Stuck on Chapter One (2009)

Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. 

I'd written hundreds of Radio Adverts, I'd taken a couple of courses in Creative Writing (ha ha ha ha) but I wanted to be a PROPER writer.

To be fair, most of the copywriters and commercial producers I worked with had similar aims - they were paying their bills writing adverts but they really wanted to be novelists, filmmakers or poets.

I wanted to write about things that had happened to me. I'd been really struggling and I was just starting to get help for my Mental Health problems. 

I'd read a couple of self-help books about mental health recovery and they all seemed a bit... unrealistic. Like a lot of self help books they seemed a bit fanciful - as if you could just improve your health and wellbeing by writing a list, saying nice things about yourself in front of a mirror or 'choosing' to be happy.

Putting my thoughts down on paper seemed like a better idea than keeping them in my head. It became a way to cope and to hopefully make some progress. I was writing about medication and hospital appointments and meltdowns and drinking... and I was trying to be honest with myself. Maybe writing about this stuff would be helpful for other people who were going through similar things.

When I worked in advertising I struggled with the constant competitive bitchiness. It wasn't about who was writing the best adverts or working with famous people, it all seemed to be about who was earning the most money, who had the nicest company car or who had the biggest house... And those things didn't appeal to me. Maybe it was my age. Or maybe I was just very very innocent. 

I thought that if I kept my head down, tried my best and got some decent results, then my work would get noticed. But the longer I stayed in advertising I realised that some people built their brilliant reputations by telling everybody that they were brilliant. Constantly. It wasn't always about talent or dedication it was about self promotion. And I was crap at that.

Then I met some PROPER writers and they seemed to live in a world of competitive bitchiness, too. 

There was a lot of bitterness about comedians or TV presenters suddenly becoming authors - without having to struggle or suffer for their art. I'd always imagined professional writers to be sensitive, shy and self deprecating - and maybe some of them are - but I met too many people who reminded me of the salespeople and creatives I'd known in radio advertising. 

At one point, I used to write Amazon book reviews for one of my writer friends. They were just starting out and asked me to post some positive online reviews. A few weeks later they got in touch with me, but this time they wanted to criticise my reviews. I thought I was being helpful and supportive but apparently I'd been 'too gushing' - so people wouldn't believe my reviews were 'real'. I tried to write more balanced reviews - still largely positive but pointing out a couple of things I hadn't enjoyed and my writer friend stopped talking to me. I felt like an idiot - and a lousy friend. 

 

I'd thought being a PROPER writer would be fun. Again, my innocence was showing. I didn't think it would be anything like writing adverts for local radio stations. Fancy getting to write whatever you wanted without a Sales Executive or the owner of a window company telling you to change it! 

But PROPER writing is still a job, and you still have to fight and compromise and be nice to people you don't like.

In early 2002 I went to a book launch at a night club in London. It was crap. There was a buffet and free wine - presumably to lure in reviewers and journalists - but hardly anybody showed up. A representative from the publisher got up to say a few words - she blathered on about 'what an honour, what a privilege' it was to work with such an 'exciting and important new author' but she kept getting his name wrong.

The Editor of the book also got up to make a short speech, once again talking about their 'excitement' and the 'importance of new, young, vital voices'... and they kept getting the author's name wrong too. 

I kept looking over at the author. The whole event was supposed to be about him, about his novel - he'd probably worked so hard just to get it seen by a publisher... And they couldn't even be bothered to get his name right. He just stood there, grinning like an idiot. Maybe he didn't care, maybe he thought it was a small price to pay. He clearly couldn't speak up, he couldn't tell his editor or his publisher that they were getting his name wrong... He had to keep kissing their arses in the hope of getting another book published. The whole thing was just as phoney and just as shallow as anything I'd encountered in local radio.

I also heard horror stories about people being fired from TV writing jobs because they refused to re-write scripts. Imagine blowing that kind of opportunity! Imagine getting in front of experienced BBC producers and script editors - and telling them you know more about what makes a good TV episode than they do. For fuck's sake. Who has that kind of bullet proof confidence? Does it make you a genius or an idiot? That sort of mindset was impossible for me to understand. I'd spent too many hours arguing with furniture companies about the correct spelling of 'Elegant' and whether or not 'bestest' is a word.

I applied to an agency that helps Northern Writers and they put me in touch with literary agents and publishers. 

I got a lot of nice rejection letters; 'we really enjoyed reading your work, but we feel as if we couldn't do it justice at this moment in time. Good luck...' 

Again, I was innocent - I thought this meant that people really did like my work! But after getting the tenth or eleventh completely identical rejection letter, I realised something was amiss. To be fair, a couple of editors did give me detailed feedback - one told me to give up and try my hand at scriptwriting and another told me that 'Mental Health stuff isn't commercial, nobody wants to sell this'.

I don't think I took rejection badly. I'd had seven years of car dealers and nightclub owners telling me my scripts were crap, or not returning my calls, or (in the case of a bloke at Bells Stores) calling me a useless twat. 

I asked for more advice from the Northern agency for Writers and they suggested I should read more current fiction and find out what was 'selling'.

After a couple of years of sending stuff to agents and editors, I felt as if I'd exhausted every option. Maybe they were right, maybe I wasn't writing anything that people wanted to buy. I also wanted to move on and write new things so getting work published in whatever way I could seemed like the right thing to do.

I ended up having my work published by a Mental Health Charity. The people at the agency for local writers weren't happy. They said they couldn't add my work to their annual 'List of Published Books by Local Authors' because it looked cheap and it hadn't been published by anybody they'd heard of. It was cheaply produced - by a charity - and I was just pleased to have it done and finished.

 Even though my work was only available as an e-book or a 'print on demand' title, some of the people in my life were furious. I think they assumed I was making money and resented me for it. Even when I changed names, dates and locations - they thought I was deliberately trying to upset them. It felt like I wasn't allowed to have control of my own thoughts, feelings and memories. And it's difficult to deal with the past when you can't mention anybody else who was there.

Nowadays, I regret trying to get anything published. Just getting my thoughts down on paper was enough. I felt better for being able to express my fear and anger and guilt. I don't think chasing publishers and agents was very helpful because it felt like I was losing control of my story all over again.

I suppose I'm not talented, driven or disciplined enough to be a PROPER writer. I can't slap a fake smile on my face and pretend to like people. I'm no good at self promotion - I've spent too much of my life thinking I'm lazy, ungrateful or a complete twat - and it's tough to put a positive, commercial spin on that. 

I'm just not very good with people and my attention span is completely fucked.