the way out

Stick me on a cocktail stick and leave me out for the birds. I’m running on empty. One more second in that office and I’ll have given them 40 million. I’m done now. Time to work in a local bookshop, write my prose and see the spring in from a park bench. I want to sleep well and have time to think. I want to have a lunch break that isn’t five minutes in the ladies’ loo with my head hung upside down. But there’s a credit crunch on and I should be grateful there’s a wizzy hand-drier. Publishers are downsizing, literary fiction pays pants anyway and I’m all out of beans. No steam left. Beans are over-rated. I like steam though. I’m all for evaporating stuff behind me. Whatever the heck that means.

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It’s been an extreme sports sort of day, should anyone care to make it news. Down at space office we’ve been uniting for children through the power of hackneyed phrases. Do you want your children to grow up to be contented, productive members contributing to the development of their societies? I know I do and I don’t even have any. Punch me in the eye with a rollercoaster and maybe I’ll feel more moved. It’s a tired drainage system that leaks science into the art of persuasive fundraising and spits out dry spinsters of prose. In good news, we have some. I am soon to be the proud owner of two search results on Amazon. Life does get more exciting than that, but not often. Tell Tales Volume 4 can be ordered here. Spring can be dowloaded in April. Till then, we’ll do our best to build this city, to build this city on cloud alone.

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2009 has been a tough one so far, mostly because I’ve been awake for too much of it. Despite moments of respite thanks to Paul McKenna’s hypnosis CD, insomnia continues to stir up my stress levels – or vice versa I suspect. Still, happiness arrived last week in the form of a phone call from my agent, saying she was really impressed with the new draft of my novel. A bit of work on a couple of chapters and another going over and she thinks it’ll be ready to go out to publishers in February/early March. This extremely exciting news caused me to ditch the short story I was attempting to write in the interim and settle in for a final edit. It really is just an edit at this stage. It’s incredible. A few weeks spent trying to work up material from scratch has made me realise just how far I’ve come with this book. I know it’s to be expected after three years spent on something, but the standard of writing, structuring and overall sunset voodoo is just so much better for those eternal re-drafts. I’ve spent so long with that story, I’ve forgotten now what it’s like to start with nothing. Maybe that’s why I haven’t even been able to write blog entries.

So this is my effort back in, as I sit at home on my new flexi-working arrangement, a 334 page manuscript heaped on a beanbag beside me and Bruce Springsteen helping the illusion that I’m on a road trip somewhere hot and open, not wedged into the corner of a worn-down futon with city traffic sludging past below. There are a lot of unknowns ahead. I want to enjoy it but monotony is filling up my stress bucket. My manager is going on maternity leave and it looks as if I may be stepping into her role, which will mean committing to full time office drudgery for the next year. I want to take the leap out of there but I’m just too sensible. Instead I’ll have to content myself with this passage from Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘The Rum Diary’:

“In the cab I leaned back and lit a small cigar I’d bought in the coffee shop. I was feeling better now, warm and sleepy and absolutely free. With the palms zipping past and the big sun burning down on the road ahead, I had a flash of something I hadn’t felt since my first months in Europe – a mix of ignorance and a loose ‘what the hell’ kind of confidence that comes on a man when the wind picks up and he begins to move in a hard straight line towards and unknown horizon.”

