A Load of Old Rubbish

Model of #Success

It’s a wet Saturday; I’ve just bought the Irish Independent having scanned it in the Spar to make sure my piece is in it, otherwise, I’m afraid it’s online for me. I’m still pinching myself that my opinion is getting into print. No point in wondering if I went public on the D v Ireland case eleven years ago how my *career* might have shaped. Would my yearning to be a writer have been fulfilled sooner? I wouldn’t have done all the other stuff like a Masters in Building Conservation to block  the memory of the D Case and because the college was in walking distance.

The Cost Centres were eleven and thirteen when I started that course, I was sure it would slot nicely into our lives. One should always remember that taking exams and writing a thesis in a subject one loves is guaranteed to put you right off. It does, until it suddenly helps you find work, work that you enjoy and that pays. I'm even going back to college again in a few weeks, or rather I will be if I can pay my fees in kind. More anon.

Since the Big R the old building conservation work dwindled to nothing, so in 2011 I decided to write a novel based on my thesis; the Cost Centres were going to be away for the whole summer on their J1s, absolutely no excuse to put it off any longer. I had it finished in six months. Finished as in 70,000 words with a beginning, middle and end. Basing it on the thesis didn't work (as in boring) so I set half in New York and half in a rural Irish backwater. I'm not trying to sell it here BTW.... Plenty of time for that.

This week I did the thirteenth re-write, cut from 140,000 words to 98,000, having been two books in one, with a screenplay rearing up every now and then.

Discipline, I realise now, is everything in writing, I just filled pages to get wordcounts up, which is a good ploy, very motivating. But then you've got to get the scalpel at it quickly.  It has been read in many versions by dear friends and one professional editor. The editor had me dismantle my ‘experimental’ structure; every alternate chapter was set in 1850 and 2011. After meeting an agent three weeks ago who encouraged me to shorten it and change the title, I had a new version on Tuesday to be read by a literary queen. It just had to be printed and bound, I was relieved to email it to the printers with instructions for two copies.

Little Cost Centre graduated in Economics and Philosophy this week, he wasn’t even bothered about his graduation, but a lot of work went into those exams so I encouraged him, planned a lunch with his girlfriend, brother and a dear family friend and prevailed on jewellery star, Clarice, to find a worthy memento for the day, the *boy* version of the ‘success amulet’. I sat beside his girlfriend in UCD while the ceremony proceeded, naughtily tweeting and checking emails on my phone while other people’s children were being conferred.

I had an email from info@panda.ie ‘this appears to have been sent to us in error’.

My manuscript. My two and a half year slog. The meaning of my future career/life. 

I’d sent it to the binmen.

The cost centres have told me not to over-react.