“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.

Who Would Win

Yesterday I sent Sean Twist the proposal for my latest book idea called Who Would Win. I had put the proposal together quickly over the weekend after an editor picked up on something I said when machine-gunning ideas around. Today Twist sent an email pointing out that not only am I ‘certifiably insane’, but that the pitch is: ‘a brilliant idea’.

Today, 10 minutes after being sent the four-age proposal and two sample spreads, my potential new editor sent me the following email: ‘Looks great, reads really well. I'm going to push to get this into work soon. How much you want to write it?’

All this unexpected praise for a book I do not particularly want to write.

Now I know that sounds like the usual bout of author whining, but there are many books I do want to write. I want to write books combining travel and the exploration of secret history, travel and the exploration of folklore. I want to write a biography of the indole alkaloid ibogaine, a biography of Luke Haines. From Sherlock Holmes XIII to The Far Lands, there are a couple of novels gestating in me that I would love the chance to deliver to a publisher.

However, at the moment the only book a publisher seems to want from me is a ‘funny book’. I know I have said in the past that the only ‘funny book’ I wanted to write was ‘Who would win a fight between Mahatma Ghandi vs. Mother Teresa?’ It is just that now there is a real possibility someone will pay me to write that exact tome, I am doubtful about bashing it out. I am just not convinced I can do 200 or more pages of droll.

I will readily admit I get a mild buzz out of the proposed book’s central concept and with the right co-author it could actually be quite enjoyable to write. There is also the fact I could do with some funding right now. Of course, when the potential editor says: ‘How much do you want to write it?’ what he really means is: ‘Ask whatever you want, at most we will only offer you enough to pay the rent for three months.’ There is possibility of agent involvement in the negotiation to make things more equitable, but at the end of the day the size of any fee will not decide the issue. The real question is whether I want to do something that merely entertains or should hold out for a deal to publish a book I actually feel is a good use of trees.