F. Scott Fitzgerald - What A Bitch !

“He greeted Marion with his voice pitched carefully to avoid either feigned enthusiasm or dislike...”

— Babylon Revisited - F. Scott Fitzgerald

(In which Tim feigns false modesty as an interesting new way to flex. Reads anew F. Scott Fitzgerald and genuflects before a superior writing talent. There’s gonna be some pretension. There’s gonna be some bullshit. Long blurred bar session profundity! From a bar in Delft.)

I used to think - fleetingly - that my words would stand out in the crowded square of imposters and rivals. That my too personal stories, barely disguised from real life, replete with humorous bon mots were of a durable and sagacious vintage that would elevate my prospects in both the literary and material world.

And, do you know, occasionally - very occasionally - like transient icebergs poking through a storm tossed sea, I felt they did. But each emerging peak, each success, just allowed me a new vantage point upon yet greater heights. Ascending upward, I realised I’d scaled only the foothills, unflattered by the comparisons far above. (1)

On a trip to The Hague recently I took a small, pocket sized copy of F. Scott Fitzgerard’s Babylon Revisted. Reading through, I became aware that I’m (once again) a poor man’s Salieri to Mozart. I’m a good enough writer to recognise I’m a hack writer by comparison. But how? What are those authorial ‘tells’, those embedded hallmarks that shine through flashing greatness?

I would suggest that there are three signs of obvious literary talent. (There’s probably many more, and if I wasn’t in a bar in Delft sampling beers strong and stronger, I’d enumerate them all. But a narrow focus - a well formed list of three - is the consequential benefit one derives from a slow descent into drunkenness, don’t you think?)

Firstly, concerning the nuts and bolts of writing itself: Is the prose any damn good? In Fitzgerald’s case, yes, very much so. When reading, certain phrases and constructions sing out to elevate the experience above the quotidian, the commonplace, the hackery. All good writers employ stylistic devices, those elegant phrases and tricks that artfully chime like a beautiful bell to the soul. But not all ‘greats’ are the same. To me, slip sliding away into fuzzy numbness here in The Netherlands, there are three types of prose that elevate:

1. Beautiful or lyrical prose (F.Scott. Balzac. Martin Amis, sometimes.)

2. Stripped back writing (Hemingway being an obvious exemplar)

3. Experimental - for example Clockwork Orange, On the Road Again or Last Exit to Brooklyn

Of the three, I value the first most of all. I can almost feel it when a well turned phrase hits home. It almost hurts. Why didn’t I coin this, think of this, work harder on my own flabby prose? Was it lack of work or lack of creativity? Each chiming phrase is a rebuke. I envy. But I recognise the brilliance.

“But the stillness in the Ritz bar was strange and portentous. It was not an American bar anymore - he felt polite in it, and not as if he owned it. It had gone back to France.”

— Babylon Revisted F. Scott Fitzgerald

Secondly, characterisation. Are the characters well drawn? Are their motivations believable? Is their place in the story apposite, their character sketched sufficiently deeply to avoid becoming cut outs or cyphers, mere third spear carriers from the left wheeled embarrassingly onto the page to mumble a line or two before shuffling off forgotten like a drunken burger after midnight?

As a writer, I find characterisation one of the hardest things to get right. There are some authors who write just for men with the result that their female characters are pale facsimiles of real life women. Similarly, some female writers struggle with male characters and so resort to a stereotypic landscape populated by bastards or wimps. Speaking personally, I don’t have an issue with the sex of my characters. My problem is more fundamental than that. Essentially, any character that isn’t me suffers from that very fact; they are not me meaning they are ill-drawn and one dimensional - pathetic straight men made to suffer my character’s one liners, inner monologue, whilst facilitating tendencious plot development.

But read someone who does it well - an Austin or Dickens, for example - and you roll yourself in a fleshy world of believability. You can imagine the characters in real life, understand why they do what they do, how they drive the plot forward naturally. I’ve always been intrigued how this is done. Do the authors sit down and plan their characters (as suggested by numerous colour-by-numbers writing schools) or do they just carry them in their head and understand each line, each interaction, each movement as they write?