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My father liked to get a grip on himself in private. This is the first line of a chapter about a third of the way through my novel. I quite like it, as sentences go, and I didn’t know how else to start writing this so I put it here. I’m very tired, deeply so. I’ve slept 4.5 nights in the past 2 weeks. It’s made me a little over-emotional. No matter how tired I get, I cannot sleep. I went for a run after work a couple of times last week. It cleared my head and made me so exhausted I was sure I would sleep, but still I didn’t. All the same, I think I’ll start running more. Kris bought me a non-fiction book by a fiction writer I like, Haruki Murakami – ‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ – and this has really got me through the past week. I really recommend it as a metaphor for just about anything. In my case, I know I spend too much time in my head rather than in my body and maybe that’s the problem. You need physical energy to write. That I am sure of. Writing is exercise, the same as training for a marathon. You build on it and get more limber the more you stretch the habit. The length of a novel, the amount of time and thought you have to spend on it – it’s physically demanding. Three years in and I think I’m on the fifth draft of ‘The Missing Track’, this one following feedback from my agent. I have an agent now, since September. Her feedback has been very insightful without being directive, and I am extremely grateful for that. A lot of people say they don’t understand who agents are to decide what books should and shouldn’t be represented, the same for publishers, because it’s all so subjective. My feeling is, agents are readers, and the more you read, the more you know about books. Yes, it’s subjective, but people who read for a profession are more likely to know what works and what doesn’t. The same goes for any profession – the more you know about it, the more fine-tuned your opinion becomes. At least that’s my opinion. It doesn’t make all of them perfect, but it makes them professionals in their field.

This is just one of the things on my mind. I’ve also been listening to a lot of author interviews on the World Book Club website and am pleased to find I very much like almost all of them, am indifferent to a couple and disliked only one. Writers are good peoples. Doris Lessing, when asked what made her see white people’s treatment of black people in Rhodesia for the atrocity it was, said, “Well I read for one thing.”

God bless books:-)

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You can’t beat it. Oxford Street when the shops are closed and it’s not quite dark but the buses have their lights on and the sky is deep blue and there’s hardly anyone on the the road as you cross it. It reminds me of coming home around that time from Birkbeck classes, sometimes cycling, sometimes catching the bus, and always wanting the time to last. It’s the best time of day, late evening in summer. That’s when I’m not tired any more. Usually if I’m home it’s when I’m writing and I’ve gone past the gruelling warm-up stage and I’m really inside it and I’d keep going past midnight if only it weren’t for work the next day. I am not a morning person. I’m a cat person. I wish I could walk home on the rooftops. I really love this city. It would be nice to feel this peaceful more of the time.

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I thought I’d make a comeback with a slick new site, but this will do for now. I took the blog down because I wasn’t sure I would be comfortable if agents googled me and found it. Now I don’t have the time or the technical ability to come up with anything other than a fairly obvious title, select a Drupal 5 design and make demands on K to set it up for me.

On the bright side, I’m in the mood to listen to songs with doo wops in them. I was in a shop in Covent Garden today and Hanson’s ‘Mmmbop’ came on. Remember those kids? When Kris and I have children, I think we’ll aim for a boy band and triplets for backing singers. It’s the best ambition to set your offspring these days. They can be ‘Ricochet & The Unicycles’. The shop assistant turned up the volume on ‘Mmmbop’ and had a boogie behind the counter. That’s really a moment to make a parent proud. Sincerely, things like that make me happy. Not speaking of which, reading the opening chapter of Peter Carey’s ‘Oscar & Lucinda’ made me so happy the other day I cried on the tube and kissed the pages. Thank God for good writing. I’ve read a lot of crap lately. It made me realise that of all the regular occurrences in my life, it’s bad writing and washing up that make me most tense. Wasting time makes me tense. I am on edge at the moment and this is not due to washing up. Last week I had exciting news: an agent I submitted the opening chapters and synopsis to came back asking for the rest. I spent the spare part of five days blitzing through the final draft so that even if it goes no further, I will be forever grateful to her for forcing me through the slug of the last stretch. I was really fading, bored by my story, bored by my words. It’s not much fun when you know it so well that none of it surprises you any more. But in the penultimate chapter on the ultimate day I came up with a new scene that I think held a lot of the book together and that was a high. Now a real live professional out there has it and I get to wait…

Other good doo wop songs are:

Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’
Cher’s ‘Shoop Shoop Song’
The Bangles’ ‘Manic Monday’ (doo wop songs don’t have to have doo wops in them)

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There has been some brother-in-lawly musical activity going on over here at Studio K. Kris has been recording both my brothers’ songs. Already this has led Thomas to his first gig – this Friday, 9 p.m. at the Red Room below The Comedy in Piccaddilly. I’m very excited, but I’ll be in Norway. At least he already has another lined up in Islington on 4th May, and I’m sure there’ll be more. In the meantime, here are a couple of his songs:

Feel Free – Jack Merivale

Last Goodbye – Jack Merivale

I think they’re brilliant and everyone should go hear him live.

