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Discover more from Spoook - the Substack of James McMahon
It is done! It is finally done! I have finished writing my book! Okay, so after week of not touching it I’ve already decided that I’m not very happy with the last chapter, it needs a bit of work, and I’m sure there are numerous rewrites and edits to come. But I wrote 90,000 words! You can’t take that away from me. You really can’t. Even if you were to break into my house and remove it from my hard drive, my wife has a copy, and my publisher, and my agent, and my mum (she says that chapter 8 is very funny). That seems like a lot of effort to take it away from me. 90,000 words, bloody hell.
Reader, it almost killed me.
It’s not that I find writing especially hard. I say that not to be arrogant, but with the context that I find a lot of things very, very hard. Flatpack furniture? I’m useless. Remembering things that my wife has asked me to get from the shop? God bless her patient soul. But I think if I wrote a book about Bigfoot or the Ramones or Doncaster Rovers Football Club I would find it quite easy. Doing this? Not so much. I honestly didn’t think that writing my first book would be so difficult. I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. Writing about the mental condition that has blighted my life, within a year that my dad died, and when I was still quite ill in places, and with a life event occurring towards the end of the process that totally changed the structure = a lot.
But it’s done. I am free!
I’ll be honest, I’m not totally sure what to do now that the book is done. One thing I need to do urgently is sort my sleep out. In the final rush to get the book written I was pulling all-nighters and so my sleep is all out of whack now. It felt a bit like being a student again, although depressingly, I probably had more money when I was a student, so I do need to sort that out fairly quickly! This is the bit of this newsletter that is only really relevant to editors: I’m now available for any work you might like to put my way! I did a few things for The Observer the other week; I interviewed Skin from Skunk Anansie and Peter Hook from Monaco. And I wrote a cover story for Real Crime about a very bad man. I’ve written a few bios, done some advertorials for The Guardian, and put in a few shifts for Lonely Planet and Virgin Radio. But my diary is looking very open now, so anything you need, get in touch! My rates are reasonable!
Oh, and if you’re not a paid subscriber to Spoook, please do consider taking one out. I feel bad I’ve neglected you all lately, but I promise I’ll be back pumping out good stuff to you now that I’ve got some time. Thank you for your patience – and your support on getting the book done. I needed a lot of reassurance in places, and constant reminders that this was something I needed to do. A lot of you who subscribe to Spoook and support my stuff really delivered on that front. Thankyou!
Hey. Here are few other things I should probably tell you about!
I went on the television to talk about AI the other day. My wife told me off for not putting the laundry away, which is a perfectly reasonable request. I was supposed to be on Sky News the other day too, but they cancelled at the last minute and then the guest they got on instead DID A SWEAR WORD, which feels cosmic, no?
I’ve started doing these solo episodes of The James McMahon Music Podcast that I’m calling McMahon’s Musings, principally because I can’t think of a better name, but also because that’s what they are; thoughts about music that I can’t place anywhere else, normally recorded at 3am in the room you see above.
Here’s an episode I recently did about Oliver Anthony and the elitist, out of touch arrogance of Billy Bragg. And here’s some words about Sinead O’Connor.
I promise I’ll get some more interviews on The James McMahon Music Podcast feed ASAP. I have done a few recently despite the chaos of finishing the book, but now I’ve got more time I’ll get on with populating the feed. Actually, maybe you’d like to watch some recent episodes on the Spoook Youtube feed? And maybe you’d even like to subscribe to the channel? That would be wonderful!
I’ve also got a new podcast launching on Friday, September 8th, called Brain Worms, which is about how the internet is making us all completely bonkers. I’m doing it with my good friend - and probably the funniest person I know - Dana Landman - and there’s a trailer for the show which you can hear here.
I’ve recently got really into kebabs, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre video game, the Apple TV show Invasion - which might be terrible, I don’t know yet, but even if it is it’s very watchable, well made sort of terrible - the songs of The Stone Roses, War Mode podcast, putting trousers on, and having conversations with my wife, sometimes while sat on the sofa, sometimes without feeling bad that I should be in Spoook Towers writing a book. I wrote a book!
I’m back, baybee. Speak soon!