The Blog Speaks!

Please allow me to introduce myself – no, I’m not a “man of wealth and taste” but Blog – and I have been “around for a long, long year”. To be precise, I am one year and 100 posts old today. To celebrate this momentous event, the guy who usually drones on at you has finally seen sense and handed it over to me to share my thoughts on how well those 12 months have gone (or not as the case may be). 

You may have gathered if you read his last post that he’s feeling quite pleased with himself. Being naturally indolent, even he didn’t think he would ever reach this point. But, with my staunch, cheery support, he has, so I won’t begrudge him some credit for that.

Our relationship has been tense, sometimes tetchy, but we’ve muddled through. My main gripe is that he’s not consistent enough in the frequency with which he puts me to work. After a steady, manageable start he then launched into 24 days straight posting on his spring vacation. That might have been fun for him, swanning around Tahoe, Vegas and San Francisco, but it wore me out I can tell you. It was difficult enough acclimatising to an 11 hour flight and 8 hour time change, but then expecting me to work beyond midnight over an extended period was adding insult to injury. A trip to the blog tribunal was on the cards at that point.

But then he followed it with a very leisurely timetable – only 18 posts in 5 months during the summer. Admittedly, some of the articles were much longer, especially those on his beloved cricket (I really don’t understand the fascination at all myself), but it did leave me with a lot of time on my hands. Mind you, every cloud as they say, I was able to freelance on the off days, though don’t tell him – he places a lot of store by loyalty.

And then there’s the language he uses. Personally, I find it a trifle flowery, even pompous on occasions. But with a grammar school education and 30 years in the civil service behind him, he dosen’t stand much chance does he? He thinks he’s funny too – gimme a break! He really needs to work this year on getting the balance right between being informative, interesting and entertaining.  

I must admit I prefer his factual posts, y’know those about San Franciscan characters, to his ruminations on life and cricket (he seems to think the last two are the same thing!). I sometimes find the latter more embarassing than enlightening with their wistful, elegiac tone (he told me to use those particular words, God knows what they mean). 

I just hope he’ll revert to the San Francisco stuff more in the future. He’s promised to do so, so let’s hope he lives up to that – though once the cricket season raises its coy head in April, I doubt he’ll be able to contain his dewy-eyed sentimentality, and start blathering on again about the rhythm of the day’s play and the strategic importance of the tea interval and other such drivel.

Something else that bugs me – these writers continually bang on about the “block”, and how they suffer from it from time to time. I just don’t geddit  -what IS their problem?  Despite what I said earlier, I’m ready to perform 24/7 so why can’t they be?  

I believe he’s announced to you that he plans to alter my design and layout.  Now, I’m a simple chap, so I just hope he doesn’t try to turn me into a look-alike of those appalling Grateful Dead tie-dye shirts he is so beloved of.  I’m quite comfortable in my current skin, thank you.

He’s not that hot actually on the technical aspects, as you may have noticed by his use of photographs at times. But I have bitten my lip in the expectation that the penny will drop soon (I really don’t understand why he doesn’t take my advice on including more clichés in his articles).

He doesn’t read enough either and if he has pretensions to being a serious writer, he needs to step up his game on this.  I don’t hold out much hope, therefore, that he’ll bother to look at this post, let alone take on board my concerns (he’s never asked my opinion before now). Perhaps, dear reader, you could be my advocate and tell him in your comments on individual articles. But treat him gently – he’s a sensitive soul beneath the wisecracking exterior.

So what does the future hold? Well, for all that he frustrates and irritates me at times, I’m prepared to stick around for another year. After all, it’s “the nature of my game”.

I think I’ve probably upset him enough already, and abused the privilege of this audience with you, so I had better give it a rest now.  Besides, I don’t want him dumping me for a younger, fresher model – times are hard and “better the devil you know” has always been my motto. And I do quite fancy another spring break out west, not to mention a trip around the national parks in October, if he can get his act together and organise them.

I don’t suppose that I’ll get the chance to talk to you again in the near future, unless you place a comment at the bottom of the page (that’s a hint, right?), so I’ll sign off with a Happy New Year!

