The second book should have been easier.
After all, it took seven years to complete Smart/Casual. That’s a fair apprenticeship. If I had trained as a doctor instead, I could be performing three open-heart surgeries a day by now.
That’s depressing.
Anyway, the second book. Obviously, it was going to be better – much better – than Smart/Casual. After all, I had made my mistakes. Not only that, I had LEARNED from these bitter lessons with detention and corporal punishment and the writing of hundreds of lines. My craft was honed to a fine point.
The key, I now knew, was planning.
Also, writing. (Quite important, that one.)
I would establish a routine. I favoured a Spartan model: austerity, abstinence, light diet. I would be a shining beacon of discipline.
So that went well.
Despite all my best efforts, I still swing between thinking About Time is:
a) so heinously awful it actually results in a net decrease in the amount of meaning present in the universe; or
b) a work of extraordinary literary genius, but for two words. One of which is ‘shinsplints’.
(Still can’t figure out what the other one is.)
I’m sorry, are you insinuating that “shinsplints” is not a positive net contribution to the sum of human happiness?
Speaking for myself, I feel better just for reading it. I feel that the pointlessness and tedium of my day has been relieved, a light cast into the murky fug of my workaday existence, a beacon of hope and meaning made visible. I feel that the story of my life would be incomplete without this vital word, a crucial strand in the web of existence, a little splash of individuality that marks the difference between a mere author and a poet.
On the other hand, if you edit it out of the book, I’ll know that this light has been vouchsafed to your faithful blog readers alone, not prostituted to every scrounger who flicks through your book in Borders. And that will make it even more special.
You can’t lose with “shinsplints”. Nice work.
Many years ago I encountered ( briefly, but not on a railway platform) “the girl with the untied laces” . She stumbled into my universe ( untied laces are cool until you step on one!) and by casual passive observance changed it forever ( I was going to mention that the boffins would bve pleased here but I think boffins are seagulls or penguins and I cant remember the word for professory types…so I wouldnt mention it)
TGWUL ( out of respect we never abrreviate) introduced me to Husband of TGWUL, the guy who is a master of intergalactic communication command protocols and figety cables or Miccy (no issue with the abbreviation as we have no respect for him anyway) as he is known around Safa ( The Space and Falcon training agency).
After many years of my using and abusing both their skills to develop, support and give credibility to various dodgy interplanetary business ventures they both disappeared to the ends of the universe.
It appears the bloggate has opened and I must leap and attempt to reengage despite the risk of public rejection and humiliation….to abide by the blog rules I will comment on the above entry: Have you any nude but frightfully artistic pictures of the spartan model? In return I can share some of the Tartan Model, a lass from Glasgea I once knew.
Vet: thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and the heart of my bottom. I . . . don’t know what else to say. You make it all worthwhile.
Unfortunately, I cannot edit ’shinsplints’ out of the book, because I never found a way to get it in there. I really tried. Hard. I still feel that is a failure, despite your kind words.
x
John: I think you will find that boffins are a type of water buffalo. They are found in the Northwest regions of Norway and subsist on a diet of fish – as does pretty much everything else in Norway.
When have I ever publicly rejected and humiliated you? Ok, to rephrase that, when RECENTLY?
I’m afraid I have only pervy pixellated images of the Spartan model, sorry. By the way, what are you doing with dodgy pics of ex-girlfriends? How’s the career as photographer going?
x
For reasons as yet unexplained by the spineless shitbag of an ex Boss ( He is a Kiwi which is a real shame as I have been to this point rather fond of Kiwis) I was handed a small wad of dirhams and asked to leave the building by the nearest available exit without passing Go! Unsure If I had told you that, if I am repeating myself out it down to the satisfaction I get by seeing the words SPINELESS BASTARD OF A KIWI GIT in print one more time!
I ended up in Katmandu and have adopted ten schools and 2,000 students. My charity registered now in Katmandu is called Children of the Mountains. My photography of the children can be seen at http://www.pbase.com/Johnmatt.
Now can I please have your bloody e-mail address as that auto link thingy does work on my sodding computer!…oh to abide by the rules as you insist, my comments on the above entry is: Having slept with water buffalo I have an intimate knowledge of their diet…….spinach and potato curry!