writing for austerity

Writers are in a good position to ride out a global economic downturn because we rarely get paid anyway. But we have to survive somehow, and most of us have some kind of independent income. My income is so fiercely independent that I never see it. I wish it well, wherever it is.

But while our choices as writers may be limited to not getting paid now or not getting paid later, and we can't make a living that way, we still need to ask ourselves some searching questions about writing in relation to the global economy:

• What is the writer's role in an economic crisis?
• Aren't we all, in a way, responsible?
• Or is that some kind of guilt trip?
• Yes, why do I always blame myself?
• Is it because of that thing with my mother?
• What makes you think that's any of your business?
• How about leaving my mother out of this?

Okay, calm down. Let's put a positive spin on this. Maybe our writing could benefit from a spirit of austerity. Let's face it, we've been profligate, like everyone else. We've recklessly depleted precious resources such as irony and metaphor. An insatiable demand for similes has driven writers to delve ever deeper for fresh comparisons, like desperate literary miners in a race to the center of the earth to claim the last remaining nugget of precious creative fuel. There is also a global punctuation crisis, with fierce battles for control of the Latin American exclamation trade, fueled by the wasteful habit of using exclamation marks at both ends of a sentence and the vast quantities of energy squandered by turning them upside down.

Yes, we are all guilty. Each of us must take responsibility, and write less. If we must write, we should practice severe austerity. We all know that economy is a supreme creative discipline. Ask Hemingway (in six words or less). Meanwhile, here are three simple tips to help you:

1. Never use two words when one word will suffice to express what you were originally going to use two words for.
2. Know what to leave out. For example, when sending work to an agent or producer, don't include a photograph of your genitals.
3. This tip has been cut in the interests of economy.

But we've been wasteful in other ways, too. I've already written about the internet being stuffed with writers writing advice to other writers about how they should write (click HERE for article). But the internet offers limitless opportunities for everyone to vent their opinions. In fact, it encourages people to have opinions they don't need, and didn't even know they held until someone else's opinion provoked them to come up with one. The internet itself is creating opinions, many of which are about itself, in a sterile frenzy of degenerate McLuhanesque masturbation. (Damn, this is good coffee. I'm on fire here.)

What usually happens is that you see something on the internet that pisses you off. You mould your inchoate feelings of resentment into a point of view, using as a template some other opinion you've absorbed, probably also from the internet. You plunder your own pain, rage and self-loathing to personalize it, then post it as a comment or response, making sure you express it with enough uncouth derision to goad whoever offered the first opinion into responding indignantly, which naturally outrages you and makes you reply even more aggressively. And so on, until you find yourself in a vicious personal argument with someone you've never met, over something you didn't even know you gave a fuck about until a nagging sense of entitlement, amplified by the ubiquity of every other asshole's opinion, and facilitated by a technology that provides both anonymity and a fatal opportunity to be offensive before you've thought about it, encouraged you to say something you'll regret for ever.

And there's no better example of this futile and degrading waste of words than a BLOG. But I've come up with a proposal that will help. Why should people have one blog all to themselves? In these troubled times we need to think ecologically. Here's what Im--

Yes, that's enough. We agreed I'd come in after the first paragraph. Sorry, allow me to introduce myself. I'm George, a political blogger, and what Paul was taking far too long to say is that we've entered into a blog-sharing agreement. However, Paul's vague commitment to "think ecologically" requires political contextualization in a notional space and--

GUYS! WHAT KIND OF REACTIONARY PATRIARCHAL HIERARCHY IS THIS? I'M THIRD IN LINE? AND LOOK AT THE WAY YOU'VE TURNED WHAT COULD BE A SYNERGETIC COLLABORATION INTO A DICK SWINGING CONTEST.

What the hell? Who is this?

Sorry, I was going to tell you. That's Jasmine, another blogger. She's coming in on the blog sharing deal, too.

YOU HAVEN'T TOLD HIM YET? TYPICAL.

I was just getting to it.

Wow. She seems a bit... no, never mind. That's fine.

WHAT IS THIS PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE BULLSHIT? COME ON, SAY WHAT YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT ME.

I was just taken by surprise, that's all. There's no ned to be so sensitive.

DON'T PATRONIZE ME! 

I wasn't. Honestly, I just...

You're lucky I didn't tell her what you said about women earlier.

What? I didn't say--

FUCK! I KNEW IT. OK, WHAT DID THIS PATHETIC DICKHEAD SAY ABOUT ME BEFORE I SHOWED UP?

I didn't say anything. But by being abusive you're only reinforcing an unfortunate stereotype of shrill, strident feminism that, in fact--

THAT'S IT! COME OUTSIDE. RIGHT NOW!

Calm down. I'm quite happy to discuss this rationally if you--

SHUT THE FUCK UP. OUT HERE, NOW!

Dude, you are in big trouble. She's a karate black belt.

You piece of shit, you set me up.

DO I HAVE TO DRAG YOU OUT?

Oh, God. OK, I'm coming. Please don't hurt me.

Goodbye, George.

Fuck you.

YES, FUCK YOU.

