The Hard Life Of A Writer
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
Is there anything more annoying than picking up a book you are anxious to read and finding out after half a page that you have already read it? I had just finished Jesus and John Wayne (which you may be surprised to learn is not a religious book at all, more about that in a few weeks when I get up the nerve to write about it) and sat down in an easy chair to begin to read Ken Follett’s A Dangerous Fortune. Almost immediately I realized it sounded familiar.
Most people would fly into a rage, say bad words and weep as though their hearts would surely break. I did none of those things, instead I picked up John le Carré’s A Legacy of Spies, a book I have also read before and started it again.
Dumb, you may say, probably, but not really, it was a long time ago and anything le Carré writes should be read over and over again. Ken Follett’s books too as a matter of fact.
On the other hand I have dozens of books I always intended to read but never got around to it. The stupid part is I know most I never will. Almost all of them were given to me by well-meaning friends, each one saying, ‘You have to read this!’ My mistake is not saying, ‘No I don’t’.
And that, dear friends, is why I have dozens of unread books just sitting there taking up space. I have Winston Churchill’s Finest Hour, John English’ Just Watch Me, The life of Pierre Elliot Trudeau (I really am going to read that one, some day, not today or even tomorrow, but some day) John A, The Man Who Made Us by Richard Gwyn, and Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. That last one I actually started on but couldn’t follow the story line so it is back on the shelf beside The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, a tome I plan to rewrite in plain English.
I actually did start to rewrite Macbeth for Playboy with the cast of Golden Girls as the three witches until I realized the play is 2,477 lines long and I would still be working on it when I am 95. So I said to hell with that and am now working on the Bible as a musical comedy. I offered the prime part of Joseph to Hugh Jackman if the show makes it to Broadway. He seems interested although we are bickering over money. We are close, only $750,000 apart, but he wants it up front and I have a $100 limit on my credit card.
Writing is hard, especially if you are not too bright to begin with. Good writers have to have discipline if they are to succeed and I am a little shy on that and several other things.
I read somewhere James Michener, the famous author who wrote Hawaii and 40 other books, treated writing as a full-time job. Jimmy, as we other famous authors called him, got up early in the morning, put on a shirt and tie and went upstairs to his office to work. I do something similar; I get up in the morning, well that’s about as far as the similarity goes I guess. I wanted to dress for the office but Mary says, ‘If you think I am going to wash and iron your white shirt (I only have one) every day you are nuts.’
So I sit around in my underwear drinking coffee until noon, pee a lot (too much coffee) and if the mood strikes me, type a line or two. But usually it doesn’t, so I thumb through one of Uncle John’s Bathroom Humour books for ideas. By then it’s 4 and time for New Tricks on Vision TV and a scotch. Around 5:00 it is dinner time and too late to start anything so I go into the kitchen to see if Mary has started supper. If I’m lucky she hasn’t, so I have another scotch and my working day is over. Yep, I am another James Michener.
What was I talking about? Oh, my Biblical musical. I have been working on it for three weeks now and I’m still on the begats. It never ends, they just begat, begat and then there’s more begats. If they weren’t sacrificing they were begatting. Those folks needed a hobby… oh, I guess they had one, it was begatting.
Costuming for the show will be a bit of a struggle especially for Adam and Eve. From what I understand they wore.. well, nothing really, a few leaves maybe but when there is only two of you why bother? They got away with full-frontal nudity in Hair in 1968. I wonder what Hugh Jackman looks like bare naked. It would be a lot cheaper than renting him a technicolour raincoat.
(Image Supplied)
