Have you ever read an email that wasn’t meant for your eyes? Or perhaps you’ve eavesdropped a conversation where your name is mentioned? Not very pleasant is it? Last night, an email plopped into my inbox that was not meant for me, but had been CC’d accidentally. I was mentioned and while the person writing it wasn’t being nasty about me, certain parts of the email depressed me. You realise that people “out there” spread bad vibes about you without giving the full story. While I don’t mind portraying myself as something I’m not, I have to draw the line at other people indulging in the pursuit. A man has to have his limits, no?
Oh well, you’ve got to put it behind you and ignore it. In the grand scheme of things, it means absolutely nothing.
In the post: the new Van der Graaf Generator book, which at first glance looks absolutely fucking superb. Excellent!
Category: Diary
Of course, I’ll keep it this place going. It’s what I ALwAYS do because I am so fucking predictable. True, you have to do it for youself, and I like this place as a reference point for the gigs I go to. When the Missus mentioned the previous blog entry, she just rolled her eyes at me and said “Yeah, right. You always say that, but you’ll continue.”
True. But wouldn’t it be nice to be brave enough NOT to be bound to this. Maybe a paper diary would be an option? Nah, I always forget to keep them. At least with this, I write entries when I am avoiding work or should be doing other things. So I guess I’ll just dig deep and find the money. But then I’ll have to write MORE in this blog to justify the cost.Grrr…
Meanwhile, I am suffering from a bout of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) which is a condition that afflicts anyone who is stupid enough to buy a guitar or other musical instrument. GAS makes you look at the newest guitar on the block and say “Ooooh, I’d like one of those” or at the latest guitar FX unit and drool “Oooh, that sure looks purty”. The downside to GAS is that it costs you. It costs you hard. I normally offset these costs by selling other stuff to pay for my acquisition.
With the GAS, I’ve recently been interested in buying a Chapman Stick on eBay (I blame last week’s visit to the Blue Man Group for this). I saw a really good offer, but by the time I’d import it and pay the duty tax on it, it would still cost a fortune. So I’ve kind of given up on that dream. Plus it would involve learning a new instrument and I can’t really claim to be able to play the guitar yet. So I’ve got my eye on one of these instead. It’s a Godin xtSA and the thing about this guitar is that it has all the electronics to run my Roland VG-88 and GR-33 already built into it. It also has a feature (a tranducer pickup) that makes the guitar sound like an acoustic, while actually being an electric guitar. Man, I’m dribbling just thinking about it.
Man, I need to sell a kidney. Anyone need a kidney? Only one feckless user…good value…credit terms available…
Yesterday evening, there was the most amazing sunset. I snapped off a few photos to capture it. I was in such a rush to do this that I’d selected the wrong settings on my camera, so the pictures came out a little blurred. But it doesn’t really matter as you still get a sense of the colours.
Meanwhile, my thoughts turn to the impending deadline on this place. In about seven days time, my web lease runs out and I’ve got to decide whether or not it is worth paying another £70 per year to keep this site going. Everytime the lease comes to an end I think to myself “Why am I doing this?” and “What exactly is this site for?”.
I think I’ve been running a proper website under my own name for about five years now. In the past, it was meant to be a promotional tool to show prospective employers what I can do and who I’ve written for. However, with the blog culture growing in popularity, I thought I would join that trend. But what is this all for?
Is it to show-off to other people? Possibly.
Is it to be a candid diary? No way, I couldn’t possibly write down how I was really feeling. That would be too much of a turn off.
Are you getting the traffic you want? No, not really. Looking at the various logs and that, the only people who come here are those looking for Nookie Bear, blowjobs, Ronnie Barker’s Fork Handles script, Robert Fripp and Kate Bush. (That last sentence will have sent Google into an apoplexy). I’m not sure how much of the traffic that comes here actually comes here to read about me and the projects I am doing. I think it is very little.
And so I have to decide whether or not to pack this up once and for all and give up on the great web experiment and do something completely different instead. The easiest course of action is to pay the man his money and continue. The hardest course would be to give up completely.
To say I am jaded and cynical about the Internet would be true. While it has given me the opportunity to harrass and upset many people with my online persona, my music and other witterings, I’ve not really got much back in return with all the time, energy and money I’ve invested in it. In fact, some aspects of online life gives me a nasty taste in the mouth.
But what to do, what to do?
If I was a better man I would give up right now and invest my time where it is needed: in my creative endeavours, the place where I am most happy, lost in writing or recording or whatever.
