What is she on about now?

So - What am I on about now?

I’ve always wanted to write. I’m not bad with words. I can talk for England and even then I can’t keep up with the speed of what’s going on in my head. But have I got anything interesting or entertaining to say? To entertain or not to entertain, that is the question, to read or not to read, whether tis nobler to suffer the ridicule or ignominy of spectacular failure or to write anyway BECAUSE I WANT TO.

When I was young I wanted to be Enid Blyton. When I grew up I wished I had written every single book I really enjoyed, but knew perfectly well I couldn’t come up with a single original plot. A very nice elderly lady in Loughborough who used occasionally to buy a book from me or stop for a chat turned out to be an author, one I had heard of and indeed had in stock once or twice. Her modest advice to any budding author was – write about what you know. Authenticity. What might not expand the knowledge or stimulate the imagination but elicits a deep down contented empathy which draws you to a book, an author and creates a sense of belonging.

She’s right, you know, this is why books with which you can identify are so popular and successful (yes I know, so are the far fetched, so maybe those are the ones we project ourselves into in a flight of fantasy, escapism or daring alter-ego?) and have us all mentally crying “Yes! That is how it is!” (Or verbally doing so thereby causing consternation to people in the same room, on the bus or even the neighbours if you have thin walls.)

So, choose your subject wisely. Then work REALLY REALLY hard (because writing is a job and requires discipline) and send your cherished masterpiece off to be ignored, criticised and rejected by as many agents and publishers as any decent google search reveals. And if you succeed in attracting their apparent approbation, prepare yourself, not for immediate approval and admiration, but for butchery as they re-arrange and mutilate your life’s work into something with their choice of cover, a different look, feel, ending, title and even plot in order to justify spending anything on it in anticipation of a commercial success. They know what sells.

And when you are a commercial success, you will write more, to order, until you are a formula writer turning out what the public wants. Apparently. Marketing is everything, not necessarily literary merit, not even the plot. 200 colours of something between white and black springs to mind. Get rich, retire. Or use your new found status to demand from your publisher the right to write what YOU want for a change. Crash and burn when the great unwashed read it and think you’ve sold out, whereas in fact you’ve done it in reverse and introduced your integrity – too late.  The public gets what the public wants. Or what they are told they want. But not necessarily what YOU want them to have.

 And what oh what happens to the pig headed who think they know best, and may well do at that? Do you want commercial success and recognition and will you allow constructive criticism to turn to major surgery on your brainchild, or do you stubbornly insist you have written what you wanted to and readers can take it or leave it - along with the agents, publishers and the possibility of getting paid?

So who wants to be an author then? The odds are stacked against you anyway, so many writers, so few published. It’s hard work and unless you know someone who can give you a leg up, you are exceptionally talented or just plain lucky, your chances are small and the novelty of try try trying if you don’t at first succeed must wax infinitesimally tiny for all but the totally dedicated or the totally deluded. Is it any wonder that self publishing and ebooks for free to get readers hooked are becoming the norm for wannabee’s? If you think you are good enough you can put yourself out there after all and let the public decide!

 How to start? Social media has brought forth twitter as one more opportunity, a step up from facebook, where we can inflict our observations, impart our insights, gossip viciously, rant to our hearts’ content until someone sues us, self promote shamelessly,  or fail to be noticed at all.But wait, this is no use to me, what is this about 140 character posts???

How do you create a following? Is it much easier than getting a literary agent or a publisher to like you? Will you be my friend on facebook, please notice me, follow me on Twitter, make me famous, READ ME!!!!!

And now, the BLOG makes it’s entrance. A mutant public diary cum soap box. A platform for those with a need for an audience (real or imaginary) in order to express themselves.  I think you can tell somehow how many people look at your blog, other than by the abuse which arrives on the “contact me” page.

Hmm. I’m too stubborn to have anything I write heavily edited. I’m not bothered about commercial success. I don’t think I can be arsed with all that hard work, I’m too busy thinking and trying to express those thoughts.

So I’m going to blog (or whatever this site constitutes).

 What am I striving for? An audience certainly; anyone can do a monologue in an empty room or write a diary no-one ever sees, but the sense of purpose driving me is the need to communicate, to entertain, the potential reward of that empathy, the recognition of the “Me too!” response, the wonderful idea that I could possibly recreate in a reader the reaction I have to a book I have loved and enjoyed in ways which cause even me to be lost for words adequate to describe a feeling. My books are my friends and to share them is a privilege.

If my insights and observations, rants and anecdotes could have a fraction of that value, I should think my life had not been in vain.