Sunday 17 April 2011

Nurse! The screens! Catherine Johnson

Do you have any dead books in a drawer? Ones you love but couldn't finish? Ones you finished but no one else loved?
Last month I put a would-be book to bed, on the equivalent of a long term life support system. It's not dead exactly, although I think it would need some huge electric jolt to make it work, and after eighteen months of hard work, involving plenty of thinking and not thinking, I'm calling it a day.
That brings my 'almost' collection of novels that never made it to three and a half. Let me talk you through some of them.
The first story I never finished was my difficult second book. I had written the first couple of chapters, 15k of lovely (I thought) words, it was set in a seaside town I think, but I can't for the
life of me remember the characters names. I had left the small film company I worked for they presented me with a computer, my first Apple. I typed in 15k words, pressed a button and put the whole thing into alphabetical order. It looked like this;

A A A A an an an an an and and and and and at at ( you get the idea).

I couldn't work out how to put it back. It remains, of course, my great lost masterpiece.

The second story featured my first ever male protagonist, I thought it was fab; Josh is gorgeous, just finished his GCSEs, when his Mum dies of MS. His estranged Dad turns to help him sort out the funeral and finds Josh in bed with his Mums' beautiful Slovakian carer (she is 22). Dad is a self centred film director with a new wife, who uproots Josh to London and then everything changes.
It was obviously not as fab as I thought....

The one I've just settled down in intensive care was historical and based on a true story. I think that was my mistake. The true story was so mad, whatever I made up around it couldn't compete. I finished it twice, thousands and thousands of poor, wasted, early nineteenth century, words. That's a lot of empire line frocks, believe.

I suppose I should be more mad or sad. How many people would do all that work for nothing? But the reason I'm not, is I have started on something new. I've got that new story, everything is right in the world, and even though you just made a creme caramel that didn't set, who cares feeling...

This one is the one. Oh yes.
Until it isn't. Or until the next one, whichever is sooner....

15 comments:

Keren David said...

I want to read the Josh one right now please.

Katherine Langrish said...

OMG - what a terrible thing to happen (the alphabetical order thing) - a curse to beat the Dolorous Word!

Feel for you - even it WAS an 'early work'! But yes, I have a number of such works. Every now and then one of them twitches and stirs in its long sleep, but it always turns out to be better to tiptoe away and switch off the lights.

Neil said...

Hi

I know the feeling.

My baby has just turned into the village idiot rather than the star I was hoping for.

I still hold a faint hope of making it work, but I suspect it will also be one for the drawer...

Lynda Waterhouse said...

I called them my suspended animation stories. Sometimes chopped up bits of them appear in other stories, sometimes an electic current of a new idea surges through them and I become a frantic Mrs Frankenstein.
Catherine - why don't you exhibit your second novel in Tate Modern?

Penny Dolan said...

All good wishes to you and the new book, Catherine. Hope you both have exciting adventures!

I definitely heard some desolate rumblings from deep within my computer as I read your tales of loss and woe.

Maybe a couple of my aged m/s would be worth looking at again. However, I'm not sure the machine could now read the old codes. Should we be glad we have the technically locked desk drawer to protect our lost or hidden dreams?

Nicky said...

OH the alphabet story is horrific! I'm sorry you're ditching the Princess - maybe it will resolve itself one day?
I have three sad unsold novels and two novellas. I've not given up hope on one of the novels but the rest are right offs. ' Learning experiences.' Maybe.

Stroppy Author said...

'How many people would do all that work for nothing?' Ah, but you didn't; that work got you to the place where this new idea comes in, and all writing is useful exercise, stretching the writing muscles. I'd like to see that alphabetic non-novel, too - Tate is a great idea! Wishing you much happiness with your new story.

Catherine Johnson said...

Thanks for all good wishes, here's to everyones projects turning out brilliant!
And thanks for the vote of confidence Keren, I should Kindle it....

michelle lovric said...

It is wonderful that you've turned the corner emotionally and you're charged up about the new project.

Obviously you had to mourn first.

Noel Coward, on reading an aspiring novelist's work, told her to bury it in a drawer with a lily on top.

Sarah Taylor-Fergusson said...

Love the idea of the alphabetical one! (I do sometimes read the OED.) Was in the Apple store in Cardiff, looking at the Air Mac thingy. Asked an Apple geek lots of geeky editing on-screen Track Changes questions. Am sure they'd be able to tell you how to undo it in a flash. But would you return to it if you could?

Catherine Johnson said...

It was a very old Apple! And I don't think I would go back now, I've forgotten all about those people, whoever they were, xc

Linda Strachan said...

Oh the one that got away!
Why is it the words we delete by accident, without a copy - or like yours, Catherine, reorganised into gibberish will always seem so much better in memory than they possibly would be, if they got a second chance?

I doubt if you would find any writer who does not have something left in the cupboard, that, as Katherine said, is probably better left there!

Wishing you joy with the new exciting idea, such a great stage - isn't it!

Andrew Strong said...

The accidental alphabetical one sounds like a piece of fine oulipo, the sort of thing I buy to think about rather than read (like 'The Interrogative Mood'). I have at least ten finished and unpublished books sitting on my hard drive (and backed up countless times elsewhere). They are all deranged masterpieces, naturally.

catdownunder said...

Ow! As someone currently having computer problems I sympathise. I have done back ups on disc but I am still wondering whether I should be environmentally irresponsible and print vast quantities as hard copy.

madwippitt said...

The lost alphabetical apple - the event, rather than the story - sounds like it could turn into a brilliant short story though ...