Sunday 17 January 2010

What Lies Ahead (Twitching & Gangrenous)


I can’t believe it’s the middle of January already. I’m still scraping the elf cum from my cheeks after the New Year Piss-Up Spectacular, and the clock says it’s almost February. Hmmph! I want the person who controls time to stop taking so much heroin and lock himself in a cupboard until March 1989.

Right. So. It’s time for a status update.

Things have been shambling along at a sluggish pace here at M.J. Towers. I’ve decided to draw up a strict schedule for my writing to ensure I’m not losing hours on frivolous things like looking for work or eating. Sometimes I drift into dream-hazes that last four hours, or I spend the week procrastinating and wake up in a field in Dorset doused in ink toner. Time is fleeting.

I have some ambitious goals for this month and the next. I hope to get a part-time vocation soon (or rather, I don’t hope to) to keep the cash rolling in, but this depends on how long I can stretch the wonga I have and how much patience Her Majesty’s Government have with me. I hope lots. I don’t have sellable skills in the real world, so this should keep me in good stead.

I returned to my Creative Writing MA at Napier on Thursday. This semester looks promising: a mixture of practical writing skills such as copyediting and serious self-critical analysis. I hope to get a little writing workshop off the ground too, and my tutor has given part-time students the chance to produce a subversive pamphlet containing manifestos, psychogeographical noodlings and the like. This also looks promising.

Also, aside from bashing ahead with my novel, which I’ve decided to pin up along the walls of the flat for easier reference, I’ve been writing creative non-fiction pieces. It’s been a real eye-opener for me letting professionals read these mothers. I’ve been writing self-reflective weirdness for a while now, but have never unleashed it upon the public (because there’s no market for it). My tutor, however, has pushed me in the direction of several Edinburgh lit rags that publish these soul-bearing experimental diddlings, so I hope to get submitting.

Yes: submitting. My new mantra is ‘submit every day, you spineless arse’ and I hope to obey it. I’m going to bazooka the backlog of unpublished goodness and not-so-goodness into the wide world for at least half an hour per day and hope to come up trumps. I intend to give up writing flash fiction this year, so I want to exorcise all of last year's little spurts and follies.

Last thing: Cantaraville still haven’t sent me the proofs for my e-book collection (seven months pending). Slow and steady wins, er… nothing. Likewise, Goldfish Press (who bagged my novel) have gone AWOL and I have to play the long game while they sort themselves out. Still: contracts have been signed. I simply have to wait. Wait wait wait. God, I hate waiting.

Time is a bitch.

Be well now. Take heroin and beat your infants. It’s the American way.

3 comments:

  1. *falls over* I love how you put things. I am sending best wishes for your continued unemployment and hope no food has tempted you away from your laptop.

    MA stuff sounds good, as do fora for the non-fictional ramblings (I know you amuse ME).

    Submitting daily, though... man, you must be some sorta masochist. I can't WRITE when I have that crap looming over me. (I can edit, so I try to pair it with that, instead)

    Your America bashing doesn't bother me in the least. I'm Norsisima at heart.

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  2. There would have to be an America left to bash

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  3. Tart-with-a-Hart: Thank you for the wishes. And Americans are super-groovy in my book. Without Americans, I wouldn't have anything published.

    As for submitting daily: I must purge the backlog. Too many orphan pieces clogging up my documents folder that are begging for a home. They MUST find a father.

    Derek: Did someone steal America? Is it the same person who stole your full stop?

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