Planning

Today I was going to talk about planning. I’ve just sold an article on it, the basic premise being that we can avoid all sorts of problems with a little planning.

How about a live example? Book wise I was planning to write 3000 words today, put the finishing touches to a feature on shopping in Bangkok (don’t), and slip in a Blog entry.

Then, last night I got a phone call from my Libyan paymasters asking me to bring forward a training day originally planned for tomorrow, to today. So today has been a frustrating training day (frustrating because it has been more disjointed than a magicians assistant).

In fact, its been so bad that I still have to do the training tomorrow. I’m meeting my drunken sot of an editor on Friday and therefore, despite extensive planning, I won’t get anything I’ve planned done. Unless I think laterally.

Which is why you're getting an excerpt from my book. It will probably be nothing like this in the finished format, but it does mean I can tick “Blog entry” off my list of things to do:

Peeking inside the cabin I find a woman divesting herself of a very large purple rucksack. She is tall and gangly with a cropped haircut so short it looks prickly. When she turns I notice her small piggish eyes that are dark brown, almost black. She has the sort of expression you’d find on a Llama that’s just realised what a vet has to do to check for a breached birth. Her mauve leggings look thicker than chain mail. I immediately assume she prefers the company of her own sex and is a vegan.

‘Hello,’ I say placing my bag on the seat opposite her.

‘Women don’t share with men,’ she says without looking at me directly, which is difficult in such a small space. She’s either English or very good at impressions. I apologise and go back to check with the carriage attendant, or Provodnitsa as I must get used to calling her.

‘Excuse me, there is a vegan in berth twenty two, she says they don’t share,’ I say.

She looks me up and down in the same way a coffin maker might and shoos me away, rattling off some Russian that sounds to my untrained ear like ‘fuck off you soft westerner, can’t you see I’m busy standing here doing nothing.’ I thank her with all my heart for her unstinting dedication to customer service, which may have sounded to her untrained ear as ‘fuck off yourself you cabbage eating dwarf.’ I traipse back to my cabin sharer. Perhaps if I promise to castrate myself she might trust me not to find her irresistible.

When I get back I find my bags outside the door, which is now shut. I’m just about to tell her, through the gap at the bottom of the door, that I’d find an alligator in suspenders more sexually alluring when I realise the cabin houses berths twenty and twenty one. Twenty two is next door. I pick up my bags and shuffle along to it.

 

Oh yes, that’s the other thing about planning – making it up as you go along is sometimes the only option…

Never go back to school

On Tuesday morning I whizzed through France, hammered my way across Spain, spun round and bolted through Germany, only to find myself back in Spain. I did this without leaving the country.

How? I was in a language lab, in a very prestigious girls school in north London, that’s how.

And boy do they work fast – 35-minute lessons delivered at break-neck speed by teachers who can carry on 7 conversations simultaneously without exploding.

And like policemen, they seem to be getting younger. The German teacher was about 12.

I went to the staff room at mid morning break expecting tranquillity, but in fact, it was just as manic as class. I don’t think these teachers have a slow speed. I think they go full pelt, then, at the end of term, go blank, like computers being logged off.

The purpose of my visit was to see how the language lab that I’m helping to introduce to Libya works in a real environment. Not that schools are real environments. If you looked at one under a microscope, you’d see the friendly bacteria in Yakult. At end of class they swarm out of the classrooms and the corridors become the narrow streets of Pamplona.

In addition to all my educational endeavours I picked up some more writing commissions. I’m not complaining, it’s just my schedule is tighter than a tight thing with tight things on. Sadly, the editors’ deadlines are even tighter. But there is a golden rule in freelance writing; never turn a commission down. I haven’t

Two of the commissions have been lengthy, around 2000 words. That won’t mean much to you, and why should it. It’s about the size of three double decker buses… no its not. It’s about 3 to 5 pages in a magazine, depending on how they lay it out, and what photos they incorporate.

Two other commissions were from in-flight magazines so you won’t see them unless you’re flying over Asia in January. The other two, also come out in January, but are published here in the UK, and if you feel the urge you can buy them and have a read. Look out for Sweet magazine (no, its not about sweets) and Real Travel. WH Smith’s are your best bet.

The only reason I’m telling you all this is to prepare you for the bad news on the book front. I’ve only managed about 2000 words this week. OK, they’re all top of the range, Rolls Royce, solid gold words, but its a measly return. My target is nearer 10,000.

Still, the social scene in Libya is, shall we say, limited, so I hope to get back on track while I’m away. Then again, I’ve also pre-sold a feature on Tripoli, and another magazine is thinking about a proposal I sent on Benghazi…

Writing - who needs it?

I haven’t been too productive on the book front since my last entry. It’s hovering at about 24,000 words, which is behind my schedule. The trouble is paid work keeps getting in the way.