Don’t know. Not a great writer. Ask them.

Thirdly (and lastly) - plot. Writing is telling stories. Is the plot engaging, does it draw you in, want to turn the page, speed read to get to the next chapter akin to binge watching a gripping series on Netflix? Mmmm. There’s many a writer who plots like a mathematician, algorthymically making sure each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, pacing the reader so that the denouement is both satisfactory and surprising. This is where I have my biggest reservation. Although I love a good ending, the symmetry of a three act play or movie or book, part of me loves the realism of unsatisfactory endings. For example, I loved Brett Easton Ellis’ Rules of Attraction that both started and ended in mid sentence, breaking in and then checking out of the narrative. (2) Like life. Unresolved. Messy. Not cute.

Of course, certain genres demand neat plots, crime and thrillers for example, romantic books. And so whilst I respect good plots - no I really do - to me they’re not a deal breaker. But let me interpret plot somewhat more loosely. Let me replace ‘plot’ with ‘narrative’. Does the narrative hold together, does it make you want to stay the course and follow the authorial voice, the characters, the worldview described? Yes? Then you has you a decent narrative.

I don’t necessarily need to know that it was the butler who did it with a candlestick in the library. But I may want to know about the characters’ actions leading up to, and after, during. Not all murders end up with Colonel Mustard buggering Professional Plum in the Hallway. Er, neither does Cluedo Tim.

Yeah. Losing it. Affligem Dubbel kicking in. Bar by a canal somewhere in Delft. (Where? Cafe de V I think, according to the menu) filling up with Dutch people eating, drinking, speaking English when asked.

So, plot and narrative. Losing the plot. Maintaining a narrative. I’m a real life example of that. Now. But my central point is, tying it all together; I was shocked into wonder, annoyance and competitiveness as to how bloody good Babylon Revisited is.

F. Scott Fitzsgerald. What a bitch!

Notes

1) Notice how I eschewed the Titanic reference? Eschew the obvious. It’s what separates us from AI. The human brain is - when engaged - synaptically more creative than the AI. That’s what annoys me when people revert through laziness or foolishness to using AI in place of thinking.

2) I now know this starting in the middle thing is called In Medias Res. I warned you at the start of this article I was going to be pretentious but not as annoying I will be next time I find the opportunity to use this Latin phrase. Wanker.

Martin Amis - A Personal Recollection

There was a time in the 90’s, pre-Oasis, when, unencumbered by an Epiphone guitar nor deafened by a Marshall valvestate amp, my cultural dalliances were more literary than musical. It was that brief period when I felt being a failed writer was way cooler than being an unsuccessful rock star.

Stepping into this long-lost world where Kerouac played John the Baptist, a wordy messiah inspired my creative bursts. Martin Amis.

As I was then (the unpaid) editor of the in-house Amex magazine, a bibliophilic colleague thought I’d appreciate a book he’d just finished – Amis’ bedazzling Money. How very right this perspicacious telephone customer service rep was! A fresh and exciting world opened out to me like a welcoming but insatiable lover; time became meaningless if denied the tap, tap, tap of fingers on keyboard, without the blissful agony of creation. Suddenly – briefly but oh so vividly – my writings switched abruptly from vengeful fictions of my own life – full of dead prose, funereal plots – to sharply drawn vignettes of urban life; violent, acutely observed, colourfully rendered into long phrases heavy with pretentiousness.

I’d become an Amis clone.

This feverish phase lasted probably no more than three years and two girlfriends – perhaps just the time between Nirvana and Oasis’ Reading Festival appearances and no more than that. But, as with all youthful experiences, what is now merely a glancing blow, then cut oh so deep.

My conceit was flattered early, I won a literary competition with the first creation under my new guise, an arrogant would-be masterpiece, a short story set in Brighton. Reading it now, I can observe clearly the heavy Amis influence. But I was pleased to see my name in print, that my florid musings had been published to the wider world, and perhaps even more so – that in those broke post student times – I’d received a £500 cheque for my efforts. I was a paid writer!

