What it’s like writing a book

This year I wrote my first book. It’s a comedy in the genre of “Yes Man” by Danny Wallace, and it’s called “My Groupon Adventure”. It’s based on a true story and will be published by Unbound in early summer 2016.

My Groupon Adventure was originally a stand-up comedy show written for the 2014 Edinburgh festival. And when the opportunity presented itself to turn it into a book I was blasé about it.  “Yeah. Seems like fun.” I said. “How hard can it be?” The answer, it turns out, is very hard. Hard not just because of the stamina and creativity involved in writing 65,000 words. But hard because of the emotional labour that defines the process from start to finish.

The most exhausting thing about writing a book is how often you get judged. Judged by readers, by editors and most of all by yourself. Early on in the process I realised that I wasn't as good as I thought I was. I’d written blogs before, I’ve written and performed numerous hour long Edinburgh shows, and had various scripts at various stages of development with TV production companies. But there is no hiding place in a 65,000 word manuscript: your flaws, your tropes and your own damned inexperience is brutally butterflied in front of you.

The book was an amalgam of two years of blogs, the live show and also lots of new material. And one of the most interesting (and excruciating) parts of the process was comparing what I’d written near the beginning of the project, to what I was writing near the end. On the bright side, my most recent writing was clearly a huge improvement on those early efforts. But that nascent prose, words that at the time I believed to be beacons of talent, was embarrassing in hindsight. Flabby, pretentious and often crass: if I knew then how bad it was I would never have started a book! But that I suppose is the beauty of naivety.

What was the antidote to the poor prose? Time and hard work. The usual recipe. Gradually my craft improved: by reading more, by writing more, and by getting good notes.

I studied narrative theory and also how other writers in the genre had made it work. Borrowing what I’d enjoyed and making it my own, and rejecting what I hadn’t. Slowly it all came together.

So if you're a budding writer my advice to you would be to start now. Start early, fail lots, and don’t stop until you’re good. Greatness looks like futility until it happens.

Writing a book is an elegiacal experience. Over time I’ve witnessed the death of one writer, and the birth of another. In fact, I’ve witnessed numerous deaths and rebirths. As various doe-eyed iterations of the original scribbler stuck their wet head out of the womb. And then made their first tentative steps onto the blank page. This constant interaction between destruction and creation, between self-loathing and pride, are what came to define the writing journey for me.

I’ve learnt that you’re never as good as you want to be. You never know enough words. You’re never wise enough. You’re metaphors never quite soar like they should. You always hate what you write as you write it. Then it gets a bit better as you go back and rewrite it, but it’s still shit shit shit.

So why push through? For me it was fear of embarrassment. The book had to be good because it would have my name on it and be out in the world possibly forever. That gives you a much less forgiving pair of eyes. And it gives you the necessary doses of pig-headedness required to wade through the thick mud of doubt.

When I finally submitted the book to my editor, and to various other readers too, to my surprise they were complimentary. Yet still the voice of inadequacy sung its siren. How can an imposter have written something good? So I became paranoid about the praise. What was going on? Could they not see that it was crap?

Of course, it’s not crap. Christ, please don’t go away thinking that! PLEASE READ IT! It’s good, I promise. In fact some of it is really excellent. Cross my heart.

After finishing the manuscript, and then acting on the editor’s notes, the next problem was finally letting it go. Sending my baby off into the world. Out of my grasp. Where I could no longer tinker.

But if you want a piece of creative work to be perfect you’ll never make anything. At some point you need to let it go and allow it to collide with the market. To touch the flames of the punters’ disdain. Or hopefully the opposite. But you catch my drift. A book is never finished, it’s abandoned.

So there we have it. The book is done. It is soon to be printed and sent to pledgers, and then to book shops too by the good folks at Penguin-Random House.

But you can still support My Groupon Adventure:

The deadline to get your name in the back of the book is January 10^th 2016. Just click this link HERE.

What’s more, Groupon are doing a special deal between now and January 1st where you can TEN POUNDS OFF your pledge my choosing the discount code “FESTIVEREADING ” at the checkout. What a bargain!

To all those who have supported this book so far: thank-you. It’s made me very happy. And to all those who haven’t: it’s not too late. And I’d be very grateful.