That’s not to say I don’t expect to earn anything from my book. The time between my actually doing the trip and the book being available will easily be 6 or 7 months. In between the book earns me nothing at all. And that in a nutshell is the problem with books. OK, if I was Bill Bryson I’d get a whopping great advance and could concentrate on it full time, but I don’t have that luxury. Anyway I can’t grow a bushy beard or speak in a credible American accent.

If I write a feature I generally get paid immediately its published.

I suggested recently that taking a blank page and turning it into a piece of writing is great fun and immensely rewarding (although rarely in the financial sense). Turning it into something that another person enjoys reading is even more satisfying. All this is true, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Making a living from it is even harder. Or so the story goes.

But here’s a thing. The UK sells more magazines, newspapers, and periodicals, per head of population, than any other country in the world. If you want the latest news on narrow gauge railways, a better understanding of Llama breeding, or how to make scale models of tall ships out of matchsticks, you’ll find a magazine that will help you. If you’ve got a job, there will be a magazine that is the ‘voice’ of your industry. If you don’t have a job, you’ll find a magazine explaining how to get one.

Then think about the last piece of junk mail that fell on your mat. Did it have any words on it? Picked up a brochure recently? Read a website? Looked at a poster? Listened to a jingle? Watched a TV show? Nicked any training course material lately?

Now think back to the last visit you made to a bookshop? OK, 50% will be by that bloke who writes about Botswana’s No 1 Lady’s Detective Agency (he must produce a book a week), but that still leaves a lot.

And the common denominator is; someone had to write all the words.

But, and here’s the catch, writing doesn’t actually start with a blank page and a few jumbled sentences tumbling around your head. It starts with an idea. And, in the case of magazines and newspapers, it’s the idea you have to sell to an editor to get a commission. That’s assuming he’s prepared to read your proposal, hasn’t printed something similar recently, or doesn’t steal your idea and write it in house.

And just recently my ideas have been hitting the mark and I’m getting more commissions.

So you see, writing is getting in the way of my writing.

Also I’ve run into another problem. My 24,000 words have only got me as far as leaving Moscow. At this rate my book will be 150,000 words long. Most travel books are between 75,000 and 100,000.

Never mind. I’ve employed the services of a drunken editor (see previous Blog) who goes by the name of “slasher.” I’m confident he will knock my family of words into shape.

But at what cost?

I mean, I’ve written over 3000 words on the bathroom facilities available to me on the train to Moscow. I think people need to be made aware of the dangers of having a dump into a toilet that delivers a 100mph updraft. He may suggest I concentrate on the view from the window.

And soon I will be describing the antics of a freelance toilet attendant in China. And then there’s the gobbing restaurant. He might suggest my planned 200 words on the Great Wall might need expanding at their expense.

I can see some flashpoints, especially as he thinks diplomacy is the method by which you obtain a diploma, and tact something you hammer into wood. But nothing will happen until I finish writing the damned thing, and I’ve already wasted 700 words on this.

Told you writing has a habit of getting in the way of writing didn’t I?

Never trust a journalist...

You may be wondering why a diabetic like myself is tapping out his Blog entry this morning while munching his way through a packet of Jaffa Cakes. Well, I’ll tell you. It’s all to do with my School Careers Officer.

I only saw him once, but in that short fifteen-minute interview he planted a seed that’s grown into a lifelong vocation.

            ‘Ah, Millard, Millard, Millard,’ he needlessly repeated while shuffling through my paperwork. Then, peering over his glasses he motioned me to sit.

            ‘What do you want to do when you leave school?’

            ‘No idea Sir.’

‘What’s your best subject?’ He looked at his paperwork again and added ‘In your opinion.’

            ‘English Sir.’

            ‘Mmmm, you’re a gregarious sort Millard, and maths is actually your best subject. I suggest a career in the licence trade,’ he then dismissed me with a leaflet.

After reading said leaflet I realised he meant a publican. And to be fair it’s a career I’ve followed with much interest for many years. But only from the other side of the bar…

As careers officers go mine was a good geography teacher. In fact that’s exactly what he was, my geography teacher, and he was wrong about the maths. My English results were always strongest, for which I have to thank Mr Mason, my English teacher.

He would spend complete terms on one subject. Once we spent a whole year on précis. Ironically, he enunciated many thousands of words on the subject of brevity but I loved all of them. The idea of taking a two hundred word paragraph and shrinking it to one hundred, without losing the original meaning was, in my view, literary alchemy.

And it’s never left me. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessive about it, but why use ten words when five will do? Even as I write that last sentence I find myself checking it to see if I can shrink it. Maybe I could drop the ‘about it’ bit?

Nowadays, thanks in no short measure to Mr Mason, I earn a chunk of my living from writing down words in ways that makes them, hopefully, entertaining and easy for people to read. It’s wonderful. You can’t beat taking a blank page and turning it to something else. It’s like a carpenter making a piece of furniture from a chunky piece of wood, or a jeweller fashioning a necklace. I often spend hours every day writing. I hardly know where the time goes. It can be very absorbing.

