Approx:
400 cigarettes
50 cups of coffee
18 hours of Seal’s Greatest Hits on repeat
25 hours of Smashing Pumpkins on repeat
15 hours of R.E.M’s greatest hits on repeat
Plus exactly:
12 months
53,113 words
83 pages
Equals:
The first draft of my first novel, complete.
Today’s a joyous day folks!
Whilst it may be true that there really is no such thing as writer’s block, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t occasions when my head refuses to come up with anything interesting and coherent to say.
Writers the world over have come up with many solutions to such a problem, but I still subscribe to the old practice of ‘write something every day, even if you’ll never do anything with it’. I even have my own method of doing so, which goes like this:
Open up a blank page on Word, close my eyes, relax and just let whatever comes to mind flow on to the page. Since I’m a pretty skilled typist, typing with my eyes closed poses no problems, yet sometimes what my mind comes up with just fills me with surprise and curiosity.
Like today, having a clear out of some old files on my computer, I came across a page which was an obvious example of me trying to get my brain back in the mood for writing. What I was actually thinking at the time is no longer clear to me, but I found this piece so strange and compelling – as if it wasn’t my own work – that I just had to share it.
It goes like this:
————————
When it is all said and done and people don’t even realise what happened, it will all work out perfectly in the meandering stream of existence that trickles through alcoves of the mind and lands firmly, without a sound, at your feet.
These are the things that men used to dream of, to create something so astounding that people will look on it for years to come as some kind of monolith for the ages, a milestone in the development of human existence that nobody, not even their families, knew who put it there.
Things are different today though. Drop a turd on the pavement, take a picture and send it into a magazine, they’ll print it, pay you and all of a sudden you’re a freakin’ celebrity.
That’s all people want these days, fame and fortune for minimal effort. Sack the lot of them and bring in those monolith makers with their mystery and wonder and piles upon piles of great design.
Why, we created our entire universe, trading ideas with people we’ve never met, sending influences flying through the cosmos and redefining everything we once knew.
No longer though, now people seem content with what they’ve got and eager to exploit it to all and sundry.
Sack them, sack the lot of ‘em I say.
After months of fiddling around with HTML code, writing and rewriting my bio and umming and ahhing whether to make things look effeminitely pink, morbidly grey or cheerily sky blue, chrisskoyles.co.uk is finally up and running.
I’ve still got a few bits of faffing around to do, but for the most part, it’s done.
And I know that those of you who’ve paying attention (which I doubt anyone would have been) will notice that the site never officially went anywhere, but behind-the-scenes, I’ve been vigerously trying to get my site to be as good as it possibly can be.
Have a look-see at www.chrisskoyles.co.uk
Well, I say an interview, it was more a quick soundbite. Yet still, I canat leastsay that I got to stick a Dictaphone in front of Paul Daniel’s face and ask him a question.
It hall happened last night at the Christmas Lights switch-on in Wigan. As far as I knew, the official light-switcher-onner was still a mystery, so whilst I’m out interviewing a bunch of young people on the best and worst things about 2007 I’m not paying much attention ot the big stage in front of me.
Then I hear it “Ladies and Gentlemen, Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee!”
Well, buggar me! I wrapped up my last interview as quickly as possible, darted towards the back of the stage and stood around with what seemed like hundreds of fans of the little magician, begging for an interview and photgraph like some small-town paparazzi.
It took me a while, but I finally got to chat with Paul, and Debbie too for a brief moment. It was weird, standing there chattting to the magician off the telly and getting as excited as I probably would had I just met the guys from Metallica.
Just wnated to pop by and say that I won’t be posting here for the next few weeks.
We’re about to start work on writing the next edition of the magazine, which as anyone who knows me will attest to, takes over my entire life for at least a month.
So for the next few weeks my time with Anna will be limited, my sanity virtually depleted and my blog posting non-existent.
I’ll back back though, don’t you worry!
I’ve been off work these last few days, taking advantage of some hard-earned Time Off In Leiu to work on my novel.
Here in The Office, I’ve got practically everything I need for a good day’s writing; a nice comfy chair, Seal’s Greatest Hits, a jar of coffee, a jar of sugar, some Longlife milk, a cup and a kettle.
Yet the one thing I didn’t prepare for was hunger. Despite being somewhat of a fat bastard, I’m often prone to forgetting about meals, and it’s only when my stomach starts complaining and my legs turn to jelly that I turn to food.
Often, all I want is something that’ll fill my belly, won’t cost the earth and won’t take forever and won’t take an age to prepare.
Well, yesterday I found the perfect sollution: Chicken Noodles and Cheese. It’s absolutly my favourite mid-day snack because:
A) A packet of Chicken Noodles only costs 8p from Tesco
B) All you need to do is pour hot water over your noodles, grate some cheese over the top, chop a bit of ham in there and bung it and the microwave and
C) They taste absolutley fookin gorgous.
Chicken Noodles and Cheese, it’s the future. I’ve tasted it.
It is often claimed that, unless you count scratching your arse and holding a can of larger at the same time, men are pretty useless when it comes to multi-tasking.
Up until at least yesterday, I would’ve said that I was proof positive of such a claim.
Whenever that point comes up in a job interview when the interviewer asks ‘And what are your weaknesses?’, I normally respond with the fact that whenever I get enthusiastic, passionate, or simply excited about a project, it becomes the all encompasing focus of my life. Every waking thought or action is devoted to said project and everything else in my life falls to crap.
Another weakness of mine, one which I don’t necessarily tell any potential employers about, and one which could well be at odds with everything I’ve said above, is that I am absolutely awesome at procrastinating.
