Claude Balls

Hey Claude,

Could I get you to edit out the actual video of the Hitler Rant and just leave the youtube link? All threads related to it are gonna get taken down otherwise, by order of the mods, due to coarse language.

Thanks for posting though - 25,000 views in one and a half days!

Hi Claude - I hope that you are well. How is the writing getting on? FYI, my novel has found a publisher and it is coming out in New York, of all places, in early 2009.

CB - thanks for the message. I appreciate your interest.

While I have a Literary Agent, that doesn't mean much in the world of publishing. The challenge still lies ahead. So like you, I am an aspirant.

It took me ten years to write the first novel. The end product was 70000 words. I tend to overwrite and overcomplicate my material, as you would notice on Bay 13. The second novel is a monster, numbering as it does some 180,000 words. I have told the Big Fella that if he wants me to finish it, then I had better bloody win tattslotto, as I need a decade to finish it - insofar as I have this time up my sleeve - and some real space that only comes with financial freedom.

That leaves the third novel. I had the new years resolution of 300 words per day. While I have failed to meet this, overall it is at 94000 words, and probably 60% finished as a complete product. I have to say that it is not bad. The first novel was originally a serious conception. Then, with feedback, I realised that whatever small talent I have lay in humour, so I gutted it completely along those lines. In reading the first novel, I can sometimes pick up its hybrid conception. This third novel is cleanly "cheap".

My advice to you is this: just start writing. Write often. Get up early in the morning and write. Write rather than watching some crap on the TV. When you watch a film or read a book, think of how it could have ended differently.

As your father experienced, it ain't easy to complete a narrative from A to Z in terms of logical flow and characterisation. Even so, to get from A to Z, you have to get to A to B - baby steps in a way. And that is the beauty of writing on a laptop. If you hit a dead-end in terms of H to I, then you can always scrub that component, and salvage whatever is of value. YOu might have a vision as to what Z already is. Work towards it. explore some permutations. Or write Z down and leave it there in wait for the rest of the novel to catch up. Hence the importance of always working through the challenges in your head, say, when you are trapped in a slow moving lift.

Inspiration - not that I have much to my name - is not something that you can control, say, like one can summon a waiter (unless you are a Mozart of course). To maximise the inspiration, you really need some quiet in your life. Quieten your mind, and fragments will come to you. Then, sweatily, you have to put it together. This is my particular challenge, as I have an exacting BS corporate job and I need to keep the real boss at home happy, and be as good a father as I can be.

Just write and be committed to it. show it to your friends after you have redrafted it any number of times and tell them to put some bullets into it.

Even if you don't get anywhere in the world of publishing, as I probably won't, at least you can say that you have tried and perhaps brought some enjoyment into the lives of the people who have read your material. To let your light shine.

Hope some of this makes sense. Believe in yourself and put in the long hours. It is a tough gig, and we are all allowed to have cheap delusions of grandeur

Best wishes, Biffinator