* * * * *

Okay, that didn't work too well. As soon as George used the word contextualization I knew he'd have to go. Sorry. I hope they both find other homes. I still think the principle is good, I just need to find people  to share this blog with who are more congenial to me. People who think more like me. I'll keep looking. Meanwhile I believe there are other areas that could benefit from the constructive sharing of resources. With this in mind I'm proposing a campaign I'm calling Creative Austerity, a series of ambitious public projects to encourage innovative economy. For example...

How about the 2012 London Olympic Games? The whole spectacle has become nothing but a gigantic multinational corporate branding opportunity which arouses justifiable hostility in many concerned, intelligent people. Okay, me and my friends. But even if you disagree with us, you can surely see that the games could be made to reflect the austerity that's affecting all of us, regardless of your political views and how ridiculous they may be. So, I propose saving valuable space, time and money by combining different sporting events. For example, why have separate arenas for cycling and water sports? Why not create new, combined events like Water Cycle Polo? The players could be mounted on specially adapted paddle boats, or pedalos. What a magnificent sight it would be, and what a noble contest. Here are some other combinations that would not only economize but also create exciting new events:

Equestrian Pole Vault

Synchronized Boxing.

Weightlifting Triple Jump

Javelin Hockey

Beach Volley Shot Put

Please feel free to join in by suggesting other combinations. Just leave a comment.

why I am a genius

As we all know, genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. And 1% willingness to disregard rules, especially rules about percentages.

plus 1% persistence.

plus 1% even more persistence.

plus a further 1% of not knowing when to stop.

plus 1% just persisting now to annoy people.

But it's worth thinking about what the word genius means because most people misuse it. By most people, of course, I mean you. Have you referred to someone as a genius recently? Maybe someone you saw on YouTube doing something, like, totally awesome. Or maybe one of these people:

Einstein
Lady Gaga
The guy who invented that thing
Stephen Hawking
Mark Zuckerberg
That comedian, you know: total comedy genius
Tiger Woods
The guy who invented that other thing
Mozart. Or that hot chick who plays classical violin.

The word genius has become meaningless. I've been to the Genius Bar in an Apple store and I'm pretty sure those people aren't actual geniuses, they just know a lot more about computers than me. But so do most people, and it's no excuse to neglect your personal hygiene. Maybe we should go back to the earlier meaning of the word and talk about someone having a genius for doing something, rather than being a genius. For example, if I told you Mike Tyson was a genius you might disagree with me. Unless I'd brought him along and he was standing right next to me staring at your ear. But if I said that Mike Tyson has a genius for brutally battering his opponents to a bloody pulp you'd probably agree with me even if he wasn't there.

Or you might say to me, "Hey, Aaron Sorkin's a terrific screenwriter, isn't he? Great dialogue, what a genius." In which case I'd have to point out two errors you're making there. Firstly, what you really mean is that Aaron Sorkin has a genius for writing dialogue. And secondly, he doesn't. Aaron Sorkin's dialogue always sounds like what it is: dialogue rather than real speech. It's glib. That's just my opinion, of course. Which is one of the problems of applying the concept of genius to artistic or cultural activity rather than scientific discovery or technological innovation. Who knows who's any good? Some people don't even think Shakespeare was a genius. And some people acknowledge his genius but don't really like all his work, and find themselves sitting through a mediocre production of one of the so-called comedies simply to get into the pants of the person they're on a date with and then finding out, after it worked, that she didn't particularly like Shakespeare's comedies either but didn't want to say so.

Recently Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article in The New Yorker about creativity (click here for summary). It was mostly about new technology, and one of Gladwell's points was that for every breakthrough idea there are dozens that don't make it, for a variety of reasons, and the most successful inventors and innovators are the most prolific ones who keep coming up with ideas until one of them works. To test this theory here's a list of inventions I came up with in the last 24 hours:

Unsweetened sugar
Oven hat
Humane mousepad
Sofa-bath (for very small flats)
Solar powered night vision goggles
Edible bicycle
Scrotum varnish
Musical cat litter
Scented emails
Raisin tidy.

I feel at least one of these has a future, maybe the sofa-bath. I'm not sure what a raisin tidy is; it was on the list by my bedside in the morning after a dream in which giant raisins rolled around my kitchen floor while I had an erotic encounter with a policewoman.

Genius brain

So, the argument is pretty solid for science and technology, but Gladwell's article then goes on to use the example of Mick Jagger writing lyrics quickly and prolifically, and quotes Keith Richards who declares, in his autobiography, "Sometimes you'd wonder how to turn the fucking tap off." But is Mick Jagger a rock lyric writer of genius? In fact is anyone a genius when it comes to writing rock lyrics? Maybe you don't want a genius to write great rock lyrics. Maybe you need Ozzy Osbourne. It's all about the form.

Your brain

Which brings us back to Aaron Sorkin. There is a place for an extensive discussion about literature in general, but not here. I have to go out later and I'm not about to leave you here by yourself. I have a lot of food in the fridge. So let's focus on the specific craft of screenwriting. Can a screenwriter be a genius? The idea sounds like an oxymoron: if they're so smart why did they embark on a career of voluntary penury, humiliation and frustration in the first place? And screenwriting is meant to be collaborative: everyone gets a chance to fuck your script up. But if you're a genius you work alone and obsessively for years on something nobody else believes in. Then, when it finally gets ruined or ripped off by other people you have the satisfaction of knowing it's all your own work.