Valentine's Day 2060: a modern love story

I killed her in the end.  She’s the fifth woman I’ve slaughtered this year.  I had no choice really, she really was immensely tedious. I think there was a bug in her software or something, which you get with these cheap robots. She kept telling me the same dreary anecdote again and again. I won’t bore you with all the details, but basically the story was about how she once met a man whose surname was “Crisps”.  That was it. “Design your perfect woman and have her delivered directly to your door!” the website said. And to be fair they all do look exactly like my perfect woman: pretty, blonde, terrifying knockers. But something’s not working; I’ve just never clicked with any of them.  I think it’s because maybe I don’t really know my “type”? Well, I thought I did, but they keep getting delivered and I keep knocking them off after dinner.

The first robot date I had was a disaster. My Wi-Fi went down due to a drone attack by the People’s Republic of Mars and she literally lost the ability to speak.  She was fine until we’d finished our mains, then she just buffered till dawn.  The second wasn’t much better either. I mean, she was absolutely gorgeous - perfectly designed to my spec- but no conversation at all.  After that I made sure I shelled out extra to download the personality software too. I went for “functioning alcoholic”, and she was great fun. Yeah, I thought the third doll was the one. She was called Kate. Amazing smile, totally life-like skin, free updates.  I was really into her. I’ll never forget our first date. It was like we’d known each other forever, which I suppose from her perspective we had: she’d been manufactured only a few hours previously. I made parsnip soup for starter. But I tripped on the way to the table, spilling it down her back, causing a short circuit and she burst into flames. She tried to laugh it off, bless her, but all her skin had melted off. She exploded during dessert.

I had a lot in common with the fourth robot, the exotically named “Faith”. We both had strong political views, agreeing that the massacring of the Kardashian peoples in the East by President Bieber was entirely justified.  President Bieber had visited every citizen in the state to explain his plan, (in hologram form, obviously), and had reasoned that The Kardashians had recently discovered cloning and were now creating an army big enough to launch an invasion. And I was like, “Hey Kardashians! 2030 called, and it wants its science back!” Justin loved that, grabbing his crotch in appreciation. “So are you a Belieber?” he said. And I was like, “Errr...do bears shit in the woods?!” He laughed again, as did Vice President Buble, which was generous, considering bears have been extinct for over 30 years, and plant life is impossible in our atmosphere.  

It was all going swimmingly with Faith, but then she was hacked by some teenage Kardashians, and she tried to electrocute me with her nipples.  Just my luck! So she had to go too. I lured her onto the balcony with a magnet and then pushed her off. She would have died quickly, the lava moat below burns at about 1000 degrees centigrade. The balcony trick was also what accounted for my latest victim, dull old Alice and her stories of men named after snacks.  You don’t have to kill the robots, (the website says they’ll pick them up and recycle them), but there’s a call out fee, so it works out cheaper to just do it yourself. In fact, it’s important you do finish them off.  My friend Dave went out with his robot for 18 months. He broke up with her when she ran out of hard-disk space, and sent her back to the shop. But she escaped, and two weeks later she came back and strangled him. The last thing you want is a mental ex, especially if she’s made out of titanium. He was only 146 when he died, such a waste.

I know from what you’ve read here that I probably don’t come across as a nice guy. But I want you to know that there was a girl once. Yes, a real girl, who I loved more than anything else in the galaxy. She was pretty and weird and loved the smell of second hand books and wore her dressing gown too much. We met at university, Emma and I. We were both studying modern history and decided to write our dissertation on the same subject: the war crimes of Nigel Farage. She was totally not my type, but somehow it worked. We dated for five years and then, a day before I planned to propose, she told me she’d been offered a dream job on Saturn as a policy advisor to the new King, Brooklyn Beckham.  I begged her not to go, wet pleas shimmying down my face, but she’d already packed. She’d been planning it for months. Emma disappeared that evening, and I was left, aimless and pointless. That’s when I found the robots.

You see, you can control a robot. You design and programme them. They won’t leave you. What could go wrong? Well lots of things, clearly. I’m a serial killer, robot wise. The trouble is, right, and here’s the rub, ok, is that in order to fall in love with a robot that you’ve designed, you have to have known what you want when you designed it. And to know what you want, you need to know who you are. The trouble is, the horrible truth is, that I don’t, really. I know nothing.  I’m just a bloke with a broken heart looking for someone or something to make this whole fucking mess worthwhile. Anyway, I better go: I’ve got a date tonight. I’m going virtual reality shark fishing with a girl I met in the teleporter terminal. Fingers crossed.

I've written a funny book. Please support me by pledging here.