Monday 10 March 2008

My Name is Dick

Because of the virus that's currently running amok in my immune system and the fact I'll be back to the office tomorrow, I'm going to attempt more regular but shorter posts. Other bloggers get away with a couple of paragraphs a few times a day, so I don't see why I should be ashamed of these brief posts. Life sometimes doesn't make room for a blessey a day.

I also suppose that it's my way of reinventing myself. Relaunching my career has been occupying my mind quite a bit recently. The loss of my 60,000 word manuscript hit me quite hard and, for a week or so, I considered giving up writing. Yet I just can't resist jotting down notes or thinking of things to write. That's why I've decided to be more positive. I'm going to start something new and I'm also going to change my image. Judy suggests that I grow a moustache and I'm quite keen on the idea. I've just finished watching the second series of 'My Name is Earl' and I'm convinced that a moustache might be the way to go. So, for your consideration, here's the type of moustache I'm thinking about growing. As you can see, it will be a fully functioning moustache, perhaps a little gauche but with a hint of danger which means you'll never laugh in my face.

17 comments:

Selena Dreamy said...

The loss of my 60,000 word manuscript hit me quite hard


There isn’t one author worth his salt, Richard, who hasn’t lost his ms somewhere along the way. You’re in splendid company. Carlyle, Conrad, Crane instantly come to mind. And that’s just the letter “C”. My commiserations nevertheless. A living nightmare! But also the kind of thing that separates the men from the boys. That’s where the iron gets forged in the fire. In the words of Kipling:

If you can make on heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss


This may well be the beginning of your manhood, Richard, never mind the accoutrements of a hoped-for moustache!


Dreamy

PS.: I seem to have missed that part where you lost the MS. I should like to know more about the circumstances. Do you have a link...?

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Ah, Selena. You want me to revisit a painful event I've not really written about in length. It's all quite simple and a sign of my utter stupidity.

Ahead of working on 'Eye of the Storm 2', I knew that my time would be limited. Little did I expect the documentary to make such a mess of my life. To anybody who works 5 days a week, they must think I'm blessed having to work only two. However, it's not as easy as that. Without my regular writing routine, I'm a mess. Two days or really hard work (it's very tough on the eyes) wears me out for two more. My eyes were terribly sore last week. This week I've got a cold (everybody in the office had one last week). Then it's usually weekend and just as I'm getting my life organised it's the following week and two more days in the city. I've worked this routine for three weeks and I'm getting very little done.

Last week, I decided that I needed to clarify where I was in my writing and what work I'd done and what needed to be done. I had two projects 'on the go'. One was more serious and developed than the other. You kindly cast an eye over the 'minor' project, so you know what it is, but the other was about 60,000 words long and more of a labour of love. I really wanted it to be something good.

When my laptop screen smashed about two months ago, I took all my work from the laptop and backed it up onto a DVD and to a memory stick. I then deleted the hard disk before I sent it away.

Last week, I wanted to arrange my work for the next month or so. I came to look for the manuscript and discovered that the memory stick had failed and the DVD is blank. I've used programmes to scan my hard disks for the deleted files but all to end. The only version I have is 10,000 words long. The 60,000 word version (it might even have been longer) is now missing and I've not found it.

I'll carry on writing, of course. I wouldn't know what else to do but it has been a bad few weeks. There are other things I can't go into here but, needless to say, I seem to be a walking disaster zone at the moment.

Anonymous said...

Dreamy I absolutely love that poem :)

And Richard I'm sure you will settle into some sort of routine soon enough... I do love your longer posts, but I'd much rather hear that you are alive and well every other day then not at all :)
Regarding the mustache... my brother keeps harping on about My name is Earl and how funny it is, but I havent had the time to check it out... hm would it be a good look for you? Hmmm after I have studied your face in the aforementioned WH Smith, I'd say your boyish good looks can take it... just dont turn it into a Salvadore Dali thingy and you should be fine... and I usually dont find anything fanciable about men with facial hair... :)

Anonymous said...

Ah the 70's porn 'stache, always a good choice. You'll look smashing!

I can't imagine losing that much writing. I've only written a paragraph of a book and protect it with my life. Sometime quite horrific happened to me a few years ago and I know there's a book in it but I haven't gotten past the opening paragraph. This is going to take a loooooong time. Any advice on how to start?

Anonymous said...

^I should have added from anyone, seems there are quite a few writers here.

Uncle Dick Madeley said...

Bertas, thanks for the kind words. You should check out Earl. It's easy to miss it because it looks like redneck comedy but it's really smart. One of the things that have kept me going in the last few weeks. Unfortunately, I finished the last episode last night. I'm now suffering life without my drug of choice...

Okbye, a porn tash? I don't think so. It's much more Burt Reynolds.

I too have never lost that many words. It teaches me to be so damn environmental. I should print it out in the future.

As for there being lots of writers, I think it's just bloggers tend to be people who enjoy writing and probably write things beyond the blog. I'd never call myself a writer, though. It's my ambition but until I do something that merits that title, I'm just an unpublished Dick.

Selena Dreamy said...

Gosh, Richard. The files I have lost in my time are myriad. But nothing compared to the loss of an entire MS. I really, really cannot even begin to express my profound sympathy. Joseph Conrad had years of work wiped out, when his maid used his MS to light the hearth. Carlyle had to rewrite large parts of The French Revolution from memory. It’s a thought that has haunted me all my writing life.

To lose a hundred years of solitude and creative isolation, when every paragraph has a story, every page has its history, and every letter has a destiny...

...what can I say?

Dreamy

Mrs McAvoy's Buzz said...

Oh dicky I can just see it now,

of course this would mean a name change from dishy dicky to hairy dicky...hhmmm...not sure about that one :)

Anonymous said...

Dear Richard,

So sorry to read that you are poorly. Sending you lots of warm healing tropical breezes from the Gulf Coast of the southern United States. Our air is clean.

--sherrienyc, New Orleans.

Mopsa said...

Perhaps the Nick Cave look sans tache? Nothing more sexy, ever, than Mr Cave and PJ Harvey singing Henry Lee

Claudia said...

I'm glad that you won't have to use your moustache to distract people from a balding head.

Anonymous said...

Dick....I still think a new hairstyle will help your image. Perms are back in fashion ... a nice soft perm together with the tash would drive the women wild...and a fair few fellas too.

Anonymous said...

Have you checked in the "Trash bin"? it might be there - maybe someone is holding you to ransom. On the moustache front - had you thought of a Fu Manchu?

Penny Pincher said...

Oh Dick - how could you think of covering such a handsmoe face with a tash - no, no, please spare us.

I prefer shorter blogs - I like to pop in and out quickly. If I want a bigger, longer snf more satisfying experience I prefer the old fashioned way with something in my hand - a book.

Penny Pincher said...

Re the reference to 'snf' - I have no idea what this is or was meant to be.

Anonymous said...

Richard. Sometimes the short posts are the most loved.

Anonymous said...

Have you been detained by Her Majesty again? Which way did yer plead?