Well, I have finally finished a draft of the first piece that I’ve written for my new book. Oh, it was such a difficult piece to write. I feel embarrassed that it took me so long to write it, but I have also learned so much from writing it. I also reckon that what I was trying to do has a pretty high level of difficulty. It was one of those “quintuple somersault with two twists and a pike” type of dives, and the whole book has that absurdly ambitious feel to it, really.
And yet the ambitious nature of this project – the sense that I am very much over-reaching – is part of its charm. And, really, that is one of the things I tried to cultivate when writing my first book – the happy sense that, yes, I am indeed over-reaching and that I want to share that joke – and all of the ideas and conceits that are entailed in it – with my reader.
For now, I’ve handed over the piece to two people for their feedback, one of whom is my publisher. I have no idea what they will think of it. Maybe they will give me an ‘A’ for effort and some lower score for the realisation. At any rate, I have tried mightily hard with this piece but, tonight, I’ve been thinking about how ‘A’ isn’t so much a grade. Tonight, ‘A’ is about being ‘Absurdly Ambitious’.
