WRITING

I promise this will be my last mention of Dan Brown, hopefully ever! But following on from recent posts it seems appropriate to square the circle.  Or is it the other way round?

Robert Lomas sent me this email after we chatted the other morning:

Hi John
If you are interested in a little more background about which we talked about this morning.Dan Brown learned his formula for writing from a book called Writing the Block Buster Novel by Albert Zuckerman published by Writers
Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio in 1994. At one time, before he wrote the Da Vinci Code, Dan had a reference to it on his website (I bought a copy out of interest) and he put forward his own list of things needed to write a best-selling thriller, which of course referenced his own books, in particular Digital Fortress and Angels and Demons which the web-reader was urged to buy and study  Then he applied the formula more carefully when writing the Da Vinci Code and removed the How To Guide from his website. He even made use of the ways of promoting and marketing which Zuckerman suggests in this book. Like the style or not, it does appeal to lots of people. I liken it to watching Flash Gordon and reading Dan Dare as a child. There is a tremendous fantasy satisfaction in having a larger than life villian if you were brought up on Ming the Merciless and The Mekon :-)

best
Robert Lomas

That's probably what got me and so many other people riled, if I'm honest.  That someone can apply a "Formula" five times and sell in the gazillions!  But maybe that's where I, and so many others, are going wrong.  Is it really so bad for literature to be commercially successful?  Does artistic merit and precious integrity have to be linked to only a small number of people appreciating it?  Of course it doesn't.  If I told my friend who owns two pizza takeaway shops that he should put all his efforts into sourcing the finest ingredients to attract only the most discerning palates he'd laugh in my face.  And soon be as skint as I am!  Business people understand money, creatives usually don't. 

I started this blog partly because I find writing it cathartic and therapeutic, but also because I want to write, and I want to get paid to write.  The more the better.  There, I've said it now, it's out in the open.  And I think I might be good enough too.  Now I just have to find out how to start.  And this here blogosphere is a pretty good place.  A cursory trawl has found an active community going on, populated by people keen to share their experiences. 

Thank you to Phil Barron and to Michelle Lipton  who have both kept me busy this evening.  And especially to Jason Arnopp who I found first.  He's just been taken on as a core writer for a new Radio 4 comedy series, Recorded for Training Purposes.  They advertised on the BBC Writers Room for new talent and I thought of submitting a couple of ideas.  I didn't because instead I spent my time filling in a job application.  For which I didn't even get an interview.  

Lost opportunity can be more frustrating than failure.

MORE...

The lovely Robert Lomas, who writes books about Freemasonry, came on the radio this morning. I called him because I resorted to my old production technique of finding a local angle/guest on a subject of great interest. And badda-bing, you have local content! Dan Brown is a subject of great interest, and Robert always has something good to say. In this case, I saw a big display of his books when I was on holiday in the States, and invited him on to ask how the success of Mr Brown is helping the back catalogue of an academic from Bradford University!

He thanked me for plugging his website through this blog, which was a pleasure. Not sure how he found out about the blog, but then I'm not sure how most people who read my ramblings get here!

Given that Bob was directed to this blog, he'll have read my less than complimentary remarks about The Lost Symbol, a book he got an advance copy of, and enjoyed immensely. And, curiously, prevented from being called The Solomon Key because his tome, Turning The Solomon Key, got there first! I said it wasn't the plot or the story that wound me up, it was the dreadful writing coupled with the fact that it'll sell in tens of millions.

The point of this post is to guide you to this rather amusing article that first appeared in the Telegraph. It's headlined Dan Brown's 20 worst sentences, and there are some corkers it has to be said! There are also nearly 700 comments either joining in the mockery, or accusing the writer of the piece of intellectual snobbery of the highest order!

"You're just jealous because you haven't sold 80 million books" is a standard retort. No I haven't, but I wish I could by writing things like "The famous man looked at the red cup!"

STRESS

I didn't see it coming.

I thought I was fine: I don't look ill, it hasn't overtly affected my behaviour or my moods and I don't feel reliant on anything like booze or comfort eating to help me through the day.

No, it was more subtle than that: I have been forgetting things very easily, and quite often feeling as though my brain was surrounded by a fog that was marring my ability to think straight. Sometimes I just felt like I wasn't engaging with the real world. It interfered with my work so I went to the doctor.

His first response was to offer me beta-blockers (drugs to make me even slower, no thanks!), Valium (a "relaxant" whose possible side effects include insomnia or irritability- maybe not!) or to sign me off work (I don't want to sit at home all day, probably because I don't actually have a home!).

I went to buy paracetamol the previous day and was given the third degree by the chemist. They weren't for me but I was asked if they were! Why do they need to know that? Is it now an offence to supply another adult with Non-Steroid Anti Inflammatories? Yet here I am being offered a whole cocktail of far more potent narcotics for saying I feel a bit out of sorts sometimes.

Stress is a funny one. It's an illness, but not quantifiable.  Anyone can complain they have it, and let's face it, a lot of people use it as an excuse to swing the lead.  That and, err, back pain.  But it's most definitely there and it has to be dealt with before it does become allowed to take over, as the consequences of that would not be pretty.  I think the problem is that so many people just don't know how to deal with it.  For me it's to face up to it. So Plan A is to start running again, Plan B is to look into counselling and Plan C, which takes the longest, is to work out what I really want.  Which I think I already know, but it takes the longest because I have to pluck up the courage to admit it,  and then - the hardest part of all - do something about it.  It's hard because once you do that,  you put your feelings out there, and that can be really scary. 

NEW BLOGS

Check out Arthur Jock

I went to school with him. As he correctly points out, it's rather self indulgent, but that is the point! 

