I wonder how many budding Robert Langleys amoungst you have spotted the Bible quote in the title? I wonder if you have spotted my clever wordplay? I wonder if flamingos know they're pink because they eat shrimp from waters rich in aqueous bacteria and beta carotene? Or would they have an identity crisis if they knew they should be a ratty grey colour? But enough of that mainly what I'm wondering is whether I could kick a decent living out of this authorship lark and how to adeqautely go about it?
The staff of Starbucks, Alonso Matrinez are already under the impression I am writing a novel of great skill and import. I wander in (having sussed out that Empujar means Push long ago) and order me usual roll de canela and tall mocha (having given up even trying to order anything else; I was tempted by the exciting vanilla cappuchino but staff seem to have unfairly and suspiciously decided that any change would mess with my mojo and have thus forbidden it) and sit down with glasses puched down my nose, silver earrings a-dangling and type away to the rhythm of "Puttin' on the Ritz"
There are quite a lot of helpful tips out there for aspiring wordsmiths. Of course quite a lot of them have to do with shameless self promotion and I find this concept appalling. It is here, in the room of my mind marked "Philosophical Struggles" in black type on the door's window, that I muse on the grim reality of making a living from writing. I imagine it sort of like a private eye's smoky base of operations....
"NO!" <Artistic Temperment knocks over a side table> "We cannot pedal our creativity like common whores!"
<Common Sense looks up> "It's this or become a lawyer. And you know what are marks are like, it'd be a one stop train to Shysterville"
<Id hiccups> Whiskeyville? By gods I wish we lived there...anyone for more wine?
<Ego grabs bottle> You've had enough...and artistic temperment has a point...shouldn't the writing speak for itself? Surely if it's good enough it'll reap it's own rewards."
<Greed is leaning against a wall, counting Euro notes> Spiritual rewards? Well I suppose we could pay the rent with that glowing feeling that we're doing what we love, but I like money better...
<Depression lounges in the shadows> Why bother with anything? Glory is fleeting, riches need keeping, it's rejection and heartbreak and fool's gold we're seeking.
<Optimism in the face of all the odds> Shut up you morose poetry hack! See here everyone, we'll give it a go; if it works it works and if it doesn't then...Id! How much wine do we have left?
<Id> Enough to start a party in everyone's circulatory systems!
<Optimism> Good anthropomorhism yourself! We'll become drunken lowlifes! It was good enough for Wilde, it'll be good enough for us!
Parts of psychology cheer and I myself drift back to listening to a law lecture wondering if at times I might cross that invisible line between eccentricity and insanity in my own head...
Anecdotes aside I am a firm believer in the idea that you can do whatever you want to do, Disney platitudes aside, it's just that you have to throw yourself into it hook, line and sinker. You can't sit typing a screenplay, chortling at your own wit and assuring yourself that some day you'll submit the thing to New Line Cinema and the money will roll in. This only works 0.5 times out of ten. You have to be out contacting editors, snapping up business cards, taking on part time jobs, writing articles and interest pieces and poems and submitting every damn day. Freelance internet, world's your oyster, and so on and so forth...
Sorry, I've just been distracted awfully...still sitting in Starbucks you see because it has gotten to that wonderful stage where I only have to act delightfully foreign and they give me more free wi-fi's. I wander up to the counter and proclaim;
"Ah, es wi-fi? Sí? Lo necesito lo, que ahora? Muy bien el...ah..seeeg-nal? Not even going to bother translating that effront to Spanish
"Fine, fine, fuck, here, just take it. Take it and stop butchering my language, you're making my ears bleed!"
Sorry, the surprise! There is a Spanish couple just across from me. They think they're shaded by the pillar. They're not. They are exchanging gifts. I don't know why. It's past Valentine's day and I know because I spent Valentines in an illegal Morrocan shisha den lamenting. He has just unwrapped a lovely looking watch. The surprise is that she has just unwrapped something lacy which looks like the equivalent of two sequins and a bootlace. I must admit I only caught a flash of this. She then shoved it back into the wrapping and is too much of a lady to storm out so they are finishing their coffee in silence. You're not getting any 'til Judgement Day, my son...
Ah, Spain the humour you provide and all I have to do is sit here and sip theatrically from an empty cup so they don't throw me out of a full-to-capacity Starbucks. But enough insight into my state of mind! I promise such flights of fancy will be gone with the wind next week when we will get back to our normal schedule of extracting the michael from the Iberian Peninsula and SEX! DRUGS! and ROCK AND ROLL!
Well, maybe less sex. And the closest I ever got to hard drugs was inhaling some sugar... And we have to have consideration for other people so we can't do rock and rolly things like throwing TV's out the window and playing loud uncouth music. But Spanish piss taking? Oh yes, oh yes indeedy...
xo
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