I'm a big fan of the books of Matt Haig. Specifically of his novel The Radleys, a quirky family vampire tale lined with black comedy and laden with pathos. It speaks subtly of addiction and even more so of depression.
There is a book within this book called The Abstainer's Handbook and on a whim, I asked the owner, Scott, of Etsy shop IgnisFatuusBooks, to create a likeness of this book. Matt had posted recently about writing being an ongoing tool to challenge his depression. So, I asked Matt via Facebook if I could send him this piece of fan art/notebook to him care of his agent or publisher.
But he didn't reply.
This one-of-kind notebook that I thought perhaps might be a nice gift is heading its way to my letterbox. Now it'll probably remain unopened and unused.
Being a fankid to writers, this is nothing new. I have two letters from Chuck Palahniuk that are waiting to be framed, and I have debated having various author autographs I've collected tattooed on me. Bret Easton Ellis. Jasper Fforde. Ransom Riggs. I would give a kidney to meet or even just have a postcard from Stephen King. Writers to me are the real rockstars. Odd, awkward, making worlds made of make-believe and leaving something tangible behind.
I don't want to be rich or famous. I want to produce a novel that makes people cry, laugh, feel nauseous, comforted and disturbed. Because if I can do all that, it means I will finally understand people and, surely, understand other people's range of emotions and experiences. Creating 300 pages that resonates with people would mean I might finally be able to shatter the glass that the aspie lives behind. Perhaps I can stop passing/defaulting to saying outrageous things because I'm not sure how to join a conversation. Perhaps.
Perhaps Matt Haig might even get back to me and not think it weird I had a piece of fan art made for him, but know it was just one outsider to another saying, It's dangerous to go alone. Take this.
In my ongoing little quest, whereby I have lost many a dinky shoe in quicksand, to write something that can hold my attention longer than 20,000 words (without resorting to fluffing from there on) I am abandoning all the ridiculous notions I've picked up over the years of what 'good writing' looks like, what 'worthwhile writing' looks like and what 'sellable writing' looks like. I'm going rogue.
Of course, it would be more than delightful to be a published novelist, to have my stories looked upon with an air of validity. But, by thinking so highly of those things I have managed to squidge out the fun of the actual thing: writing. Since studying Creative Writing, all I have done is worry about the final 'thing' when the 'thing' is not even written.
Stupid. Incorrect. Whoops. Where did I ever pick up such bollocks? Answers on postcards to my tutors and careers guidance at school.
Now I'm throwing out all earlier efforts of what I thought fiction to be, where I thought I MUST be literary, where I thought I had to have a dazzling message burning into the retinas of Dear Reader. Instead I am going to have fun. Even if this new project is never published, is never even sent out to publishers, I am going to write it and enjoy it. I will take all the things I love, the strange things I have seen, the noise of places I've been and some seriously messed-up ideas of entertainment and grab it around the throat. What could possibly be more satisfying?
Back to the basics of writing for love, for the ride, for the thrill. Not with those dirty words 'editing', 'plotting', 'motifs' or 'marketability' sending copious amounts of nose blood onto the keyboard. The only dirty things here will be a special counter for the amount of times the word 'fuck' appears in the text.
Locate all previous 'manuscripts' [emits dark chuckle]. Ctrl + A. Del. Ctrl + N.
A new thing, now. Something that takes me back to my first loves: horror and comedy. The things that had my poor parents dragged into school because of Wednesday Adams attitude and chainsaw-heavy stories. Something that indulges my childish humour, my love of the shock and allows obsessional interests research to be fully indulged.
Basically, if Stephen King angrily rammed his car into Jasper Fforde's head and then they both went out and got drunk on Absinthe, ate too much cheese and headed out to save the world with quips and knives from hoards of deluded Londoners. That sort of thing.
Will it sell? Doubtful. Will I enjoy it? Oh, God, yes. This is something I am going to LOVE writing.
Organ pawning, Rippology, bounty hunters, tattoos, lollipop ladies, kebabs and strangely cold steel cupboards, this is going to be something that will make me laugh.
And then consult a psychiatrist as to if I should be laughing.
FINALLY! Something that combines my Japanophile/Nipponophile tendencies and my obsession with hunting and buying 'perfect book'...and then not reading it, but piling it up with other such Amazon and Waterstone's purchases.
It frightens me how many books are waiting. Some unemployed booklovers might love this situation. Just sit and read. But between acting like some sort of 1950s housewife and doing job application after job application (for some reason people don't want to hire someone who has longstanding mental health issues...) there are not enough hours in the day.
And, unfortunately, I am in the obsessive state whereby any remotely interesting DVD or book triggers ideas in my head that drives me to the laptop, but I can't focus enough because of the itchy brain. So it feels very...squashed in my head. Too many brilliantly put together stories out there at the moment and my brain can't filter out what is entertainment and what is inspiration.
Such terrible, terrible problems, I know.
In other news, I'm on Twitter now. For some reason, with the ability to tweet a celebrity, I thought it was some massive version of Facebook where everyone carried on conversations.
Nope. I have tweeted Masie Williams, Jasper Fforde, Matt Haig, Augusten Burroughs, Jon McGregor and Ryu Murakami and got bugger-all back. But with 50k+ followers in some instances, this does make sense.
It's also very unnerving when random people 'follow' you. Usually they're writers who have just broken into a publishing contract and looking for exposure. Fair does. I'd do the same. My friend's eleven-year old recently decided to follow me and I made the very correct decision to make sure his Mum was okay with this. She is and frankly, this is a cool kid (comics, rollercoasters, travelling) with cool writer parents and I'm quite nice and don't swear on Twitter.
So, a run-down of the week. Mental health team appointment, job interview, family occasion, Comic-Con, tattoo appointment. Busy busy. But that ain't bad. Nice to have a routine for the next seven days that starts scarily and ends happily.
Literary novels with themes of family, relationships, mortality, personal exploration, and quiet emotions get reviewed in The Guardian and are included on university reading lists. Odd speculative fiction sort of goes underground and doesn't often appear in WHSmiths, but is very fun to write.
I write this based on feedback I had from someone about a short story I knocked out and also the first six thousand words of my current novel in progress:
"[...]when I was reading your short story with the lovely/grosse [sic] worm and time in hospital that was tonally [sic] like reading a literary book. The introduction of humour / fantasy in that world would have been brilliant, but it would have still remained a literary book because it was so well grounded whereas this one [current work in progress] feels like a comic fantasy novel which I reckon is a shame if you can do the other one."
I actually like the idea of a comic fantasy novel. I like silliness juxtaposed against horror a.k.a. tragicomedy. I like comic books. I like things like Kick Ass, JTHM, Ghost World, The League of Gentlemen, Psychoville, and Jasper Fforde's books. Is that 'low' fiction compared to literary fiction?
So, go with gut or go with highbrow?
