Private Review Club

Well, it’s that time of year yet again when we pull up a chair, swill a bucket sized glass of brandy around in our hand, enjoy the burlesque dancing girls and reflect meaningfully on the year that was and the year that is to be.

And what a year it has been. 2012, for all it had some magnificent personal highs (solely comprised of family holidays and time away from work, funny that), felt very often like it was the straw determined to break the donkey’s back. A straw made of kryptonite, as locatable as the Higgs Boson and as irritating as John Sessions on QI. An itch that just couldn’t be scratched but was nevertheless going to follow you around for the entire year and make everything hard work and dreadfully miserable.

I confess, I have come close to giving up on the dream.

After the highs of completing what I would consider to be my first ever proper, publishable novel I found myself tumbling into the slough of despond. The mental Slough of Berkshire in fact. It was that bad. Agents and publishers were not fighting themselves to rip the manuscript out of my hand. The rejection letter pile was swelling like an infected bladder. I began to wonder what the point was.

And then the ol’ blog began to fail as well. What was the point of that, I began to wonder? My sacred, little platform for free speech and opinion expressing (as is my inalienable rights as an Englishman) had been compromised and curtailed. It’s proud borders had been eaten away and annexed by the Nazis of censorship, suppression and bowdlerization. Lord knows I had tried to go on with the fight. To keep the flags of satire and sarcasm flying aloft.

I maintained a sly campaign of guerrilla warfare for years but in the end I was beaten by a war of attrition.

Those who objected to my writing made life outside of the electronic ether difficult and miserable and in the end concessions were wrung out of me.

If I am honest my soul felt compromised and sullied.

I tried to move on. I tried other tacks.

I tried to court the blogging audience I had found for myself. Tried to style and cater my output for their eyes. I don’t regret this. It was a good writing exercise. But such exercises can only be good in the short term. If you sell too much of yourself to others you end up with little left over for yourself.

So it was that I came close to chucking it all in, literary speaking. Censorship and self-editing were not what this blog was supposed to be about after all.

Grand visions.

I now realize that, actually, any kind of writer has a responsibility to the words they write which is a little more subtle that simply “it’s my opinion, therefore I have a right to express it”. None of us exist in a vacuum. Sometimes the most honest and effective expression is that that expresses an idea without seeming to express anything at all. Like that last sentence in fact.

And I found I couldn’t quite turn my back on writing.

I need to do it. It keeps me sane.

But there has to be a purpose to it. An end in itself is not enough for me. So that means reclaiming some of my old joie de vivre...

To that end then, not a Resolution but a resolution. My aims for the coming year are to commence writing a new novel whilst continuing to push the previous one onto an unwilling public and to blog a little more the way I want to. I make no apology that forthwith some of my posts are going to be self indulgent, minority interest, selfish exercises in self expression.

I’m not going to advertise or review products and services for material reward. I’m not going to court attention or approval. Audience participation would be lovely but I’m not begging for it or chasing it. I’m going to write about the things that matter to me, no matter how trivial and inconsequential they might be to the outside world.

I’m reclaiming this blog and my writing for me.

Everybody is invited but the party is mine.

New Year Non Resolutions

It is traditional at this time of year to come out with a list of resolutions. And over the last couple of days, surveying the blogging landscape from the crystal blue carapace of my blog-mobile, I have discovered some admirable lists. Lists of authentic resolutions from those bloggers not yet bowed down with cynicism that aspire to make the world a better place. Lists of tongue-in-cheek resolutions from those bloggers who know from bitter experience that even the easiest resolution will fall by the wayside by mid January. And then there are the cheating resolutions - or the "realistic" resolutions - lists of activities that you're going to do anyway, i.e. eat more chocolate, get to work late, skive longer lunch breaks, look at more internet porn sites.

Yeah, yeah, I've read them all.

And they're good.

But I want to do something different.

I want to compile a list of non resolutions. Things that I am definitely NOT going to do this year.

so... for your delectation then:

1) I am not going to try and forge world peace this year. It is pointless. Our politicians are too stupid and like the smell of their own duodenums too much to ever remove their heads from their butt-cracks to actually listen. Also, as a species, we are too given to rash acts of hatred and violence. World peace ain't never gonna happen, folks, until we evolve as a species. Or until aliens appear. 'Cos I guarantee nothing will unite human beings more regardless of skin colour than some bug-eyed, grey lipped, three-legged tripod from Mars stomping all over the car park at Lidl.

2) I am not going to win the Lottery. I know I'm not. It's pointless playing. But I am not going to stop. Because I am too weak, everybody else at work plays it and I don't want to be the only one stuck in the office one Monday morning because those other bastards have scooped the big one and are airing their fluffy bikini lines on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.

3) I am not going to take up more exercise or eat healthier. I already eat pretty healthy and if my chocolate intake is perhaps a little too high for some collagen lipped quack in Heat magazine, tough titty. I don't do drugs, I don't do gambling, I don't do football. I'm entitled to a vice and as vices go chocolate is pretty damned mild.

4) I am not going to get myself out of debt. I'm just not. Until Tom starts school Karen and I are accepting of the fact that money is going to be tight if not non-existent. The best I can do is try to manage my credit cards wisely so that they keep me afloat as opposed to burying me. Is credit bad? Is credit evil? Yes. Bet your ass. But it's necessary. My deal with the devil is personal - stay out of it.

5) I am not going to stop writing. Not this blog and not my novel. I don't care how many knock-backs I get, how many rejections, I'm going to keep going. On and on. Like an eighties washing machine. There ain't no stopping. I'm here for the long haul. If any of you readers want to bail out, now's the time. See ya. Been nice and all that. Do send me a postcard from Lack-of-imagination-land. I shall stick it on my fridge and laugh when I hit the big time.

6) I am not going to compile a traditional list of 10 items. That's how mad I am. I'm crazy. I'm zany. I'm whack. Live with it. Come and get me New Year. I'm here waiting. The boxing gloves are off. Queensbury rules are for wussies.

7) I am not going to not wish you all a Happy New Year. Happy New Year. There. Done it. Give me some skin, dudes. The only way is onwards.