But let's not forget the extraordinary case of Joe Eszterhas. In the 1980s Eszterhas wrote films like Flashdance and Jagged Edge. Then, in 1992, he was paid three million dollars, up front, to write Basic Instinct. It was hailed as the dawn of a glorious new era in which writers would finally get the money, respect and power they deserve. But it was all an illusion, largely fueled, like so much in Hollywood at that time, by gigantic egos and mountains of cocaine, which are often closely interconnected. But I still think Joe Eszterhas was a genius, just not as a writer: his next film was Showgirls. No, he was a genius inventor. He came up with an idea that nobody had thought of before: the highly paid, powerful screenwriter. It didn't last long but it was his best creative work by far.

So, do you want to be a genius? I propose a distinction that will let you know if you qualify. Just answer the following question:

Do you invent things or do you make stuff up?


If you say you invent things I want to see the lab coat. At the very least I expect you to be a geeky type, borderline sociopathic, working in a garage or your parents' basement, trying to figure out a completely new way to make or do something. If you're that type, there's a chance you could be a genius. You might come up with a revolutionary idea that has a tangible result in the real world. If, on the other hand, you sit at home and make stuff up, you're a writer. Everything you do takes place in the imagination: yours and that of your audience. And you can't be a genius.

Wait, what gives me the right to make this kind of ridiculous pronouncement? And surely it's a reactionary statement, now that the artificial distinctions between science and the humanities, that didn't really exist before the 17th century, are being eroded by new developments like string theory that require a certain metaphysical sensibility to be wholly understood? Yeah, but bollocks to that. I just don't think the word genius should be bandied about by people who don't know what they're talking about, which is most people. I can't prove that, but I don't care. However, if you want to disprove it, go ahead, genius.

the writer's voice and how to shut it up

As a writer I am passionate about the following subjects:

Food hygiene.

Mid range family cars.

Duodenal ulcer medication.

Well, I've written training, promotional or information films about those subjects, and I did the best work I could on them, and we all know that writers have to be passionate to do their best work, so I must have been passionate. I was definitely passionate about getting paid for them. At other times in my career I have also been passionate about many other subjects, including:

Airline customer relations.

Surgical gowns.

Conflict resolution for nightclub staff.

The history of the London Science Museum.

Some of those scripts were pretty good. The food hygiene film became part of a national training process. But is it enough to be passionate about how bacteria get into the food chain when someone doesn't wash their hands between taking a dump and making your sandwich? As a writer you must also WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW and only do so when you have FOUND YOUR VOICE.

I assume we've all got over the Write What You Know thing. Countless people have pointed out that many great writers have no first hand knowledge of what they write about. And in the digital age everybody knows everything anyway. Research is no big deal.

Research = Google.

In-depth research = Lunch with someone who knows their stuff.

High Grade Classified Inside Intelligence = Paying for the lunch.

The author, in an early attempt to discover the subtle cadences of his own quietly distinctive voice.

Of course, knowledge isn't the same as wisdom. Any time you suspect we're all going to hell in a handcart you'll probably find a knowledgeable fuckwit directing the traffic. However, the cart is always pulled by an ignorant nincompoop, and a bit of information might at least help them see what a rotten job it is. But for writers, once we've acquired all the information we need to write about a transexual neurosurgeon who uses quantum mechanics to travel back in time and foil a plot to destabilize the 17th century Flemish potato market, the next step is to FIND YOUR VOICE.

The writer's voice I like best is the one I can't hear. By that I mean the one I can't hear drawing attention to itself. I'm not suggesting that writers shouldn't have a... what's the word? Style! That's it. In fact, let's stop talking about writers having a voice, and think about style. Ah, that's better. Now we can talk about good style and bad style, and the difference between style and content, instead of wondering if the writer has a distinctive voice, and whether it's an authentic voice or one he picked up in a creative writing class, which is where this stuff about voices came from in the first place. Yep, style is what we called it back in the good old days. Back when all this was open prairie, pardner, and a writer could ride tall with his trusty Remington typewriter on his saddle and spy nary a soul all day. A voice? Hell, in them days voices was fer highfalutin greenhorns and dancin' teachers and sitch like, and a real writer wouldn't say a single damn word out loud from one year to the next, 'ceptin mebbe to cuss a little under his breath at some inconvenience like his leg droppin off or his wife gettin ett by a bear. Yes, siree. Ptooeee. Oops, missed the dang spittoon agin. Hope them fancy suede shoes can be cleaned, my friend.

A REAL WRITER

Sorry about that, I'll turn the TV off. I was watching the news while I was writing and then there was an old episode of Bonanza. Let's get back to style.

What's your writing style? Are you trying to develop one? Really? Why? I mean it. Why do you want a style? Is it a way of making your writing distinctive or is it a way of telling your story? I believe that good style is about doing the job and bad style is about itself. The best writers use style to do something more than let you know what great stylists they are. They let you figure out what great stylists they are by working so hard to make what they write seem natural that you don't think of them having a style. You just hear their voice. Which is, finally, what you end up with after you've written and written and written some more and then, when you want to say something, you sit down to work yet again and there is simply no other way to write.