And while I’m at it with the musical promotion, here are another two favourites:

Trying – Henry Merivale, with Kris on harmonies and Thomas on organ.

Stop For Me – Kris Jenkins, with Henry on harmonies.

And for all you online lovers out there, I’ll finish with a classic of Henry’s:
Internet Love Song

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How do people do it? I go into Boots to pick up my photographs and the guy who’s been there for the past five years takes my receipts, asks me if I have a Boots card, I say I don’t, he gives me the photos, I pay and walk out. All this week it’s been bugging me how people manage to do what’s expected of them. Take Wednesday. I had to be at a fundraising away day so I printed off the map and the agenda, arrived on time, made a cup of tea, found my name on a flipchart, sat down and joined in the icebreaker. I mean, what is living all about? I love my job and I’m paid for it, but every minute of every day in that office there are demands made of me and I’m expected to deliver and behave a certain way. Not only me, MILLIONS OF US. Everyone joined in the icebreaker, everyone had their agendas printed and no one had a breakdown. Isn’t that astounding? It would only take one second, one small decision, to flip out. I was thinking about this, especially during the wild moment when I escaped to the bathroom. I could have walked out. I could have gone to the burns unit at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, which is where I really wanted to be, and I would not have lost my job over it. I would even have respected myself for daring to do it. Then the next day I would have felt like a twat. It’s not as if the demands on my existence are unreasonable. It’s just that once in a while I’m amazed at how most of the world continues to function.

One morning I walked up the escalator at Holborn with my headpones on and wanted to get one leg, one arm out in an escalator dance. I didn’t do it. Last night coming home from the burns unit (a sensible after-work outing) I wanted to shout questions up and down the street. I didn’t do it. Tonight I wanted to start an urban musical at Holborn station and get everyone slapping their oyster card cases like castanets. I don’t even like musicals. And the few times you see anyone doing something socially unacceptable out there, most of us lower our eyes and speed past. Sometimes I don’t speed past and someone talks to me. I got chatting to a fellow on the train the other day who was on his way from North Wales to Coventry to cancel his dentist. I said, “That’s a long way to go for a dentist.” He said, “It’s going to be a tough time and I’m preparing myself for a night of depression.” Then he talked about U2 and how the boys weren’t there when he showed up at their hotel in Dublin so he wasn’t going to go chasing around the world for them, about how he likes to buy his shirts in Cirencester but do his forklift-truck training in Plymouth, how I must need to work out for my job at unicef, and how he felt we’d made a special connection. After a while the conversation turned back to his dentist and he looked gloomy again. I said, “Do they know you’re going to cancel for good?” and he said they didn’t and looked forlorn. Then he brightened up and said, “Maybe they’ll put on a buffet for me, eh? That’d be just like them.”

It could be that being bonkers is more about disillusion than autonomy, but there must be at least a fraction of second when you start behaving however the hell you want to behave when it feels extraordinarily free.

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Today I danced on my desk. I finished the most complicated report I’ve ever written and promised my team yesterday that when it was over I would get my boots up on that desk and dance. They held me to it. Two of the directors spotted me from a meeting in the room opposite. I got down pretty quick. Tomorrow I escape to Istanbul – half holiday, half work. I know it’s doing nothing for my carbon footprint but I get excited about leaving the country sometimes. Bring on the Bosphorus.

