Today, Try Writing a Novel
It’s been one of those inspirational days. You know? The ones when it’s raining, and you get the sudden urge to don your beret and go write a novel. Normally you’d turn the tv on instead, but today, go with writing. Just to be different.
You’ll find your beret at the back of your closet, behind a cluster of dead cockaroaches. Fish it out, and shove it on. If you happen to have grown a big, curly moustache overnight, all the better. Wear a scarf too, for good measure.
While you’re doing all this, consider the type of the novel you want to write. Think seriously about attempting a fantasy. Perhaps about a young but able midget, who goes on a quest of self discovery to destroy a magical ring before it becomes the demise of all of midget-kind. Perhaps on his journey he will take his friend midget, and together they will befriend all who are good, battle all who are bad, and do a lot of hiking in between.
By the time you sit down by a stack of lined paper, realise this is a terrible idea and settle on a children’s book instead. Perhaps about a rabbit with unusual powers. Perhaps when the rabbit is invited to attend magic school, the truth about his past will be painfully revealed, and he will be thrown head first into an engaging series of magical adventures. On the way, perhaps he will befriend a walrus and a hamster, who will help him to discover his true self, and defeat the evil forces trying to kill him.
By about the fifth chapter, you realise it’s all been done before and throw the lot in the fire. For your third attempt, consider trying a mystery novel. Perhaps a story involving many secret codes, hidden amongst famous paintings such as Van Gogh. Perhaps those codes will suggest conspiracies involving Jesus and the rest of the holy bunch. In the quest for the truth, get a crazy albino guy involved, just for the hell of it. Maybe a troll too. No, scratch that - make it a zombie.
Alas, just when you’re convinced your novel is destined for best-seller-dom, an angry hoard of religious folks will come and burn down your house. Lucky you’ll be at a press conference that night, confirming your intentions to finish that story about the magical rabbit after all. But the loss of your most prized posessions will drive you to insanity, and you’ll spend the rest of your life locked in your hotel room correcting the dictionary. You’ve decided “ferruginous” really means “pudding”.
Charlotte Crown
Someone just stole my ideas about a self-mutilating, religious, hairy and short albino on a quest to destroy a powerful piece of jewellery in a volcano.
I think I’ll have to stick to watching TV instead. Shame.
July 18th, 2007 at 22:02
Seventeen
Mine’s about five writers who tried to prove something to the world. One of them dies along the way, yet to be replaced by another. There’s one whose constant goal is to be different to others, another who has a grape fetish, one is an expert on chairs, one has a heart full of bliss as well as confusion and the last one isn’t really a writer at all. They don’t know it, but one of them will die, one of them is g4y and one of them is rather hungry. They all get killed off sooner or later though, it’s inevitable. My inspiration is limitless.
July 18th, 2007 at 23:56