The Second Post Of The Year: About Steve Hely's "How I Became A Famous Novelist"

Today we took our Christmas tree down. It's outside now, leaning against the trash recepticles. The room looks strangely empty without it.
What else?
I cooked a ham today. Well, not really, since it was a ready-to-eat smoked ham. Still, it took an hour 15 to get it hot. 2 kg. That's a lot.

I've finished reading one of the books I got for Christmas. "How I Became A Famous Novelist" by Steve Hely. I had ordered it from Amazon as a gift for myself, mainly to get the purchase value up to receive free shipping. Why not, I thought, it might be good!
According to what's printed on the back of the book Steve has been writing for at least one comedy show once. And that's how the book is written, but I didn't know that when I bought it.

It's basially the story of a ghost-writer for student's essays, who has the idea that most authors on the bestseller lists today are mere con-artists, pumping out book after book full of exactly what the audience expects. The guy then decides that he can do that, too.
So he makes up a list of things that have to be in a book designed to be a bestseller, i.e. a road trip, an american hero etc. Oh, and his basic reason to attempt to write a book is this: He doesn't want to come off as the slacker he is at the wedding of his ex-girlfriend a year later. So he starts writing a novel.
Up until here, which is maybe 1/3 in, the book is a nice read, funny, fast, interesting. You read it and you think: I could do it, too! I myself could write a bestseller! And you feel with him for accomplishing it!
You even forgive Steve for giving our guy a friend in publishing, thus saving him trouble getting his book out there, and yes, we even forgive Steve for cheating again by inventing some unlikely events that give our guy's novel a lot of media attention.

But then for some unfathomable reason Steve puts our guy into some morality shit, sends him crawling through the mud of all this honesty of writing-bullshit etc, which is just plain boring. But he doesn't stop there, the heart & emotions part is too important: He gives us the obligatory make-an-ass-of-yourself-at-the-wedding-scene, for example. People who were broken up with recently might enjoy all the heart-torn-apart/can't-get-over-it-fluff poured over them. Really a lot of pages to wade through, because it doesn't get better before the last fifth of the book.
While I dragged myself through that part I couldn't help remembering "Adaptation", the Kaufman movie, which actually depicted in itself on screen the senseless rewrites of its own script (think of the ridiculous swamp-action-scene). Is that what Steve had in mind? Giving me the emotional shit necessary to make his book sell better? Well, when in doubt we rule in favour of good intentions and say: perhaps, perhaps.
Fortunately Steve manages to get his novel back on track for the last bit of it, everything gets tied up nicely, the end is somewhat satisfactorily, even it waves around a lot the mighty mystifying finger of "what writing is really about". Yes, yes, character has evolved, blahblah.

Nice book if you have nothing better to do, especially the beginning is quite worth it. More precisely, I would very much recommend the first half (for good measure) to everyone. The second half: Not really.