The Ambition of Authors

Like most Authors (capital 'a'), I'm fairly ambitious in the area of having a book published. This should not be mistaken for proactivity. For years, I have had ambitions of getting something out there, but have been rather lazy about it. I intend to bring a halt to this pathetic state of affairs, either by trying hard to get published, or (and this is the show-stopper, ladies and gents) by 'giving up'.

The art of 'giving up' was first introduced by the French, and had been perfected by the time Hitler swept across Europe. On hearing that he was on his way with hordes of drunk, screaming Nazis, raping and pillaging as they went (so sue me for slander, I dare you), vast swathes of France simply dropped their pants and bent over for him. To be fair, a sizable portion didn't just faint and surrender, they formed La Resistance instead, and good on them. If I was French, I'd hope to be descended from one of those guys, not one of the cheese eating surrender monkeys.

But enough about the French. They did the 'giving up' thing in style, and I could never hope to match their achievements. If I gave up on the writing thing, it would be low-key, subtle, a slow decline in the (admittedly already erratic) weekly word count, rather than a full-scale dive off the Beachy Head of writing. I would give up in such a fashion that, wait for it... you would hardly realise.

Gone would be the ambition, the drive, the constant desire to make it, replaced instead with a laissez faire (there's the French for you again, inventing whole phrases about simply not giving a shit) attitude to the world of literature which might actually see me pick up a book by an author I've not already read to death (disclaimer: no authors were harmed in the making of this library).

I would flourish, reading book after book, not letting my creative juices out, bottling them up inside so that suddenly I became the life of the party, the go-to man in a crisis of wit. And before long, I would have to start writing some of this stuff down. Maybe thinking about a book or two.

Damn. Damn it all.