David Couldrey's Blog: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, page 3
October 10, 2012
Beat
Tonight I am lucky enough to be going to the British Library to watch a screening of Walter Salles’ new film adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s generation-defining classic On the Road. Famously written in a manic three week period in April 1951, Kerouac, so as not to disrupt his creative flow, wrote it on a single 120 foot scroll which will be on display for free at the British Library’s Folio Society Gallery until December 27th.
If you are interested in the Beat Generation, you’re gonna love this. This is what the press release says: “The scroll will be accompanied by first editions of other Beat classics, such as The Naked Lunch, from the British Library’s collections of American literature, as well as rare sound recordings of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and other leading figures of the Beat Generation from the Library’s Sound Archive. These include a rarely-heard private recording of Neal Cassady, Kerouac’s model for the character Dean Moriarty, reading from Proust.”
Writing a book in three weeks is not a very idle thing to do but I admire Kerouac in spite of that – he seems like he was a bloody good bloke. He lived his life incredibly passionately and was a keen student of Buddha who has this to say on idleness: “"To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent." Crikey!
If you are interested in the Beat Generation, you’re gonna love this. This is what the press release says: “The scroll will be accompanied by first editions of other Beat classics, such as The Naked Lunch, from the British Library’s collections of American literature, as well as rare sound recordings of Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs and other leading figures of the Beat Generation from the Library’s Sound Archive. These include a rarely-heard private recording of Neal Cassady, Kerouac’s model for the character Dean Moriarty, reading from Proust.”
Writing a book in three weeks is not a very idle thing to do but I admire Kerouac in spite of that – he seems like he was a bloody good bloke. He lived his life incredibly passionately and was a keen student of Buddha who has this to say on idleness: “"To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent." Crikey!
October 9, 2012
Deadline Day
Today I have a deadline. I have to turn in the first 3,000 words of my next novel to my peers at Kingston and I am bricking it. I have the words but I fear my classmates might notice that they are a broken web of nonsense and cliché and I really don’t want to hand them in. They are rough, raw early scribbles.
I should have spent more time on it but I have been idling again. I am starting to worry about my idling, it is getting in the way of my wish to become a writer. I have just this second googled ‘Idleness’ and found the following warning from Rousseau: ‘Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.’
This worries me...
I should have spent more time on it but I have been idling again. I am starting to worry about my idling, it is getting in the way of my wish to become a writer. I have just this second googled ‘Idleness’ and found the following warning from Rousseau: ‘Reading, solitude, idleness, a soft and sedentary life, intercourse with women and young people, these are perilous paths for a young man, and these lead him constantly into danger.’
This worries me...
October 8, 2012
The Happy Mondays
Anyone else wake up (late) to find a bunch of unread emails this morning? I have idled a little already this morning but there are always emails to respond to and blogs to write and one really has to concentrate to achieve a spiritual state of inertia. Oh Monday mornings, how unlike Sunday you are!
All this bloody work does make those idle moments even better though - as the infinitely wise Jerome K Jerome noted: ‘Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.’
All this bloody work does make those idle moments even better though - as the infinitely wise Jerome K Jerome noted: ‘Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.’
October 7, 2012
A confession from the weekend...
On Friday night I staggered in the door quite late and slightly inebriated after a boozy dinner with friends and I did something bad. My parents, who like to forget that they are in their sixties and should not be exerting themselves in such an irresponsible manner had not yet, as I assumed, returned home from their own dinner with friends and were not, as they should have been, tucked up in bed.
So when I bolted the door, I could never have known that in so doing I was locking out my errant parents and causing them to cough up 100 quid for the privilege of staying in a room normally reserved for guilty lovers at the local pub when their home – which they own and have lived in for twenty years – is a mere few hundred yards away.
I can see why they were slightly animated when I woke up and kindly let them in the following morning but as I said, they were out past their bedtime and sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind – they need discipline in their life or they will succumb to relentless activity.
They are lucky enough to receive for no fee an endless stream of idle thoughts, anecdotes, goodwill and general bonhomie in exchange for a place to live and write. All I ask is for a little consideration and that they are in their beds when they are supposed to be. Is that too much to ask?
