We all have something in common. We were once terrible writers. Perhaps you’re a terrible writer now. Perhaps you’ve never even tried. Perhaps you were a terrible writer last week, but have been something approaching genius since last Thursday. Most of us never find out. We should, though, because there’s a lot of value in bad writing.
Having spent most of this year looking for who is to blame for the state of today’s book market and the lamentable fate of authors, nobody was more surprised than me to find out that I was at least partly responsible. Still, thankfully you can’t prove anything these days, least of all my arguments.
It’s HIGH CONCEPT JOKE TIME! A group of unfashionable narrative techniques attend their weekly support group, unaware that impending disaster is about to tear their world apart. Can the Omniscient Third Person Narrator refrain from commenting on everyone else? Will the Prologue From The Future ever get to finish? And will One-Liner Bob get to have the last laugh?
What does a bookshop do which nobody else can? And what has it got to do with why my bad memory can make even the hardiest, most optimistic author’s heart sink, and whether or not my family ever read this blog?
I have some things to tell you. They might even be interesting. However, none of these things would warrant a full post on their own, so I’m employing a cunning and never-before-seen trick of grouping them together. Today’s post concerns political tactics and vote-bashing; the Dublin Writer’s Conference; the fiction of literary fiction, and why it’s SO difficult to be right all the time.
Ever feel like nobody’s listening to you? Ever feel like nobody understands how you FEEL? Well, maybe you need to get yourself a Women’s Fiction Husband (TM). They’ll understand you right off the page. Every home should have one!
…Or should it? What would this mean in terms of arguments? Spontaneity? Your couch? Your KITCHEN?
You’re on every book cover. You’re the same woman, with different hair. But I cannot relate to you, and neither can anyone else. You are annoying me. And so I write this open letter to you, 20-year-old faceless girl who does not represent either me or the characters who speak beneath your covers.
It is a little-known fact that the old trope of a piano falling on someone’s head was inspired by every Irish person ever who felt proud of themselves for even five minutes. In this post I deal with misplaced pride, indie publishing scams, bogus bestsellers, my difficult childhood, and why if you want to be original, you should never read anything written by anyone else. Ever.
It’s time you stopped blaming that book you wrote or recommended for the fact I didn’t like it. It’s time you started blaming me instead. With a little help from quantum physics, I explain why loving any book is a miracle, why my bad mood became your problem, and why writing a book is like putting an unseen cat in a poisonous box.
