Penny for Them?

Penny for them?: An Homage in Imitation of Hervé Le Tellier

I was thinking how the rise of atheism will only help to serve capitalist bastardry.

I was thinking I cannot understand the logic of wanting to sire children.

I was thinking I have never been seriously impacted by a change of government.

I was thinking the more I read the harder it becomes to appreciate truly adequate craftsmanship.

I was thinking how my ineptness at living seriously impaired your thirst for living.

I was thinking whether Christine Brooke-Rose might have had fun in the Oulipo, and whether her refusal to participate was a rather English and arch decision.

I was thinking how the malleability of the future should be embraced, provided one has reliable support beams.

I was thinking whether my attempts to become an intellectual will bring me as much happiness as perpetually clowning around.

I was thinking how I never wanted our relationship to evolve beyond the nostalgia of our first two years together.

I was thinking how killable sexual fantasies might be if their attendant smells were introduced.

I was thinking the more you write, the more the right words materialise, and how ironic it was that I changed the last word of this thought when transferring from notepad to laptop.

I was thinking that Will Self resembles Gogol’s remark from ‘The Nose’ of Ivan Ivanovich’s head as “a radish with the tail pointing down”.

I was thinking how other writers save pertinent quotes on their hard drives in the event they may one day need a fitting epigraph.

I was thinking how my working class upbringing will always leave me feeling a charlatan around literary people.

I was thinking how my girlfriend may be pretending to sleep as I write these pearls in bed beside her.

I was thinking when I told you I had published a story, your first enquiry was about the fee, not the content.

I was thinking how unapt it was my girlfriend said in her sleep: “no books for you today.”

I was thinking how depressing it is that my writing friends continue to produce prose in conventional forms, and how I must pretend to find their success pleasing, and how much more envious I would be if they published a formally inventive novel to acclaim.

I was thinking I will never have an agent.

I was thinking I will never make enough from writing to pay even two months rent.

I was thinking I could never render you or our time together unsentimentally in prose.

I was thinking how non-writers patronise writers struggling to support themselves with their work and how much pleasure is taken in their failing to do so.

I was thinking how an unwritten rule in social conversation is never to speak in sentences over 30 seconds long.

I was thinking I am unsure if I find Courtney Bartnett’s music irritating or infectious.

I was thinking how pathetic it is when I resent attractive female writers for being both attractive and talented.

I was thinking how almost everyone resents brazenly displayed intelligence.

I was thinking a friend of mine’s well-polished anecdotes might be rehearsed beforehand in the mirror.

I was thinking how important it is we can read together for hours in bed.

I was thinking I love my own company too much to sustain a long-term relationship.

I was thinking how fucking banal these thoughts might read to an outsider.

I was thinking how I have never met an unboring drunk.

I was thinking how little people care about social graces.

I was thinking I wasted £50 to watch, from a balcony a mile from the stage, a teensy Morrissey performing an uninspired set.

I was thinking how passionate love often struggles to transcend a fondness for shit novels and corny music.

I was thinking I will always be poor, and whether this should particularly bother me.

I was thinking only writers would have the arrogance to believe people might want to read a stream of their semi-varnished thoughts.

I was thinking I have 1325 Goodreads followers and hardly any of them wish to discuss books with me.

I was thinking to maintain most of my friendships, I have to engineer 90% of our meetings, and whether this reflects more on my desirability as friend then on my friends’ laziness for planning.

I was thinking of you, whoever you may be.