It was to be ‘my space’ for letting my hair down – the quote marks indicate that ‘my space’ is a ‘new’ expression for us over 70 in that it evolved and became current in the past twenty years rather than last week, and that I’m not overly fond of it as in I’m not accustomed to it.
It wasn’t to be: somehow it was also listed on ‘my other blogs’ with this one, so it was not at all private. Worse the ‘stats’ indicated that he had been read several times.
Well, I couldn’t have that, could I! How would I be able to call my best friend a - - - - - who doesn’t - - - - - - - - - - - - on a good day when he’s sober in a month of Sundays knowing that he might well, solely by chance, come across my second blog and realise that I am not the nice, affable guy he first met in - - - - when we were both working on the - - - - - - but essentially just another two-faced - - - -?
You see my dilemma, but then in a way it got worse: I realised it was my fault that the third ‘private’ blog had been listed and thus accessible to all and not in the lightest bit ‘private’.
So I de-listed it, but, in a sense, that created another problem: as an ‘aspiring writer’ – yes, even at 75 – 76 on November 21 next, sadly – and like all other ‘aspiring writers’ I am more or less convinced that Fate will be kind and that my genius will, it time, be acknowledged and that legions or PhD students and ambitious academics and – well, why not! – biographers will be trawling for details of my life, my work and my thoughts. And where else to trawl, now that writing long letters is a thing of the past, than in a blog.
Yet by keeping my thoughts and all the other crap that sustains biographies private in their own separate blog would – will not only would their job be far harder, but I will be running the risk that would-be biographers finding the tasks of digging out ‘telling details’ so tiresome that they might conclude ‘what the fuck, think I’ll biographise someone else’.
To cut to the chase: I’ve decided to get a little cute and post the occasional ‘private’ blog here in public and in full view of the word, which, of course, will not make it in the slightest ‘private’.
NB I’ve long known that I sharpen my ideas best in conversation and by getting them down in words. Mere ‘thinking’ doesn’t cut it for me. Of those two, in conversation is best as whoever you are talking with will, as an outsider, spot flaws in your thinking which were not apparent to your.
As for writing down my thoughts, I worked as a newspaper sub for 37 years and I’m accustomed to re-writing in order to clarify what I’m writing. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is perfect, but in the reading and rephrasing I, myself, do get more clarity.
It is always quite surprising how badly phrased a passage might be when you read it the first time around. I don’t know where I first came across this observation, but it is most certainly true: ‘Confused writing betrays confused thought’. Remember that the next time you read something and ask yourself ‘what the fuck is he / she / it on about!’ It might not be your fault.
Sorting through my ideas, in this case by writing this blog entry it the purpose of this and previous and subsequent posts on my private blog. I hope all that isn’t too longwinded and that your are still with me.
Those who have dipped into this blog before might know that I am shameless enough to plug what I have previously written. Those books – a novel, five volumes of short stories, three volumes of verse and a non-fiction opus looking at why Ernest Hemingway, in my opinion really not a great writer at all got to be so bloody famous. But rather than clog up this bit of the post, I have listed them and links on Amazon at the end.
I conceived of what I am obliged to call ‘my second novel’ quite a few years ago and have been thinking about it ever since, but that thinking was not ‘what the story would be’. Ironically although there is ‘a story’ of sorts – and I have now written just under 45,000 words – telling that story is not at all the purpose of this new work.
As far as I can see ‘telling a story’ as in ‘things happening’ is useful in as far as it might serve to hold the reader’s interest while you – that is I in this case – gets on with attempting something else.
I shan’t say what the ‘something else’ I have in mind and will eventually be – or better am – attempting is because if I don’t pull it off, I shall look a little silly, not to say a tad big-headed. But it does relate to the notion, which I find attractive of ‘art that conceals art’. To sound a little more impressive, not to say pretentious, here is the original Latin – ars est celare artem.