Some people claim that a writing style can be identified scientifically like a unique literary fingerprint. These people are often trying to prove that Shakespeare was written by someone else. Maybe the fact that none of them can agree on who, exactly, means that the methodology is truly scientific. In science if everyone agrees with each other they must all be wrong, but if everyone disagrees then at least one person must be right.

Meanwhile the rest of us can dream that we'll eventually write something so good that one day intelligent people will spend time trying to prove that someone else wrote it. All we can do is keep writing, and make sure we do our best work on everything we write, whether it's a food hygiene training video, a novel, a feature film, or a blog. That's as much as I know about how to develop a distinctive writing style. But I'm pretty sure that if it ever stops being hard work, that's when you've lost your voice.

So when you've found your voice, shut up about it.

how to have someone else's idea

If you tell a Hollywood film producer you've got an original idea they usually ask what it's based on. If you say you made it up, because making things up is what writers do, they laugh, narrow their eyes, and surreptitiously text their assistant, asking them to find out what writers really do. If you persist in pitching your original idea they press the button under the desk that tips you into the tank of starving piranhas, and snigger as they stroke a fluffy white cat with a diamond collar.

But wait. We're being unfair. Put yourself in the producer's shoes for a moment. Nice, aren't they? Italian. Hand made. And as a producer facing a writer across your desk, here's what you're thinking:

1. If your original idea is so great how come nobody thought of it before?

2. I bet someone has thought of it before. There are no original ideas.

3. I wish this idiot would shut up. Is that stupid little beard meant to look cool? What an idiot. Why hasn't my secretary buzzed me to pretend I have an important call, like I asked her to, so I can get rid of this idiot. What's he talking about now? Jesus, character arcs. I should never take meetings with writers. Writers. I forget, what exactly do they do again?

It doesn't matter if you don't agree that there are no original ideas. Someone paying for your script is also paying you to agree with them. You can make a film the way you want with your own money, and then you can argue with the producer by shouting at the mirror. But you'll only scare mainstream money away by claiming to be original. The real trick is to say that you're going to do something that's like something that's been done before and then do something different. You just need to reassure them by using ingredients that look familiar. Choose one from each of the following categories.

PROTAGONIST
Boy wizard, Teenage vampire, Brooding superhero, Robot, Toy, Cop with a drink problem, Crusading journalist with a broken marriage, Eccentric family with a cute kid, Sassy newcomer with an attitude, Feisty woman on a life-affirming journey of self-discovery, Wronged warrior on a rampage of slaughter.

ANTAGONIST
Bad wizard, Bad vampire, Bad superhero, Bad robot, Bad toy, Serial killer, Evil tycoon, Corrupt politician, Fashion magazine editor, Master criminal played by respected British actor with an unexpectedly large tax bill to pay.

THE GOAL
Save the world, Make the kid happy, Kill the villain, Serve justice, Serve dinner, Expose evil, Get married, Get published, Get rich, Get home, Get laid... mmm... cigarette?

THE OBSTACLE
Greed, Power, Corruption, Protagonist's inner flaw, Kryptonite, Lack of time, Lack of money, Lack of Julia Roberts, Irascible police lieutenant, Devious best friend, Bad breath, heart-rending moral dilemma, Bubonic plague, Death.

Don't forget to choose a genre. To help you, here's a guide:

SCI-FI:  In a distant galaxy, far away, everything explodes.

ACTION: Your mission, should you accept it, is to explode.

KIDS:  Everything explodes but no one gets killed.

ROMANCE:  Two people, an explosion of love.

COMEDY:  Whatever you do, don't touch th-- (BOOM!)

Okay, now just write the script you wanted to write in the first place. They'll never suspect it's original. There's only one danger. The idea you've come up with to make your original idea look familiar may actually be more fun than the original idea. The story with the vampire cop and the beautiful librarian who becomes an assassin to pay for her blind daughter's hospital bills could be pretty entertaining. Maybe you should actually get into that as a genre potboiler and make money so that you can take some time to write that original idea about the dying geography teacher who dreams of chess games. Hmm. That idea seems kind of boring now, though. Maybe it could use a little action. What if the chess pieces were these, like, really cool helicopter gunships, flown by wrongly convicted special forces dudes on death row as part of some kind of gladiator fight-to-the-death type deal? And one of them is this beautiful but deadly female special forces chick and she has a blind daughter? That could work. And it's original, in a way. If there is such a thing as an original idea. Which there isn't.

funny and not so funny (update)

It's funny if a well dressed, dignified man slips on a banana skin. It's not so funny if a tramp does it. But what if the rich guy fractures his skull, gets brain damage and becomes a vegetable? Is that funny? Depends on the vegetable. A cucumber is funnier than a potato but a potato is funnier than a mushroom. Comedy is in the detail. It's funny if your kid has an imaginary friend, but not so funny if your heart surgeon has one. In the following examples one is funny and one is not so funny. Use your skill and judgment to tell which is which.


CLOWNS

1. A clown in a circus.     

2. A clown outside your bedroom window at 4AM.


FINANCE
1. Bungling, inept bank robbers getting themselves caught.
2. Bungling, inept bankers getting themselves huge bonuses.


CARS
1. No sooner do you wash your car than a bird defecates on it.
2. No sooner do you wash your car than a neighbour defecates on it.