Gradually though, my Amis imitation quietly exited stage left from my life. Long sentences full of masterful phrases were just that, all dislocated show with little overarching plot. I grew weary of my own pretensions, of etiolated constructions and moved my creative energies to a guitar led sub-Oasis wall of sound to bored South Coast pub audiences.

And my writings shifted promiscuously over to Irving Welsh homages (or at least that’s what discouraging editors would accuse me of in terse, to-the-point, three-line rejection slips).

 I haven’t read an Amis book for over twenty years.

---

So, when he died recently, my initial thoughts were somewhat neutral; yeah, I knew Amis’ work, liked it once, but not for me now. And then, on walks, in the bath, cooking meals, on reflection, the memories came back about how deeply he’d affected my youthful life. Like a lover, forgot but achingly remembered years later through the passing scent of a stranger’s perfume, I began to reminisce, more felt than forced. Where I was when I read his books, who I was with, the stories I then wrote.

Let me say this simply; Martin Amis was an immensely talented writer. One of the best. He could turn a phrase like nobody else and certainly better than his pale copyists (step forward Will Self and, way, way down, Tim Robson). His masterpieces – London Fields, Money, The Rachel Papers, The Information, Time’s Arrow – defined an era in both the Anglosphere’s high literature & popular circles, but also in my own development. I now realise we respect the paths that lead nowhere because, certainly when young, they ultimately lead somewhere and not necessarily where we planned to be.

 Thank you, Martin, for those short years of fevered writings when I ached to create, to be a better writer, to aspire to be an Amis. That time has long gone but the debt remains. And way more than five hundred quid’s worth of plagiarised success!

RIP Martin Amis.

“She reached me now. I stuck my foot out and tripped the bitch up. Boy you should have seen her fall! She was running so fast that when I nicked her ankle she sprawled and stumbled almost twenty yards before finally succumbing to that knee-to-pavement feeling in a bone crunching kerfuffle of angry pedestrians, despoiled prams and outraged grannies. I grinned and walked on.”

— Tim Robson - Grainy Images 1994

 ** BTW. I’m too lazy to sift through his books pulling out quotes to demonstrate my point. If you’re curious, read them yourself - start, as I did, with Money.

A Veneer of Civilisation - Tim Robson

Read it here online for the first time. My 2016 published dystopian epic - A Veneer of Civilisation.

Enjoy.

Tim

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A Literary Girl On A Train.

So, I'm on the 8:23 from Clapham. A late night in the office as I wanted to send off 'Parallel Tracks' to a short story competition. Hard graft made easier by some Cava. I played Terry Hall, tweaked a few words, drank a glass and sent away this future winner.

Anyway, so I get to Clapham Junction and get on my train. Sit down at a four table. Only one bloke diagonal to me - great. Whip out the Mac.  Stories to write. Websites to edit. Usual stuff that an under appreciated writer does. We work - ALL - the time. In silence and unobtrusively. And then - opposite me - sits down a writer - a 'real' writer.

Let me describe her shall I? Not unattractive. Slightly boho. Wild and wiry hair. Glasses pushed onto her forehead. Voluminous scarf wrapped around her neck (I believe this is obligatory if you are a 'writer'.) And now she gets out a couple of beaten up leather notebooks and an ink pen. She figits. She attitudialises. She makes faces and waves her fingers around directing the very air with her abundant creativity! She looks concentrated. She writes furiously. She gazes off into the mid-distance as though being filmed.  She smiles outwardly so that everyone can see she's written a bon mot. She flicks pages quickly and noisily as she writes.

She is a stage version of a writer.

I am in the presence of greatness. Sat at the Brontes' table as they pen their classics. With Thomas Hardy as he tours Cornwall in 1912/3 researching the Emma Poems. With Oscar Wilde in Hove as he writes 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Partying with Brett Easton Ellis in the 80's perhaps, or sharing a car with Jack Kerouac in the 50's. Someone good, anyway.

Literary greatness sits at my table!

Yeah... Me.

