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I have found that a really good time for me to work on my book is when in a car being driven to London and back. A lot of people find it hard to write in a moving vehicle - and it did make me feel a bit sick on the way home - but as long as it’s not a driver who makes me bounce back and forth in the back seat (I am looking at you, Addison Lee speed freaks) then I can do pretty well. I made some great progress a few weeks ago when I was going into town for a Heresy recording and again wrote some great stuff today heading to Kennington for a talking head show about Billy Connolly. I guess being stuck in one place for 90 minutes plus and not being able to walk away from the seat is the key. Obviously I am still connected to the internet with all its distractions and can just play games on my phone, but I seem to be able to manage to avoid that and get on with things. Would it be too expensive to book a taxi to drive me around all day, only letting me out at pre agreed times to eat and go to the toilet? I guess if I could write enough then it would become cost effective, though maybe not so good for the environment.
I think I might be one good day of work away from finishing (or four good days if I am not being driven in a car) and the book is really coming on in this edit. My editor tuned me into certain words that I overuse. I think I mentioned this before - one of them was “felt”, but there was also a side note about overuse of the word “just”. I spent my return journey searching for that word and indeed, it did come up a lot. Sometimes three or four times on a page. I managed to take out about 75% of them. On my final sweep I will tackle sentences starting with and, so or but and also short sentences that can flow into long ones. But first I have to just finish off a few of the interchapter bits. And just make them more interesting. So that is what I will do.
It’s a terrible thing to be presented with your writing flaws. Equally I want it to sound like me. Every single note I have had is spot on and correct, which isn’t something I can say very often (though in my experience book editors are very good and really know what they are doing- it’s a real skill).
I don’t do many talking head shows, either because I don’t feel I know enough about the subject or suspect that it’s going to be one of those ones where some Z list celebs (how come I am on that list. I am Y list at worst) just say what has just happened in the clip or something equally inane or (and this is crucial) the money is so bad that it doesn’t make the time taken worthwhile. Today’s show seemed to beat all those problems. I love Billy Connolly (though there’s a lot of his stuff that I haven’t seen) and I felt I had stuff to say about him. I think he’s the greatest live stand up I’ve ever seen and he has an incredible brain which will always something original and wonderful even in slightly hack subjects like plane travel or poo (though I think he might have been the first to do material like this and so it’s others who have made it hack). So a real pleasure to spend the morning watching him at work and then an hour analysing what made him so good. He is probably top of my list for the RHLSTP guest that I have not yet had on, but it seems very unlikely that that will happen now.
I also finished off watching the Jimmy Savile Netflix documentary today. It’s maybe a bit slight, but it’s a fascinating subject - how did he get away with it for so long, whilst leaving so many clues and continually joking about his case coming up next Thursday. The documentary manages to make you question just how deep all of this went, without overtly saying it, by showing Savile with all the powerful people who was friends with, but also choosing clips that often include other now disgraced or crazy personalities. There’s him on breakfast TV with Frank Bough and David Icke, examples of celebs whose private life didn’t match up with their public image or who show how the power of fame can push you towards self-belief verging on insanity. Obviously the documentary focuses on the creepier moments where Savile’s mask slipped, but how was it not noticed at the time. Savile and Gary Glitter basically salivating over and dividing up the young girls in the audience. It wasn’t picked up on, I think, because our society basically salivated over teenage girls at that time, with a wink and a nod. The thing ran deeper than some secret ring of powerful people. This stuff ran deep into our culture.
The documentary doesn’t go too deeply into the awful things Savile did, maybe presuming we know - the stats are there, but I don’t think enough is made of how bad he actually was. It’s chilling and unbelievable and indicative of our gullibility and worship of celebrity.