TECHNOLOGY

1. The novelty ring tone on your phone.

2. The novelty ring tone on anyone else's phone.

YOUR MOTHER

1. You discover that your mother once wrote fan letters to Michael Jackson.

2. You discover that your mother still writes fan letters to Michael Jackson.

VOICES

1. The goofy voices a guy in your office does.

2. The goofy voices a guy in your head does.

CLUMSY IDIOTS

1. A clumsy magician.

2. A clumsy gynecologist.

CRAZY DAMES

1. Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy.

2. Sarah Palin in the White House.


POULTRY
1. A headless chicken runs around a farmyard.
2. A headless chicken runs around your kitchen.

SCIENCE

1. An absent-minded professor gets his experiments mixed up.

2. An absent-minded pharmacist gets your prescription mixed up.

DOGS

1. A dog chases its tail.

2. A dog chases its tail, catches it and eats it. 


TV (1)
1. Out-takes and bloopers from TV shows.
2. Out-takes and bloopers from TV shows repeated endlessly on TV shows about out-takes and bloopers from TV shows, on TV, all the time.


AT THE ZOO
1. A monkey in the zoo masturbating.
2. A monk in the zoo masturbating. 


TV (2)
1. You start laughing at a character in a TV show.
2. A character in a TV show starts laughing at you.


FLATULENCE

1. At a funeral the priest farts.

2. At a funeral the corpse farts.

BABIES

1. A tiny baby sneezes and looks surprised.

2. A tiny baby sneezes, looks surprised and curses, invoking Satan.

OBESITY

1. A very fat man gets stuck in the doorway of a fancy restaurant.

2. A very fat man gets stuck in the doorway of a burning restaurant.

AIRCRAFT

1. The person next to you on a plane laughs while reading a book.

2. The person next to you on a plane laughs while reading the safety instructions.

HANGOVERS

1. You wake up and can't remember where you left your car.

2. You wake up and can't remember where you left your kids.

TRAINS

1. A priest runs for a train, his suitcase flies open and female underwear falls out.

2. A priest runs for a train, his suitcase flies open and female body parts fall out.

HEALTH

1. A doctor tells a patient, "I have bad news and good news. The bad news is that you have a week to live. The good news is  that I finally screwed the receptionist last night!"

2. The patient is you.

           

I'll update these periodically. Come up with your own examples. Comments welcome.

failure is the new success

The world is suffocating in an avalanche of self-help books that promise to reveal the secrets of success, and every day more of them appear. Clearly, none of them work. If any of them did, there would be no need for all the others. There would be one book, and we'd all be happy. And so would millions of trees.

The internet is also choked with recipes for success, and writers get more offers of help than any other group except people who might be interested in enlarging their penis. But while gurus who promise literary enhancement offer only advice on how to do it yourself, at least the charlatans of genital transformation have the decency to send you tangible products like pills, creams and contraptions, even if they're ineffective and dangerous, rather than simply give you advice on how to pull your own plonker. Either way, none of it works. But why should it? Writers have no business with success. Face it: our trade is failure.

Writing is a lonely, obsessive craft, unless you're doing it wrong. But writers are especially vulnerable to the mirages of self-help, mainly because we have time on our hands, and finding ways to waste it is an essential part of being a writer. These days you hear a lot about the work/life balance, whatever that is. I suspect it's another formula that encourages people, especially writers, to become less interesting. With this in mind, here is an illustration of my own current work/life balance:

And now that writers are all in the business of giving each other advice, here's mine:

NEVER GIVE UP YOUR BAD HABITS.
YOU'LL BE JUST THE SAME BUT YOU'LL HAVE NOTHING TO BLAME IT ON.

Writers are meant to fuck up and suffer so the rest of us don't have to. Even if a writer has achieved success, happiness and wisdom they should keep quiet about it. What we want from writers isn't wisdom, we want art that shines an unexpected light on life and illuminates the road to our own wisdom. Give us lurid descriptions of the journey, not serene dispatches from the destination. Send us the news from hell, not the view from paradise.

I'm not talking about the "courage to fail" which is just bullshit about success disguised as heroic martyrdom. I'm talking about the courage to be a really bad writer. The sheer stupidity and ignorance required to write something truly awful. So that you can experience abject failure and humiliation, which just might make you a better writer. But don't count on it. However, failure doesn't happen often enough, and that's partly because of all the tips, steps and secrets about writing that we keep giving each other, and which, if applied diligently, can drag most of us from the swamp of inanity up to the foothills of mediocrity and dump us there, blinking in the feeble light of mere competence.

The problem is that we're being enabled to bypass the salutary experience of failure. There's a lot to learn from having your manuscript, book, script or film roundly rejected by readers, publishers, producers, critics and public, or have your play laughed off the stage. At the very least it might teach some would-be writers to give up. I know I'm not meant to say that kind of thing in this age of self-belief, and following your dream, and growth and actualization. But let's face it, some people are just not very good at writing. So, let's thin out the field, especially as it's now so overcrowded not just with writers writing whatever they're trying to write but also writers writing about how other writers should write whatever they're trying to write. So stop it.

Please, stop helping each other. Enough with the tips, and secrets and steps. And especially the lists of Rules for Writers. There is only one rule on that list:

STOP WRITING LISTS OF WRITING RULES AND GET BACK TO WORK.

