This is, of course, where I retrospect, elegantly, no doubt while clad in satin pyjamas and sipping espresso from a Wedgewood coffee cup.
I won’t disillusion you, the reality is far too squalid for a sunlit New Year’s morning. Let’s just say, Rita Hayworth does not belong in the same sentence as Vicks.
And I do not know what to say about 2006. The year I became, finally, so cynical and fed up I found myself merely going ‘huh,’ at the News, rather than breaking into my usual ten minute full-volume rant on the personal integrity and intelligence of the smug politician leaning back in the chair and circumlocuting the question. Though I did have a highly therapeutic and energising shout at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s New Year’s Message yesterday morning, spineless platitudinising disappointment that he is. So perhaps 2007 will be the Year of Passionate Re-Engagement [Ooh, yes, watch Reed bore entire pubfuls of the politically apathetic into going out and voting just to get her to Shut. Up. - Ed].
I had tried to keep this blog ‘pure’ ['monotone'] by trying to stick to the subject of all that is writery and leave my political views out of it. You know, so as not to annoy anyone or find my comments full of people I really rather liked telling me what a raving asswipe I am. [You big jessie]. I have also utterly failed to do any of that book reviewing I kept muttering about, for much the same reason. I think my need to be liked is turning me into a giant rice pudding.
NaNoWriMo rather rubbed my face in that. I didn’t have time to run through my usual mental check-list of ‘is this too smug? Too culture-vulture? Too prim? Nobody’s going to like the female lead except me, are they?’ I did find the male lead unbelievably tedious. I couldn’t work out why. I ran out of time to work out why and had to keep going. He became increasingly interesting to me. Good, thought I. I wonder why? And then, over Christmas, the dispiriting truth dawned. He had been so insufferably blank because I had carefully amputated any character trait I thought The Readers wouldn’t like [And who the hell are you going to show this novel to, if not A Reader? Market realism, my petal]. Being me, I am not talking of the usual unpleasant traits detectives are supposed to suffer from, such as alcoholism, world-weary foul temper, a tendency to live on takeaway and be vile to their side-kick, insubordination, un-PC language and attitudes, border-line personality disorders, and being nevertheless devastatingly attractive to posh bints. Oh no. My ‘tec was shy, quiet, bookish, good with children, somewhat depressed and lacking in self-esteem, and rather sly and secretive. He can also cook, and eats salad. So of course, I was trying to make him more ’sexy’, more obviously troubled and angry when he is naturally sulky, more ‘me against the world’ when actually he quite likes his bosses, more rock’n'roll’n'whiskey when really, truly, he’s quite keen on Science Fiction and mocha lattes. He is genuinely nice and diffident, and the story arises out of the moral problem of being nice and diffident when faced with a story of two generations of illicit passion and thirty-five years of repressed rage, anxst and lust. In rushing to the finish, I just had to let him read Lord Dunsany and eat chocolate and quote from The Screwtape Letters.
[Is this not getting a little long-winded?]
So, the point is, this point that I am finally, digressively, getting about to making, is, err, if you lot don’t mind, of course, and it’s not too much trouble, my New Year’s Resolution could be to just expand the remit of this blog a little, and, maybe, opinionate a tad. And should any of you lot disagree with me, rejoice and vociferate, for there shall be Thinking, and possibly even a Changing of Minds. And less rice-pudding and tepid fretting about just how very cute I am, or am not, or could be, or would be, or should be.
