“I am Actually Quite a Good Writer”
Admission is often hard. Before the actual words involved have a chance to scratch and scrape the throat as they make their escape run, the mind will go to extraordinary measures to prevent their release. Diversion. Distraction. Entire fabricated histories to convince you that the truth has no validity are all common tactics.
For years I have labelled myself a simple hack. Accepted my own lack of talent. Dodged all those compliments paid to my writing. Yet last week, sitting in Mr. Dedopolus’s Life On Mars Towers living room, the words finally broke out. “I am actually quite a good writer.”
The statement probably sounds like rampant self-importance. Public preening. A shameful example of a writer’s bloated sense of his own value. Yet it is not. It is a shocking and painful revelation to me that on occasion I am quite good. A lot of people have been right for years and I have been wrong. I am repeating it on the blog as both apology and communal declaration so that there can be no backsliding from me.
The words said destroy my excuse for not attempting several projects. They corrode the sense that I fall so short of the genius of certain writer friends that I would embarrass myself to even attempt a novel. The admission obliterates my capacity to take on a commission to turn out crap just to pay the bills.
For an alcoholic, honesty is the first stage in an ending denial and putting down the bottle. For me, honesty means turning down £3,500 advance against royalties to write what would be an appalling 1001 book. Yes I could knock out 80,000 words on financial ruination in less than three months, but I now know I should not.
Flesh is finite. The meat cage is the ultimate prison. If I aimed to write a book per year for the rest of my life I would at best only produce 30 titles. Admitting that on a good day, I can actually write means it would be an appalling waste of me, as well as trees, to write anymore bad gear. I will now have to find some other way to finance Syrian adventures.
For years I have labelled myself a simple hack. Accepted my own lack of talent. Dodged all those compliments paid to my writing. Yet last week, sitting in Mr. Dedopolus’s Life On Mars Towers living room, the words finally broke out. “I am actually quite a good writer.”
The statement probably sounds like rampant self-importance. Public preening. A shameful example of a writer’s bloated sense of his own value. Yet it is not. It is a shocking and painful revelation to me that on occasion I am quite good. A lot of people have been right for years and I have been wrong. I am repeating it on the blog as both apology and communal declaration so that there can be no backsliding from me.
The words said destroy my excuse for not attempting several projects. They corrode the sense that I fall so short of the genius of certain writer friends that I would embarrass myself to even attempt a novel. The admission obliterates my capacity to take on a commission to turn out crap just to pay the bills.
For an alcoholic, honesty is the first stage in an ending denial and putting down the bottle. For me, honesty means turning down £3,500 advance against royalties to write what would be an appalling 1001 book. Yes I could knock out 80,000 words on financial ruination in less than three months, but I now know I should not.
Flesh is finite. The meat cage is the ultimate prison. If I aimed to write a book per year for the rest of my life I would at best only produce 30 titles. Admitting that on a good day, I can actually write means it would be an appalling waste of me, as well as trees, to write anymore bad gear. I will now have to find some other way to finance Syrian adventures.
Labels: Author whining, Hack gigs, Life On Mars Towers, Writing
posted by David at
11:59 PM
9 Comments:
If you were not a good writer then I would not be reading your stuff!! I am jealous of the casual ease with which you use language so effectively.
Thank you. That is a lovely compliment. If it looks like casual ease, I must be doing something right.
I am so pleased to read that you now admit what a lot of us have known for quite a while. Typical bloody journo – always the last to know! Not wanting to be disparaging to your mates, but it is not as if any of them are Iain Sinclair or have won Pulitzers. I’d back you in a literary fight with any of them. Though not at the moment. If you wrote another book now it would kill you.
It can be a hellishly hard thing to admit. The implications are both painful -- "I've been betraying myself for years" -- and frightening, "What if I don't make it? What if I do?"
Talent is not any easy gift. It doesn't increase your chances of success or happiness, frankly. But what it does do is give you the chance of changing the world.
Ultimately, denying who you are is bad for the soul. I'm proud of you for accepting it.
Of course you are a good writer.... your way of describing your life, things you feel, the world around you...is beautiful
My belief (and it's only my belief), is that a good writer writes things that Others wants to hear in a way that Others want to hear them. A *bloody* good writer fashions ideas and words such that they are exactly appropriate only *after* they have been experienced.
I don't know if any of that makes sense, and I've only read your blog (and seen you a bit on the Telly talking about Templars or somesuch), but I think you're a fecking good writer, David.
Modo fac.
Hello, my name is David, and I'm a writer.
(all): Hi David.
;-)
How funny David.
Can I tell you that I often have the same trouble admitting that my glass is good?
I just call it staying humble.
You really are quite a good writer. :)
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