And now I'll have to face the unwelcome prospect of taking my own advice.

political comedy: year of the ostrich?

With the UK facing a year in which education, jobs and the health service are all under attack while the government encourages greedy tax-evaders to laugh as they piss all over the rest of us, plus the prospect of a royal wedding (Jesus, I've got millions of parasites living in my large intestine but I don't throw a national celebration just because two of them might reproduce) here's a little quiz about political comedy.

The best answers to the following questions will win a prize which will be either a mention in my next blog, or a guided tour of Britain's historic Royal Mint affording a rare glimpse behind the scenes and a chance to take home a souvenir ingot of solid gold worth at least a thousand pounds. Ok, here they are:

1. Can you name three comedians under 40 who are currently using comedy to challenge perceptions with the intention of promoting an agenda of comprehensive social and political change?

2. Do you really believe that bit about a gold ingot?

3. What if that last question was a trick, and if you say "no" you lose the chance to win the ingot? And what if this is also a trick question?

4. Can we stop the Jesuitical metaphysics and get on with the quiz, please?

5. Okay. Can you name three comedians over 40 who are still doing political comedy with the same commitment they displayed when they first began performing?

6. What do you like most about neoliberal economic policies being imposed on third world countries, and, purely coincidentally, what makes you most uncomfortable about oppression, torture, famine and dictatorship?

8. How do you rate Nick Clegg's integrity on a scale of one to motherfucker?

9. What is too good for the bankers whose selfishness and incompetence caused the financial crisis that totally screwed the world yet who still imagine they deserve to be obscenely rich?
a) decent human society
b) hanging
c) underwear.

10. Will you forgive Ben Elton the cultural atrocities he's committed in the form of the musicals We Will Rock You and Love Never Dies, and the books which make you want to tear out your own tongue in shame because it formed words in the same language that he desecrates so horribly, for the simple reason that once, long ago, he stood up and did unashamedly political comedy, even though it wasn't very funny?

All right, that's enough. At a time when inequality and injustice are increasing, reactionaries of every type are on the rise and the planet faces environmental disaster caused by greed, here's the only question I really want to ask: is political comedy dead? Or has it just been very busy for a while, doing a series of corporate gigs to make some money now that it's got a family and a mortgage?

Maybe political comedy never makes a difference. Did "Alternative Comedy" bring down Thatcher? Not from where most people are sitting. Maybe art and entertainment can never cause political change. But in a recent interview (The Guardian, Saturday 1st January) here's the musician Billy Bragg describing how and why he became involved in Rock Against Racism: "But it wasn't the Clash that changed my world. It was the audience. In the office I was working in at the time, there was a lot of casual racism. I didn't like it, but I wasn't big enough to say anything. But then I went along to Victoria Park in Hackney one afternoon, and there were 100,000 kids there who felt exactly like me. So I went back to work on Monday morning, and I knew I wasn't alone. My world hadn't changed, but my perception of it had. And that's the role of a musician."

Even if the only thing that political comedy can achieve is to challenge perceptions, and provide a comic expression of opposition to the political status quo, that's better than burying your head in the sand. (Actually, whoever first proposed burying your head in the sand as a strategy for ignoring something unpleasant obviously never tried it. They probably just saw an ostrich doing it and didn't think it through. Or maybe they saw the ostrich doing it and wrote it down just before being killed by whatever the ostrich was ignoring, leaving behind a mangled corpse and a misleading tip in a battered notebook.)

Anyhow, soon there will be another series of demonstrations by students, all over Britain, against education funding cuts. And when those students get home after the next big demo, and they switch on the TV, or go out for some entertainment, will they find the voices that echo their own, that tell them they're not alone, that help to channel their anger at injustice into political expressions and movements? Not unless there are some comedians out there who aren't embarrassed to have political beliefs and to use comedy to express them. Have we given up on the idea that comedy has a place in the front line of the battles that are currently being fought to determine what kind of world we're going to live in? It would be a pity if a whole generation grows up without realizing that the revolution can be funny.

NOTE: About those prizes. If you feel like leaving a comment, and it makes a point (I'm not asking you to agree with anything) then I'll draw attention to it. As it happens I have some names in mind for the answers to questions 1 and 5, and I'd be interested to see if anyone comes up with any, and if they're the same. But I was lying about the Royal Mint. However, if you do ever happen to find yourself inside that venerable institution, please burn the fucking place down.

tales from the fridge - season's eatings

A Happy Christmas to all our readers.

Christmas comes but once a year too often

Imagine a scientist telling you about an experiment he's planning. He will select a group of people who have nothing in common except being related by blood or marriage, place them in a confined space, feed them massive amounts of sugar, protein and alcohol, expose them to a nonstop barrage of degraded, overfamiliar entertainment, turn the heating up, and see who cracks first. You'd call that cruel and inhuman. And yet that what's many of us volunteer for, every year.

Why do we do it? Why do we succumb to the seasonal plague of sadomasochistic insanity that we call Christmas? Simple. It's because we get sentimental.