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Some Writing Success

It appears that - in terms of competition wins, places etc - 2017 was a horrible year for Tim Robson, the Writer. (Yes, that one. Not the other one.) Basically, although as active on the Apple MacBook keyboard as ever, seemingly nothing tangible came out of 2017.

"It's cause you're shit, Tim."

Maybe, maybe. 

Anyway, if you take a look at my Roll of Honour page, you'll see that 2018 has started with a brace of third places in literary competitions. Yes, if that sounds like some Monopoly £10 second prize in a beauty contest Chance card, you'd be right. But I'd rather be third than fourth, eighteenth rather than thirty-second, praised rather than ignored, rewarded as opposed to not.

All publications are special, but I wanted to shout out Hit and Run Lover. This was a novel I wrote over several years. I spent ages on it; editing, rewriting, printing out, deleting, rewriting again. A real labour of love. And all for nothing. So, I'm particularly glad that the opening chapter is being published by those doyens of style, Grindstone. 

What next?

As I think I've hinted before, I'm back writing another novel. It's contemporary, London-based, and benefits - I think - from lessons I've learnt the hard way about how to pace, add style and characterisation, plot. The more mature Tim Robson.

"What a pompous arse you've become."

Yeah.

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Tim Robson's New Novel

“A writer wrote a word a day
Carefully selected.
Until he had marvellous novel
Everybody rejected.”

— Annoymous

It's been three years since Franco's Fiesta stormed the lower reaches of Amazon's best selling charts. Some days it manfully sold its way to the top 100,000 paperback sales in the world (or UK, or Brighton or my road or something). I think I've given out those 10 copies now to friends and family. Did you get one? 

A question I'm (never) asked is, when are you going to write another. Well, what with the writing, editing, promotion, the hotels, the literary festivals, the groupies, who has time? And some authors should stick at just one book (looking at you Harper Lee). Well, I feel I've got at least another book in me. I didn't achieve all I wanted with Franco's Fiesta (fame, money, groupies, lead part in the film of the book, soundtrack, album, er, yeah. Wanker.)

So, lately, quietly but methodically I've been planning my next novel. Ha! Yeah - planning. As if I didn't just pen some crap and then edit it and think, is this a short story or does it deserve another chapter? Well, this latest one, deserves another chapter. And probably several more after that.

So, what's it about? In answer to this, let me quote myself using some bullshit I penned for a small publisher who took one of my short stories:-

“I’m lucky to walk along Lavender Hill every day on my way to work. And every day I observe hundreds of interesting characters who cross my path. Who are they and what are they doing and why are they here?

Teeming with ideas I get to my office ready to start writing a new piece. And then, I think - “fuck it” and just write about myself. Again.

I am my own God.”

— Tim Robson - The Rejected Manuscripts interview.

Amusing, eh? But not so true this time - just as it wasn't for Franco's Fiesta. I can use that thing - what's it called? - oh yeah! imagination. I make stuff up. That doesn't mean I don't steal people or events or places from real life, because I do. I put them all in a black velvet bag, shake the pieces and draw from it randomly. And write.

But I'm more conscious of posterity, more aware of precedents, less convinced of my uniqueness. I'm also getting to like longer sentences, longer sentences with sub clauses, errant thoughts, asides, funky punctuation and literary allusions. Fuck short sentences. Precision can be reached by either the front door or via a circuitous route through the back door. 

I will say this. I've been quite influenced by some of the books I've read recently. Breakfast at Tiffany's was great but then so was The Go-Between. And others. But I think I'm pitching for that capturing the zeitgeist stardust. 

Anyway, two chapters down. Slow progress but it will speed up, I know.

Place your advance orders now!!

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Art or Arse?

I came home last night to find my author copy of Artificium 4 waiting on the mat. This book includes my story 'Second Thoughts'. 

I wrote this story this summer on many, many train journeys back and forth between London from Sussex. There's many disparate events, people, happenings pickled into just one little story about two people going on a date. On some journeys I would change just one word. Often I would spend half an hour editing one paragraph so the tone and the language were correct. What I wrote, what I submit these days is filtered like a fucking Bavarian beer.