I've also been reading Jon Wells,as Rugby League is my favourite sport

DRIVEL

I read the new Dan Brown book on holiday and actually felt seething anger when I finally made it to the end of the final turgid sentence.  I used to be a great cheerleader for Mr Brown, and enjoyed the Da Vinci code so much I even tried to find local angles as an excuse to cover it on the radio as part of my job. (I found a couple too, with the help of a local Freemasonry expert!)  And yes, I know the "codes" were just anagrams.  

But what a difference four years makes.  Instead of enjoying a gripping page turner, I found myself becoming increasingly wound up by the formulaic and rather unsophisticated habit Dan Brown has of ending each chapter on a cliffhanger then to switch to the sub plot and back again.  It's almost as if he's trying too hard to make sure the reader sticks with it, whereas if it was any good, surely we would anyway! 

And his characters aren't even two-dimensional!  Professor Robert Langdon has featured in three blockbusters now and still all we know about him is that he's in his mid forties and wears Harris Tweed jackets. (But not in the films for some reason.)  There's a brief description of how he got stuck in a well as a child which has resulted in him being scared of enclosed spaces, knowledge which aids our understanding later in the book when he er... gets trapped in an enclosed space.  

Next take a pantomime chief-baddie so preposterous it makes an episode of Scooby Doo look like Hitchcock!  He is a man tattooed from head to foot, yet still managed to infiltrate the highest order of the Masons, populated by some of America's highest minds, by wearing make up and a blond wig.  Genius. 

The set up, for the third time, involves a life at stake while our intrepid Professor has to solve a series of clues whilst defying a cartoon-like blustering official, this time a CIA agent. 

The nicest thing I can say is that there are some quite interesting descriptions of Washington DC landmarks, which I enjoyed reading about because I've been there, and a good bimble round the rituals of Freemasonry, which you can also get from Robert Lomas, above.   But the overbearing experience of the book is one of ploughing and grinding through some of the most lumpen and clumsy prose and stilted dialogue I think I have ever read.  What really sets my teeth on edge most of all though is Mr Brown's incessant - and I mean incessant - use of italics, a device he seemingly employs ad nauseum rather than bothering to construct sentences that might convey suspense, drama or emotion. 

The Da Vinci code sold 80 million copies worldwide.  Just goes to show there is a big difference between a best selling author and a best writing author!

SALE

Northern Rock have sold the flat. It is no longer mine. Hooray. Except not. The bad news is that they have taken just £57, 500 for it. That's a mere forty thousand pounds less than I paid for it. 25 grand less than the initial mortgage I took out, then we can add on the two years worth of mortgage payments I haven't made. A bill for around 35k give or take will be winging its way to me very soon. Plus the outstanding service charges and council tax.

And we haven't even got onto the divorce yet.

Whichever way you look at it, the options are not pretty, and that's starting to hit home a bit now. Yesterday I felt very sad, a bit detached, like it was some sort of surreal dream. Even though I don't actually have anything for anyone to take away from me, which in itself isn't a great feeling, and certainly not what I envisaged for myself at the age of 36. But I don't think I'm the type to feel sorry for myself for too long - it's just not in the genes.

I think the problem was that I didn't appreciate the value of money, and it's come back to haunt me, in a fairly major way. I made a modest pile when my home rose in value and thought I'd get a bit of a property portfolio together. Buy here, sell there, trouser the odd 50 grand along the way. It was all too easy, or so I thought. And I treated being married in pretty much the same way.

So what I do get is the chance to wipe the slate clean and move on. It's probably my last chance, as well. That focuses the mind, let me tell you. But it has made me think about what I want and what's important, and appreciate that life throws up chances and opportunities all the time. It's what you do with them that counts. See, still smiling!

BOOZE

If you ever feel depressed, may I suggest drinking beer until you feel handsome and clever? It works every time. 

The drinks industry really has made a fortune making people believe that - now that's clever marketing!

I'm trying to have a 'dry (ish) September', after reading the news last week that Brits have spent August drinking themselves silly.  Eight drinks a day, or three times our norm, on average over the Summer.  I had been following a 'no more than 4 pints in a session' rule, but a couple of weddings just recently have brought that to an end. 

It's not that I find it shocking; and in actual fact I would really like to do unspeakable things to the finger-wagging busybodies who try and tell me or anyone else how to live our lives.  I started going into pubs with my mates at 16 (back then under-age drinking wasn't seen as a huge social problem) and my dad used to buy me half a lager (careful now!) from the age of about 14 whenever we ate out.  We weren't taught the dangers of binge drinking at school - in fact 

we sometimes used to see our teachers in the pub! My parents didn't drink routinely at home, and I nearly always stuck to beer.  I learnt to know my limits (well, within reason) and have never had a fight or attempted to drive when drunk.  Or been responsible for anyone but myself.  Certainly as a student, and during a succession of shit jobs in my early twenties I drank on way more days than I didn't.  I've used booze to be happy, to relax, to try and forget, and to boost my confidence.  Bring it on! 

Despite how that comes across, I am quite happy with my relationship with alcohol.  But just recently I've noticed that it makes me feel...well, how can I put this?...a bit shit really.  And it's expensive.  And it stops me doing sensible things that I say I'm going to do, like updating this blog twice a week.  I can't exercise when I feel so dehydrated.  It's very carby and it did once made me think that dressing up in a basque and a kilt was a very good idea. 

It's only the last year or so that I've actually given a second thought to my booze intake at all.  Probably because I knew that an easy way to deal with the problems of life would be to have a few beers.  But that's not really a road I want to go down, because at the end of the day it doesn't lead anywhere fast.  And it will almost certainly never, ever make me look good! Wobble has that habit! 

I'd like to think of this as another step on the path to enlightenment, but actually it's just the realisation that I'm getting old...