Tag: characters

Come by..Come by

Setting out a Blog-Stall… 

I have now taken on board the received wisdom that suggests that blogging, like writing must FOCUS. Of all the wares we might display we must choose the brightest shiniest, most needed. If that was not enough, we should put a box of free offers where the passer by cannot but trip over it, and human nature, being acquisitive, will undoubtedly buy one to get one free.

BUT, and this is important, one must stay well hidden beneath the potatoes, or behind the fly screen, emerging or raising a reluctant head to admit we might be willing to sell but only ‘ if you’re really really sure?’

I would challenge any passer by (and they are few and far between) what, reading my latest attempt to focus— which is my bright and shiny new tag line— I might be willing or able to offer? What d’ya reckon philosophy is worth? Poetry is a dime-a-dozen, and synchronicity depends upon…well… unforeseen forces. Unmistakeable when it happens but it happens unpredictably. I can’t count on it to oblige once a week.

The ‘World of Ideas’ is an AliBaba cave of possibilities but hardly focussed! ( But because I cannot resist a challenge I have started with a real big one…the truth and relevance of the Mayan Long Count Calendar…see Paul Drewfs incredible book reviewed here:)

When I write a novel (and I have…three…none published) the greatest comfort is when the characters take matters into their own hands. They tell me, with pursed lips and schoolmarm glaring, what they would say and to whom. They take it into their heads to buy a puppy I never expected to clean up after; they meet eccentrics who editors say are ‘not plausible’, and have themselves a time, at my expense.

As I am constitutionally incapable of telling anybody how to live their lives, why would I start with my characters? They are the most interesting people I know. Now I have the germ of an idea…

On Fridays…yes since this is a Friday and blogs, I gather, must be as regular as you-know-what… I will introduce some of them. They are much more fun than I am. Feel free to argue with them or invite them for a walk or a night on the town. I’ll just listen. Once a reader wrote to tell me (long after finishing a book) that he missed Vernon terribly…felt bereft without his best friend…no-one to drink with. That was a high point

Maybe I don’t need a publisher. Are you sitting comfortably? Next week I’ll begin…