Waaaaaay back in 1998, I had what I thought was the bright idea of writing a detective novel set in 1950's Fitzroy. By the end of 1999 I had a finished first draft of a book about murder, blackmail and football called The Murderer Wore Maroon.
Over the intervening years I've slogged away at successive drafts, gradually refining and editing the manuscript until it was at the point where, a couple of years ago, I could show it to two publishers; one an independent, the other part of an international megacorp. They both made all the right noises, but basically told me what I already knew: my novel needed another draft to bring it up to scratch.
By this stage I'd chopped the book down from its inital 147,000 words to a more manageable 112,000. I'd revised plot and character, researched the period, the setting, the mores and manners and vernacular of the day. There had been times when I felt the story was all over the place like a madwoman's custard, and other days when I thought it was beaut.
Two years ago I came to the realisation that I actually wanted to set the story in the 1940's, so I started researching all over again, and now I've finally started the painful process of yet further revision and redrafting of the manuscript.
So why am I doomed?
Well, apart from the fact that this still-unfinished book has dogged me through a major relationship and an equally major break-up, the death of my grandmother, an abortive move interstate, kicking the smoking habit and several jobs (it's an albatross, sez!) there's been one other niggling fact that's gnawed away at my mind over the past eight bloody years of research, writing and redrafting.
When I started this book, I thought I had a unique and excellent idea. No-one else had written noir-inspired detective novels set in 1950's Australia, I told myself. Then I go and discover a series of books by New South Welshman Peter Doyle, about a lurk merchant and low-life called Billy Glasheen...
Damn.
That's ok, I remind myself a few years down the track. You're setting the book back a decade now, at the height of World War II, the days of dances at the Troc, the Brown Out Strangler, and desperate gun battles between men like Fred 'the Frog' Harrison, 'Long Harry' Slater, 'Scotland Yard' Walkerden, and the infamous two-up king himself, the master of Melbourne's underworld, Henry 'Harry' Stokes.
I bet no-one's written a crime novel set in 1940's Melbourne lately!
Dead. Wrong.
Damn you Robert Gott. Damn you to hell!
5 comments:
Well, the sad truth is that it's all been done before, but perhaps not exactly the way you've envisioned it. So there's always room for more! I mean, this christmas, we have not one, but several animated penguin films coming out, and I am sure if both are well done, that people will enjoy both. Don't give up!
That seems to always happen to me with my hare-brained software schemes. Rather frustrating.
Maybe you can differentiate somehow?
How do we know that Robert Gott and Richard Watts aren't the exact same person?
Sneaky devil, advertising your own work...
Keep at it, I say!
I mean, this year's 'Imfamous' is about pretty much EXACTLY the same thing as last year's 'Capote,' and both films have been very well received. Good texts are not ever really about the content, they're what you do with it.
Although I can understand how that would be annoying.
But the real shame would be if you let 'beat' you. Good luck!
so glad to hear you've dusted the novel off again Rich. I have a feeling in my bones it's a slab of genius waiting to spring forth! In fact now you've got me inspired to jump back on the horse of my own novel, which i have neglected for so long now. And yet I keep telling people that I'm writing a novel even though I haven't typed a single word of it for probably about a year!
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