For a man that runs a website called www.simongaryauthor.com, I’ve done precious little writing lately.
In fact, I haven’t written for a while.
In a sense, this post is something of a self-rollicking, a public kick up the bum designed to drive myself to some sort of action. Action is, after all, the one thing that defines writing. Very few of the great novels have miraculously written themselves to the best of my knowledge.
I have self-published two novels. First came “Gone to the Dogs,” a black comedy telling the story of a fictional sitcom. At the time, I was pretty pleased with it. The novel used the same monologue style as one of my favourite works, “As I Lay Dying” by William Faulkner. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not fit to sweep up Faulkner’s pencil shavings, but the idea of gradually revealing a story through the reported reminiscences of different characters has always appealed. “Gone to the Dogs” was both my homage and, I hope, reasonable attempt.
I followed this up, around two years later, with “Thryke – The Man that Nobody Knew.” This book was essentially a prequel to “Gone to the Dogs.” Cornelius Thryke was my portrait of one of those actors who found real success late in life, perhaps in the style of an Arthur Lowe, who found fame in “Coronation Street” and the much-loved “Dad’s Army.”
It was the pomposity that Lowe so wonderfully brought to the role of Captain Mainwaring that I imbued Cornelius Thryke in “Gone to the Dogs.” But in the follow-up, I found myself wanting to explain how he got that way, and the result is a book of which I am proud. Some passages, in particular, where you can sense were written in a state of flow.
So, having finished these two projects, I sat back for a bit. My new desire was to write a book that would define me, the one that would allow me to break through, hopefully into traditional publishing. With a couple of novels under my belt, I felt sure that my subsequent work would represent another progression – and a noticeable improvement on its predecessors. All I needed was an idea – and I wanted that idea to arrive fully formed and perfect.
Only it didn’t.
No idea came. I stopped being a writer.
Let’s change the angle of the story for a bit. In m real life – my non-writery one – I am a student of lean manufacturing and business methods. I still have a lot to learn in this field, so my spare-time reading is primarily based on technical books by other lean teachers. However, as my understanding has deepened, I have moved away from learning about continuous improvement techniques and become very interested in people.
I have read several books dealing with psychology and the working of the human mind. I always find them fascinating and humbling at the same time. It’s quite cathartic to realise that your mind is no different from anyone else’s, however much we writers doth protest otherwise.
One thing that I have also recently got back into is leveraging my morning commute by listening to audiobooks. My journeys to and from work offer almost two hours a day when I could be learning something useful. One audiobook that I have recently finished is “Black Box Thinking” by Matthew Syed. In it, he reacquainted me with an idea that I am certainly familiar with via my professional life – the concept of the lean start-up. In essence, the approach is simple. Try something, fail fast, learn fast, and adapt. I use this approach a lot in my working life, but for some reason, I had, until now, not made the connection to my writing hobby.
But what is that connection? It strikes me that I should stop waiting for the perfect idea to arrive but should attempt the “million monkeys, million typewriters” approach.
I should just write.
I guess it is something akin to going to the gym. If you don’t exercise, you won’t make any gains and get stronger. Similarly, if you don’t write, you won’t make the neural connections and come up with the start of something. It seems to make sense, doesn’t it?
So that is what I am going to do. I will reduce the level of random variation down to finite levels by writing about themes where I have an interest. One of these themes is luck. In a world of seven billion people, normal distribution tells me there must be a small handful of supernaturally lucky people. What would their lives be like? Would tragedy necessarily counter and balance the joy?
So there is the idea. Write regularly, build up my concept connecting fitness, and see what pops out at the other end. No more waiting for the idea that may not come. I’m off into the long grass with a pointy stick and a pith helmet to go and find it.
Watch this space – I may well report back my progress here. Wish me luck. Toodles!