Current mood: SWEET CHACKSFIELD
Category: SWEET CHACKSFIELD Writing and Poetry
In line with the times, I've developed a very short concentration span, and it's getting shorter with each internet minute....
Yes boss, I very rarely read books anymore, unless I'm on holiday, or in hospital - well away from a damn machine...
This is a great shame, because I keep buying the fuckers and have a backlog in the region of 200 titles, that sit in my old office and slowly rot up the dust...
SUNDAY.....
So, today in an effort to clear my head, I decided to clear out a few 'half reads', then try and get started on something new, to get me back into thinking about writing longer pieces than these simple bitch-ass blogs...
HOOKING UP....
Well, it was a nice idea, but what with FA Cup football and a pretty rough hangover, the only book I managed to finish today was a much shorter collection by Tom Wolfe called Hooking Up.
Hooking Up is mostly non-ficton and journalism. Alot of it is about writers and writing: the magazines, the editors, the process - what Wolfey thinks about who and why, as well as a few decent and very coherent essays on technology and computers...
FESSING....
That Mr Wolfe seems to take great pleasure in telling rival writers and editors what he thinks of them is something I very much like to see...
Wolfe covers this area in a very impersonal and professional way. His tone is completely matter of fact. He simply offers advice and observations, and had Norman Mailer & John Updike listened to that advice, rather than going FUCKING MENTAL at it's very suggestion, they might have been better off...
'Loose touch with the public - loose touch with the reader' was the general gist..
BIG MAGS...
This intelligent bitching aside, the fascinating thing with 'Hooking Up' was the essays about the editorial process and the characters who worked at The New Yorker magazine.
Yes boss, the lengths to which writers had to see their work butchered in the good old days of large circulation mags, was really quite an eye opener...
Of course, this is an issue close to my own heart, because I tend to get MOSTLY AND COMPLETELY VICIOUS when editors try to fuck with my stuff, and reading what Wolfe and his written generation had to tolerate, made me realise that had the only way of getting read today been as such, I'd never have stood a hope in hell of progressing...
PROGRESSION....???
As I've said before, who and what makes it creatively, and who and what doesn't, quite fascinates me, for the exact same reason as predicting the results of sporting fixtures does...
Yes boss, over the years, I've had countless discussions with people, some of whom work in publishing, some who've never read a book and all kinds inbetween on the topic of what gets published and why - and I think I more or less understand things now.
48 DAYS....
In particular, I've discussed plenty much why my nuclear book never made it.
I've heard every rational and irrational argument as to why a book doesn't get published and heard probably every criticisim of what I do, and how I write at least twice...
At times, I've happily accepted that the standard of that book simply wasn't high enough and that it was a bridge to far for me to be trying to write books with that level of experience etc - and to a degree that argument still makes sense.
But my overall feeling now is that there was nothing wrong with it at all...
No boss, when you look at how many thousands of badly written, badly concieved and quickly forgotten books get published each year - that becomes obvious..
Now, it's my opinion that the simple truth with any book/record or film is that the right person or persons have to see it on the right day at the right time, when they've got out of bed on the RIGHT side...
The quality of the writing/production/inventiveness is completely immaterial.
I'm absolutely fucking certain that had I have been the publishers favourite son and done that book - it would have been published even if I couldn't string a sentance together. Similarly, had I have been nice to the right people (for that matter known the right people), it would have been published as it is now or worse + the inevitable editing...
WRITERS WHO DON'T WRITE...
Reading Wolfe has made me fully realise that writers are far farther down the food chain than most people imagine...
And reading a recent biography of Hunter S Thompson made me realise just how little of his work he actually did...
Sure, HST was the visionary, boss and inspiration behind his writing, but he had a team of people working on his stuff. At times he was running 2 or 3 personal editors, plus helpers, researchers etc etc etc...
TRY AGAIN.....
So, what I'm basically saying here is that the publishing biz and every other creative game is the same as any other game.
It comes down to strategy, strength, persistance and not letting knocks take you off the playing surface unless you're fucking dead.
Furthermore, getting moody and angry about being rejected is sheer foolishness. It affects you're ability to get up and try again, it damages your confidence and it DRIVES YOU FUCKING MAD!!!
If you have a good and solid chin for knocks, you keep trying, keep improving, don't get bitter and have even an average ability and vision or better, there really is absolutely nothing to worry about...
))))
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