Abandoned and failed projects, ca. 1998-2025: an incomplete, chronological list

[This is an updated version of the original from 2021.]

A particular form of (auto)biography could be written by listing unrealised projects: the ideas that sparked, glowed, but never received public articulation. The paths considered but not taken. Sean Ashton’s beguiling and addictive Living in a Land (MA BIBLIOTHEQUE, 2017) is a kind of autobiography told entirely through negative statements: a life implied, like an intaglio print, by the things not there. (‘I have never taken a phone call from an uncle I hardly know. I have never been handed a broken toy. I have never dieted or bulked up.’)

Failed or abandoned projects are related to, but different from, things not done: they are a few inches closer to realization. And although none of the projects listed below were ever realised (although I probably need to think more about what that term means), each calls to mind intensely a particular time and place (number 2: the tea room of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, the day before September 11^th, 2001). Things never done exist everywhere in time; but things abandoned are hooked to a particular moment.

Here are some, but by no means all, of the instances I would chose if I was beginning to write an autobiography through projects abandoned or failed.

1. Founding of literary-cultural review magazine, Print. Submissions recruited; failed to raise money; abandoned. Neglected (shamefully) to communicate with contributors. [1998]

2. An edited collection of essays on early modern secrets. Stalled after 2 meetings. [2001]

3. An article on the circulation of Ben Jonson’s poetry. Written; rejected by Review of English Studies (‘fails to adequately consider musical contexts’); put in a drawer somewhere and unseen since 2001. [2001]

4. Novel: murder story involving audio recording technology. Draft completed, agent interested, then dribbled away. [2005]

5. A collection of biographies of figures on the edge of Renaissance culture (Virginia Ferrar, John Taylor, Hugh Plat, William Jaggard, others). Outline sketched, then abandoned. [2007]

6. A non-fiction book about fatherhood. Pages of notes, quotes, then ran aground, partly because everyone seemed to be thinking of writing the same book (but also never did). [2009]

7. A monograph about all the services offered by early modern authors beyond writing (arithmetic, astrology, dancing lessons). Examples gathered. [2009]

8. Database of all books printed in English, in England, in 1609. Completed after 2-3 weeks; large spreadsheet; on completion, all sense of purpose evaporated. What is the point of this? Dormant file on desktop. [2010]

9. An article on the early modern sense of the future. Enthused for 2 pages. [2010]

10. A co-written article on archival failures. Initial email exchange. [2011]

11. A trade book about the Anglican community at Little Gidding in the 17 century. 20-page proposal rejected after lengthy back-and-forth of redrafts. [2011]

12. A radio programme about the religious community at Little Gidding in the 17 century. See previous. [2011]

13. A TV programme about the religious community at Little Gidding in the 17 century. See previous. [2011]

14. An article about individuals who refuse to offer up what they know, who keep what they know to themselves, especially (but not only) in contexts when others want to know it. Socrates, up until the very last day, refusing to write anything down. Aaron in Titus Andronicus. Iago in Othello. Demand me nothing; what you know, you know. / From this time forth I never will speak word. 3 pages of notes. [2014]

15. A co-written article on authorial intention. Notes. [2016]

16. A novel about fatherhood. Abandoned – upon opening the Word document now, in 2025, I see I only wrote the following rather baffling 2 sentences: ‘Will, the host, pushed past Jack. “I’m going to be opening the oven door so there’ll be a waft of hot air around your thighs.”’ [2016]

17. Collection of lots of Freecycle adverts with idea that they might produce, when somehow rewrittten or collated, something interesting about a community, the objects jettisoned or reclaimed, possibly some strange version of life-writing – but can’t see way forward. Things like: OFFER: Table, small, white (Headington), or TAKEN: Single bed frame and trundle bed, one mattress (Jericho.) [2016]

18. A co-written article on early modern proof sheets. Examples gathered and bibliography compiled; then ground to a halt. [2017]

19. Introduction to the History of the Book: trade book proposal invited, written, then publisher declined. ‘Insufficiently global.’ [2017]

20. Processional theatrical event in Oxfordshire village, with audience (not actors) processing through series of houses – in front door, out back door – as families within continue normal evenings, affecting not to notice the entering onlookers. Initial emails sent out, then nothing. [2017]

21. Podcast about murder of a taxi driver in Oxford, with friend Tom. Interviewed police officers, witnesses and colleagues; recorded draft pilot; stalled. [2018]

22. Review of 2 books about paintings of readers for London Review of Books: major revisions requested by editors; enthusiasm leaked away; moved on. [2019]

23. Committed to memorizing poems, aiming for one per week. Start with W. H. Auden’s ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’, and do learn it, but don’t find time to do any more poems and after one month can’t recall much of the Auden poem. [2020]

24. A survey of all extant copies of the black page in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. Emails sent to all libraries holding copies but then discovered someone else had already done this. [2020]

25. An article about bad printing. Collect some examples but nothing further happens. [2021]

26. A novel about going to university in the 1990s, at the time when the internet was beginning and older forms of writing were starting to shift. Never really got started beyond conversations with friends. [2022]

27. A novel with lightly fictionalised versions of people I was aware of as contemporaries at university who went on the run the country (Dominic Cummings, George Osborne). Abandoned after I realized I couldn’t face the prospect of thinking about these people. [2023]

28. A series of short films, the camera positioned above, with my hands turning the pages of interesting books. Filmed one (a copy of Ian Hamilton’s Finaly journal Poor. Old. Tired. Horse.) but never did any more. [2024]

29. A book of essays about lost or ‘ghost’ villages. Started research then drift off. [2024]

30. A book about the unsolved murder of Dr Helen Davidson in Hodgemoor Wood, Buckinghamshire, 1966, next to the village where my family moved when I was 5, in 1977. Did some initial research but found that a book had recently been written about the crime, purporting to solve it. [2024]

31. A village theatrical staging of NF Simpson’s absurdist play, The Hole. Abandoned when it became clear that the anti-religious sentiments would not go down well in the church setting. [2025]

32. A series of short paragraphs, each presenting a vivid fictional scene, with each scene turning out to be not real but the imagining of a character in the next paragraph – i.e. a scene in paragraph 1, which seems at first real, is in fact only in the head of a character in the scene in paragraph 2, which is itself only imagined by a character in the scene in paragraph 3, etc. Wrote 5 scenes then lost momentum: the problem was that the series could only move forward in time. [2025]