I don't think I'll be doing that, though. The plan is to wait until I'm 60 and, hopefully, publish something more substantial, having left a 6 year gap since The Perfect Murder. It's not a commercial enterprise, it matters not at all that my audience is kept supplied with a product to buy as if I was Dick Francis, One Direction, James Bond or Downton Abbey. I only give them away to anybody kind enough to take an interest and I'm very grateful if they read them.
At Portsmouth Poetry Society on Wedneesday night, I read Martin Mooney's poem, The Self-Published, which asks a similar question to that I was asked at an interview at Exeter University in 1977 when Exeter were in the process of deciding if they wanted me on their B.A. English Lit course. Of course, they were quick to decide they bloody well didn't.
I was asked, after I had told them I was a poet, who I wrote for. Was it for myself or for other people. Although it's a very obvious question, I'd never heard it before or, up to the age of 17, ever thought about it. I didn't know. Exeter, where I think I might have quite liked to have gone, decided against having me but they can look at the University league tables now, some of which is based on the success of alumni, and see where Lancaster is.
But I know the answer now, nearly 40 years later. I write for myself. If anybody else finds anything worthwhile in anything I ever write, that's great, that's fine and it's a wonderful thing but if I don't like it enough, it goes no further. Writing is best, like so many other things, when it is amateur, not professional. The idea of being a professional writer, as espoused by Dr. Johnson, is a nightmare I wouldn't want to live through and I much prefer going to the office to produce the mundane work that I do there than the ghastly alternative of having a deadline to produce, say, another Oh, Babe, What Would You Say on Friday night.
The other reason why The Perfect Book will wait a while yet is that I only have two ISBN's left from the allocation of ten I was given in 1990. I need to use them sparingly because once they are used up, David Green (Books) has used up its quota and I'm not going looking for any other publisher.
Do you know the sort of things they ask? Like, how are you going to promote the book - by readings, a launch, appearances, gladhanding.
No, I'm not. I feel bad enough doing a poetry reading at the best of times, wondering why I'm taking up the time of these good people, without expecting them to buy a book at the end of it.
But another thing I've noticed is how, for the first half dozen titles I published, I filled in a form for the ISBN people and posted it off and that was that. Now, doing a title every four years or even less often than that, the agency dealing with it is different to what it was the last time and you have to register with some new people.
And all of that just so that my poems, those combinations of all available words that were already there but I decided to make my own, can be left in copyright libraries with my name on them. You might think I wouldn't care about that but actually I do. It's less about posterity or 'asserting my right as the author' but about how I first saw lists of titles by poets, or anybody else, whether it was Prufrock, The Waste Land, Four Quartets, or The Less Deceived, The Whitsun Weddings, High Windows or Fighting Terms, The Sense of Movement, My Sad Captains, Touch and all. I thought it would be a tremendous thing to have my own list to put alongside Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs, Station to Station. And eventually I have.
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It's also nice to see Daisy Dunn re-tweeting (is it?) my mention of her book on Catullus, below, and seeing which line it is grabs her attention the most, which is the unlikely bringing together on one issue of Boris Johnson and me.
We didn't have a Bullingdon Club at Lancaster from 1978-81 but any inward-looking community will inevitably generate its own self-appointed bunch of oiks. And that must be the last I say on the European referendum because civil servants are duly warned of the period of purdah during which we are not to be seen to try to influence the outcome of a democratic process. So, I'm sure that all the traditional values of British democracy will be upheld by all those involved and still allowed to state their case and let that be a debate that is honest, considered, polite and reasonable.
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But I don't think we've aligned ourselves with the USA thus far that I'm not allowed to mention their election.
One should never rest easy and it wasn't long ago that I was saying, Don't worry about a thing because every little thing is gonna be alright. But now Donald Trump is 3/1 with Paddy to be the next president, which realistically means he has more than a 25% chance. The fact that Hilary is odds on at 1/2 brings with it less comfort than it ought to because I've seen more odds on chances turned over in horse races than I'd ever have the time to tell you about.
Complacency is probably our own worst enemy in all such situations.
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But, to end on a good note. Hurray for Vicky Pendleton, who rode Pacha De Polder to win at Wincanton this week, not getting knocked off, or falling off, whichever it was, like last time and she will go to Cheltenham.I love her. She is tremendous but I'm with John Francome, who knows 100% more than I do about riding horses, that it's not been a good idea. I wish her well.
Come back safely, Vicky, with the horse, because there's some of us care about you and all that stuff about the next big challenge can sometimes be a bad idea in disguise.