{"id":551,"date":"2015-09-24T12:47:37","date_gmt":"2015-09-24T19:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/?p=551"},"modified":"2015-09-24T12:47:37","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T19:47:37","slug":"the-writers-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/the-writers-cut\/","title":{"rendered":"The Writer’s Cut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles. January 2003<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steve Martin says that the problem with fiction is you\u2019ll be happily reading a book, and all of a sudden it turns into a novel. You should hear the way he says that. \u201cIt goes all novelly.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019s a hoot, Steve. He cracks me up. It\u2019s the way he says things. \u201cAlllll novelly.\u201d But it\u2019s true isn\u2019t it?\u00a0\u00a0 That is<\/em> the problem with novels. They are so palpably fiction<\/em>. Maybe we\u2019re a bit sick of plots with stories and characters, the usual bull. Oh she\u2019s going to end up in bed with him. He\u2019s going to do it with her. They\u2019re all going to run away and join the navy\u2026 After all we\u2019ve been reading books for centuries and watching movies and TV for years, and we’ve sat through hundreds and thousands of tales by the time we\u2019re adults, so we know all about plot twists, and sudden reversals of fortune, and peripeteia\u00a0 and all that Aristotelian shit they cram into you at college. But real life doesn\u2019t have a plot, does it? It just kinda rambles on.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what I set out to write. A reality novel. A novel about a Hollywood writer who is writing a novel about a Hollywood writer writing a novel about Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Wait, it\u2019s more than that. I did that just to make you laugh. I am<\/em> a gag writer. I can never resist a cheap laugh. It has cost me dearly.<\/p>\n

I’m calling my novel The Writer\u2019s Cut<\/em>. It\u2019s a Post Ironic title, because it\u2019s something you\u2019re never going to see. No one ever releases a movie that is the Writer\u2019s cut. They\u2019d sooner put out the Caterers\u2019 cut or the Craft Services\u2019 cut, or the Valet Parkers\u2019 cut. We\u2019re in the Post Ironic age. With Reality TV we have gone way beyond irony. Same with politics. We\u2019ve got a clown in the White House and nobody laughs.<\/p>\n

The Writer<\/em>\u2019s Cut<\/em> is going to be very contemporary, in structure, in style and in content, with heavy sex scenes, natch, because that\u2019s what sells today. I am going to put myself in my novel of course. That\u2019s what people do these days. Like everyone else I want to be a star. I want to be on television and hold up the cover of my book. Why not?\u00a0\u00a0 Some people want to climb Mount Everest, some people want to dress up as chickens and wrestle. It\u2019s all good in the Post Ironic age.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t going to be a long book. Long books are over. Long books don\u2019t sell. We live in the age of the sound bite. Short, sharp, bittersweet. It\u2019s a tittle-tattle tale of life on the streets and between the sheets of Hollywood, with lots of sex and stars. Quite scandalous in fact. I\u2019m taking one or two liberties with the truth, of course, because a writer\u2019s life isn\u2019t that interesting.<\/p>\n

Got up. Wrote. Had a crap. Wrote. Went back to bed. Got up. Wrote. Had a headache. Couldn<\/em>\u2019t think of anything. Drank. <\/em><\/p>\n

Actually a writer\u2019s life isn\u2019t at all interesting, though I did once get my girlfriend Tish to pose naked for me while I was writing. Why should only painters have nude models, right?\u00a0\u00a0 I figured a writer\u2019s model might help me write something extraordinary. So Tish slipped off all her clothes and laid her long beautiful body back on a sofa while I turned on my laptop.<\/p>\n

I got nothing written.<\/p>\n

I guess painters have more discipline.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n