The Kowloon Diaries

It's done

Nine envelopes, each containing the first forty pages of my novel (I know you're supposed to send three chapters, but my early chapters are so short that that wouldn't be appropriate) have been sent to nine agents in the UK.

I wish I could summon up some excitement but I can't because I don’t know if it's any good. I've spent so much time on it I've lost the ability to see it objectively. I'm just hoping that someone seeing it for the first time will find it fresh and interesting.

So I don't feel great, but not so bad either. I haven't won the lottery, on the other hand a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. For some reason I felt I had to write a Hong Kong Novel, maybe just to put my experiences down on paper and get closure on this crazy adventure I’ve been living for the past sixteen years. Now that I've done that it's like I’m free to write whatever I want. I've been going through old ideas, other half begun manuscripts and abandoned short stories that could have been longer, and I have a great idea for a new novel. Best not say anything here though, not until I'm sure it's a keeper.

Where Snakes In the Grass Are Absolutely Free

We're in the country, well right on the edge of a highland town and only a few steps from the countryside proper, and S is making me jog every morning for miles along dirt tracks and past farms and fields. It's fresh and cold and it feels like we're the only people in the world. Clearly I've been living too long in the city, and it was driving me nuts. With too many people around you feel like you're constantly in competition with everyone else (or at least I do). Here I'm much more relaxed. We should spend more time here, we keep saying to each other.

The Forbidden Question

I always buy the New Scientist on long train journeys. The July 26 issue has a feature titled: 'Seven Reasons Why People Hate Reason.' AC Grayling introduces it by discussing the 18th Century Enlightenment, then there are short essays by various other thinkers. The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says that we must pause before assuming that reason is the answer to everything, including how to shape a moral world. The most interesting article for me is 'No one really uses reason,' by Neuroscientist Chris Frith. He says that conscious reasoning is an attempt to justify a decision after it's made. Given our lack of access to brain processes involved in making decisions our justifications are often spurious post-hoc rationalisations or confabulations. This seems correct to me. I'm always suspicious of people who have too well thought out explanations for their actions. I think mostly we're all flying on autopilot. Frith has a book out called 'Making Up the Mind,' which I'll look out for. Also interesting is an essay by Sociologist David Miller who attacks the PR and lobbying industries for subverting reason for their own commercial purposes, eg the tobacco industry delayed action on the harm of tobacco for years with pseudosicence. Coca Cola manipulated the WHO for years by covertly funding scientists who were setting standards for food and water. Miller also has a book out: 'A Century of Spin: How public relations became the cutting edge of corporate power.' Apparently Al Gore takes a similar line in 'Assault on Reason.' Artist Keith Tyson says that reason excludes creativity and intuition. Roger Penrose says that reasons destroys itself and in 1931 Godel showed that if you have any set of trustable rules that are computationally checkable then statements exist that you have to accept as well, according to the rules, but that you cannot arrive at by means of those rules. Interesting, but I've already attempted to read Penrose's books and failed so I won't go further than this. Bioethist Tom Shakespeare says that ultilitarianism excludes what makes life worth living: happiness, fulfilment and positive living. He also says that Spinoza may hold answers because he rejected mind/body dualism. There are also articles by Noam Chomsky and Mary Midgley. On the way to the buffet car to buy some crisps I noticed two other people reading the article.

On Writing by Stephen King

Possibly the best writing manual I've ever read (and I've read a lot) because it sounds like it's been written by someone who actually knows what writing a novel is like, ie 'crossing the Atlantic in a bathtub'. All his doubts and mistakes are in here, and tons of advice. His basic idea is that novels are out there like fossils waiting to be discovered. You as the writer must chip away at them until they are revealed. I liked this and all his advice. I just wish that I liked his books better. Mind you I've only read Carrie and the Rats, and he says that he doesn't like Carrie and he didn't mention the Rats at all. I may have to read some more of his work. It may be better than I thought.

Buzzword rocks

Working in cybercafes much of the time, as I do, I have a problem keeping all my files together, as most cafes don't let you save files and most don't have wordprocessors. I realized some time ago that an online word processor was what I needed and I tried severa: Think, Zoho, Google Documents. They were all useless, full of bugs and kept crashing and making me lose half my work. But now I've found Buzzword and it's the biz - easy to use, looks cool, and, unlike the others, it works all the time.

Snip, snip, snip

Finally I've finished the first draft. I printed out the whole thing yesterday and then sat down in Starbucks to read it from beginning to end. My conclusion: it's not terrible, the basic story and style are ok, but there are too many lumpy bits in it. It works when I stick to direct speech and direct action. Almost all of the narration, editorialising and description is boring, so I'm going to cut it. This is hard, but not as bad as the old days when I used to slash and burn twenty or thirty thousand words at a time. On the plus side, the dialogue is strong, in fact the funniest parts are the conversations, so I'm going to expand these. There's still a long way to go. I could probably use another year on this, but I can't wait that long. There will be one more edit and then it's off to the jury.

Three To See The King by Magnus Mills

Pure genius and it was so close to home I'm sure he wrote it just for me. It's about a man who lives in a desert in a house of tin because he wants to get away from the world and listen to the rain hammering on his rooftop. This and that happens, and it turns into a cautionary tale about leadership. You have a vision and you build it on your own at first, then people join you and it's great for a while, but the more successful you get, the more people join, and they all make demands on you, and eventually they get pissed at you because you're not fulfilling all their dreams the way you were supposed to. And you think, bugger it, I'll go back to working on my own.

Questions for God

SF writer Thomas M Disch committed suicide on July 4, but I only found out today. They seem to have stopped posts on his blogbut here's a link back to one of his best columns, Advice from On High

Midnight's Children wins the Best of the Booker

It's a great book, but come on, it already won the Booker of Bookers, there are other good books out there too.

Bummer

I'm back from the abyss because I've just learnt that the world is going to end on 21st December 2012. It appears that the poles are changing places, massive volcanoes are about to erupt, the sun has turned to mayonnaise, the environment has been destroyed, we've got enough nuclear weapons to blow ourselves up and enough idiots to push the button, and the Mayans predicted this ages ago. I'd like to dismiss it as another kooky theory, but when you consider the evidence it seems reasonable enough. So, four and a half more years.