Now, where was I...?

The Return of Hey, Writer Guy

Forgive me Substack, for I have sinned. It has been four months since my last post….

Is that sacrilegious? Probably, in some eyes, but then writing these things and putting them out into the world has always been an act of confession for someone much more attuned to hiding the real me behind made-up characters living in fictional worlds.

So what has been going on here at the House of Hey, Writer Guy that has led to such a prolonged period of sustained slackness?

Part of this is due to the changing nature of Substack itself, but we shall come back to that in the fullness of time, when I cunningly pull together all the threads of these musings.

A big driver of my prolonged (merciful?) silence has been that I have been busy killing people. Not real people, I hasten to add. Made-up people, living in fictional places like Sleepy Cove, New Plymouth and Brokenwood. Yep, I have been doing a tour of duty of the crime shows (cosy and not so cosy) that we make here in Aotearoa.

While killing fictional people on TV, in a variety of ways, is fun and rewarding it’s not actually the path I would have chosen, had I been smart enough to chart an actual path through my life. I like reading thriller novels and books where people solve unspeakable crimes (more on this soon) but my natural inclination towards writing comedy gets in the way of living in the world of dark and brooding for protracted periods of time. It does my head in, every time I’ve tried.

Unfortunately, and for quite a while now, the world of television comedy doesn’t seem to want me. I started there, writing sketches for Billy T James, and I have lived there for short periods of time (Serial Killers, Diplomatic Immunity and Spin Doctors) but all too soon that world spat me out and I was forced to feed my comedy habit by sneaking it into drama.

Sure, this taught me that drama works best (for me) when leavened by comedy; and comedy is made better when written like it is a drama. Both good things to learn, as a writer, I reckon. Sadly it seems that the only way to get a TV comedy show made in Aotearoa these days is by being a stand-up comedian who has a vanity project in their bottom drawer. My old-school methods of trying to write the best and funniest script you can and then casting the right people to bring it to life, seem to hold little currency. These days.

But, as I said just before, comedy is where I started and where I want to be. And maybe the universe or some other higher power might provide. But in the interim, I will carry on killing people for money.

Speaking of killing fictional people, the Auckland Writers Festival was a banger this year. Loads of interesting writers, talking about the interesting things they’ve written. Spending a weekend in the company of people with much bigger brains than I is always uplifting, albeit a bit tiring after the seventh session of the day. Must lie down to stop head from exploding.

This Festival I even managed to keep my usual plethora of faux pas down to a minimum. I only called a few people by the wrong name or attributed to them things that were written by other people. Even my biggest potential fuck up turned into a teensy moment of triumph.

I was in the Patron’s Lounge, between sessions, when I spotted Sir Ian Rankin, the Scottish crime novelist I very much admire, sitting on his own. At the table next to him was a friend of mine, also sitting on his own. I conjured up a plan whereby I would casually wander over, quickly tell Sir Ian how much I admired his work, then move on, without disturbing him overly, to sit with my friend and catch up.

Phase one of the plan went swimmingly. A few casual words of praise for Sir Ian, which he seemed to take well. Then it all fell apart when I realised that the guy at the next table was not my friend, just another bald guy with glasses.

I was stranded. I had no exit strategy. I froze.

Luckily Sir Ian asked me if I’d like to sit down. So I sat and we talked for a bit and he was lovely. I even dropped the classic, “How are you enjoying New Zealand?” And before I said something truly stupid (as is my way) I did the quintessentially Kiwi thing of leaving him to it before I overstayed my welcome.

And when I returned to my group I was given something of a hero’s welcome – the man brave enough to talk to the rock star writer.

I took it all in my stride. Result.

One of my favourite things about the AWF is watching the Grey Power maelstrom in the Aotea Centre foyer between sessions. Thousands of silver-haired booklovers, surging this way and that, like a Gold Card mosh pit. So many queues in such a small space. The book-signing queue; the queue to get into the next session in the Kiri te Kanawa; the queue at the bar; the queue at the bookstore; the queue for the session downstairs in the Waitemata room that has somehow snaked all the way upstairs to blend with the other queues; the queue for the women’s toilets. Even the volunteers holding up the signs telling you where the end of each queue was, seemed lost in the chaos. It made me smile.

In the midst of all these queues are the most dangerous AWF attendees: the ones armed with sticks, slashing their way through the queues, wielding their weapons to cut a path to where they so importantly need to be.

It was in a whole other sort of AWF queue – the queue to leave the theatre after the Gala night – that I found myself shuffling towards the exit, right behind the Honourable Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage (and their pagan cousins Media and Communications).

I seized my opportunity.

“Minister inundated with funding requests whilst leaving arts event,” I quipped, loud enough for him to hear.

The Minster gave me the side-eyed glance. “How much do you want?”

“A hundred-and fifty million,” I said.

“Not a problem,” he said.

Now I’m not the Minister for Justice (because he is also the Minister for Justice) but I feel we made a legally binding contract, there in the Kiri te Kanawa theatre, that night. At first I was surprised that no mention of this funding was made in the subsequent budget, but I guess there’s paperwork to be done. Please note that when the funding does come through I will be donating half of it to my favourite charity, NZ On Air.

Another thing that happened to me at the AWF, repeatedly, was people asking me if I was writing a novel. Sometimes there was a whiff of facetiousness about this, fuelled by the fact that a couple of TV writer colleagues of mine have started banging out crime novels. But sometimes people seemed genuinely interested in whether I have that novel in me. Generally, I would laugh it off: ha! Do I look like Gavin Strawhan or Michael Bennett?

But now, with the benefit of time and distance, I feel I must at least try to answer the question honestly.

And the answer is: I don’t know, because I don’t know if writing novels is my place. In fact, I have no idea what my place is, professionally speaking, in this world.

I tried writing theatre. I enjoyed the act but I didn’t feel part of that world. I tried writing film. I enjoyed the writing but didn’t feel welcome in that world. I tried writing non-fiction books. Again, I enjoyed the act but I didn’t feel at home in that world. And, as stated above, I loved writing comedy but that world moved on without me.

Which brings me, seamlessly, back to the protracted absence from Substack.

When I launched Hey, Writer Guy, a year and a half ago, Substack seemed like a very different place. It was kind of cool, like I’d wandered into a bar that felt just right, pulled up a stool and ordered an Old Fashioned just the way I like it, without some moustachioed twat trying to upsell me to a lychee Old Fashioned made with absinthe instead of bourbon.

I liked Substack back then.

Now, to me, Substack is starting to feel like all the other social media platforms I have dabbled in without ever committing. I guess this is a sign of Substack’s success, but from where I’m sitting (at the bar) there are suddenly all these newbies, trying to sell themselves to me. I’m getting things in my inbox I don’t remember asking for. I’m being shown stuff about stuff that I don’t give a stuff about. Everything feels bigger and more crowded and my brain cannot cope.

Sure there are still good people at the Substack bar. Like Chris and Chris, trying desperately to keep music journalism alive. And Ted, who knows everything about everything. But there are also a lot of other voices now, shouting for the bartender’s attention. Pushy people.

So, logically, now I wonder if I belong here. And for a long time that wondering stopped me from writing. Hence the silence.

If this all sounds like I’m fishing for compliments, I’m not. I will keep posting whether people want it or not. Because I like the act of writing. And I like thinking out loud.

At least until the Honourable Minister fronts with the promised hundred-and-fifty million, then I am so out of here.