Читать книгу The Incomplete Tim Key - Tim Key - Страница 15

INTRODUCTION

I sometimes wonder why I’ve bothered doing this. I really do. I wonder why I have bothered sacrificing the best part of a decade to write a book. I wonder why the hell I’ve done that. I wonder what the Dickens I was thinking. I wonder what the fuck I was playing at.

Obviously, I know that’s not what you want to hear.

I’m the author, so you’re keen to hear news that I’m in control. You want my vibe to be ‘I’ve written a book, I’m happy with it, tuck in.’ That’s what you’ll often see from contemporary authors these days. Go to a book launch, or run into a contemporary author in a café or at a barbecue, and they can generally be found strumming their book smugly against their thigh, purring about its quality. Sometimes they’ll find a makeshift stage at whatever social engagement they happen to be at. They’ll stand on a table or a climbing frame and waggle their book above their heads and say, ‘Yo, arseholes! Check it out!’, or words to that effect, and they’ll swing their book about like it’s their testicles. They’re proud of their efforts, a lot of these contemporary authors, and fair play to them.

It’s not like I don’t like my book. I do. As you start leafing through it, you’ll realise it’s hard not to love. I just wonder whether I should have plunged ten years into it, that’s more the issue. And not just any ten years either. Nope. My thirties. In my darker moments I find it hard to look at that sacrifice, the decade that I have surrendered to this book, without thinking words to the effect of ‘Now why have I done that, then?’ I look back at all the invitations I declined, the possibilities that I passed by, the moments of joy that I traded in for this book. I wonder what else I might have done had I freed up the space that writing this son-of-a-bitch took up. I once turned down the chance to go on a two-day Danish cookery course. Was it worth it?

I’m sat next to it now. My fat arse is splayed onto a sofa and next to me, scuffed up and riddled with red ink, is my manuscript. Its corners are curled up and it’s held in one piece by two huge staples. They are giant, these staples. Proper beasts. At times I can’t look at my manuscript. I bite my lip and wince at my own feet; close my eyes altogether, imagine a sporting contest I’ve watched in the past. Anything not to contemplate the manuscript. At other times I want to pick it up and smother it with kisses. It is Love/Hate. ‘Why did I waste my time with you?’ yields to ‘I will never let you go’ as I rifle through her pages, trace my fingers round the poems, squint at the footnotes. And then I sling it down again, go and fix myself a Ribena, put some beans on the hob, phone one of the contacts in my iPhone. Weep into my iPhone. My relationship with my anthology is a complex one.

My darkest moments come when I imagine what else I could have achieved in the time I devoted to writing this. If I hadn’t wasted my time jizzing this out, what might I have accomplished? This question absolutely pickles me. Obviously the elephant in the room is that I could have become a dentist. Ten years is a very long time – I could have started and finished my dentistry odyssey in that period. I could have trained for five years, had three very happy years as a qualified dentist, spent a year wondering whether dentistry was definitely for me, jacked dentistry in, gone travelling for a bit, and then started on something else. Ten years! I could have built an eco-home! I could have started a small company renting out lights and other bits and pieces to theatres. I could have had two wonderful marriages. Anything.

And yet for ten years I nurtured this. Like an emperor penguin, I sat on this and did nothing else. I was responsible for this egg. This book. This very tome, which you are now clutching, rested on my penguin feet, my body heat incubating it for a decade.

So I don’t know really. I suppose now the ball is in your court. The only way for me to make sense of that decade would be for people like you to actually like the book. It’s perfectly possible. I can name ten people who I know for a fact have liked it. There’s my literary agent, Robert, of course. Then there’s my mother; she’s always tried to be supportive of it. I once had a fan contact me via social media saying that he thought it was fine. When I’ve asked people outright whether they think it’s any good they’ve nine times out of ten tried to be enthusiastic. I once asked a lover, having encouraged her to read it for several minutes, whether she rated it. She put the book down and very gently pressed her hand against my wrist. I took that as a ringing endorsement.

So go ahead. Fill your fat face with my poems. Eat heartily. I’ve sacrificed some pretty meaty relationships and a potential career as a dentist getting this piece of shit up and running. Like it. Really, really do your best to like it.