I recently discussed Alasdair Gray's fiction with someone who had contemplated doing a parody of Lanark for NaNoWriMo. I countered that Gray does such a fine job of parodying and plagiarising himself that it would be a moot exercise. 1982, Janine and Something Leather can be read as the latter parodying the former. Within Lanark itself you get the A-Z Of Plagiarisms which in itself is a parody. Would it be possible to write (fan)fiction about a body of work which is already plagiarising and fictionalising itself? So, to my mind, the solution would be to write an article called "The Resistance of Parody - Alasdair Gray, Bakhtin and the impossibility of Fanfiction" and what a very amusing writing exercise that would be. Not quite a novel, of course, but I might get cracking on that during November.

PS. There's a reason why this blog entry will be filled under "humour"