I won’t go back over old ground, but in sum I have all my life – that is for the past 51 years – declared ‘I am going to be a writer’ and I wanted to prove to myself that, yes, I am a writer, and, no, I am not just another of life’s bullshitters. Well, the day of reckoning has moved far closer.
But before I get into that, I must admit that I have, in one sense, been a little harder on myself than was absolutely necessary. I announced, shamelessly, that for a guy who ‘wanted to be a writer’ I had, all things being equal and measured against others ‘who wanted to be a write’, written precious little indeed. Well, as it turns out that isn’t quite true.
Certainly, I am and was not one of those who would work a double-shift down on the marshalling yard, then a third manning an late-night dustcart, before returning home at 4 in the morning to sit down at the kitchen table at an ancient Remington typewriter (it had to be an ancient Remington typewriter) and hammering out yet another short story in the event no one wanted to buy, before the necessary shit and a shave and clocking on once again at the marshalling yard. But I have discovered that I have written rather more than I imagined.
Just outside our cottage in North Cornwall stands a small, granite building. When I first married and moved here, it was derelict, and only four walls were standing. But my wife then got her brother David, who is a builder, to
renovate it, install electricity and light, and let our daughter (21 just over a week but then just a toddler) use it as a playhouse. But as sadly always happens with young sons and daughters, the playhouse was used less and less as a playhouse as they grew older ans swapped toy kitchens and playing shop for tamagotchis and laptops, and more and more as a junkyard, the final restoing place for all kinds of crap we no longer used or had use for.
It had everything: her old toys, a gradually rotting kiddies sofa, several large plastic boxes of my junk, two bicycles, a gymansts rower (donated to us by my sister-in-law who also had no more use for it), tools, a ‘director’s chair’ used in the summer months to sit outside in the sun. It was crammed so full of crap that you could hardly get in the door. It stank of mould and damp, and was all in all a crying shame.
Several years ago, I hit upon the idea of clearing out that little cottage (above) and converting it into a den where I could – I can – retreat and, well, write, get down to it and solve the mystery which had haunted me all my life: am I, as I suspected (and, to be honest, still suspect) just another of life’s bullshitters or was there – is there – still a glimmer of hope.
The clearing out began about three weeks ago (as I am still working in London four days a week, it could only be done when I was home). Then I cleaned the walls and gave them several coats of white paint. That always took a time to dry before the next coat could be applied, so it wasn’t until last week that the decorating was completed. I then furnished it, though sparsely, and – best of all – had space to hang some of my photos.
Well, so far, so good. (Bizarrely, my wife, who is, to put it as kindly as I am able, ‘singular’ in many way, immediately, when I announced I was going to hang up some photos, declared in that way she has: ‘No you’re not!’ ‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Because that will bring in damp.’ Well, perhaps as a scion of one of the many farming families here in North Cornwall she is privy to some arcane secrets of life and damp which yours truly and his kind are not. But bugger it. The photos have gone up.)
While I was clearing out and also clearing out a space in my stepmothe’s just down the road, I came across several folders of stories, some completed, some not, and several plays, none completed. And I had forgotten about these. (I also came across about ten A4 hardback ledgers of a diary I used to keep, written in longhand. I might – might – take a look through them at some point even though I find my handwriting just as difficult to decipher as everyone else, but I have to say doing so is most certainly nowhere close to the top of my to do list.
I am writing this in my little den and it is the first thing I have written here. As I explained earlier, I am a firm believer that genius (or the far more modest description I shall claim as my own) is, as the man said, ‘99pc perspiration and 1pc inspiration’, so the plan is to emulate one Somerset Maugham and sit down every day for at least four or five hours every morning and write. Oddly giving yourself no choice in the matter, as I have already discovered, works.
Well, it works in as far as you tend to get something done, however poor to mediocre that work might be. But you will never know whether it will be poor to mediocre, or possibly just a little bit better than that if you don’t fucking get it done in the first place.
So there you have it: the den is ready and I have no more excuses. Here are two pics (and only two are possibly 'cos it isn't very big. One pic is taken from one end, the other from the other.
I’ve just been online to look up examples of all those dedicated writers who worked 24 hours a day non-stop, then spent another few hours writing because they were so utterly dedicated. And I came across this, from a writer’s blog. Give it a look, it makes interesting reading. And the blogger has been published so she knows what she is talking about.
Even the exceptionally little I know chimes in with what she says. (And, by the way, when next you read your favourite novelist and think ‘Christ, what a good writer’, spare a thought for his or her editor. These are people, experienced people, who have seen a lot of writing, both fiction and non-fiction, and who, it has to be said, often improve what they are given to edit.) The blogger makes eight points, each preceded by a relevant quote.
Here are those eight quote:
Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. (Gene Fowler)
There’s only one person who needs a glass of water oftener than a small child tucked in for the night, and that’s a writer sitting down to write. (Mignon McLaughlin)
Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts. The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. (Anne Lamott)
Art is never finished, only abandoned. (Leonardo da Vinci)
An incurable itch for scribbling takes possession of many, and grows inveterate in their insane breasts. (Juvenal)
Nobody but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. (Samuel Johnson)
This is what I’ve been thinking lately: I’m getting worse. My writing just isn’t as good as it used to be. With every new story I write I believe I’ve lost something—the spark, the raw energy, the ability to see the scene, to tell the truth, to imagine. I look at my stories and feel like they could be so much better. (Jessie Morrison)
Incidentally, I have never heard of Gene Fowler, Mignon McLaughlin, Anne Lamot or Jessie Morrison, but if someone informs you that ‘water is wet’, you don’t discount the information just because you have never heard of whoever passes it on.
Pip, pip (and wish me well).
NB The regime won’t start in earnest until I finally knock work on the head, but that really has to be soon now. I shall be 68 on November 21, and I could have retired on my birthday in 2014. But I carried on – I tell myself –
All those excuses are true, but they are just excuses. The main thing which is holding me back is fear that I shall drizzle away my time and prove myself to be exactly that bullshitter I so vehemently hope I am not. Wish me well.
PS I have just uploaded the three pictures and looking at the two interior shots, I wonder whether I shouldn’t put the desk at the other end? Decisions, decisions.
PPS Black and white versions of the above pics are available on request.
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