Diary of a Cheating Bastard

This is just an excuse not to write.

Chuck Wendig says that when you’re working on a novel you’ve got to “finish that shit you started”. He also says when working on a novel you can’t go “behind the shed” sticking your fingers up a short story or other project.

I tried to do it properly this time, too. The saying ‘grab the bull by the horns’ doesn’t apply to novel writing, and instead of starting on page one and winging it – just seeing where it took me – I thought this time I’d do it the right way.

I took a month to plot the thing.

Twenty-eight chapters outlined and one big plot and it all fit together quite nicely, I thought.

Haha, I boasted, with that done it’ll take no time to punch out a first draft.

But then, as it always happens, you put characters on a page and they do as they damn well please. I imagine God got this frustrated when Eve thought fuck it and ate the apple.

There, I admitted it: I’m a writer with a God Complex. Aren’t we all?

It all started going tits up when I got to, as Mr Wendig puts it, “the saggy middle”. My plot looked bullet-riddled and the story like a floppy piece of wet cardboard. The characters seemed boring and predictable. The set pieces contrived and melodramatic.

There is no middle ground; I’m a genius one day and a deluded fraud the next. The future is filled with book signings and movie deals this week, and alcoholic poverty the following Monday. The see-saw of stress and arrogance creaks as my fat arse and pudgy legs bounce it up and down.

And here I am now, as my two-thirds completed first draft sits in a folder, sticking my tongue between the legs of this blog post.

I promise to be better. I promise that this is the last time I’ll cheat on my dreams. The next time you hear from me I’ll have a first draft sitting in my bedside drawer, waiting to be fixed.

Goodbye for now. See you in a month.