Flicking through the printed version though I noticed a couple of things that jarred; stuff I didn't remember; asides, clarifications, extra bits I didn't pen. Now, admittedly last night I was coming down off a good meal (with G&T, wine and port with the cheese) at Gordon Ramsay's London House. So, it could have been just me. (It's often just me). But clearly something wasn't right.

I checked again this morning. Yep - they'd been some editing on my sacred words. How dare they! One especial 'addition' to my text comes right at the end, in the penultimate line. Now I'd deliberately changed tone in the story and so by the last page the theme is one of regret not bitterness. From regret comes salvation. You follow the lead character's thought processes until he gets to this epiphany. 

It's quite touching and if I hadn't written it, I'd think it was an excellent piece of writing.

But like a child with some felt tips 'improving' the Mona Lisa, some jocular words are added before my final, payoff line. It's art, dammit!!!

Fuck it. I got £50 which I spent on a few (two) bottles of wine in London. I have another 'book' to add to my growing collection of near misses and second prizes. 

I'm not precious.

Much. 

Tim

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The other Don

Second Thoughts

“A prophet is not without honour except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his own household”

The interesting thing about commuting - if the rail companies or unions don't mess it up - is that it gives me a couple of hours a day where I must decide how to occupy myself. Time was when I used this space as an opportunity to catch up on sleep or get pissed reading the 50p Evening Standard.*

Now, my time is pretty much spent writing or reading books. Is it because I'm older I don't want to waste my time with fripperies? Possibly - who knows, who cares? But one thing is true though; I've written more in the last six months commuting whilst I've held down a job in London than I ever did in the previous twelve months at home supposedly 'writing'. 

I know, I know. Profundity drips from my fingers tonight.

Anyway, one of the short stories I wrote this summer between Burgess Hill and London is to be published next month. The clever, creative editors at Artificium chose to publish 'Second Thoughts' and I can't praise enough their discerning judgement. They spot talent. Rightly and regularly... Well, at least twice.

Second Thoughts details the dating problems of a short, bald, middle aged professional man.  It breaks rules, conventions and, probably, wind.**

Now where the hell did I get the inspiration for this story? Well, I had to dig deep, to be totally honest. Real deep. Had to put myself into the character of this prince among men, this diamond in the dirt, this prophet without honour. See life from another point of view. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes... All that.

Okay, it's kinda based on me.

Again.

But apart from the high standard of writing, the taboo breaking honesty, the epic characterisation, this story - like one of the many oriental massage parlours on Lavender Hill - promises a happy ending. Maybe that's my new thing. Optimism. Empathy. Smiles. 

Actually, there are only about ten things that make me smile in this world. Many are cruel or twisted, some illegal, some just, well, weird....

But one of the things that makes me happy, is the Mick Taylor (led) Rolling Stones 1969-74. Watch Mick tear it up on one of fav Stones songs - Gimme Shelter. Okay, this is nothing to do with second chances or, indeed, this blog-ramble but, as Aristotle once said, "Fuck that, bring on the dancing girls. And another amphora of wine! Who took my olives?"

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* I wrote an article one night for the dearly departed London newspaper which they accepted. It described the culture of drinking on the 6pm train home. When I sobered up I begged them to pull the article and offered in its place - The 10 Rules of The Office Leaving Do which they duly published. Good orginal. Good recovery. I am...I said.

** Crap joke, I know and yet, and yet.

*** The more discerning - and frankly odd - members of my blog community will recognise this picture of yours truly as a still from my recent, already legendary, performance of Fixing To Leave.

Late Night Cab To Victoria

The knife edges ever closer to my ear in this season of the sunflower. I apologise in advance.

I told you I'd started writing poetry again some months back. I just signed a contract for one of the resulting poems to be published in an anthology this winter. I barred the press from this event - no photos were allowed. The official and only licensed PR is this blog. 

Winter Love (for that is the name of my poem) started life as a song nearly twenty years ago. One of my better songs actually. About needing someone but pushing them away. Never played live as my group was defunct at this point and anyway, it's more old style American classic than rock. Jazzy chords (F#m4 anyone?), ominous lyrics, somewhat more sophisticated than my usual fayre. Think George Gershwin not George Harrison. 

