchen to Stevie Wonder's Do I Do, imagining what might have been....
Friday 19 February 2010
A Brave New Dawn in Twaddle
Hurrah for another eejit on the internet. Here I am, blogging for the very first time. How exciting for one and all.
I'm aware of course that no one will ever read it, but that in itself is kinda liberating. Like shouting the word 'bum' at a man using a pneumatic drill - he'll never hear you, you get to have a little giggle, everybody wins.
Yeah, that's the standard you can expect from this blog. Oh, how this technology enriches all our lives. Hark, the day of the Gormless Idiot has dawned...
I'm aware of course that no one will ever read it, but that in itself is kinda liberating. Like shouting the word 'bum' at a man using a pneumatic drill - he'll never hear you, you get to have a little giggle, everybody wins.
Yeah, that's the standard you can expect from this blog. Oh, how this technology enriches all our lives. Hark, the day of the Gormless Idiot has dawned...
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