What Am I Even Doing?

by Doubty McDoubtface

NEWS:

1. Received my first payment from the ALCS this week. This, along with the PLR, is one of two bodies that remunerates authors for their work being in libraries. It may not have been a fortune, but it felt great. If you’re an author, sign up, register those books and articles, it’s worth it.

2. There will be no London launch event for Parallels. With It’s Hard to Tell You This out in September, two for the same author felt a bit much in one year, and the way Deixis’ slate fell, it makes more sense to have one later to support IHtTYT.

3. Applying for two more residencies this week. Again, odds are low, but not as low as if I didn’t apply, eh?

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ON WRITING:

I’m turning fifty this year¹. While it’s not prompted the sort of existential crisis I faced when I turned thirty, it is the sort of arbitrary milestone that gets one thinking.

I found out this week that I’ve been unsuccessful in keeping one of my two part-time jobs, so another redundancy looms ever larger. It’s not a done deal yet, there are redeployment opportunities, but it’s a whole level of faff I can’t be doing with. We’ll be fine. I’ve still got some income, the wife’s doing well and it’s not like we’ve got kids, so there are plenty folks worse off than us. But it does make me wonder if all this is worth it.

I’m not at the sad-on-a-beach stage yet, mind.

Not that the writing is about the money, of course it’s not. But as George Bailey reminds us, it comes in pretty handy down here, bub. It’s not as if I’m in it for the green, but while there’s bills to pay, it does start to feel like a frivolous use of time in the face of shouldering my share of the domestic burden.

Doubts always circulate, of course, about the quality of work you’re putting out there. While I’m rarely in the place of thinking “Ugh, this is awful” about my own work these days, it’s fair to say that I still wonder at times if it’s as good as I think it is. One of the biggest benefits of being traditionally published is that you don’t have to rely on your own assessment. If your publisher is willing to put it out there, they must believe in it. That voice is always there though, in the back of the head…

Then there’s the state of the world. As America slides into Fascism and our own Labour Government betray their roots by seeking to raise money by cutting the benefits of the poorest of society while ignoring opportunities to tax the richest, not to mention their continuation of the Tories’ work on suppressing protest, is writing my stories the best use of my time? This is before we even mention the ongoing climate catastrophe.

Is there, then, a future for me as a writer? It’s a question I come back to again and again. In the short term, we have three books on their way - Parallels and It’s Hard to Tell You This from Deixis Press, in May and September respectively, as well as a sixth Ray Adams book in the final stages of editing. That will take my total of books up to ten, which seems quite good going for around five years of work. Maybe there is a tipping point in terms of when the work starts to justify itself financially, if not going so far as to actually support me. Maybe I do have the talent needed to reach that point. Maybe the Arts is the tool for me to do my bit in making the world a better place. And maybe this is all just a mini-midlife-crisis, or perhaps just this week’s helping of self-doubt.

Whatever, it’s worth remembering that, wherever you are in your writer’s journey, or whatever path you’re on, the doubts don’t stop coming. Which sounds gloomy, but the flipside of that is that just because you’re feeling the doubts, doesn’t mean you’re not making progress.

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I have enjoyed:

1. Grable, Bacall & Monroe - Marilyn Monroe is such an icon, such a visual image, it’s easy sometimes to overlook the fact that she was a genuinely talented actor. I watched her recently in How to Marry a Millionaire and while she didn’t quite steal the show - this is very much Bacall’s movie - she more than holds her own and displays a fine comic touch in her portrayal of the extremely short-sighted Pola Debevoise, one of a trio of young women on a mission to land themselves rich husbands. Bacall is the star, though, with a particularly touching relationship with the great William Powell as J.D. Hanley, a would-be suitor. It’s a fine film, with lots going for it. Old Hollywood charm by the bucket.

   

   “Look here, I can see better than you can, and I’ve only got one eye.”

2. I Love Trouble - This 1948 noir has a relatively low-key cast which, as one reviewer on Letterboxd points out, is an asset in that you never know who’s going to be crucial to the plot and who isn’t. Nothing spoils a whodunnit like star billing going to a seemingly minor role. Franchot Tone is Stuart Bailey, the private investigator here, hired to spy on the wife of a wealthy politician. In trying to unravel her past, Bailey gets tied up in a plot so tangled I won’t try to explain it here. Suffice to say, Tone is perfect as the wisecracking detective, the script is sassy, the direction sharp, and the camera can barely turn around without focusing on a swell dame. Good stuff.

   

   “I’m sorry, I have no more idea what’s going on than you do.”

3. Towards Zero - Response to the recent BBC adaptation has been mixed, I understand, but we really enjoyed it. Fair to say I can’t see it launching the careers of Oliver Jackson-Cohen or Ella Lily Hyland, who both look slightly out-of-sorts in their roles as Neville and Audrey Strange, but I found Matthew Rhys’ turn as tortured Inspector Leach revelatory for an actor I’d not thought much of before. His is such a strong performance that it gives the whole thing an extra layer of gravitas. My biggest issue is how easily the guilty party rolled over from “You have no proof!” to “All right, I did it.” Folded like a five pound note…

   

   “There’s just one more thing…”

4. What We Do In the Shadows - Season five is on the BBC and I couldn’t be happier.

   

   “He's my best friend, he's my pal, he's my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy.”

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Greyskin (Deixis Press) and Playtime’s Over (Propolis) are both available direct from their respective publishers, as well as from all the usual places, online and off. You can pre-order either of my upcoming titles from Deixis Press. Ray Adams’ self-published books are available online.

This newsletter is currently free but obviously takes time to produce. If you’d like to support an indie author still finding his way, I have a Buy Me a Coffee account. Your call.

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I also review books on my website, most of which are available through my affiliate book shop on uk.bookshop.org - it’s a great alternative to certain online leviathans owned by Trump-supporting billionaires, and supports independent bookshops. Affiliates also get a % of books sold through them, so go have a look.

1. I know, I don’t look it.