Wednesday...

What day is it?

Wednesday.

Wednesday?

The week rolls on.

The life rolls on.

Rolls on to death.

You’re older than you used to be.

And what to show for it?

Ring me.

Ring me.

Ring me.

This could be a day full of words.

All those ideas of yours could start to get born.

Like the big bang.

It could also be a day of pottering.

Of watching pointless movies.

Of biking up to campus.

And sitting online.

Guarding it.

Just in case something happens.

Who knows?

It hasn’t happened yet.

But it might.

Ring me.

Ring me.

Ring me.

I wanna know what day it is.

What time it is.

What time we begin.

Hello?

Anybody out there?

Ring me.

…

I put in a light fixture yesterday, in the kitchen. When done, I felt instantly depressed. Why? Because it was the last thing on my list – last light fixture, last job, no more uni or refereeing for a few weeks, only…goofy ideas of writing quick two-week books full of errors and poor writing: the reality of one’s procrastination staring one in the face. Then: only to either do it, or to fall and fail.

…

And then last night Ali gets me out and we go to this thing called Betta Kultcha down at the Corn Exchange: what it is is various speakers given five minutes and a slideshow to talk on an interesting and amusing subject. Also, middle-class ponces swanning about in evening wear glugging wine and guffawing like twats. Also, shit sound so you can barely hear a word anyone says. Also, save one or two exceptions, nothing interesting or amusing in any case. I couldn’t bear it. I survived it by going for walks. And then when I sat down again some grey-haired up himself clown started going on about all the mountains he’d climbed – where no human foot had ever trod! – and all the toes he’d heroically, cavalierly, nonchalantly, eccentricly Britishly lost to frostbite – and all the kooky hats he’d worn – but because what he was really saying was, I’m sad! I’m insecure! Something bad happened many moons ago – mummy didn’t love me enough, daddy was a Victorian – and now I have to show off and dance in front of little pygmy natives to make it through the night – and that really was the biscuit. The volcano rumbled but I’d made it to the end. But then! Random Challenge: and some poor young oaf presented with an endless sequence of rabbits stutters and stumbles and I bear it no longer: out of me comes this cry, across the audience, I want to fucking die! Oh wow: maybe times I’d thought it, fought it, suppressed it, held it in – but there it finally was: public shouting. I felt better after that. I giggled. The clown with the hats had a red nose.

…

I like winter: the winter is gentle and kind, coos to you and says, stay in bed, it’s fine, get up at ten, and then get back down again. The winter says, stay home, there’s nothing out there, it’s cosy in here, just me and you. The winter wants to cuddle you and, conversely, keeps you warm.

Summer, however, is a bitch. Summer comes creeping in your curtains when you’re trying to sleep, says, get up, you’re missing out on life, there’re things out there – wondrous things – and if you don’t partake you might as well be dead, loser. Summer drags you by the arm and leads you in search of the party – but what party? There ain’t no party. All you wanna do is watch snooker or zombie films but even then, curtains drawn, summer don’t like it, comes whispering around the edges, shining a light on the two top pockets, calling you loser, loser, loser.

Winter is nice. Winter even puts on rain to show once and for all the futility of the outside world.

It’s not even cold. There’s no such thing as cold: there’s only being underdressed.

…

Moloch?

…

The date reaches the 20th of December and suddenly I realise it’s Christmas soon. Christmas! What a headache. The modern Christmas – the Christmas of presents. Christmas of familial expectations and other expectations and glad tidings and pies. Christmas of shuffling along conveyor belts while strangers pick you up, turn you over, comment and prod and you pretend that it’s nice to be a package. Christmas of girlfriends; let’s ignore it all. But: bah Christmas.

…

Then I watched Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich in Death of a Salesman. Very good. I don’t want to end up like Willy Loman.

…

I have this idea for a book – and when I think of it I think, man, that’s a good idea, and think I could write it well. The idea is called [TITLE REMOVED] and it’s basically me musing on and investigating my romantic and sexual history and all the things I’ve thought about that – my mad theories, the things I’ve learned – and just letting it all fall out meanwhile framed against the story of realising finally once and for all that I want a woman – a wife, even – and that I have to get it sorted. It begins in Mexico, sitting in the hot springs, with that realisation – and it moves then to the list of lovers past, who still float around, and who must be considered – for the question only naturally follows, who? And then we go on. I take it from there.