I’ve been beavering away at it for a few months now and although progress has been slow in as far as I, like all other would-be writers, will pretty much do anything rather than sit down and fucking writer, though not that I find writing difficulty.
Frankly, I now regard what I am doing as a learning process and I am learning a little more about writing as I go along. And talking of ‘writing’, as far as I can see there are as many different kinds of ‘writing’ as there are writers. Then there’s the fact that different writers will be trying to do different things.
At its most basic some might be hoping to write romance, other murder mystery, others still might be hoping to ‘save the planet’ by pointing out the dangers of ‘global warming’. Some might hope for money and fame, some might purport not to give a fig about money and fame, some might be persuading themselves that they want ‘to create literature’ and so on and on an on (and I have read some real guff from supposedly ‘serious writers’ but no names, no pack drill.
Me, I’m doing it for only two reasons: that I enjoy it and because ever since I was sixteen I’ve persuaded myself that I was ‘a writer’. I shan’t tell the story here as to why I came to believe that, but I shall confess that I more or less did fuck all writing until I sat down and wrote what became Love: A fiction. Essentially, I want to prove to myself that I am not just another of life’s bullshitters, though now it does go just a little deeper than that.
One thing I keep in mind is that nothing, but nothing is perfect from the off and ‘my plan’ is to get it all down, then ‘shape’. The trouble is every time I sit down to write – and see above about procrastination – I am for ever doing a little re-writing when strictly I should not bother with that until the first draft is finished.
NB (the second so far) The other day I looked up the history of pens, mainly those used in the 16th, 17th, 18th and early 19th century.
Sorting through my ideas, in this case by writing this blog entry it the purpose of this and previous and subsequent posts on my private blog. I hope all that isn’t too longwinded and that your are still with me.
. . .
Those who have dipped into this blog before might know that I am shameless enough to plug what I have previously written. Those books – a novel, five volumes of short stories, three volumes of verse and a non-fiction opus looking at why Ernest Hemingway, in my opinion really not a great writer at all got to be so bloody famous. But rather than clog up this bit of the post, I have listed them and links on Amazon at the end.
I conceived of what I am obliged to call ‘my second novel’ quite a few years ago and have been thinking about it ever since, but that thinking was not ‘what the story would be’. Ironically although there is ‘a story’ of sorts – and I have now written just under 45,000 words – telling that story is not at all the purpose of this new work.
As far as I can see ‘telling a story’ as in ‘things happening’ is useful in as far as it might serve to hold the reader’s interest while you – that is I in this case – gets on with attempting something else.
I shan’t say what the ‘something else’ I have in mind and will eventually be – or better am – attempting is because if I don’t pull it off, I shall look a little silly, not to say a tad big-headed. But it does relate to the notion, which I find attractive of ‘art that conceals art’. To sound a little more impressive, not to say pretentious, here is the original Latin – ars est celare artem.
I’ve been beavering away at it for a few months now and although progress has been slow in as far as I, like all other would-be writers, will pretty much do anything rather than sit down and fucking writer, though not that I find writing difficulty.
Frankly, I now regard what I am doing as a learning process and I am learning a little more about writing as I go along. And talking of ‘writing’, as far as I can see there are as many different kinds of ‘writing’ as there are writers. Then there’s the fact that different writers will be trying to do different things.
At its most basic some might be hoping to write romance, other murder mystery, others still might be hoping to ‘save the planet’ by pointing out the dangers of ‘global warming’. Some might hope for money and fame, some might purport not to give a fig about money and fame, some might be persuading themselves that they want ‘to create literature’ and so on and on an on (and I have read some real guff from supposedly ‘serious writers’ but no names, no pack drill.
Me, I’m doing it for only two reasons: that I enjoy it and because ever since I was sixteen I’ve persuaded myself that I was ‘a writer’. I shan’t tell the story here as to why I came to believe that, but I shall confess that I more or less did fuck all writing until I sat down and wrote what became Love: A fiction. Essentially, I want to prove to myself that I am not just another of life’s bullshitters, though now it does go just a little deeper than that.
