Contrary to how it may seem, I actually love my life. I just know I won’t be able to enjoy it until I have outpaced my wife and daughter on my daily page production.
Dirk Wittenborn
Dirk Wittenborn, author of Fierce People, Zoe and Pharmakon, is disappointed by the Super Bowl, out-written by a seven year old and wildly optimistic about the British Weather.
My daughter actually wrote the song herself. I try to figure out how she has time to be on Chapter 14 and come up with lyrics and music in her spare time.
Sunday
I go to the gym, run two miles on the treadmill in preparation for a day of video sport - it's a double header: Super Bowl followed by the Nadal-Federer tennis match. Super Bowl is a social event in New York that inspires competing parties. I, however, have only been invited to one--the largest and most garish. Several hundred semi-somebodies have been invited to the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel for free buffet and The Game on flatscreen. It's being hosted by my old friend Terry McDonald, editor of Sports Illustrated. Terry's not sure how he came to host it, but I take note of the fact that he tells me his sports glossy has decided not to blow big bucks junketing down to the game itself in Tampa, due to the Depression that everyone insists on calling a recession. The game's boring, the food's bland, but a bit of good news: the wife of Andrew Jarecki, director of Capturing the Friedmans, has started a business selling pubic hair dye. I love the idea and am glad someone is making money, but the fact that I have not heard of this fashion trend, much less seen it, makes me feel rather old and out of it. Why is my wife not dyeing her pubic hair? Is she waiting for Valentine's Day? My wife and seven-year-old daughter, Lilo are at this moment are 10 blocks south at the ABBA orgy Broadway musical "Mama Mia!" Believe it or not, the Super Bowl is so bad, I wish I was with them. I leave at halftime, go home and settle in to the Nadal-Federer Australian Open Finals. Since it's already tomorrow in Australia, it happened yesterday. I try to pretend I don't already know the outcome of the game and root for Federer because, at27, he's the old one. I turn off the set when Federer begins to cry. I fall asleep worrying about the new novel I have just started to write.
Monday
I wake up worrying about my novel. I tell myself doubt is the enemy. I really start to worry when I come downstairs and find my seven-year-old daughter clicking away at the manual typewriter I gave her as a belated Christmas present. She gleefully tells me that she's already on chapter 9 of her book. I read it quickly, hoping there's something I can steal. I'm startled to discover that it's set in the Depression. And I am depressed when she tells me, "You know, like when you were a kid." I try to explain to her that I am old, but not that old. My wife then tells me she is on page 70 of her new book. I want to cry, but Federer's already done that, so I give my aging Scotty the three pills it takes to keep him alive and head out into the Siberian cold, plastic bad in hand, to pick up his shit. Contrary to how it may seem, I actually love my life. I just know I won't be able to enjoy it until I have outpaced my wife and daughter on my daily page production.
Tuesday
I realize yesterday was Groundhog's Day. I don't know if the Groundhog saw his shadow, and can't remember whether if he did it would mean winter is going to be shorter or longer. But I am pleased to discover that in yesterday's NYC Groundhog Day ceremony, Mayor Bloomberg was bitten by the groundhog. I reach for the telephone to call my mother. She's amused when bad things happen to politicians. It isn't til my hand is on the phone that I remember my mother died two days after Christmas. I give my Scotty his medicine and we brave the cold. I hear the manual typewriter clicking. My daughter is now on Chapter 11. Why can't I write before breakfast?
Wednesday
In the afternoon I meet with my friend director Neil Burger. We've already written two scripts together, one came out in September called The Lucky Ones. It is fun to write with someone else, it's especially fun to write scripts with someone else. Besides the fact that you can see on your partner's face whether a line works or not, you don't have to fill up the whole page. I come home and announce I had a good day. My wife Kirsten, being generous of spirit, is pleased. "The novel's going well?" she asks. I don't tell her I didn't work on the novel. My daughter's now on Chapter 12. I tell her it's time to do her math homework.
Thursday
I leave home before breakfast to go to my dentist to have a new crown installed. My dentist is a chatty man whose practice includes a large number of writers. As he shoots me up with Novocaine, he fills me in on their works in progress. His injection does not numb me to the fact that while I am sitting in his chair, they are working on their novels. I race back to my office and actually get something written. As a reward, I set up a tennis game for that night, forgetting that I have promised to help my wife prepare a dinner meal designed to matchmake a WASPy, male, divorced nuclear physicist working on the Higgs project in Switzerland with a glamorous divorced Brazilian art critic. I am sure they will have nothing in common, and end up blaming us for our ham-handed attempt to play Cupid. However, when I run through the front door in my sweats and hear them speaking French, I know there's chemistry. Of course, not speaking a word French, I can't understand what they're saying. But it has been my experience that being able to speak a foreign language in front of an audience too unsophisticated parler, supplies two key ingredients for romance to blossom, a shared superiority and a sense of secrecy.
Friday
In the AM, my wife and I attend our daughter's school play. She plays an evil 11th century Malian queen. Needless to say, my daughter goes to a progressive private school. My wife is upset she already used up all her five minutes of video recording her cellphone provides on the first act, and misses the song our daughter sings in the second act. My daughter actually wrote the song herself. I try to figure out how she has time to be on Chapter 14 and come up with lyrics and music in her spare time. That afternoon, much to my amazement, I actually begin to write something I like. My pleasure is short-lived however, because I find myself distracted by emails concerning next week's UK book tour. I decide to further distract myself and call up my friend Tchaik Chassay who, with his wife Melissa, is hosting my launch party. Tchaik gleefully tells me that he and Melissa have invited three hundred people, and hopes there will be enough wine. I tell him about the pubic hair dye and am relieved when he tells me that he hasn't heard of it either.
Saturday
The morning paper tells me that 600,000 Americans lost their jobs last month. Being a writer and having never had a real job to worry about losing, I worry about going broke. I take the dog for a walk, buy a pack of cigarettes, and worry about getting cancer. My wife calls me from a church fair down the street. I take a last drag and head off to join them. I tell myself I worry about going broke because flying makes me nervous and at 8:05 that evening, I'll be taking off for London. But I know that's not what I'm really worried about. I'm worried because... because I like to worry. And one of the great things about being a novelist who has just started a new novel is you always have something to worry about. The only thing worse than writing is not writing.
Sunday
The day hasn't happened. But because I'm not bringing my laptop, I will record the day I want to have. I land at Heathrow just after 8. It is no longer winter. The sun is shining. And after I check into my hotel, I suddenly feel inspired and knock off three thousand words of the novel, longhand. Best I all, I can read my own hand-writing. I take in a show at the Tate. I notice several people reading my novel Pharmakon. They not only recognize me, they ask for my autograph and tell me they bought copies for their friends. They say they love me. I believe them.
Monday, 9 February, 2009
In My week
- Charlotte Grimshaw
- Susan Hill
- Ed Hollis
- Ali Sethi
- Wells Tower
- Con Coughlin
- Dirk Wittenborn
- Kathleen Kent
- Daniel Everett
- Mark Crick
- Glyn Maxwell
- Rabih Alameddine
- Nicholas Hogg
- Charles Boyle
- Mohammed Hanif
- Sarah Hall
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