SAT and tried to crack on with the book. I'll tell you some more about it.
It's called The Best Idea Of The Year and centres on a character called Simon Crowe, a loner and board game obsessive who has an unusual hobby.
He and his only friend, Carl, individually spend hours at a time following randomly selected people and finding out details about their life and their friends.
It's called Surveillance and, although a bit creepy, is played completely without malice by Simon and Carl, who are both remarkably good at it.
Anyway, one day Simon's sat in a café playing this game whilst watching his target and he's asked what he's up to by a stranger called Piers, a scheming media entrepreneur and all-round shit.
He uses two Internet wiz kids in Liverpool to launch an on-line version of Surveillance, which soon becomes a global craze. Simon has to prove he invented it, and with the help of his glamorous boss, Isabel (Piers' badly treated ex) set about doing just that. By playing Surveillance on Piers and all he knows.
There are a few twists and turns obviously but that's the very basic outline. It's a comedy....
I've not read or researched how to write a book (did Jane Austen go on a bloody writing course? No, absolutely not, waste of time) but the one thing I do know is that plot's the most important thing, so for the hours I've spent on this so far, it's just getting everything sorted and in order.
In fact, not everything, as I've split the whole story into three sections (beginning, middle, end, if you like) and have only plotted the beginning and middle. Therefore, when those two sections are written, I'll have a bunch of fresh ideas for the end, hopefully. I do sort of know the ending, but I think it'll change and adapt whilst writing the bits preceding it so I'm leaving it alone for now.
It is a bit of a dream having a book published, and not a great deal of my dreams have been successful as yet so this would be a real coup. I fear, however, that I'm yet to realise the horrors and idiots involved in the publishing world. I hear it's a nightmare. Just to think, eight publishers turned down Harry Potter. Not just one solitary short sighted person ... eight out of eight! Fools!
Spoke to K today who's slaving away up in Edinburgh at the festival. Apparently the show's going very well and I'd yet to arrange when I was going to go up and visit. The main problem is accommodation because there are ZERO hotel rooms available during the whole month of August.
I spoke to the Scottish Tourist Board who are unfailingly brilliant. They give the best possible impression of their country for anyone preparing to go and visit it. I said I was going to ask the impossible of them and ask for a hotel room in Edinburgh for a few nights.
"Nothing's impossible, Sir!" came the cheery reply from the telephone operator, "you hang on a wee minute."
Yet he came back a couple of minutes later sounding frustrated and admitting defeat, apologetically. But he then suggested I try ringing one of the many youth hostels on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh's premier historic street and - during the festival - a mecca for jugglers and people on very high unicycles.
I was recommended to ring one called MacBackpackers (!) who gladly booked me in for the following night at a charge of £14 per night. £14 a room? In central Edinburgh? In August?
No, not exactly, I'm pretty green to the whole youth hostel procedure, having not stayed in one before, and the friendly girl on the phone explained it was a bed sharing in a dormitory of ten people.
Slightly put off at first, but then remembering it was my only option and exceptional value, I happily accepted and travel tomorrow.
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