On the production of books.

Here are some things I am doing recently;

 

1. I am finishing my last module towards my English Language and Literature degree. It is called ‘Creativity in Language’, and examines the different approaches in the analysis of creativity in language, and also in other modes of storytelling and performance. It raises interesting questions about the originality of creativity, and whether or not creativity is fundamentally political – whether that be intentional or unintentional.
2. I am also writing a book about a girl who stops growing. I am trying to make it a masterpiece, but it is hard to make a masterpiece when your brain feels like an empty room. I am noticing that I waste a lot of time not gaining knowledge, and I mean to change this by consuming more books and exploring different parts of the world. I have acquired a cover designer for my book, someone who is also willing to do some small illustrations for me. This is spurring me on to finish by my deadline in October.
3. I have signed up to a website called AgentHunter. This website is one where you can find a suitable agent in order to get your book published. I am aiming to submit my manuscript to several agents by October 15th. I will be writing a review about this website in the next few months – just in case anybody is interesting in hunting for a suitable agent online.

That is all, really.

What have you been up to, recently?

 

Rainless.

Once upon a time everything was fine.

People did what they had to do, wrote their assignments on time, and submitted excellent essays brimming with poignant points with legitimate quotations and impeccable referencing. They researched on time, and read all the books they needed to well in advance.

They did not stress eat chocolate until they were too sick to move, their sticky fingers flying over the keyboard at a thousand miles a second, and they certainly did not forget to brush their teeth two days in a row and wear a STAINED dress to work.

They also studied very hard for their exam not one week in advance, but five. They were nice to their husbands and made an effort to not look like a plastic bag with greasy hair, and they were not anxious and did not have separation anxiety when their husband told them he was staying in the next city for a month because this travel is getting too hard.

They did not silently cry in secret and fume over not going with said husband.

They did not miss the gym for three weeks despite paying £25, and they also understood everything perfectly and didn’t speak rubbish.

They were good and clean and tidy and healthy and mentally well equipped to handle life.

They were not named Lenora Sparrow, but some other name that was nice and sensible and did not reek of late submission and missed personal deadlines and/or goals.

That reminds me, I need to call my dad and discuss flights, write that amazon review I promised to write and read a tonne of things, also clean this place and myself up and lesson plan for this afternoon as well as finish 1200 words by tonight and make sure my car has petrol in it for tomorrow.

Etybyte

 

352 Days Left

I got job today. Well, not today, but today is my first day. It’s minimal wage, and only for two hours a day, because I can’t go full time until I get me a first class degree, but its something.

I still feel like a failure though.

My husband pointed out that I have been running an online business for two years and not even scratching the surface of a liveable income. He is right. He reckons I have no gumption and spend more time and effort making excuses rather than doing anything productive with my life.

‘Where’s that book you said you were writing?’

‘Um, I’m writing it.’

‘Where’s that translation company you wanted to set up?’

‘Well I am studying a full time course, you know!’

‘You could stop your tuition that pays you peanuts and start your company, but no, you just have excuses, always excuses, and I am so sick of it.’

He is sick of it. I am sick of it. He is sick of me. He is also sick, which doesn’t help his frustration. I made him so many cups of tea and tucked him up in bed and brought him all his meals and made sure he was warm and comfortable in a clean and tidy environment. He is so cold to me though lately. It hurts me a lot, but I don’t have time to mull over it or confront him about it because I have all these assignments and now the job and in between that and chauffeuring my brothers to school I don’t have any time to talk to him.

I don’t blame him, really.

I’m upset, though. I know these things bother him a lot. They bother me too. Maybe it’s tough love.

I know we are at very different stages of life at the moment; he is a successful automotive engineer full of ideas for the future, liasing with other engineers about how to make software to promote the green lifestyle etc etc. He is innovative and hard working and aspirational. I am still studying full time. And he is right. If I spent more effort chasing my dreams, I would have made something of myself by now.

‘You’re 22,’ he said, ‘what do you have to show for it?’

Nothing.

My mum would say I have a driving license, I have an online business (which pays me peanuts), I’m working towards a degree, I bought a car. But those are things all adults should work for. If I didn’t have any of those things, given the opportunities I have in life, I would really be a failure.

I don’t have a real degree. Yet. My business is not at its full potential, and I could have made it so, had I worked hard enough. I have been writing a novel since I was eleven years old. When Christopher Paolini published Eragon at age 15, I thought, ‘I’m gonna publish mine by the time I’m fourteen.’

Did I? I’m 22 now. Did I? No.

So I feel like a failure. I keep doing this. I keep saying things and talking the talk but not walking the walk.

But all is not lost. I have been 22 for thirteen days. I still have 352 days left.

Photograph of Venice

Pud Muddle

I am drowning

under a pile

of

complex literary analysis.

I don’t

understand

anything.

I don’t

CARE

about

Wordsworth’s inner life.

I really am

Trying to rouse interest.

“Oh, look,” says my

Mind.

“Your mother loves Grasmere.”

Struggling to find

something in common

with

this poem.

That she does,

that she does.

Do it for her

at least.

But I don’t want to.

Coffee is not helping

not a smidgen.

Nature is beautiful

I try to tell myself

Of course it is,

Of course

But I don’t care for William’s

depiction

of it.

Perhaps I might,

if I wasn’t forced to analyse it

using intricate terms

that I can’t pronounce.

Like

ANDALIPLOSIS

and

ANTIMETABOLE

and

PLOCE

Which sounds like it should be Plaice

Like the fish.

But it isn’t.

And I haven’t the

faintest

clue

what it could be.

I have this awful deadline

which smells of rotten fish.

Or Plaice.

And

I don’t

Care

I really

Just

Want to sleep

and be cuddled.

This

Is Torture.

 

Aijaz Qaisar