Writing a book

 So, I've been writing a book.

To be honest, I'm hoping it's kind of there.  I've printed out a couple of copies of first drafts for people to give their feedback on, and I'm sure there will be a bit of refinement but I hope it's somewhere near ready for me to work on.

Now, obviously, I have a vision, and that's me on a stage at a book festival (probably at Hay-on-Wye) being interviewed by someone, lots of people sat listening, while we take part in an interesting and funny discussion.  I love making people laugh.

I have tried over the years to write a book.  And I understand the formula for writing a successful book.

The successful book is a novel, with a twist, a good plot, relatable characters, all that good stuff, fascinating detail, maybe some excitement.  I understand that.

But I can't write that.

I lose my train of thought far too quickly, at most I write a chapter and then it peters out.  My Google Drive is full of abandoned stories.

Short stories don't sell.  Any website that advises people trying to make it as an author tells you that.  Especially not "flash fiction" which I thought was stories that were fifty words or so, but apparently stories as long as 750 words can be flash fiction, and that's what I tend to write, most of my stories are short.  They're a few pages.  To be honest, they're the right length for when you're on the toilet.

Also, my book isn't long enough.  Books should be over 60,000 words.  I'm not there. I'm around 17,500 words.

So, I know my book isn't going to sell.  Furthermore, it's in fairly bad taste.  A lot of the stories have a lot of death and/or sex in it, they're silly, and sensibilities are offended by them.

But I like them.

I have one qualification for the story to make it into the book - and that is that it should make me laugh.  If I'm not smiling when I read it back, it's not going in (and there's a stack of stories I wrote that haven't made it into the book because of that).

I've also been careful with some of the stories to try to ensure that there isn't gender bias or shit like that.  People can be great, nice, lovely, alright, annoying, and outright dicks.  And they can vary between these (I know I do).  Your race, gender, religion, whatever other qualities, don't matter.  They don't affect your behaviour. Your behaviour affects your behaviour.

Beyond that, there's few limits.  There's a story about a being from Norse mythology.  There's a story about Alan the Demon.  And there's a story about Norman the Insurance Salesman.

So anyway, the book is coming.  I expect that it will sell very few copies, mostly to my closest friends and family who feel like they ought to buy a copy. I'm sure that it won't get anywhere and that I won't be interviewed on a stage or win any prizes, but it's coming.