OK I admit it, I’m hooked on the Olympics. I can’t get enough (although some down time is essential to prevent couch-potato blight setting in) and so it seems is just about everyone one I know, and that includes a number of females friends, who like me, have often complained about TV and its endless sports coverage.
I blame the start of my Olympic craving on the opening ceremony – that was definitely one for the people – quickly followed by the sight of the Equestrian stadium in front of the stunning Queen’s House in Greenwich Park. The choice of venues is inspired. It would seem also that the athletes are inspired and we are all riding the tidal wave of team GB’s success – long may it continue.
With this in mind deciding to get my novel The Sweet Track onto Kindle as I had, seemed like bad timing. But I’d been working on a piece for my exhibition next year which involved deconstructing a copy of the book, so it was very much in my mind.
As it happens the Kindling worked out fine. I managed to get it done when not glued to the other screen or when I just couldn’t take anymore of the Velodrome or ‘Velodrone’ I like to call it with reference to the less than sparklingcommentary (love the cyclists though!)
I had to go through it, book in hand, line by line, as my Word document was not the same as the publishers, Flambard’s, final copy. At one stage it seemed like a huge effort for little gain – no medal in sight you might say. But I should have known that no effort is ever wasted. I learned a few things in the process. I learned more about punctuation* – I admit I’m not the best. I learned that my style has loosened up and improved. I learned (or perhaps I should say was reminded) that this book, the first thing I ever wrote, although almost entirely fictional, has so much of me and my early life in it. And as if to signal this while I was working on it I had vivid dreams of my mother, and of babies too.
I’m glad it’s done (although I still need to download it and check the copy ). It was unfinished business. I’m thankful to Flambard for allowing me to use the cover and as you can imagine I’m relieved that I can get back to the Olympic Games now and give them my undivided attention.
*A top tip for punctuation problems – if you can, find a similar usage, sentence construction, dialogue passage, etc. etc. in a published book and take your cue from that. the same is true of layout.
As a librarian in a former life I can’t help feeling sad when seeing your wonderful ‘Sweet Track’ being dismembered. However, in your sure hands, I’m sure that it will be transformed into an even greater work of art.
Can’t wait to see it.
GW
Thanks Gillian. I couldn’t have done it if I didn’t have a few spares – that’s for sure. But in a way I like the idea of deconstructing it as I think the world of books is changing beyond anything we might have imagined – and books as Julian Barnes said in his Booker acceptance speech will have to be things of intrinsic beauty (they often are of course) – so why not works of art? Also, it’s a way of honouring a book which is very much a part of me and which I love and expressing my thoughts and feelings about it in a different medium. I may be deluded but I like to think Grayson Perry would approve.
When you said you were to ‘deconstruct’ The Sweet Track, I thought you meant in the Derridian sense. I’m glad you mean the book itself as a (subjective) object. The Marxist in me wants to be cynical about the Olympics, but as a recent convert to exercise, like you, I find the Olympics something of an inspiration. And how like writing is exercise and fitness. A sustained project in which the battle is won in painful increments. My god, an hour on the cross trainer until my kneecaps are about to fall off and the calorie deficit I’ve created is equivalent to a small apple! But it all adds up, and so it is our sentences become chapters, and our chapters become a novel. I agree with what you say in reply to Gillian. Kant’s work on aesthetics has always felt counter intuitive to me, I would say that some things are intrinsically beautiful.
You are so right -‘a sustained project in which the battle is won in painful increments,’ is an apt description of novel writing. But what of gold medals? That’s more of a problem for me. One thing I haven’t liked about the Games is this inference of failure if it’s not gold.Natalie Goldberg (must be the ‘gold’ thing that’s got me to her) says, ‘I tell my students if you know someone who’s writing a novel, take them out for lunch. If they’ve finished one, even if it never gets published, it’s a great feat and a huge sustained effort. Bring them flowers.’
Or medals perhaps? Medals too for all that effort on the cross trainer but mind the kneecaps!
I think we should all bestow upon ourselves a gold medal. Not for the world to see, but kept within. And even in the darkness of our failures, we should still permit ourselves to buff and polish that gleaming disc and be reminded of where we’ve triumphed.
Lovely! Yes!