One thing I keep in mind is that nothing, but nothing is perfect from the off and ‘my plan’ is to get it all down, then ‘shape’. The trouble is every time I sit down to write – and see above about procrastination – I am for ever doing a little re-writing when strictly I should not bother with that until the first draft is finished.
For much of that time writers of every kind were using quill pens, dipping them in ink. ‘Re-writing’, composing drafts was all done by hand and it must have been a bloody pain like no other.
For example, Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is estimated to be about 1,105,000 words long. And I am certain that Gibbon made many changes to what he was writing as he went along.
For example, Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published in six volumes between 1776 and 1789, is estimated to be about 1,105,000 words long. And I am certain that Gibbon made many changes to what he was writing as he went along.
Apart from juvenilia, Jane Austen wrote six novels before she died at the age of 42 in 1817 and all were written with a quill pen.
Later came the metal nib pen but writing was still only done by hand, and although typewriters became common in the last decades of the 19th century, I have no idea how many writers used them in preference to writing by hand. Finally, word processing software such as Microsoft Word (and Bean which I use on my Macs) took over from typewriters.
To get to the point, because of all the re-writing I do, I would find it a real pain to write on a typewriter. Yes, it’s possible, what with crossings out and such, and I did write stories in the early 1990s on a little portable typewriter (and still have them somewhere, though I doubt any would shake much fruit from the trees).
Later came the metal nib pen but writing was still only done by hand, and although typewriters became common in the last decades of the 19th century, I have no idea how many writers used them in preference to writing by hand. Finally, word processing software such as Microsoft Word (and Bean which I use on my Macs) took over from typewriters.
To get to the point, because of all the re-writing I do, I would find it a real pain to write on a typewriter. Yes, it’s possible, what with crossings out and such, and I did write stories in the early 1990s on a little portable typewriter (and still have them somewhere, though I doubt any would shake much fruit from the trees).
Originally a word processor was a kind of digital typewriter and in 1993 I bought one made by Panasonic, a WL50 or a WL55 according to the picture of one I have just found in the net. This was a halfway house 
and certainly not as good as a laptop as it had a limited memory and once you got to a certain point, you had to save what you have written to a floppy disk (look them up, kids) which as a pain. But I am now vastly off track by writing all the semi-irrelevant bullshit.
In fact, I’m going to end this post here. Sorry. I’m sure you are all panting for more, but . . . (I’m tired, so nothing more today, not even another NB).
Here is the work I have so far had printed – I put it that way because although, strictly, they have been published, it was me who published them, and claiming ‘they are published’ might be a tad misleading. In fairness to myself, I haven’t even tried to interest a publisher (and getting one interested in publishing short stories is just a little harder these days than squeezing blood from a stone.
Although all these are available to be bought, I am not interested in ‘making money’ (and would be deluded if I thought I might, frankly), but I would just like the different works to be read. I mean surely that’s at heart all that most writers want? No? OK, I did try.
In fact, I’m going to end this post here. Sorry. I’m sure you are all panting for more, but . . . (I’m tired, so nothing more today, not even another NB).
. . .
Here is the work I have so far had printed – I put it that way because although, strictly, they have been published, it was me who published them, and claiming ‘they are published’ might be a tad misleading. In fairness to myself, I haven’t even tried to interest a publisher (and getting one interested in publishing short stories is just a little harder these days than squeezing blood from a stone.
Although all these are available to be bought, I am not interested in ‘making money’ (and would be deluded if I thought I might, frankly), but I would just like the different works to be read. I mean surely that’s at heart all that most writers want? No? OK, I did try.
Verse:
Oh muse! Where the fuck are you!
My life, the early years – Poems volume 2
I know where you live – Poems volume 3
My life, the early years – Poems volume 2
I know where you live – Poems volume 3
