ssh don't tell...

I am writing a story – it might be a book (sssh! Don’t scare it), for now it is a story. Nay, I am not a delusional sit-on-the-couch-all-day “I am working” writer. I have a job. One that pays me, and has (sadly) nothing to do with writing.

I am a published poet. I have an English degree. I offer that info up to you in the hope that is somehow qualifies me to put together sentences; without bringing about some cataclysmic turn of events that ends the world, or worse persuades people that clowns truly are entertaining. These are the thin barriers erected to keep out the whispering darkness of: who do you think you are, Jane Austen? Hands off the keyboard, slowly, before you hurt yourself.

“Only idiots write for free” – that little gem was offered by a lecturer during a writing seminar. She proposed that if you were going to write, you should only do so in a way that saw money in the bank. It is good in theory, but all it successfully did was made me feel like an idiot. I take solace in the fact that she is not the only one to have achieved this :D.

Ahem, my poetry has never paid the bills. But seeing it in black & white, sniffing the red leather hardcover – it was worth it. (I know I am not the only book-lover who has sniffed a cover, I know I’m not… am I?). For that matter my artworks have never paid the big bills, only some of the smaller ones. Selling my pieces was more of an exercise in ensuring that my house did not become a parody of Ninja Warrior. An insane Japanese TV show where contestants negotiate obstacles (built with little or no regard for any Health & Safety policy), resulting in hours of bone-breaking entertainment. When someone falls face-first into a wall, I laugh – I cannot excuse myself, it is terrible, and yet funny as hell.

So why am I writing? Truthfully? Cause I can.
Why this story? Well it is a genre I enjoy. I read all the good books that are currently out there, yet I wasn’t ready to let this world go. So I am writing another one, for me to read. Maybe one day you will get to read it too…