August 22nd2012

Job done

By: Phil Mac Giolla Bhain (published August 22nd, 2012 at 5:40 pm)

Oscar Wilde observed that “books are never finished, they are merely abandoned.” 

Today I emailed the “Downfall” postscript to the editor.

I’m done with it all I tell you!

A book is always a collaborative effort.

On “Downfall” there were two editors, a proof reader, a lawyer and a type setter.

Perhaps one should not judge a book by its cover, but that part of the process is also vital.

I am reliably informed that the chap involved in that part of the project is the most sought after in Scotland’s publishing village.

Writing a book is a form of solitary confinement for your mind and you are effectively imprisoned inside the project until the shape of it develops.

Only then do you start to get visits from the outside.

The editor as prison visitor to an isolated writer isn’t an analogy I’ve seen before.

As well as getting inside the book you have to enter the consciousness of the prospective reader.

I was focussed on the objective of telling the whole story of the collapse of that football club and putting it into a wider context for the general public.

As I said at the start of July I was away on “book leave”.

Of course I nipped back occasionally onto the site if I occasioned across something that I considered to be of particular interest to the denizens of Planet Fitba.

I note with interest that the MSM in Scotland have not gone after the Jim Park story.

http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/stay-off-the-park/#more-2967

Even apart from that one Sevco is a potential treasure trove of stories for any journalist working in Scotland, but the boys at the sports desks in Glasgow want to pretend that all is rosy at Ibrox.

Sound familiar?

For the uninitiated writing a book (this will be my third) is an exhausting experience.

A sensible chap would take a break.

At this stage in my life I have come to the terrible realisation that I will never ever be sensible.

While I was down the word mines I became aware that this book had become much talked about out on the exercise yard of social media and not always in a complimentary way.

Ah well…

There is only one thing in life worse than your book being talked about, and that is your book not being…

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1904684262/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d1_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0FBWT61BWBYQPDTS2AWV&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=317828027&pf_rd_i=468294

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