Has my book already been written?

When I started my first novel 18 months ago it didn't really occur to me that someone else might already have written it. To be honest it didn't really occur to me that I was actually going to finish it.

Now it's done (and lounging in a drawer awaiting one final check before going out to a list of agents) I'm starting research and planning for a second. Almost the first thought I had was 'is this an original idea?'. Almost immediately I discovered at least one book that has alarming parallels (judging from the blurb anyway - my copy should arrive from Amazon later today). Luckily the panic only lasted an hour or so - during which time the author of the book in question tweeted me to say 'feel the fear and do it anyway' after I'd told her I was worried she'd already written my book (she was the one who recommended hers, amongst many others, as being along similar lines).

Luckily the fear only lasted for an hour or so. I'm sure that whatever other people have written there will be more differences than similarities between our books.

What the past few days has highlighted though is just how fragile an idea is and what a nebulous thing a novel is in its early (and even middle) stages.

Songs: Josh Ritter - Kathleen

Last week I went to the Barbican to see Josh Ritter and was, once again, blown away by the sheer exuberance and wonder of his live shows. I've never seen anyone command a room as strongly by sheer power of enthusiasm, other than Bruce Springsteen (and my chances of ever seeing him perform anywhere this small are nil).

Amongst the brilliance, the roller-coaster of moods and emotions and the sheer bloody brilliance of the night, one song stood out and made the hairs on the hairs on the back of my hairs stand up (I'm not THAT hairy, by the way) - Kathleen.

Any song starting with the line:

All the other girls here are stars-you are the Northern Lights

is going to get my attention and this did from the first time I heard it. There's something in the way Josh Ritter delivers a song that is simultaneously energised, relaxed, carefree, pumped and - above all - joyously, unashamedly hopeful. In an age when it's cool to be cool Josh Ritter embodies true cool - that is he's cool because he is himself and doesn't care whether that's fashionable or not (and by that I mean your facial hair, sir).

The true killer line in the song is:

I won't be your last dance, just your last good night.
Every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied

Brilliant. There is nothing better in the entire history of music than this song.

A finished novel and an empty notebook

So, a few days ago I finished the novel I've been writing for the past 18 months. This is brilliant and scary in equal measures as now I have to send it off into the world and find out whether it's crap, brilliant or (more likely) any one of a million things in between. That's partly what it's about though, how we generally live in the between, so it makes sense.

On the very good advice of a mate (Phil Earle, whose brilliant debut novel Being Billyis published in January by Puffin) I'm sticking the manuscript of book #1 in a drawer for a couple of weeks and giving it a final read before it goes out. Seeing as the Frankfurt Book Fair is almost upon us there's a fair chance nobody would read it til the end of October anyway.

In the meantime I've bought a new notebook (just a cheap Ryman's thing, I think the quality of my writing would be likely to be inversely proportional to the fanciness of any notebook I was to buy) and am cracking on with the research and note taking for book #2.

I'll fill you in on any feedback I get once it's out there.

#18 Juan Diego Florez - The Tenor

The Tenor
I used to belong to one of those CD clubs where you start by getting half a dozen things you want really cheap and end up paying £14 each for a load of things you don't want just because you're too lazy to go to the post office or too disorganised to return the slip that says 'no thanks'.

This was one of the discs I didn't order but arrived anyway - luckily I liked the look of it.

Juan Diego Florez seems to be one of those singers (like Cecelia Bartoli) who polarizes people. I know a few people who can't stand his voice. Like it or not, however, his singing is incredible on a technical level. I happen to like it, although I need to be in the right mood. At least, that's true on disc, I'm always in the mood to hear him sing live. I've seen him a couple of times at Covent Garden: once in The Barber of Seville with the incredible Joyce Di Donato and once in Fille Du Regiment with Natalie Dessay, probably the most perfect opera experience I've ever had in the theatre.

I did make the mistake of listening to this on the way to work today - JDF has the kind of voice that my ears might need to wake up a little more to fully appreciate, especially in a disc of arias where there's a higher density of top notes than you'd get in an evening in an opera house (you'd also get other voices in the opera house).

I love this disc - it's also great to see a couple of non-operatic pieces (Amapola and Granada) that mix things up without feeling the need to go all crossover and sing something wildly inappropriate just to generate a few sales. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against crossover as such, I just think sometimes people chase sales at the expense of producing quality. Not here.

#17 Britten - Peter Grimes (Davis/Vickers)

Britten: Peter Grimes

I love Peter Grimes, love it - in the way Kevin Keegan would have loved it if Newcastle had beaten Manchester United (probably more so).

The first recording I owned was the Britten/Pears one and I loved it - still do. A couple of years later my wife bought me the John Vickers/Colin Davis recording on vinyl but, vinyl not being so portable, I ended up not listening to it as much. I finally got round to getting the CD a while ago and have spent the past few days listening to pretty much nothing else other than this (although I did watch the ENO Philip Langridge DVDyesterday).

It's wonderful to have more than one outstanding recording of any opera to listen to and it's especially great when the versions bring out very different sides of the drama as is the case here. Vickers' singing is much more muscular and brutal than Pears' and Davis conducts the score with an equal amount of conviction. The standout scene for me is Grimes' first entry after the Passacaglia ('Go there...') which hits you with the force of a gale and leaves you reeling.

Grimes features as a (relatively small) reference in the novel I'm currently writing, which is one of the reasons I've been listening to it so much - more on that later though.

#16 Radiohead - The Bends

Radiohead - The Bends
When I was at university everyone banged on about this album and I bought it thinking 'they can't all be wrong'. I listened to it a fair bit at the time but it never really got under my skin in the way I was expecting it to.

I have roughly the same relationship with Radiohead as I have with U2 - I can see why what they do is good, why it's important, why it's unique and why people love it. I just don't - love it that is. I think with U2 I know why that is. The band, Bono in particular, have spent so long creating a kind of post-modern rock-god-for-the-masses image that it actually gets in the way of me seeing them as real people singing about real stuff. Radiohead aren't the same though - they're pretty much as real as it gets.

All that said - I do love Fake Plastic Trees and High and Dry. I guess that's part of the problem with this album for me - after Fake Plastic Trees it's basically peaked for me and the rest seems like a let down.

I've got OK Computer as well and it hasn't bowled me over either. I reckon it's a bit like mushrooms or rhubarb though - eventually you have to stop trying and concede it's just not for you. There's so much music I love in this world I don't have enough time to listen to music I don't. I do still feel like it's my error though and there's something I'm missing.

#15 The Beatles - Please Please Me

Please Please Me

I love this album. Everybody bangs on about how Sgt Pepper is the best Beatles album - it's not. Neither is the white album or even Rubber Soul (much as I love them all...well...Sgt pepper not so much...)

From the count-in to 'I Saw Her Standing There' to the final ragged yelps of 'Twist & Shout', Please Please Me did as much to kick pop music up the arse as anything before or since. It set the standard for future bands and made it the norm for bands to sing well, play well, have personality, write their own songs, push the boundaries of recording blah, blah, blah...

People get tired of The Beatles as they've been round so long but this album is like a cotton bud for tired ears & heads - it shifts the accumulated crap and lets you hear clearly again. Works for me.

Plus...George's solo on 'Boys' is brilliant.