odyssey
Strange day yesterday.
Woke with a faint sense of dread, an excitement of butterflies in the stomach.
Off to the London Book Fair for this year’s Daily Mail Masterclass: “How to get published.” An interesting panel, but a very quick realisation that, as William Golding and two of the four on the panel pointed out, “No-one, really, knows anything.” A little depressing as speaker after speaker told stories of really great writers with really great stories going unpublished for their whole lives, whilst terrible books (Joanne Harris mentioned her own “Now thankfully out of print” first book) get bought and sold.
“Write for yourself” was the mantra, “And you might get published.” But it was a little dispiriting. Don’t get me wrong, I never in a million years expected a magic potion to be dispatched at the class, but I’m not sure if “Write for yourself” is working for me. I’m naturally lazy. Half the stuff posted on here - oddly constructed, rambling, no second draft, just dumped and posted - attests to that. And I think, despite all my protestations of realism, I still harboured a dream that a dashing Literary Agent might swoop in on a white charger, negotiate me a seven figure deal, and change my life.
Dreaming. It’s what writers do, I thought. Well, it’s probably what unsuccessful, unpublished writers do.
“You have to be really good,” Simon Trewin said at one point. “Really good.” And that’s where the voices started to kick in, chief amongst them being Carrie’s mum: “You’re not that good,” she started heckling, and, looking around the room - a couple, maybe several, hundred people of all ages, shapes, colours (though mainly white), economic backgrounds, sexual orientations, whatever, I found it hard to believe that I was good enough to be at the front of this queue when it forms; some of these people will be genii. True, some of them will be idiots. But what if I just end up in the middle? What if I’m never quite good enough?
What if I just shut the fuck up and go and do something about finding out?
I write, all the time. Said it before: I don’t do an awful lot about selling my writing. And, whilst I can agree withTrewin’s statement that one should write because one needs to, and “Not because you need the validation of getting published,” I can’t help it: It’s all so obviously linked in with all my demons, and I know now - even if there’s still the tiniest spark of denial left in my soul - that getting a novel published will not change my life; will not turn me into someone I’m not; will not fix my inability to be any good whatsoever with money. After my book gets published, I’ll still be assailed by the same doubts - more, probably, since I’ll have to top the first if I’m not to be one of the increasing list of one-hit publishing wonders. But I want that validation, I want that response. I want, just like the friendless kid in school all those years ago, to hear someone who doesn’t have to, say “That’s very good. You’re a bit of a star.”
Ahhh. What-ever, as the youth say. (Actually, the twenty-year-olds say ‘what-ever’. The youth have probably moved on to some other slang term by now).
I left the class, and decided, since the sun was shining so brightly, and the summer seemed to have arrived early, to walk from Earls Court back to Victoria to get my train home. I figured a stroll through the sunny city would banish the slight sadness I felt. I was wrong. The West of London - for so long my stomping ground through the late eighties and much of the nineties - felt empty.
It felt like one of those Sunday’s where everyone you know is gone away, and you’re forced to play on your own in the streets. Stopped into the Conran Shop.
When we lived in London, and I earned a paltry wage, to be able to shop at Conran was my idea of “Achievement.” I guess, by those standards, I’ve “Made it,” because, even with my currently slightly restricted income, I could afford to shop there now. i just don’t want to. So much of the stuff was either lovely but available anywhere, and already a part of my life (leather covered notebooks - there was one nestling in my bag, Molton Brown toiletries - in the bathrooms at home and my desk at work, gourmet food stuffs - check the cupboards at home), or stuff I didn’t find all that attractive (see much of the mod-obsessed furniture, none of which floats my boat these days). Still, bought a nice (and outrageously overpriced) Organic White Chocolate and Dried Raspberries Bar to take with me on my Odyssey.
The King’s road had one or two rather fetching (and flamingly obvious) young ‘mo’s on it, which allowed me to put Carrie’s mother off the topic of “You can’t write for shit” and move her on to “Why are you eating gourmet chocolate from Conran when you should be down the gym you tub of lard? You’re gonna be fat and forty soon, and don’t say I didn’t warn you?”
Finally, I wended my way back to Victoria and headed into Smith’s to buy a magazine, and there, between NewsWeek and The Economist, was a misfiled “Writers Magazine” with Marian Keyes on the front cover and the Tag Line
‘”NEVER GIVE UP” Top Writer Marian keyes on Getting Published.’
I don’t believe in God, you know. Or Fate. Or anything other than sheer Chaos theory. But you wonder, sometimes…
Anyways, this week has already started wonderfully, I’ll make it to the gym at least once 
will tax my intelligence at a pub quiz for the over 80’s (I’m a whizz on popular songs of the mid ’30’s, donchaknow), have got some stuff done at work that has been hanging around for weeks, and have had a call re a possible new career opportunity (which, now I’ve said it out loud, will, of course, evaporate).
Oh, and I’m writing. But now, I’m writing towards something.
Here we go…