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First, it’s a great title for an album. Second, it’s a heartbreaking album. Third, those lyrics say what there is to say about loss and broken love so directly and unexpectedly that there is no way to match it. I was listening to it a lot on Saturday as I was walking around the British Library and all I could think was there is no way I can write anything close to this. The thing with Bob Dylan is it’s not just the lyrics, it’s the delivery of them. Nevermind his musical talents or limitations or whatever they are, that dude knows how to get words out with a timing that is beyond musical. If I could do that with prose I would be a satisfied human being. To be so succinct and surprising with language – it’s painfully observant. I was listening again walking along the ridge of the path by the Serpentine on Sunday, and again through Shepherds Bush market on the way to work today. It’s really got to me. I’m trying to write about loss more in my novel. I’m lucky enough only to have come close to it without ever quite going over the edge, so that extra stretch I can only imagine. I know writers make shit up but sometimes finding other writers who have bled the tracks already can really help. For this I thank Bob dude. I hear he didn’t enjoy the pain too much.

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This might be a bit of a cheesy blog entry but I’m in a good mood with work today. The most difficult project I’ve had to deal with in my 5.5 years here is almost cracked and it feels as close to code-breaking as I’m ever going to get.

For the best part of the month I’ve been frustratingly unbusy work, waiting around for information from field offices on four major projects. Finally two of the chunks came in and this week has been manic trying to catch up. It’s cool though because now I’m into the stage of talking to people from all kinds of places, asking hundreds of questions and trying to understand every last detail about things that are happening very far away. Most of my day is spent emailing people I’ve never met. Some of them are serious and make me feel I’m nagging them and others are gushing and enthusiastic but rushed and under pressure. But the longer I do this job and the more I get to deal with bigger projects, it seems to be that the most gratifying part is not so much getting money in for projects for children, but getting money in so the field staff can deliver them. These people work so damn hard, and when I do get to meet them I’m often surprised to hear a major programme was about to close down because it had no funding. I suppose this is how most jobs work. The immediate satisfaction is from the things you have the closest connection to. For me that’s the field staff ahead of the children. Though of course the kiddos are what it’s all about. And just now one of them is giving it some welly on the singing three desks up from me. It’s not often you see a REAL LIVE CHILD in the London office.

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I was recommended these homeopathic pills to help with insomnia. I’m all for alternative medicine and have known some of it to help a lot, but the science of homeopathy I find difficult to swallow. You dilute something until it’s a trace of a trace of a trace of whatever, but surely all water contains traces of traces of all kinds of whatevers – in which case we’re all being filled with powerful healing and damaging things every day. Maybe that’s true. But advocating that this one trace will do something particular sounds too much like nonsense. Nonetheless, I bought the pills and I take four every night as instructed. I have decided to believe in them, even though I know I don’t. And I’m sleeping better than I have done in years.

Aside from raising curious questions about placebos, this raises a question about faith. I believe in God, but I have trouble knowing He exists (I’m not even comfortable giving Him a capital H for fear of sounding like a preacher). But I have no trouble believing without knowing because I find it adds a dimension to my life I find thought-provoking, on good days even enriching. I’m not sure how that stands up in any church – perhaps it’s a selfish way of looking at it. Probably I‘m not taking the time to stretch it far enough. I’m all for stretching but on some issues, this included, I just don’t know how.

This is where I am with my novel. Feedback has made me realise it needs to go deeper but I’m stuck. I’ve dug my insides out on this but all that’s done is make for an emotional week. The new scenes I’m writing are still coming out in the same tone. If Sebastian is going to put himself on the line and shake the reader up a bit, I have to do the same myself. Something in me has to be risked. The difficulty is I don’t know what, or if I can do it. The simple answer ought to be to decide to believe I can. It’s worked for homeopathic sleeping pills and even for God, so surely it can work for this?

But damn if the same solution doesn’t work for everything. I’ve learnt that enough from writing. There is no reliable pattern to it. Some days that’s what keeps it fascinating, other weeks it’s what drives me insane. I think I must be holding back but then I ask myself, who would I be if I were totally free and unself-conscious? Probably someone much the same. Though I guess I’d spend more time dancing like Mick Jagger.