Winter Love is an expanded rewrite of the song. For days and weeks as I commuted to London, I tinkered with the words. Doubling the size, changing a word here, substituting a new line there, adding a more rounded feel, an ending... Taking out the chorus (well obviously). 

I seem to like my writing projects these days to be shorter than previously. No more 80,000 word novels. More 2000 word shorts stories. Fifty line poems. Apart from a general laziness, there's method in my reductive penmanship.

I think I've got better as a writer over the last two years. No, correct that; I am better as a writer. Fact. As David Brent might say. End of. Short stories and poems give me the opportunity to distill the essence of a situation, a feeling, an idea. It's writing at the sharp end. No room for verbosity, for elongated set-ups, digressions, dodgy plot leaps. 

My favourite feeling is when I've got to the end of short story or poem. The first draft done. For this is the start of real work! The enjoyable bit. The editing. Short stories typically lose 25% to 33% of their size at this point as I reduce, re-order, debate each and every line. Unlike this blog post which could probably do with the editing axe all over it's flabby ass (I have a train to catch).

Anyway, I wanted you to share in my success. Crack out the Cava!

Tim

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The Boogie of Victory!!!

Returned home, brow sweated and furrowed from life, work, romantic entanglements (oh yeah!), to find a package on my doormat.

Yes, the latest Tim Robson book - Artificium 2 - has hit the stands of Amazon. My author copies just arrived. My story - The £20 Note - is, I modestly assert - me at my best. Brutal, honest and yet literate. It is what I am; assertion masking insecurity masking an irreducible core. My successes don't happen by error. I know that now. One day my kids will be proud of me! 

Until then, I'll have to do the job myself!!!

Well done Tim.

Tim

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An Interview With Tim Robson

Tell us something about Tim Robson.
Tim is six foot, attractive, loads of hair. Girls tend to be drawn to his looks but then back off when they realise he has no depth. He’s lost many girlfriends to this short, bald guy who follows him around cracking intellectual jokes.

When and why did you start writing stories?
The 70’s. To get girls.

How would you describe your writing style?
Better than it was last year. Not as good as next year.

Where do you get your ideas and inspiration from?
Overachievement.

What is your favourite time for writing?
When the bar is open. Your round?

Where is your favourite location for writing and why?
See the answer above. I live it, man.

What other writing do you do – non-fiction, poetry, etc?
Abusive comments on the Guardian’s Comment is Free website.

What is your earliest memory of writing a story?
Seven

Are you someone who plans their writing in detail or do you just launch into an idea and see where it goes?
Preplanners should be rounded up and placed against a wall. And have their fucking research thrown at them. Write with total freedom. But edit like a Nazi.

People say you should only write about what you know. What is your view on this?
Right wing.

Writing can be a lonely occupation or hobby. What is your advice for coping with this?
Masturbation.

It’s said that in the future everyone will be published but no one will be read. What is your view on this statement?
I would like to introduce whoever said it to my good friend, Mr Baseball Bat.

How do you cope when your writing is ignored or rejected?
I blog. My stuff tends to be accepted.

Do you ever experience writer’s block? How do you overcome this?
Life is far too interesting for there to be a white page in your mind. Walk, look, observe. Sit in a bar and listen. Walk the streets. Look at each thing and ask wherein lies its story, its value. It’s purpose.

What do your friends and family think of your writing?
Little.

Who is your favourite author and what is it that really strikes you about their writing?
Balzac, Hardy, 80’s Amis, Iain Banks, On The Road, French Lieutenant’s woman. Hank Moodie. Anything by Tim Robson.

What has been your proudest moment so far with your writing?

The first cheque. 1994. £500 quid. Paid my council tax FFS.

What do you hope to achieve in the future with your writing?
World domination. Money. Multiple attractive sexual partners in various combinations. The Freedom of the City of Rochdale.

If you had to give one piece of advice to a novice writer, what would it be?
F*** Off.

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