Two bits of news: one thrilling, the other pretty unappealing. The unappealing bit of news is that you can now go to the Amazon Kindle Store and for £0.99 a month have Pitching the World delivered to your Kindle. Imagine that.
Look, proof:
It looks terrible doesn’t it? You can see if for real, here. Frankly, I’m not sure you should subscribe to it, but if you feel inclined to leave a review of all this nonsense that has been going on for two years, then I certainly wouldn’t fall out with you. I took a screenshot on my computer without noticing that bits of my desktop would be displayed – including, if you look closely, a picture of me dressed up like a madman and a really boring picture of some magazines – but when I realised the problem I simply thought, Fuck it – that’ll do. Typical, really. My life is almost entirely comprised of a string of Fuck it – that’ll do’s and is perhaps the reason why I have a six week beard, am thirty-six but look fifty and feel ninety, have no job, no money, no wife, dwindling self-respect, two arms and one leg that go numb every night as I’m going off to sleep, and tinnitus.
There’s lots of other stuff wrong with me but fuck it, that’ll do as far as my list of ailments goes. Not, as you might suspect, because I can’t be bothered to recite my long list of woes, but more because my woes aren’t bothering me today. Woes: today you have lost. Today, woes, I think I’ll be chaining you to a bear in a small room somewhere. I have a plan, you see. A plan that is half brave, half foolish, entirely poorly constructed and yet completely thrilling.
Here’s a clue:
A six week old foetus, earlier.
Okay, that’s a pretty obscure clue. Here’s another:
Well it’s a house isn’t it, earlier.
Okay, perhaps not the best of clues either. But it gets better, honestly.
Book, earlier.
Oooh, what’s that? Some sort of book?
And what’s this?
Man from film, earlier.
Final clue:
Me stealing the ‘earlier’ bit from Viz, earlier.
That’s right, over the next six weeks in a farmhouse in Mallorca I’m going to be writing a book – more a novella – set in 2011 about a character from the film Withnail & I. And not only that, I’m going to be writing a weekly column about my experiences where I attempt to answer the question: Is it possible to conceive of, research, write, publish, market and sell a book (that makes money) between now and Christmas?
The beauty of this – as far as Pitching the World is concerned – is that once I’ve achieved this looking-less-acheivable-by-the-second plan, then not only can I write about my experiences for a heap of arts/writing/publishing magazines, but I can also tell the readers of Runner’s World, Yachting Monthly, and Dancing Times who they too can write and self-publish a book about running/yachting/dancing.
There are, as far as I can see, only about a million problems. Something surrounding intellectual property rights is one of those problems. Having no money but needing an isolated mansion to write the book in is another. Not having a column yet another. And there are more.
All will be overcome during the coming days and weeks though, just you watch. I have ways. You should see the ways. You will see the ways.
What do you think about all this? I’m tapped aren’t I? Or am I just a man with nothing left to lose? No, I’m definitely tapped.
[Update: A few hours after posting the above, someone phoned me up and asked if I could look after their huge mansion in the country next week while they’re away. “The thing is,” she said, “it’s on a hill and very isolated. You won’t see anyone up there.” Who said that when you make a decision the universe conspires to assist you? I’m not sure, and it’s probably not true, but it certainly feels like it sometimes.]
Pitching the World 