Thursday 13th April 2006

There soon will come a day when I don’t have to mention this cursed book anymore and we can get back to the old days when it was all talk of Spar Live and car insurance games, but for the next two or three days I’m going to talk about it if only so I can look back in years to come and say “Ah yes, April 2006, that was when I was finishing that book that didn’t make sense and thought would make me millions of pounds but instead fell on it’s behind, was never published, and eventually forgotten about. What an ambitious young man I was. Happy times. Nurse, can you help me to the toilet again?�

“Not reading that old fashioned diary of yours again are you, Mr McHale?�

“I was, yes. It brings back so many lovely memories. Ow! What was that for?�

“You know we don’t allow happy memories in here, Mr McHale. And I’m not taking you to the toilet again, you went yesterday.�

“But I must. Ow! Okay, I’ll wait.�

“Now give me that computer, I think I better lock that away for a while don’t you, Mr McHale? We don’t want… oh you filthy pig!�

“I’m sorry. I told you I needed to go.�

“Well you’re not getting your computer back for quite some time if that’s what it makes you do.�

“Ow! Ow! I’m sorry Nurse Taylor, I’m sorry!�

Today saw me back on track and getting as much done in a single day as I ever have. I’d have finished by now if it wasn’t for me adding new bits in. I’m at the end of the project, that’s the long and short of it, and the first draft will be finished over the weekend presuming I can get stuff done the train to and from London. I’ve got a gig at the Comedy Store tomorrow. How selfish of the Comedy Store to mess up my writing like that – have they no feelings? I did briefly consider ringing my lovely agent and telling her I was ill and therefore couldn’t do it, but for one thing I don’t pull sickies and despise anyone who does with a black loathing, and two, she reads this Blog and therefore I’d have to pretend to be seriously ill here too. Then it would all get out of hand. My Mum would be ringing up asking if I was okay and I’d have to lie to her too to avoid saying ‘Actually I’m fine, I just wanted to get out of going to London so I could finish this book that doesn’t even have a deadline.’

I don’t know what will constitute ‘finishing’ though. It’s still being done reasonably chronologically and so the last word I write for this draft will be the last word of the conclusion chapter, therefore the final word, but then I’m going to have to sit down with a pen and start reading through it all and correcting silly mistakes. And even then it wont be ‘finished’ as such because there’ll be more drafts to be done, and the thing will change and mutate no doubt, and that’s only if there’s a future for the thing in the first place.

‘So what you’re saying is, this could drag on for months. I might stop reading this Blog.’

It will probably drag on for months, but I’ll stop writing about it as soon as the first draft is sent off next week. I give you my word. I only write about it now as psychotherapy, to make sure I finish it because mentioning it here stops it being a flight of fancy and lends more weight to it being a serious mission.

‘I don’t think there even is a book.’

Oh there’s a book. It’s a whopper too. It’ll come in at over 90,000 words and about 360 pages. It’s no shrinking violet.

‘Do you realise what a monumental waste of time this will have been if it doesn’t get published and make money?’

Not so. I’ll still have written a book and that’s something in itself. I could just print off copies for myself and give them to my grandchildren in the future and say ‘This is what your old granddad did when he was young. Here, it’s a gift to you.’

They won’t know what a book is, of course, and nor will they be able to read because it’s the year 2054 and books and education have been abolished but at least it will be something.

“Are you talking to yourself again, Mr McHale?�

“Um. I was writing, but pretending to be someone else to sort of create a narrative element to an other wise dull Blog entry.�

“But you finished that Blog years ago, Mr McHale. You are in the hospital now. Do you remember?�

But I’m writing this.

“Oh dear. Time for your medicine.�

No! Look, I can’t be saying this because I’ve not put speech marks around the sentence, I… What’s going on?

“It’s your silly imagination again.�

What year is it? These pills are nice, Nurse Taylor. I’m sleepy.

“Go to sleep.�

But I was writing my Blog and I..

“Sleep now, Mr McHale. You’re very confused.�

It’s 2006, it’s 2006, it’s two. It’s two thousa n

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