These are the reasons I rarely post blogs, rarely do whatever it is Anna tells me to do when she tells me to do, and the reason that, when I take a day off work, I get absolutely fuck all done.
Usually, I’ll take a day off from work and plan to spend a lovely day writing, playing ‘band manager’ or working on one of the sundry other bits and bobs I find myself involved in from time to time.
Instead, what actually happens is that I become all too engrossed in the wonders of naked ladies on the internet and Dog The Bounty Hunter repeats and before I know it, The Girlfriend’s home and I’ve wasted a day.
Yesterday however, things changed. I had planned to spend the day working on my novel, and come hell or high water, I did.
I spent seven glorious hours sat on my living room floor scrawling away, pausing only to put a laundry load in or make my umpteenth cup of tea, and by the day’s end I felt so unbelievably proud of myself!
Today though, I was somewhat worried. Having spent all day working on the novel, would I be tempted to come into work this morning, forgo all the shit that I actually get paid to do and sneakily write the novel all day.
I probably would’ve done, but like I say, I was more proud of the fact that I’d stuck to my plan rather than that I’d actually got over a recent case of ‘writer’s block’ and quite rightly knucked down to my job.
OK, so I didn’t actually get any writing done today, but it felt good to stick to my plans, and the best thing is, I hardly proscratinated all day.
So now I’m home, I’ve had my tea, I’m going to enjoy a well deserved hour of chilling out, then I’m going to sit back down and write some more.
I feel darn good right now.
For some time now, I’ve felt like posting some kind of appology on here.
“Sorry for not posting in a while but…”
But fuck it, who am I appologising to? Myself? I do enough of that everytime I char my lungs with yet another cigarrette or expand my already large gut with just one more bar of chocolate.
Truth is, I genuinly haven’t had anything to say, and if you don’t have anything to say, what’s the point in saying anything, right?
Yet having said all this, I really feel the need to write, just open up a blank page and let rip with a speil of bollocks if for no other reason than to remind myself that I still can.
It’s been a busy few weeks, we’re due to have the next edish’ of the magazine to the printers on Friday, which means another bout of full on stress which inevitably occurs everytime we hit what I call ‘deadline week’ will no doubt land on top of me in the coming days.
But we’ve done well this time, and most things are good to go.
Then there’s the band. I had my doubts as to whether I still wanted to manage them after a few things went a bit tits-up, but we sat down and had a good chat and I honestly believe that everyone’s on the page, so I’ve got to pick up the slack like a motherfucker and get everything rolling again.
Then you add in the wedding plans, the novel, and one bitch of a toothache, and I’ve been far too busy trying to keep up with my own life to find the time to write about it.
But alas, as I say, I need to write. Even if it’s only waffling on in here for ten minutes, it keeps the juices flowing, and since I’ve got a feature to write tomorrow and no idea where I’m going to star with it, making sure I ward off any signs of the dreaded, some would say mythological, writer’s block is a necessity.
I probably will start writing in here more often soon. Just as soon as things return to normal, which I’m hoping they will by this time next week.
Til then folks,
Toodle-loo!
Growing up, it always slightly annoyed me that my Mother had a total lack of hobbies or interests.
Whilst my Dad had golf, and aeroplanes and all kinds of wonderfully masculine interests with which to spend his time and disposable income, Mum seemed to derive her only pleasures in life from doing the hoovering and watching Corrie.
I say this annoyed me but it was more that it upset me, confused me even, after all how can somebody not have something that interests them, compells them, gets them going?
For at least a good eight years of my formative years, I had a plethora of things that got me going. There was wrestling, those big burly blokes of the WWF that became an all encompassing obsession for those eight years. Then there was skateboarding, heavy metal, art, and of course, writing, the one thing that’s been a constant love of my life since I first learned how to hold a pen.
I devoured each of these things, plus others besides, as passionately and enthusiastically as a 40 year-old, fat ugly virgin devours his first prostitute. Boredom was never issue, there was always too much cool stuff to be doing, researching writing about, and it just absolutly beggared belief that somebody could have absolutely zero hobbies.
Then something bad happened, and I accidently grew up.
I’ve been sat here tonight, in this beautiful semi-detached house which I now call home, looking after my poor, sick fiance and fretting over whether or not the Cat’s been fed, and I’ve been thinking.
Where the hell have all my hobbies gone? Wrestling? Not any more. OK, anything old-school and I’ll happily lap it up, but this is more to do with me reminiscing and pining for my childhood than anything else. I just don’t understand all this WWE shite, and besides, the missus won’t let me watch it anyway.
Heavy metal? Yeah I still got Metallica and Slayer making my ears bleed thanks to the cheap yet ultimately durable little MP3 player, but I no longer have the time to go scouring the net looking for news on when when the next Anal Cunt CD is likely to be , spending all my cash on gigs and T-shirts and bootlegs and convincing myself that I was going to be the next Zack Wylde.
Skateboarding? OK I’ve made a documentary on the sport and occasionally get roped into writing about it, but the last time I was on a board was two years ago, and then I broke my friggin’ wrist. Truth is, I’m just too old and unhealthy for it all now.
I could go on and on about all these long lost loves which still retain a fondness in my heart but yet don’t get half as much of my attention and adulation as they once did.
In fact, very little these days manages to captivate me the way things did in my youth. Besides writing, and photography and filmmaking which all simply come as part and parcel of being me, there’s nothing outside the world of work that fires me up anymore, and it’s almost overwhelmingly sad.
I guess once you get a house that needs constant attention, a girlfriend who demands the same and bills that you have to sort out, hobbies and interests just go out the window. This probably isn’t true, but one thing that is true is that I really, really need a new hobby!