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I’m getting bored. I gave myself a break but I don’t really know what to do with time when it’s going spare like this. I’m trying to write a short story but it’s not coming very easily. I’m trying to apply for a grant for a research trip for my next novel, but that’s too much like my job and I can’t face it. And I tried reading a Stephen King book because that’s good honest escapism but I didn’t like it too much. Work is unusually quiet. That’s about to change but for now… I don’t know. I miss my book. Every day when I cross the Green in the dark on my way home I think of another small thing to add to it. I’ve got a list of small things and bigger things that still need work but I’m not going to touch it until after I get feedback. So far my family have read it and given me some good thoughts. Kris and my Ma cried at the end. I think I’m mostly proud of it. That feels a vulnerable thing to say when I’m still waiting to hear from my trusted writer friends. I was thinking about this when I was still in no man’s land, having finished, but before anyone had got to it yet. Do I know inside whether it’s any good? I don’t mean great, just good enough to be a publishable first novel. Because part of this has to be about testing my own judgement. I think I do know, but that’s with all the crap bits resolved in my head and readers will only get what’s on the page – and even with that they’ll get something different to what’s intended and that’s just crazy. Already my mother has been carried away with the symbolism of something entirely accidental so it’s out of my control. And Kris, by the way, is a genius. I might be able to write a book but I can’t write even one decent sentence about it. Kris has a way of being very silent and then coming out with something so succinct and meaningful I think I did a fine thing in marrying him. The down side of this is he will have to write the synopsis. My prose smells of dishcloth compared to the publicity sculptures he comes up with and all I can do is sit back and say, “Wo dude, you do make me Amazed.”

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I always knew it was a thing but it’s only now I have so much brain space that it’s becoming a problem: clothes. I love them. There are two reasons I don’t have a serious addiction: 1. I’m fairly sensible with money; 2. There isn’t enough out there that’s fabulous enough.

On Sunday evening – after a day spent with Stephen King – I started pulling out the old timers. I’d seen Drew Barrymore looking gorgeous in jeans, a black a white striped top, loose grey cardigan and green chiffon scarf and realised I could manage an almost identical outfit with a red scarf instead. This was quite exciting. Also tragic because I don’t own a green chiffon scarf. But I decided the week’s mission was to find new and different combinations of old stuff every day. Tonight I’ve walked in on Kris at least six times to show him the latest effort. He’s playing guitar. I think he’s losing interest. I think this may well be a very dull blog entry. I could go into a lot more detail. Really, I could. Then there’d be another whole entry on accessories and I haven’t even got to the hat yet.

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This is weird. I come home, cook food, hang out with the K, stick a glass of wine on the armrest and think, now what…? Is this the time a lot of people have? Just to sit. We are human beings, not human doings. Malkovich is being a Polar Bear from Habitat. Pooh is being a Bear of Little Brain. Kris is doing something on the Mactop. I am… hmmm. This is nice. I have a synopsis to write and agents to research, a short story to write and a growing idea for the next novel but I also have THE MOST FABULOUS blue belt, a headache and a wombat with a woolly hat on. I know this is no one else’s world but it’s mine and this is my blog and my strange feeling. I want to write. I CHOOSE to write, even all those times I don’t really want to. Now I am RELEASING THE PRESSURE. I’m also writing some things in capitals as that’s what one of the characters does in Peter Carey’s latest book and he’s cool because he wheels ice around in a pram. I like that in a character. I’ve been reading a lot of good books lately: Murakami’s Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Faulks’ Engleby (who knew the guy could write??), Cormac McCarthy’s The Road… wow, The Road. That is a book that will last. There aren’t many of those springing up these days. I like reading incredible books like that because it makes me believe art is needed, as much as what the likes of unicef does. I know I am NOWHERE NEAR being able to produce such a novel and I like knowing that. I’ve written my first novel. So what? It still needs work. Few first novels are great and plenty are unpublishable. I don’t mind too much if mine never gets out. It will never feel a pointless persuit.

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