From his pose on this cover, I’m trying to work out if Billy is either:

a) camp
b) drunk
c) camply drunk

Several of my friends have kindly asked to read an extract of the story I am in no way going to reach the 50,000 word deadline of before the contest ends tomorrow, let alone finish.

But, before the New Year, when I will hopefully (and finally) complete a fully fleshed out novel, here is an extract you have all so kindly requested:

Sorry it’s probably not what you were expecting, but it is an extract, I assure you. Thanks very much for your kindly encouragingments, and for those of you who repeatedly told me to f**k off and write when I was lounging about wasting time.

Hopefully by this time next year, I’ll have several more substantial titles to my name. I do love adventures.

Last night, at my boss’s kind invitation, I was lucky enough to be at the Poet in the City event, hosted by Amnesty International. This spotlighted refugee, exiled and imprisoned poets Choman Hardi, Yang Lian and Jack Mapange respectively. I really enjoyed the poems chosen by the three poets, particularly Jack Mapange who spoke with a warm and quite blazé attitude to his four year imprisonment without charge or trial. “They would only let us shower when we stunk,” he said. “Everyday we took delight in making sure we stunk as much as possible. If you die in there,” he said gravely, “they win. You have to live.”

But I was really taken with Hardi’s poems. They are so very simple and yet say so much, using the far too often ignored principle of “show don’t tell” to maximum effect. Her verse is conversational, bare even, and yet so sharply evocative and emotive by the images she chooses to string perfectly together. There’s also an undeniably feminine voice to her writing, which I thought interesting for a modern poet, in a time where gender seems to be less and less apparent in a written piece. Afterwards I bought a copy of her collection “Life for us”, and had the chance to meet her. We didn’t talk much sadly – just general “I loved such and such” and her thanks for the compliment. It’s difficult in those situations to say much if you’re encountering their work for the first time. But it was quite refreshing to encounter the work of a successful (and living!) writer that encouraged and inspired me, rather than be frustrated and irritated with just another talentless and conceited literati hack.

One other piece I was instantly struck by was the poem “June”, by imprisoned Chinese poet Shi Tao. It describes the aftermath of the Tian An Men Square massacre in June 1989, written only last year. What was unusual about the effect the poem had, was that I heard it first in the original Chinese, read by Yang Lian. There was something about the sound of words – harsh, short and guttural – that betrayed this to be both a poem, and a poem of suffering. Peter Forbes read a translation afterwards:

June

9 June 2004

The whole evening – not just the poems, nor meeting their authors afterwards, nor the quite emotive look at the details of human rights, nor even the sheer volume of vol-au-vents and finger food I polished off – but the whole debate at both the table and in my own head of what made a written piece valid, what made a good poem, and the very fact that I was in a room with people discussing the very things I have set each and every meaningful goal of my life to, their own passion quite apparent, was a much needed breath of life into my slowly dulling lungs.

Sometimes, I really like my job, but it only ever seems to be after I leave the office for the day.

The beeb, in a perhaps rather ambitious statement, has declared its own ten fold path to true happiness.

Always keen to try a new fad (a bit like Madonna’s attitude to religion. All of them), I thought I’d apply it to myself.

The 10 steps to happiness

Well, t’is done. My first full day of solid writing in ages. Now 14,000 words down, 36,000 to go before the end of the month. Daunting, but my achievements in this one day alone leave me quietly confident that I’ll be able to achieve this insane feat by November 30th, and then finish whatever needs to be done beyond that milestone before the end of the year.

If I’ve realised only one thing from today’s diligence, it is that there is no greater tragedy in one’s life than to have dreams, and yet do little towards realising them.

I haven’t felt like this in ages - this particular brand of exhaustion, my mind still whizzing like the pages of a thesaurus, making the keyboard an extension of myself where my hands know the keys before I can even think of which ones to press, images sharpened by habit to a crystal clarity within my head.

I’ve missed it.

It makes me feel alive.

I think I’ve finally managed to figure out a working plan for some hardcore writing. It takes me about twenty minutes of doggedly tapping away to actually invoke any sense of lasting motivation. One hour’s work permits me no more than 10 minutes’ idle distraction on MSN and the like. Every one and a half hours I’m permitted a low fat cigarette in the freezing cold, which gives the characters the chance to chatter idly to themselves and each other in my head while I puff. Another five minutes afterwards to wash my hands and brush my teeth (nervous habit and hardwired reaction to smoking when I’m not out in a pub) and then it’s nose back to laptop to chase the heels of motivation before it dissipates again. It’s going well - chapters now well and truly fleshed out, and Michael’s away for a day or so which gives me the perfect opportunity to work without the influence of Will & Grace drifting into my brain from his room upstairs.

I don’t want to tempt fate or complacency with the thought that I might actually finish something so stupendously daunting as a 50,000 word novel (minimum). The odd thing is, however, I’ve completely lapsed into my old habit of forgetting to eat. Somehow it just seems to take up too much time. Cooking a proper meal takes an hour at the very least. Empires can rise and fall in that time in the little universe I’m steadily painting for myself.