Sentimentality is a form of emotional totalitarianism. The greatest tyrants are invariably sentimental. Hitler, drooling over his unpleasant dog and slapping his lederhosen to the martial rhythm of sanctimonious Teutonic folk songs; Mao Zedong, spellbound by the shrill pieties of the Chinese Opera, many of whose plots feature children who love their parents so much that it nearly breaks their stout little hearts to denounce them to the secret police; Stalin, wiping away an avuncular tear as he pats the heads of Young Pioneers, many of whose murders he will authorize a few years later without a blink. And what could be more sentimental than the crazed bucolic vision that inspired Pol Pot and his regime to commit genocide?

I blame Charles Dickens. At least, in part. Which is a pity because I love Dickens and nearly all his work. I even love some of his writing about Christmas. For many years I would read The Pickwick Papers every December, contriving to arrive on Christmas day at the sublime passages depicting Christmas at Mr Wardle's farm. But Dickens ruined it all with A Christmas Carol. I may be unusual in that I interpret the story as a tragedy. The hero, Scrooge, an admirably clear-sighted realist, undergoes a ghastly conversion and is reduced to driveling imbecility simply because he's informed, by a trio of unconvincing holograms, of something that a noble pragmatist like him would surely understand better than most people. Namely, that he will meet the fate that awaits us all. He will die and no one will care very much.

This Christmas the media will begin supplying us with a ceaseless and indiscriminate supply of Dickens, that will continue well beyond the point of overdose on Dickens's 200th birthday, February 7th, because a bunch of people in the media have decided that this anniversary is an excuse to declare 2012 the 'Year of Dickens,' and to do even less original thinking than usual, for at least twelve months. And amid all this, we're going to be seeing far too much of A Christmas Carol. We'll also read, hear and see a lot of crap about Dickens, mostly from people who don't really care about his writing, but have a lot to say about what his writing means. People will say all kinds of stupid stuff. Things like, "Of course, if Dickens were alive today, he'd probably be writing television drama or even soaps." I don't think so. If Dickens were alive today he'd probably be selling small, very expensive bottles of whatever it is that's kept him alive for two hundred years. But who am I to complain? All I can do is advise you to read Bleak House, if you only read one book by Dickens, but to read everything he ever wrote if you have a chance. Yes, even A Christmas Carol, because a second rate book by Dickens is better than a first rate one by nearly any other writer. "God bless us, one and all!" in the words of Tiny Tim, the rotten little creep.

Meanwhile, I'm with Scrooge, before he became a pussy, and I leave you with the thought that Christmas comes but every fucking year.

christmas shoplifting tips

DISCLAIMER. Shoplifting is a crime. Of course, some people think that turning our streets into homogeneous cultural wastelands and driving small, independent stores out of business is a crime, and that shoplifting from big corporate retailers is a natural response to their greed, vandalism, and the rank sludge of stultifying mediocrity they dump all over our lives. But I wouldn't know about that. 

So, in a spirit of happy festive innocence, here are some Christmas shoplifting tips:

When using the "pregnancy" technique to conceal a frozen turkey, think: underwear.

Train a gang of impoverished, slum-dwelling urchins to steal name-brand clothing. That's how most of it is manufactured, after all.

In a trendy modern art gallery, tell the owner you're performing an ironic, conceptual piece called "Taking a Picture."

Wear a bear costume to steal from bookstores. Bears can't read, so no one will suspect you.

In a store with a lot of security cameras? Steal a couple. they make fun, original gifts.

Train a small dog to leap up and swallow the Rolex watch you've asked to inspect, and run off. Then ask whose dog it was. (Then go home, let the dog in, and wait for time to pass.)

Carry an old suitcase. It's an ideal place to hide a slightly smaller, new suitcase.

Don't try to conceal a Christmas tree about your person. Ask to "see it in the light" then run away with it.

Take clothes into a changing cubicle. Remove the monkey hidden in your backpack, put the clothes in the backpack, give it to the monkey - and he runs out. (Remember to give the monkey his cut.)

Men. In a jewelry store ask a female assistant to model a gold ring for you. Then propose to her and ask her to pay for it.

In a bookstore pose as a top author. Pretend to find typos in a copy of "your" book. Demand all copies and say you're taking them "to be pulped." (This works best if you pretend to be Jonathan Franzen.)

OR: periodically visit a series of bookstores. Steal a book one page at a time.

Wear a Carmen Miranda style hat decorated with fake fruit to a fruit shop. Surreptitiously replace the fake fruit with real fruit. (NB: only works if you can find very cheap fake fruit.)

Cushions make a thoughtful gift. In a furniture store, casually sit on a chair with a display cushion. Little do they know: you are wearing the classic "false-bottomed bottom" which can also accommodate towels and small ornaments.

The women who serve at make-up and perfume counters are, in fact, thickly-painted ceramic shells with tiny, blind old women inside. Help yourself.

Finally, one very important general tip:

To remain inconspicuous as Christmas approaches, ensure you are increasingly drunk while shoplifting.

deadline fever - read this by yesterday

Ask the average writer how they feel about deadlines.  Remember not to use the phrase "average writer" to their face, by the way. But suggest that they jot down some thoughts on the subject. Maybe a thousand words. By tomorrow.

WRITER: "Tomorrow is tricky. It's my mother's funeral, I'm moving house, and my divorce is being finalized.

YOU: "I'll pay you."

WRITER: "What time tomorrow?"

