One of the most dispiriting aspects of being a failed writer and blogger is seeing stuff from other people who, in your opinion, are famous writers not for their ability to write but through their fame. I am not oblivious to the likelihood that the reason I lose money writing is because my content isn’t good enough or, looking more optimistically, the type of stuff folk want to read. And because I write about a wide variety of subjects rather than specialising in topics that might interest people who like specific content. In my case, endless content about railway tunnels and Steely Dan really won’t cut it. But I know the real reason for my frustration: it’s jealousy.
Yesterday when I was wanging on about my dead mother, Adrian Chiles was writing this for The Guardian. Now I am not, by nature, a Chiles hater. He’s a decent, likeable and generally honest kind of fella with a touch of everyman authenticity about him. And clearly his media career has developed because he has more than a sliver of talent. But honestly, that piece about being abused by a bunch of twats, was it really worthy of publication in an albeit low circulation national newspaper? It was hardly Christopher Hitchens, was it, or Marina Hyde. It was, at best, a semi-humorous “wouldn’t it be great if it happened – oh, it did” type story but if Chiles’ partner was not Katharine Viner who just happened to be editor in chief at…er…The Guardian, I can’t help wondering whether it would have made it to publication. Still, it did and that’s the way of the world.
I am competing, or rather not competing, with a number of serious writers, like Spice Girl Geri Haliwell, who can’t actually sing, the former topless model Katie Price and Paris Fury who signed a lucrative book deal by dint of being married to Tyson Fury. Now I am not entirely stupid (honest!), and I can see how people mighty be more attracted to finding out how people became famous despite having virtually no talent simply because they have become famous. More than that, the world of writing, as with so much else in this broken and divided country, could not be further away from being a meritocracy. It’s who you know, what you know and often how much money you’ve got. Add all that to the simple fact that over 68 million Brits are unfamiliar with my work and you have a recipe for failure, which is the one thing I’m good at.
Trust me, I am very aware that far more talented writers and artists than me have never made it. I know some of them and in my opinion, whatever that’s worth, their talents dwarf those who make a killing by way of the famous for being famous circuit. Friends of mine have created brilliant novels, poetry, music, sketches and so on and have, at best, been forced to self-publish to a very limited audience. It seems so unfair, but then, as they say, life is unfair and there’s next to bugger all you can do about it, other than to plough along that endless furrow.
My next book is taking longer than expected to write, never mind complete. It’s coming, though, and the one certainty is it will be every bit as successful as my blog, which is to say not very. I’m not giving up though although I can confirm that the literary version of banging one’s head against the wall is probably not the most sensible journey to take.
