I find Mondays like a runt the teat.
The novel I’m writing, it’s picking at me now when once it was swallowing whole. Go fish! Who wants to read about a writer’s private shames and dissatisfactions? Surely readers would much rather hear about what goes on in a suburb after dark when the lights of stark realism are turned low.
I love the Irish writer Anne Enright’s idea of a novel: “A book that shifts between its covers and will not stay easy on the page, a real novel, one that lives, breathes, refuses to die!”
I turn over in bed a lot these days and I am not easy on the pillow. Is what I’m writing good? Will anyone read it on their way to Bridgton, Maine, to live out their last days of summer under the dome of King?
“If the world doesn’t value us, we won’t value the world. We seek solace in books, in solitary and sometimes fantastical thinking.” Howard Jacobson
Sometimes I think this whole Western idea of the individual as the purest form of experience is over-rated. Sure, Thatcher said that society is dead, but now she is, and it’s time to start redefining what we mean by society. I really miss the kind of livid life I grew up with on the streets of Wales, where people gossiped, encountered each other and strangers in a messy, noisy way and nobody seemed to care if you had money or not. I want to bring that back and topple Facebook. What we need is a new Marx and Engels, who instead of going to Manchester during the Industrial Revolution and witnessing first-hand the sad plight of the working class, need to recognize the utterly boring plight of the virtual world that’s making us all so much poorer when it comes to a livid life.
Somebody in the house ate my last Ginger Snap! God, the embarrassments and ignominies you have to suffer as a writer.
I’ve never had what you’d call a relaxed attitude towards life. People I only sort of know suggest I should get out more, mingle, crash a political party or two and get a feel for the new continental divide that is building up like a wall around us all.
Here are a few things that annoy me:
Early risers who hammer.
Conservatives who ride into town, shoot a couple of liberals, and call it a good day’s work.
Tepid tea.
Anglophiles who think because I’m Welsh, I don’t wear Union Jack underwear.
Being no good with plots.
A fly in the vinegar.
Vacationers to Maine who linger too long.
Wet summers.
Tax cuts for the wealthy.
Ticks.
People who grumble but are avatars of wisdom when it comes to TV shows.
The dirt that never comes out.
People who always act as though they are at home in the world.
Revenge that is driven by stupidity.
Any clock.
Since it is a well-known fact that to end on a negative note is almost as bad as admitting you once made love in the rain, I shall end on a surf board, riding positive waves. And some music. “Sleep No More” from the brilliant Sheffield band the Comsat Angels
Allister Timms 