16/01/2010
Why do all of my new story ideas feature people breaking bones?
Some of the most nebulous advice given to new writers is the well worn adage to ‘write what you know’. Well, there’s more to this seemingly simple pointer than meets the eye. There’s ‘knowing’ and there’s, like, really knowing. So, for the sake of simplicity and a non-lecturelike blog entry let’s take this guidance at face value. I often feel compelled to write about jazz, cats and broken bones: one of these things I am drawn to through a close love, one through a distant love and the other through no love at all.
Tonight has yielded two rediscoveries: 1) Alcohol (as I’m now off the Codeine, or rather I gave it up three days ago so the last of it will be out of my system by now), and 2) ‘A Bit Of Fry And Laurie’, which like most successful British comedy is based on parodying certain types of class-specific values. And believe me these guys really know how to sock it to any attempt to discuss the arts on an academic level. According to my housemate pretty much the whole back catalogue can be snapped up for next to nothing on DVD at the moment. Not bad. And to think I’d managed to convince myself for a little while that I hated comedy! All I need to do now is track down some of that Mitch Hedberg shit…