I just need the strength to cut my credit card and turn off the virtual lights as it were.
I am happy to announce that in the early hours of this morning, I finished the first draft of “Dead Rock Star”. Weighing in at about three hundred words less than my 60,000 target, I am very pleased with the result. Now we move onto phase two, the second draft where I go back, re-read what I’ve done, flesh out characters and scenes and generally “polish the turd”. For my records, I started the initial phase of the project on at 15.24 on 03 September 2005 and finished the eighteenth chapter, the epilogue, at 01.34 on 12 November 2005.
Now I am in two minds how to continue. Should I have a little rest and then return to do the second draft? I do have some regular work to get on with, so this takes precedence. For the second draft, I am planning to spend about a week on it and I think it might just boost the word count up by 10,000 words.
I was reading somewhere that it was a good idea for a first time author to keep their first novel relatively short. The idea is that publishers aren’t keen to take on wordy first tomes because the reading public aren’t always prepared to read through an epic from an unknown. Instead, you should start with a novel of around 65,000 – 80,000 words and if/when your profile increases your word count can. A good example of this would be the Harry Potter books, which have got longer and longer with the increasing popularity of JK Rowling’s work.
Of course, this could all be a load of old bollocks.
Yesterday was an interesting day writing. Chapter fifteen was meant to dealt with a the lead character, returning as a ghost, to speak to his son. It was meant to be tender and emotional and a fantasy that most of us living people have had when thinking of someone we’ve lost. We’ve all wished that we’d had a message from someone close to us who has passed on and this chapter was meant to embody that idea. Unfortunately, it didn’t go like that. While I normally have an idea of what I am trying to achieve, I do actually try and stay faithful to the characters. So when a ghost starts speaking to an 11 year old boy what is supposed to happen? The boy is going to freak out. So that’s where we went. And then the mother gets involved and what was supposed to be a tender and moving scene turns into something completely different. You could say that I let the characters write this one as I completely lost control of the story. I like the way it went but the process has left me confused. Who was in control? Me or the characters? Anyway, the upshot of this is that it manouvred the lead character into a much more satisfying position for the finale…so smiles all round eh?
Today, chapter 16 starts with the band that Vince the ghost is working with pay a visit to their manager to hear the playback of their finished album, co-penned by a ghost. Don’t worry folks. I still believe that this is a good idea for a novel, honest!
On unrelated news, I am completely enamoured with the second CD of the new Kate Bush album “Aerial”. It’s so…erm…lovely, that’s the best word to describe it, that I have to keep listening to it. I’ve played it repeatedly since I got it and this hasn’t happened in a long while. It’s a great album, by the way. (See my review somewhere on the site)
I know what I want for Christmas…
Pirates Repelled by Sonic Weapon
I’ve been really slogging away with “Dead Rock Star”. I’m close to 50,000 words in and have most of the story covered. I’ve worked it out that the novel ends in three chapters and by this time I should have hit a 60,000 word target, allowing me to add, polish and buff on the second draft. There’s a lot I can add the second time around because I deliberately left space in the text as I just wanted to bang the story out in the first draft, get the framework there and then go back and improve on sections if I felt the need to. Again, this is a bit different for me as usually I aim to get the first draft near enough spot-on and use the second draft just to clear up any mistakes and errors. I’m really looking forward to the ending, which is the big pay-off. I am so looking forward to writing that final section, you just can’t imagine it. In fact, it is the thought of the ending which is driving me on. It’s a bit like a good punchline to a joke – it’s that kind of feeling.
Of course, that’s not to say that there isn’t any doubt. There’s loads. I’m feeling very doubtful at the moment and keep questioning myself in all manner of ways. Why am I doing this? Is this story any good? What’s the point? Am I really a writer? What if I really am that lazy good for nothing bum and this is all a ruse? Should I give up with my music as I am just wasting my time on it? What’s the point of this website when no one visits? Etc. In fact, this self-doubt goes on ad infinitum until it gets boring. Gee, I’ve even bored myself there. But the thing about writing, or any creative task, is that you have to have a level of conceit or arrogance to continue. You have to will yourself on and have self-belief even if sometimes it is a little misplaced. Otherwise you’d stop doing anything and just quit at the first obstacle. And so I am even more determined to finish this story.
On my travels, I found this interesting link which gives some tips to those of us intent on writing a novel. Of course, I never make any of those mistakes (except that time when I wrote a novel and changed a character’s name halfway through and completely forgot about it. Thank god for ‘search and replace’.)