Friday 4 April 2014

Writers, Right Now

A writer decides to get arrested so he can finish his novel in peace. A writer rigs an electrical charge to his keyboard that sends a shock to his fingertips whenever he uses a cliché. A writer completes a tragicomic novel about Cinderella’s elephantiasis. A writer listens to the music of Camera Obscura while writing about fictional writers. A writer writes his first sentence in four years and scrubs it out immediately. A writer stares out the window at people laughing on the street and momentarily forgets what she was writing about. A writer dictates to his secretary in his loud Yorkshire accent his latest adventure tale featuring Bob the Big Bad Bonsai-Pruner. A writer says something amusing in public no one picks up on. A writer who spent an afternoon reworking a paragraph deletes the paragraph and starts again. A writer wonders whether his unpublished manuscripts have any artistic value whatsoever, or if he has spent the last decade typing up drivel. A writer eats a mouldy sandwich and contemplates giving up (life). A writer sends a story to an online periodical and feels no satisfaction. A writer finishes the last sentence in her third novel and accidentally wipes the file from her computer. A writer wonders if he will ever have an original thought. A writer realises she is not going to make a living from writing and quits (life). A writer laughs at her own writing and wishes she had someone with whom to share it. A writer calls the police because burglars have stolen his computer containing all his completed works. A writer leaves his USB stick containing the one copy of his novel on the train. A writer feels ill-at-ease in herself and her surroundings and wishes she could write about it. A writer writes in a populist style that does not accentuate his strengths. A writer decides to cut out reading to focus on writing. A writer wishes she was anything other than a writer. A writer shares his work with a friend who tells him the writing is hackneyed. A writer is told by her mentor that she has no talent. A writer sells his manuscript to a big publisher and feels pleased with himself. A writer is killed in a car crash before announcing to his family he has completed his debut novel. A writer publishes the manuscript of a dead friend under his own name and pockets the royalties. A writer pretends to have read a popular book so he can participate in the discussion with influential people. A writer pretends to have read an obscure author so he can appear well-read among complete strangers. A writer feels insane with envy at her friend’s success and thinks up ways to sever the friendship. A writer thinks back to a time when she was happy, and wonders why she wrote less then. A writer thinks back to a time when he was happy, and wonders why he wrote more then. A writer writes something he knows no one will want to read and flips off his invisible non-audience. A writer writes hackwork and hates herself. A writer completes a poem about the time he cried at something. A writer misses a train and loses an opportunity that won’t return for the rest of his life. A writer is pleased with her work until she reads it out loud. A writer offers feedback to a struggling writer despite his own writing being incompetent. A writer chooses not to publish and meets the ire of his friends and family. A writer moves to Paris. A writer eats a baguette in Staines.