Richard Butchins's Blog: Angels stand corrected... - Posts Tagged "writing"

LAX to Portland – In the airport, a stentorious voice emits from invisible speakers honouring US Military personal for their service it’s all a bit Brave New World meets 1984. There’s WiFi everywhere and nowhere, in the ether, in the somewhere else.

I am travelling around the USA to find out about the life of a woman, a woman who died in strange circumstances last year. She was a gifted singer and musician as well as a fine writer. I decided to create a memorial to her, a piece of art of which she would approve – which will be difficult because as she herself said: “I can’t consider anything finished unless it is perfect and nothing is perfect.” You see the other thing about this woman, that informed everything she was and did, is that she had Aspergers, she was a high functioning autistic woman, a savant if you will, one that had a way with words. She made a list, a list of traits – I suggested she do this, thinking there would be maybe 20 things at most but she came back with 213 things.

Here are some of them:

122. I started keeping a journal as a child in order to remember how terrible it was to be a child.

148. I have taken a vow of silence and was put on voice rest and it was like a dream vacation to not have to speak.

181. People often think that I am rude when I am, in fact, obsessed with being polite and friendly

195. I cannot, under any circumstances, do two things at once.


What surprises and saddens me is that there’s no mention of her “service” over the Public Address system.

Recently I have been having meetings with some large publishers about a book I am co-authoring the subject is quite commercial (can't say what it is here) and the thing that's been most illuminating is the insight into what these publishers, and therefore, by extrapolation all big publishers think and feel about the art of writing.

In short, the answer is not a lot. They don't care a jot about the quality of writing, which is convenient for most of the books they produce are dreadful. There's a shedload of ghostwriting going on, probably in sheds.

Any moron on a reality show can release their "autobiography" at the age of 23, I mean really - have some fucking dignity. You want a book of cat wisdom from the internet...you got it. They have no self esteem they will publish anything that will make them money. There is an almost shameless disregard for the written word.

The process has been interesting thus far and no doubt will continue to be so. I will blog about it on here in a forthright fashion until they set the lawyers on me, or the dogs, or fire me, or something !

I love collaborating on projects. I suppose I have been lucky (or exercised good judgement) in my collaborators, they have all been great to work with. At the moment I am collaborating on a project to write a biography / memoir of the actor Bob Hoskins. I am co authoring with his daughter Rosa and it's a pleasure to work with her. She writes well and has the ability to be objective about the subject she's writing about, which is herself and her Dad, so that's a blessing.

In general I have rather an antipathy toward celeb biographies and memoirs they always seem so self indulgent, and exploitative, in the sense that they are really about cashing in on the fan base of the subject. I suppose this is a perfectly reasonable commercial decision but this commercial imperative means we end up with ghostwritten autobiographies of 23 year old reality TV contestants, which is risible in the extreme.

Of course no one is forced to read them and who am I to say that they are a waste of ink, paper, and e pages? I'd like to think the book Rosa and I write will appeal to a larger audience than just the people that liked Bob Hoskins and his films (I am one of those people) and we are writing with that intention, the back and forth of collaborative writing is fun because you are never sure what you are going to receive in the next email - even if you have discussed what's being written it is still always a surprise and, in this case, always a good one.

If you have never tried collaborative writing I recommend it, as it's a good way to introduce variety and to flex ones editorial muscles in a way you can't do when writing on your own.

Good Morning

It's actually afternoon, but somewhere it's the morning. So, I am flying to Japan next week which is causing me anxiety mind you what doesn't cause me anxiety. I even get anxious about the fact that I get anxious. Ridiculous.

The thing about anxiety is that it doesn't pay any regard to probability just possibility. So the sun will not go out tomorrow but that's not going to stop me from worrying about it now is it? The entire situation is foolish but the spiny urchin called anxiety; well, it don't care.

I've managed to get to to chapter 8 on my next novel - remarkable - this is the second novel the first is stalled on chapter 11. Now I have no idea why writing is such a painful experience it really shouldn't be but it damn well is - to paraphrase Hemmingway (who'd rather drink than write ) I just sit at my computer and bleed...