Take my book, for example. I’m now the proud father to twenty thousand words and the family is growing by at least a thousand a day. Like all parents I want what’s best for my words. When they leave me to venture out into the big wide world I want them to be productive, yes, but most of all I want them to be happy. After all, happy words are entertaining words.

But giving birth to, and raising words can be a lonely occupation. To counteract the loneliness it’s often helpful to speak to someone you can bounce ideas off and get feedback from. Which is why, from time to time, I rely on a trusted source whose opinions are insightful and always welcome. He’s an ex journalist, editor, and erstwhile writer of some repute, and he too has a deep interest in the career path of publicans.

I met him yesterday and set about explaining I have twenty thousand words that are bursting to entertain. As always he offered me his undivided attention whilst simultaneously drinking, smoking and eating.

            ‘The thing is Dave; I get side tracked by the minutiae of life, which I find immensely interesting. But I’m not sure my readership will.’

            ‘Drink? He replied

            ‘Yes, and what about the tense, will the first person present give the book more immediacy?

            ‘Another?’

            ‘I like some of the passages, they make me laugh when I read them back, that’s a good sign isn’t it?

            ‘Shall we go on to wine, all this beers making me gassy.’

            ‘Also what do you think to my marketing plan?’

            ‘This wine’s good, I’ve ordered another bottle?’

And so it was that lunch turned into the 20.12 from Waterloo. We may have had some substantive conversations, I vaguely remember his promise to edit my book, and help me with promotion, but it’s hard to tell, because, this morning my brain cells are too busy dying. Some of them are very important and I can’t afford to lose them. For example, the cells responsible for spelling enebriated have gone.

So you see, I can lay the blame for my sugary indulgence squarely at the feet of my Careers Officer, possibly aided and abetted by my English teacher. Which, when you think about it, just about takes the biscuit…

Good ideas

A light went in my car last week. I know this because it told me so. No, it didn’t actually speak, it flashed up a warning light on the dashboard. The first thing I thought was how ironic it was to use a flashing light to tell me one of my lights wasn’t working. My second thought was, what if the flashing warning light stopped working? How would my car communicate that defect?

In my book garages fall into the same category as accountants and pickpockets, in that they speak a different language, and you generally feel, in coming into contact with them, that you’ve been robbed.

I once had a garage customer service representative give me all this spiel, that, frankly I had no interest in, on how Nissan had kicked themselves in the teeth by designing their cars so that things like light bulb replacements was easy for owners do themselves.

            ‘The thing is, we can’t really charge for this service, and anyway, its so easy to replace them,’ he said before disappearing into the workshop for an hour, and only then replacing it with the help of a fully qualified mechanic.

            So it was with my usual sense of foreboding that I took my VW in to have the light replaced. I sat like an expectant father in the waiting room while the operation took place and read a month old local paper, a magazine on boating, and Heat magazine. Apparently that woman who does the Iceland advert doesn’t have falsies at all.

Twenty minutes later a solemn looking customer service assistant ushered me to sit in front of him and told me he’d just printed out my bill. £6! I had to ask him to repeat it. It took every ounce of self control not to kiss him.

So you see it doesn’t pay to take a stereotypical view. Which is what I did when presented with a contract to sign for the job in Libya.

I don’t like contracts, even the name sounds uncomfortable. And they are always full of such odd English, the type you often her policemen using when being interviewed on the telly.

‘I was travelling in a northerly direction, and had cause to find suspicious a motor vehicle of a commercial variety, travelling at a speed excessive for the prevailing conditions, and in contravention of the roads traffic act of 1977, page 11, paragraph six, subsection, open bracket, A, close brackets. Upon stopping the vehicle I had reason to note the smell of alcohol emanating from the drivers facial orifice…’

When he could have just said ‘I stopped someone for speeding and suspicion of drink driving.’

So you see, contracts don’t actually contract things - they elongate them. Perhaps they should be called elongates?

I’ve found writing a book presents similar problems. The biggest being what to leave out. I find some of the most trivial things interesting, but I realise that not everyone else will. The issue of what to leave in and what to omit is vexing me, but I think I have a solution.

Travel Anecdotal X Factor. Or TAXFact for short. The premise is outrageously simple. When I’ve finished my first draft I’m going to make all the anecdotes compete with each until only one is left in. I know what you’re thinking; this might make for a short book. But think how good that one anecdote will be.

I mean, look at what the X Factor has produced. There’s wotsit, that fella with the chin, and the twat who answers its “Chico Time,” every time you ask him a question. And that black bin man who got ‘nil point’ at the Eurovision. I can’t lose with a formula like that.

And where did I get this fantastic idea? A light bulb went off in my head…