Thankfully they have agreed to redouble their efforts and not be so active all the time. Dad, who has just become a student, is beginning to understand what John Lubbock meant when he wrote: "Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
Have a lovely Sunday!
So when I bolted the door, I could never have known that in so doing I was locking out my errant parents and causing them to cough up 100 quid for the privilege of staying in a room normally reserved for guilty lovers at the local pub when their home – which they own and have lived in for twenty years – is a mere few hundred yards away.
I can see why they were slightly animated when I woke up and kindly let them in the following morning but as I said, they were out past their bedtime and sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind – they need discipline in their life or they will succumb to relentless activity.
They are lucky enough to receive for no fee an endless stream of idle thoughts, anecdotes, goodwill and general bonhomie in exchange for a place to live and write. All I ask is for a little consideration and that they are in their beds when they are supposed to be. Is that too much to ask?
Thankfully they have agreed to redouble their efforts and not be so active all the time. Dad, who has just become a student, is beginning to understand what John Lubbock meant when he wrote: "Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
Have a lovely Sunday!
October 6, 2012
Time
Seeing as blogging is quite an intimate, confessional form of writing, I hope you won’t mind me saying a little about me. I am, like millions of others at the moment, unemployed. I am living in the room in my parents’ house where I grew up. It’s kind of mad here – my sister is back home at the moment too and our good friend Emma is living here as well. And two cats. And Mum and Dad.
They’re all being amazing and actively supporting me in my quest to become a (proper) writer even if I am being a bit antisocial and spending more time in front of a computer screen than at any other point in my life. It turns out that to try and be a writer, you have to jump through certain hoops – it is not, as I hoped for, an idle life - although it is at least sedentary.
But where is all the time? I have an endless list of things I should be doing but find myself instead sat here, offering my idle thoughts to an uncaring internet. Enough for now, no more procrastinating but I will leave you with a word from Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who said: "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
They’re all being amazing and actively supporting me in my quest to become a (proper) writer even if I am being a bit antisocial and spending more time in front of a computer screen than at any other point in my life. It turns out that to try and be a writer, you have to jump through certain hoops – it is not, as I hoped for, an idle life - although it is at least sedentary.
But where is all the time? I have an endless list of things I should be doing but find myself instead sat here, offering my idle thoughts to an uncaring internet. Enough for now, no more procrastinating but I will leave you with a word from Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who said: "I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."
October 5, 2012
Genesis
Welcome,
This is where I will blog my idle thoughts about trying to make it as an indie author. 'Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow' is taken from the brilliantly funny book by Jerome K Jerome of the same name. In it, he writes:
"One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. Having observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having promised to buy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change."
Substitute 'book' with 'blog' and you'll get the gist of what this blog will be about. I hope you enjoy reading it and be sure to drop me a line as I am a friendly person and like human interaction. In the immortal words of Terry Tibbs - 'Talk to me!'
I will also be offering subjective and passionate book reviews of books that I absolutely love and think everyone should read. I have already done some - check them out and go buy them from your LOCAL INDIE BOOKSHOP. Oh yeah, I will be championing them too.
I reckon that'll about do for the first blog.
More soon I promise. Until then I leave you with a last word from Jerome K Jerome:
"I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
Dave
This is where I will blog my idle thoughts about trying to make it as an indie author. 'Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow' is taken from the brilliantly funny book by Jerome K Jerome of the same name. In it, he writes:
"One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. Having observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having promised to buy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change."
Substitute 'book' with 'blog' and you'll get the gist of what this blog will be about. I hope you enjoy reading it and be sure to drop me a line as I am a friendly person and like human interaction. In the immortal words of Terry Tibbs - 'Talk to me!'
I will also be offering subjective and passionate book reviews of books that I absolutely love and think everyone should read. I have already done some - check them out and go buy them from your LOCAL INDIE BOOKSHOP. Oh yeah, I will be championing them too.
I reckon that'll about do for the first blog.
More soon I promise. Until then I leave you with a last word from Jerome K Jerome:
"I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours."
Dave
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow
"One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS, having observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having promised to read the blog if it ever came out, I feel I have no ri
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