But when I take that first step to the keyboard I think…oh, what a dumb idea, I can’t do this. No one’s encouraging it, no one’s saying, that would be great. Would it be great? Hell, who doesn’t want to read about sex and weirdness and secret thoughts and deceit? And sometimes I reckon I could write that good and sometimes I reckon I’m going too far with this style of mine which is just to type out everything, good though it feels, it’s probably hardly entertaining for this imaginary non-existent blog crowd I have. Still, there’s always editing. And the key is in ACTUALLY DOING IT. Who cares whether it’s good or shit? At least by getting it done one can move on. And you can’t make any judgments anyway until it’s in the bag. And so I was thinking maybe I could just bash it out wild and free in maybe a week or two and put it out there, First Draft, errors and omissions accepted [sic], and then let the chips fall where they may. And then do that for all my tinpot ideas: just get them out, stop them being these mad rubbish voices that continuously say, yeah, we’ll do that one day, it’ll be great, just when things are in place, when the time is right, when everything’s perfectly as it should be, we’ll do that, it’ll begin, you’ll be great and wanted and see you name in W H Smiths lights. One day, one day, one day. But the day will never come; not at this rate…

Thirty-five and…whatever: why go down that line? Muse on everything – on procrastination, on thoughts like those above, type it and print it and think it means something, gain a certain satisfaction in it – even this – as though the exploration of the inability to express is in fact actually more interesting than the expression itself – but is that you what you want to look back on when lying in rapidly approaching old man’s death bed? Or why not for the sake of two horrible mad sweating weeks just type the thing out and be done with it? Laugh out loud! Isn’t writing a lark? (And why, then, did I just type the word “interesting” instead of “isn’t”? What kind of Freudian slip was that?)

Come on; shall we get it on?

Go on then: let’s.

[TITLE REMOVED]

Right. It’s only five minutes later. In the meantime I’ve got dressed, had a piss, topped up my pot of green tea – we must be drinking endless pots of green tea – and I’ve left the bed and put my computer for the first time on the desk in the corner with the little lamp that I bought off eBay (for ninety-nine pee) that I finally yesterday bought a bulb for and I guess we’re all set. It’s 11.27 on the morning of the 21st, four days before Christmas. Jesus would be proud. Also in these last five minutes I’ve mused a little about the nature of this – about the struggle to actually sit down and attempt the first paragraph – about the knowledge that I’ll hate what I’m spewing but then love it later – about memories of writing Discovering Beautiful – sitting in the garage in Oxford surrounded by boxes and launching into part two even though I loathed what I was typing but just finally, absolutely needing to type something and I didn’t care what – and then coming back later and realising, hey, it ain’t half bad, what I thought was just motion ain’t even in need of that much work. And thinking of Spain, and thinking of the ten hours I did there every day in the beach house in Alicante, just doing it, like on automatic, ‘cos the deadline was on and the juju juice was flowing. Well: here we are again. A sort of deadline. A little bit of juice. A little bit of pressure this time from within. And, weirdly and surprisingly enough, the feeling that I could just spew anything – mistakes n shite n all – and it just doesn’t matter ‘cos there’s always the edit and who the hell needs that dangling sword that swings and says WRITE A PERFECT BOOK FIRST TIME, YOU CLOD anyways?

So, that’s more finger-exercise and musings gotten out of the way – and how about it? First sentence anyone? There was one there just before I went to the toilet.

No, before that, it’s time to become aware of a creeping sense of doubt and self-loathing and inability and perhaps even tears, bubbling quietly somewhere right deep down in my gut – the voice that screams, I CAN’T DO THIS!

Sh, voice – you can. And anyway, voice, it’s not the PERFECT FIRST TIME BOOK we’re asking you do, it’s simply to type imperfectly and clumsily and stupidly and unpublishably and – well, any old fool could do that, right? All we want today is quantity: quality can go to the shitters’.

11.34 Encouragement done. Musing done. Doubt done. What else?

To type the title:

[TITLE REMOVED]

And to remember the first sentence:

Something about being in the hot springs in Mexico.

And to take a good big sip of tea and then walk to the kitchen and eat a handful of dates:

Ah. Yum. Scoff.

And also to piss, and to remember that there’s no better place to let arise a first or next sentence than standing over a toilet bowl with cock in hand. If in doubt, walk to lav – and on way there, or on way back, or while focussing on your piss, the sentence will come. Even if it’s this one.

Enough musing?

Sure.

Title?

[Title removed]

Begin?

And then I wrote 6,845 words and at 15.43 I figured I was done for the day. It’s a good start. It’s mad and frantic and unpublishable and sloppy – but it’s something and, as the saying goes, something’s better than nothing. Tomorrow we’ll do the same – start earlier – maybe hit 8 or 10 or 12,000 – and the book should be done by New Year’s. Then we’ll get on with the next one. But, for now…you’ve earned your rest…