My blogging has been somewhat sporadic of late. You've noticed? You may not believe it, but I write much more than I publish. Whilst there's many a slip t'wix cup and lip, there's many a dodgy blogpost that gathers cyber dust in this site's Draft folder - ruthlessly rejected from a public airing.

So, I reserve the more outre ramblings and website bootlegs for my short stories. You see my short stories are 'literary' and as such all manner of solipsistic navel gazing is permissible. Demanded, in fact.

Standard Tim Robson short story:-

Single 40 something professional (optionally short and bald) meets some quirky, and yet attractive, lady in, say, Battersea Arts Centre. They drink. They joke. They laugh. They may or may not end up together. The world turns and scratches its arse. The end.

Between you and me, I think I've entertained us all enough with this particular plot line. Which is a shame because I've just churned out another in my Henry Ford production line of short stories. This new opus has all the plot features listed above plus the added, and experimental, bonus, that the action takes place in two bars, not just Battersea Arts Centre. Fuck off James Joyce, come and have a go if you think you're hard enough! I feel I'm growing as a writer, you know; exploring ideas, running with creative concepts, challenging myself. Screwing with that envelope.

Yeah, whatever Balzac.

Anyway, The Bottle and The Sock will be the last in this particular series of what some are already calling (me mainly) my Clapham short stories. I feel I've outgrown the medium. I'll still enter these unfertilised children into competitions. My stuff may be samey but it's good. Production line Tim Robson is better than niche anyone else.* Watch the list of stories published grow like a national debt under a Labour government. Or indeed, the bloody Tories. Doubled?

So if I'm not writing short stories what will I be doing with my undoubted - if little recognised - literary talents.* Poetry? Perhaps - but part of me thinks this is like the UK concentrating on minority sports at the Olympics and winning loads of gold in, say, pistol shooting. Or Canoeing. Or sailing. Who gives a fuck? We'd all prefer a 800m win like the Brighton god that is Steve Ovett. Or Seb Coe in the 1500m. Twice. Alan Swells.

Of course I mean a novel. There's a great state of the nation, the times we live in, epoch defining novel in me. It's what the world needs right now (well, about 2018 as opuses take a while to write a classic. In an attic. Cause I'm an addict.). And without revealing too much of the plot, I think it will hit the zeitgeist of now like a whingeing fucking lefty bitching about losing another election.

So - without revealing the plot too much - what will this American Psycho for the second decade of the 21st century be like?

Well I thought it might be interesting to follow the activities of a mid 40's professional guy, divorced, short, bald, and his attempts to come to terms with his life via meaningless dates. I think I might set it in - I dunno - Sussex and Clapham. Or Brighton. And Clapham. Lots of ideas. Many possibilities but I think I've got the core of my story.

What do you think? A page turner, no?

In my left hand is rock. In my right is roll.

Notes

* Hyperbolic boast not backed up by fact.