My latest pizza longish writing The House of
Writers has been completed after up to five months of larks and
slog. Originally conceived as a book-length comedic novel with
unapologetic OTT humour and satirical touches, the idea fell flat as
I hit the seventh chapter. In a stroke of desperate drunk-thinking I
rearranged the existing material into the form of a corporate
recruitment prospectus and trimmed half the fat. It feels
exhilarating to take the shears to over 25,000 words of a novel but
at the same time, like a machete being driven into my bowels.
Contrasting emotions. Perhaps this is a final warning. If I ever
attempt to write commercial fiction again the souls of the Great
Unread will rise to smother me in the sack where I slumber. Back to
exploring forms and structures. Back to forms as generators of
content. Back to miscellaneous collages fragments interlinked
digressive constraint-based whatnots. Back to doomed attempts at
originality in an age where straight character-driven narrative is
king and so-called exploratory literature (of which I am a slight
practitioner) is binned. Onwards.
