9 March - Lazy, not him, me

Having berated a friend recently for his seemingly pitiful work output, I ought to register a few possible reasons why I’m a little lazy too. In fact, I’m not lazy, just overtly pragmatic.

So, there I was after Vietnam, determined for once to write a top travel article on the place, being able to draw on the differences between my first visit in 2000 and the one 8 years later and checking my facts if need be with my local friends in Hanoi etc etc. All this intended for some top magazine like Sunday Times Travel where I have some contacts. Toph could provide the accompanying artistic eye photos, as I only take regular snapshots in which I star of course. Why waste film on landscapes? But… turns out the STT pays very little for an article, a pittance in fact as it’s a prestigious title and so you know, you get kudos just for having your name there and hoping it leads to something more lucrative. This sort of reminds me of many many years ago when I loved writing about music but it was exactly that, it was done for the love, never for the money or just for the free tickets and the few compliments one received in the age before email, web and so on.

It would appear that were I to sell some crazy crap story to Love It magazine, you know, I woke up one morning and my sister had turned into one of her dogs and bizarrely enough I understand what the dog means when she says ‘yap yap yap. Yaaaap, yappy?’ I’d get paid approximately ten times more than my travel article would fetch. All in all, having sat on my arse so far and not even started the Vietnam article or completed the blog entries on that come to think of it, I’ve sort of only missed out on a hundred quid or so and many, many hours or shaping and drafting it down to the required word count.

Not writing a novel has also not earned me, er, very little in fact. Unless said novel was hotly fought over by publishers, the most I’d get is £20k for a two book deal, which would cover approx two years spent writing each one at least and I can make more than that in six month’s regular work, and without losing any sleep or going spotty from spending too much time indoors. So really, I better hang on to the day job. Fame can wait, especially as I don’t care for that. Unless we’re talking Oprah and Pulitzer (ok am not American but so what) then, why try? There’s no accounting for Oprah’s taste, and she could go for my novel but for sure sure I know it in my bones that it’s not a Pulitzer winner so… I rest my pen.

Talking of books, I can use this platform to warn you never ever to pick up and read the worst book 8 of us have tried to tackle at a recent book club meeting. Normally our categories are ‘buy, borrow or bin it’ but for ‘A Quiet Belief in Angels’ by RJ Ellory, we’ve created a special ‘Burn it’ category as we don’t want any other unsuspecting person to pick it up. The fact that this book is on Richard and Judy’s recommendations and also doing very well in some Waterstone chart, speaks volumes about the fact that you should never trust these people because it’s all marketing and favours in 90% of cases. I actually think RJ Ellory should have your hands chopped off to stop him from adding another volume to his oeuvre. It’s soooo badly written and soooo not a thriller that I’m still fuming over it and so are the other 7 victims. I have been on his website and he has another book coming out this year and we simply have to stop him/this. And god forbid I should hear someone is making a movie out of any of the previous 4 or 5 or I might spontaneously combust myself and I’d rather burn his books. I bet he’s the kind who trawls through the web for his name and he’ll probably find me and get in touch. He seemed to have spent hours reading his good reviews on Amazon. Who are these people??????????? Oh dear, time to pick up something else, ‘Your Brain on Music’ is next on the list, should enjoy that.