Hedgehogs piloting starships.

Summer break over, the children are back to school, and I have two last weekends of calm and serenity before the following eight weeks fire up into a plethora of signing and selling activity.

Starting off on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th October I’m in the Corn Exchange at the Rochester Art Fair, where I’ve been invited by Under the Rainbow events to sell my novels etc. Chicken Wizard will be making his first appearance at a Regional event and I’m excited for his next step towards fame and forture. (8) Facebook
 
Not that I’m sitting around doing nothing till then. Week day evenings are spent line and developmental editing client work. Weekends are spent editing my next novel Between Here and Hell and overseeing the illustrations for Shea Pingle and Mustard and Marmalade picture books. In between, I work, do Karate, and attend writing groups.

I’m too frightened to write at present. I know if I sit down another novel will be spinning off my fingers. I already have twenty-four more sitting on the laptop from fantasy novels to comedy scripts and more picture books stories. Most people get writer’s block. I wish. What is the opposite of that? What is running away writing called? Writer’s diarrhoea? Maybe not.

Give me a word, a phrase, a sentence, and I’m off. A hedgehog in my garden last night becomes the first pilot on a rocket ship into space. A four-year-old child grows wings and flies off into the sky, while her parents look on in horror. A candle on the dining table melts, slowly grows legs, jumps down off the table and runs away. Mice build a school. Clouds have the ability to speak to certain folk. Mountains do move and Rome was built in a day – by aliens. There is no end to my imagination, or yours. You can write anything, about anything – if you want to.

It depends why you write or want to. Yes, I’d love to be wealthy from being an author, but in these days with every man, and his non-binary dog, fairy, hedgehog, or four-year-old with wings able to read or write, the ability to get published is like winning the lottery. In fact, winning the lottery is a lot easier and more likely. I should know I won £100 on the Premium Bonds this week and still publishers/agents don’t know I exist. I’m an unknown.

You might write your life story to leave a legacy for your family and friends, but to be perfectly honest. Nobody cares. Everyone alive has had an interesting and varied life. Everyone thinks they are the only person ever to experience terror, depression, suicidal thoughts, and conversely ecstasy, happiness, love. But human emotions can be experienced in numerous events and situations. They don’t all have to be Hell on Earth.

So, why write? You might be like me, and you can’t stop. I also would like a tiny part of me to exist when I’m dead. After about ten years I’ll be forgotten, along with most of us. My hubby assures me he will follow my wish and get me turned into a diamond when that happens. I could end up as the new diamond primary drive on a starship to Alpha Centuri. That might be my writing diarrhoea starting up again.

You can write for yourself, but why? You can write for family/friends, but why would they want to read it? I’ve watched those antique shows where relatives bring in beautiful items from their recently dearly departed and flog them. There’s no guarantee they would read your words, instead they might use them to light a fire to keep warm. There are certainly enough books in the world now.

I put my work on-line, but I know electricity won’t last forever. One day that boat will sail too, but maybe for longer than the fire. Writing is demoralising, too many people trying to get their work out there with too few publishing houses. Places that can be so choosy. If I’d been born over a hundred years ago, I would have nailed it. Charles dickens wouldn’t have had a hope.

So, I’m back to waiting for my lottery tickets. Of course, if I win the lottery I will become wealthy. Will I write then? Probably not. Unless my second husband is a hedgehog pilot, and my four year old daughter flies off to Alpha Centuri with her non-binary dog.
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Till next time