Day 42. The wages of sin (11/2/19)

The idea, today, was to talk about the nature of time, how it's fluid, subjective, non-linear.

Probably appropriately I'm going to save that for some point in the future.

(See what I did there? Totally meta-textual)

Instead, I'm going to, once again, talk about the things that get in the way. Hopefully in a manner that highlights 'what is positive in the refusal of constraint' (as Story of The Blues part 2 has it).

One of the many (usually undisclosed) reasons for starting this blog, in the first place and now again, was/is to use it as a place to exorcise the little issues, to clear my mind of the blocks that stop the actual writing, to free the muscle up for what needs to be achieved.

Did that last paragraph ramble? I mean, compared to normal? Doesn't matter, I'm not going back to it to check, it only exists to move the page forward.

I'm supposed to be redrafting the second act of Girls Don't Play Guitars (hereafter referred to as GDPG as it always is in my diary). Either that or going back through the first act, figuring out how many characters I've added, how many I've taken away, deciding where I'll need actors to double up on roles to keep cast manageable. Pulling both Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix was unavoidable if regrettable.

(Oh, yeah, by the way: Soundtrack at this moment is The Walker Brothers' version of Tom Rush's 'No Regrets' from yet another of my old radio shows, one consisting entirely of cover versions. I'm basically just listening to myself at the moment. Having a great time doing it too. Next up? Wait for it... Nash The Slash '19th Nervous Breakdown'. Sound, always had a soft spot for this one.)

But I'm distracted.

Had somewhere to be this morning so was out of the house and away from the desk. In the car with J I was talking about a possible entry for The Bruntwood Prize. Hell of a competition. Opens doors, draws attention. I had no idea. Until I did. 20 minutes in the car and my mind was working overtime. Had location, themes, characters, relationships. I know where I want to go with this, I know what I want to say. I want to write something more serious, something political and current. Something without gags. Or swearing.

(Tricky. Doing Public Enemy's 'Black Steel In The Hour of Chaos. "I got a letter from the government the other day, I opened it and read it, it said they were suckers.")

But on returning home I had stuff I needed to do. The redrafting of GDPG obviously but, prior to and alongside that, some admin-y stuff. Some emails to websites and publications known for paying freelance writers. Because that little extra is always nice.

And while I was doing that, a thought occurred; I can advertise on the blog. I know I can advertise on the blog. I have no idea how many page views you need to make money on this site but, you know, it's always worth a shot, isn't it?

So I read up on how to add 'Ad-sense buttons' to the page, obviously disturbing the purity of the page but ready to deal with that idea, and I followed the instructions. And it didn't work. So I followed them again. And it didn't work again. And again. And again.

Until I got bored.

So I looked at ways to market the book on Kindle further than I've managed so far (and since I've had the book RTd by one of the world's most famous fantasy authors I've not done badly on that front). And I found nothing that looked to be any use at all.

Which leads me to one conclusion: the pursuit of money from art is pointless.

Create the work, make it good, make it great, build the audience. Everything else follows as a result of the work. Make success, in terms of payment and attention, your goal and you'll miss. Make quality your measure of success and let everything else fall into place and you'll be fine.

And with this, I'm cleansed, my mind is free and I can head back to the 1960s in the company of a girl band from Liverpool playing in Hamburg and I'm ready to put words in their mouths again.

This is what this page is for.

(And if there are adverts all over the bloody place when you open it, let me know and I'll get rid. They're not pure.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

15.4.89 (15/4/13)

There's only one thing that I can write about today. I wasn't at Hillsborough. 24 years ago today I was in work. My memories of the day are ridiculously vague, they come through in little snapshots and emotions all out of order rather than anything concrete unlike our Keith - the account in his book 'We Had Dreams And Songs To Sing' is utterly vivid. He was there. So was our Kev. And my Dad. And my Uncle Dave and, I'm fairly sure, my Uncle Len. And everybody that I knew from going to the match, the lads that we stood with. I wasn't as regular a match goer as Keith and Kev and generally didn't do away games, I'd been to a couple of Milk Cup finals over the years and two semi finals - one at Goodison and the replay at Maine Road. Nothing with too much travel. I was a part timer. I remember hearing the first news of what was happening in Sheffield. My manager, Pete, was a Man United fan from Bury. He came to me on the shop floor, grinning, and said "Se...
Read more

A Manifesto For The Morning After

Some days you wake up and feel the need to share stuff from ages ago.  I wrote this in one sitting in December 2019 as a response to the previous night's election - the one that Labour didn't win. This was my manifesto for going forward. With no idea of what was coming a couple of months later, or how shoddily Boris Johnson and his scabby government would deal with the crisis.  I've not read this back but I've a feeling that it still stands now, with a Labour Party that's representing someone other than the people it used to and is determined to mollify the far right (though the reset with the EU of yesterday might be a tiny step in the direction that it should have gone; I don't honestly know, I've lost the will to read the details) The main reason for sharing this now? For sharing a piece that only about 100 people ever saw?  It was performed by Mike Noble, now much more widely known as Banksy from This City Is Ours. The fact that someone who's on tell...
Read more

Day zero. How do you see in a New Year?

 7.10pm 31st December 2024 How do you see in a New Year?  With the news that Johnnie Walker has passed away. A fixture in our live, a sound on Radio 1 then Radio 2, somebody we didn't listen to all the time but loved when we did. He just felt honest, felt warm, reassuring. Always there. And we knew he was sick, knew he'd finished with radio after 58 years, but didn't expect this quite so soon. A towering presence. One of the greats. With the news that Real Madrid have put in an offer total Trent Alexander Arnold now. Like now. Which probably means he's going there in the summer. Which isn't unexpected but disappointing all the same. He'll win more there, probably get more credit for how good he is there than he has here but will fit feel the same?  For him, maybe. Not my place to judge. I'm not going to hate him for leaving, people leave things. I'm not going to hate him for leaving for no fee, it's not my money. And once he leaves? I'll stop thi...
Read more