However, not all writers are motivated by money. Of those who aren't, some are even allowed out into the community, under supervision. But the amazing truth is that nearly all writers can be motivated by a deadline even if there's very little money involved. Or even no money at all. This is one of the secrets imparted in an occult midnight ceremony to producers and commissioning editors, after which they cease to cast a shadow. Because while money talks, a deadline yells. A deadline is the most powerful incentive you can use to get a writer off the internet and down to work.

Scientists have confirmed this phenomenon by replicating a writer's normal environment in sterile laboratory conditions (for reasons of hygiene). A deadline is applied. The effects are dramatic and often defy the laws of physics. A recumbent or even comatose writer is galvanized into a frenzy of manic activity, the envy of hardened speed freaks, like the Tasmanian Devil in the cartoons you see regularly if you watch a lot of daytime television. So I'm told.

But how can a simple deadline create such amazing results? The classic deadline is composed of two main ingredients: Stress and Time. Stress is a volatile substance. Correctly applied it can stimulate energy, enhance performance and provide extra pep, zest, zing, zip, vigor, vim and other names for potent household detergents. But too much of it can create the opposite effect, paralyzing the writer in the headlights of the oncoming deadline: literary roadkill waiting to happen. To experience complete absence of stress means you're dead; to experience too much just makes you wish you were.

In scientific terms stress is the product of two or more opposing forces. For writers these forces may be, on the one hand, the need to think about getting up and doing some work, and, on the other, the desire to stay in bed and think about who to leave out of the list of people you're going to thank in your acceptance speech for the award for the script you haven't written yet.

Which brings us to the second ingredient: Time. We all understand now that time is flexible. In fact, we don't understand it but we've got that Stephen Hawking book somewhere, so that'll do. And for writers time slows down when you're waiting to hear from people who might commission your work, and speeds up once you find out when they want the first draft.

But what if nobody has been intelligent enough to commission you to write something, and you don't have a deadline? Easy. You're a writer: make it up. It's not so hard if you remind yourself of one simple truth: 

WE ARE ALL ON A DEADLINE FROM GOD. Yes, our mortal span is limited. The script of our life must be delivered to the Great Executive one day - maybe soon. For some, the deadline looms close, while others believe they still have plenty of time, the deluded fools. Shit, this depressing. Why did I start on this elaborate metaphor in the first place? Or is it an analogy? Let's have a drink.

That's better. Okay, let's forget about the clock of life ticking away and focus on what you can do today. Your big advantage as a writer is that you're an imaginative type. So, go ahead, imagine a deadline.

Let's say you're writing a screenplay. First, imagine a producer. The producer you visualize should be a cross between Harvey Weinstein and Jabba the Hutt. Wait, it's quite possible that Harvey Weinstein is Jabba the Hutt. But you get the picture. Next, imagine a meeting where you pitch your idea successfully. Imagine a contract, and sign it. Imagine getting your first draft commencement fee, and go out and spend it. Now imagine you finish the first draft in three weeks. Well done. Imagine getting paid your fee for first draft delivery, and spend it while waiting for the producer's notes before you collect your next fee, for first draft revisions. You may as well spend that as well, while you're waiting. Imagine a call from the producer. They're firing you and hiring another imaginary writer. What? But you've already spent all that money! They can't do that, can they? Of course they can. You should have looked more closely at that imaginary contract you signed.

Having established that writers will work tirelessly to meet deadlines for little or no money, the big question remains: why? The answer is simple. It makes us feel needed. We feel special: someone wants us, urgently, for our unique gifts. They must love us. It's pathetic, really. But it works. I myself am writing these very words against a tight deadline, and not only am I not getting paid, I invented the deadline myself. I convinced myself that you've been waiting desperately to read this. Oh, God, is that the time? I'm two minute away from the deadline I set myself. I need to come up with a good ending for this. I know. It was all a dream. No, wait. As you read these words you realize that you've been dead all this time! And that bit at the beginning, about a funeral - that was actually YOUR funeral. Hahaha. And now nobody can see you and you discover you're really Bruce Willis. All right, it's a bit lame, but I'm on a deadline here. Give me a break. Or give me more time. Yes, that's it. I'll finish it tomorrow. I promise.

Some of the above first appeared on www.twelvepoint.com (formerly Scriptwriter magazine)

"Chilling" - Tales from the Fridge: 9 & 10

We've all been there. The morning after a party you wake up in unfamiliar surroundings and strange company. But at least you can leave, once you've collected your clothes and a few functional brain cells. How much worse to wake up in a fridge! Come to think of it, I seem to remember I did once wake up in a fridge. Someone had told me that ice was a good cure for the nosebleed I was having so I'd put my head in the freezer compartment and then fallen asleep. Happy days.

"Chilling" - Tales from the Fridge: 3 & 4

In these two episodes, after love's young dream has been cruelly shattered, our hero begins to contemplate those profound question that we all ask: How did we get here? How do we get back? Are we getting paid for this? Perhaps he must also consider the bigger, universal enigmas: What is eternity and how long does it last? If the Night has a Thousand Eyes, how many noses does it have? Don't worry, these philosophical conundrums will be followed by some stunning dramatic sequences and kinky vegetable-on-vegetable action in the next episode. Possibly.