Getting Better With Age

I was first attracted to the author Ned Beauman because he has the same surname as me (with a different spelling). After finding out that he was younger than me and already a twice-published novelist, I was intrigued to see how developed he is as a writer at such a young age. I've been reassuring myself for ages that it's fine if I'm a bit of a lazy writer, if I don't see myself being anywhere near ready to get a novel published for the next few years, because there's so much to learn that it's impossible to write properly until you're about forty. Yet here he was, published at twenty-six, and with back cover blurb that sounded very interesting.

It was reassuring to read Boxer Beetle and see that, although Beauman is clearly a very talented author, he still has a long way to go before he reaches the peak of his powers. The premise and historical background to Boxer Beetle were very interesting, but sometimes the action lagged a bit. The things I most enjoyed were the little scientific asides on eugenics and scary-tough beetles, and that a character had trimethylaminuria, a condition that makes you smell of fish. I'm looking forward to reading his next novel, The Teleportation Accident, when it comes out next year in paperback (I hate hardbacks) and following Beauman's career as he matures. It's exciting how much better you get as you write more. I read back stories that I wrote a couple of years ago and see dozens of mistakes that I wouldn't make now.  There's a long way to go, but at least I've got the rest of my life to improve my writing. I feel sorry for sportsmen who hone their craft and should be getting better and better, but are instead constantly battling the decline of their bodies. Despite all of the improvements to their mental performance and understanding of their game, they are always struggling to match the highs of their physical peak, and then they get to their mid-thirties and it's over. It must be very frustrating to be sat on the pundits' couch, knowing that if you had a body twenty years younger you could be one of the best players in the world, but having creaky knees and a bad back instead. In contrast, it's probably better to be unhealthy as a writer. Moving around is overrated.