I have now written 23 of 25 little booklets and my aim is to be finished for September 28th when I will be reading at the Gavin Brown Enterprise in New York as part of a week long series of events curated by Oliver Payne's Safecrackers fanzine. More than just being on course after a slow start (30 years?) I think am (nearly) ahead of schedule. For the first time in my life, looking over half finished stories and entertaining ideas I'm thinking over, I feel like I can pick and choose from what I've done and want to do. So now if I'm not working in the bookshop or looking after my godchildren I'm trying to get to the library so I can crack on telling myself that this light at the end of the tunnel that been inching towards one word after another (before usually pressing delete and starting again) isn't some great fairy tale ending with a chorus of angels waiting to pat me on the back but simply the beginning of something else.
After registering online to become a reader at their library I cycled across town to the V & A (with two forms of ID to complete the membership process) hoping that the change of setting would keep me on my toes as I grow accustomed to the idea of having a finishing in sight. On my way I stopped in Mayfair to have a look at the library there but with nowhere to lock up my bike I continued. I had forgotten all about the Wolfgang Tillman's show but entering the Serpentine to use the bathroom I was glad to find that it was still on.
Arriving at the V & A the gentlemen working at the coat check informed me that the library is closed until the end of the month but it was still early so I didn't let this deter me. Since I was already that way I headed to the library on the Kings Road. But this time there were no available power points and my laptop's battery only lasted long enough so I was able to read through the story I was planning to rewrite.
Still it was sunny and I still had plenty of time to cycle to Notting Hill where there is a library in Pembridge Square. That way I promised myself I would be in the right area after a few hours spent working in the library to check out this one second hand book shop on the Portobello Road that I recalled with affection from a few years before. Meanwhile as I rode back through Hyde Park I would be able to go over the story in my head and if I were lucky I would realise exactly what I had to do to it when I got to the library.
Sometimes this form of writing, whilst precarious in that it isn't actually writing at all but cycling whilst thinking about writing, worked but on other occasions it didn't. On those numerous days when it didn't I would get to my eventual destination and be too tired to recall what, if anything, I'd been thinking as I rode my bike. But it was my experience that as long as I didn't demand results as if they were my God given right and remembered just how lucky I was to be able to ride through Hyde Park twice on a summer's day, even though I still hadn't written a single word and it was now nearly three and I had got up at eight envisioning a long day of creative endeavours, that I could still salvage a little bit of something before being consumed about what I would do this evening.
In the gallery at the Kings Road Library there is currently a small exhibition celebrating thirty years of 'Spot The Dog' featuring original artwork from the books. I was interested to learn that Spot's markings developed from his creator Eric Hill's (OBE) interest in drawing military plans as a boy.
This is an extract from an interview with Eric Hill OBE from his publishers, Puffin, website.
When did you start writing?
In 1978, when my son was two years old, I started my first book for children. Where's Spot? Was published in 1980 and became the catalyst for my new career as an author. I don't really consider myself a 'proper' author, as I am basically an illustrator who adds words to his pictures as a 'voice-over', although in later books I have expanded my writing a little more. I still have to look up words in the dictionary!
Where do you get your ideas?
From my experience as a father and memories from my childhood. Most of the Spot books contain some elements that actually happened i.e. Spot pulling down the Christmas tree in Spot's First Christmas actually happened when our golden retriever pup, Tiger, destroyed our decorated tree whilst we were out.
Can you give your top three tips to becoming a successful author?
1. Write about what you know or like best. (With me, it was obviously dogs!)
2. Be honest. Write what you really feel, not what you think others would like to read.
3. Confine your thoughts to a particular subject and/or age group if writing for children.
If you hadn't been a writer, what do you think you would have been?
I first wanted to be a pilot but I wasn't bright enough. But now, I really don't want to be anything other than what I am.
It was whilst staring at the images of Spot that I began to silently mumble the opening lines to Dion's, 'Your own Backyard' from his 1970 Phil Spector produced, album, 'Born To Be With You'. Before I knew it, it was playing over and over again in my head as if there had been a subliminal message that triggered hearing this song from seeing all these Spot The Dogs in one go. It reminded me that I owned this record having bought it when it was still found in the boxes of cut-price releases that lined record shop floors.
Recently a friend, who is a bit of DJ and a record collector, when talking about a mutual friend, who is also a bit of DJ and a record collector, explained that the reason that this mutual friend would always have more records than either of us was because, being ten years older, he had been buying records for longer than the pair of us. Whilst this made a sort of sense what I didn't confess was that I had stopped buying records ten years ago. In fact it's been so long that I've bought a record that people who's tastes I would look down upon as somewhat lacking I know for certain have better records than me because they, by having regular job with a regular wage, have the money to go shopping for records. I don't. There is no job that I'm qualified to do or want to do that would provide me with enough money to buy the records I'd want. It's simply easier to not enter record shops these days.
It took me time (years) to get to this point but I can now listen to music in someone's house and enjoy the experience without the need to possess it afterwards. I don't bemoan not being able to buy records or things though. It feels as if I've sacrificed being able to buy more 'things' to do things which I would have been unable to do if I had to generate the sort of money that I would need to buy more 'things'.
The trouble is that I once associated the acquisition of music with the enjoying of music and the size of a record collection and its continual upkeep was testimony to this. People who stopped buying records I viewed as having lost it. What seemed cool about being a grown up and having a job when I was a kid was the size of the record collection that I'd be able to have. I imagined my future life as being reminiscent of the cover of 'Bringing It Back Home'. Yet whilst I would never have the house or the woman or Bob Dylan's voice I wouldn't be able to pass a second hand record shop without entering.
Even though I love listening to music more than I ever have, my record collection tells another story. If the former me were to visit me he would immediately ask what records I've been buying recently and if I was honest he would view me as someone who had lost the plot in middle age. That is why, as I stared at Spot the Dog and I recalled Dion, I decided to sell my record collection. Like having a large garden that you no longer look after, it's unkempt, overgrown state a constant reminder of what it could be if you had more time or even the inclination, I've decided, once and for all, to be done with it and, the same as moving into a smaller place with a paved yard instead of a garden, embrace the freedom it will bring me. More importantly I will be able to go on holiday with the money.
After stopping off at numerous (disappointing) charity shops on the Kings Road I found the library at Pembridge Square to be closed. By now it was after three and in two hours I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate because I would be thinking about the evening. I told myself to relax, to go with it, enjoy the day; you can afford to jog a bit now that the end is in sight. I would put the day down to research for some unnamed project that would take place in the future. I decided to go to the second hand bookshop I recalled as being on Portobello Road but when I got to where I remembered it being I couldn't find it. I worried about what was I doing with my life. What was I doing wandering without aim or purposeful direction like this? Didn't I know that time is precious? To make myself feel that all was not yet lost I reminded myself that the British Library would be open until 8 so I would still have time to stop there on my way home. What I would do there when I got there I had no idea as I had grown bored of relaying the story in my head that I had planned on rewriting that day and I knew, by now, I wouldn't want to work on it by the time I arrived there.
I stopped at Coffeeplant on Portobello Road and ordered a cafe au lait which is coffee that I only drink when I'm on holiday or abroad. This had the desired affect as I sat outside, watching the world and ex-members of Curiosity Killed the Cat(and not forgetting the tubbier one from the Chemical Brothers) drift passed me and making me feel, at least whilst the rain held off, if I were on holiday.