Ooh, who, who!

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Yes!!!! I AM a writer

If you’ve trudged your way through my previous posts – Er…………I’m a Writer and Er………..I’m a Writer Part Two, you will understand that I have struggled with acknowledging to myself, let alone others, that I am a writer and should, therefore, declare myself as such when asked that dreaded question “what do you do?”.

Well, now, rather like the ugly duckling in the Danny Kaye song, I have finally come to accept that my feathers are no longer “stubby and brown”, but rather that I am, if not a “very fine” one, at least a swan.

The particular flock of swans that opened my eyes to this fact came in the form of a writer I only discovered ten days ago.  Kristen Lamb is the author of two outstanding books, namely Not Alone  – the Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There Blog? It’s Me, Writer. I believe the titles are self-explanatory, though I need to go into a little more detail to describe their influence upon me.

I devoured the first book within three days of buying it.  On the basis of Kristen’s advice I have almost trebled the number of followers I have on Twitter in the past week.  The list now contains a number of highly successful authors, agents and publishers. This is called “building my platform” by the way.  I have also amended my profile on both Facebook and Twitter to reflect my current and future goals rather than focusing on my past.  In a word, my “brand” is becoming more “professional” with each passing day.

I have not even finished the first chapter of the second book yet, but feel compelled to share what a seismic change has been brought about in my own attitude by the first few pages alone.

Indeed, on the very first page, Kristen goes straight to the heart of my, until now, enduring dilemma:

When people ask you what you do, you need to tell them, “I’m an author” or “I am a writer”…………As long as you introduce yourself via your day job (other than writer), then you are telling your subconscious that you want to be that day job FOREVER. Don’t even try to cheat with “I am an aspiring writer”. Again, this is a subconscious cue, and twenty years later, you will still be “aspiring”.

In case you have not read my previous articles on the subject, I have described my “day job”, since I retired from the civil service, variously as “retired”, “unemployed” and “student”, sometimes taking a gulp before adding hurriedly that “I’m doing a bit of writing nowadays”.

Kristen addresses, with her customary humour, the embarassment factor that accompanies that brave declaration with:

If you want others to shut up and stop mocking you, just tell them they had better knock it off because there is a part for a nose-picking circus midget with mommy issues in your novel. Then they might agree to play nice.

And finally:

Screw aspiring. Aspiring is for pansies. Takes guts to be a writer. Yes, other people will titter and roll their eyes, but you won’t care. In the meantime, toughen up. You will need the skin of a rhino in this business. Do not look for outside approval. This is about as productive as looking for unicorns or Sasquatch.

So, in the immortal words of the great Frankie Howerd, “titter ye not” people – I AM a WRITER!

After all, what do I spend my time doing when I am not carrying out household chores, caring for my elderly father and spending quality time with my wife – and sometimes even DURING those times – yes, writing.  Blog, Twitter, Facebook, e mails, forums – all writing. This is what I do. And, in the New Year, I intend to step up several gears by entering competitions and submitting articles to relevant magazines, as well as progressing one or two more substantial projects. That doesn’t make me a plumber, interior decorator or civil engineer – it makes me a WRITER.

So thank you Kristen for giving me both the reassurance and confidence to proclaim this to the world.

Her hugely informative and entertaining blog can be found at http://www.warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ .  Whether you are “just” interested in improving how you build and develop your relationships on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, or believe you too could produce an interesting and valuable blog, this is the place to go.  And don’t forget to read the books as well – they have been my inspiration.

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Blogging versus Writing

When I started this blog eleven months ago one of my key aims was to use it to develop and even showcase my writing.  And I am quite pleased that I have not only been able to do that on a regular basis – with the exception of the summer months for partly understandable reasons – but that I also retain the motivation to build on that in the future.

But I had also hoped to use it for what would appear to be its more customary function – to comment on events and issues in both the private and public spheres.  I am less satisfied with my achievement in that area.

The difficulty I have had has been in balancing the two objectives.  What has happened is that everything I have written, serious and trivial, has been placed on the blog to maintain a steady flow of posts rather than because it naturally belonged there.  There have been a handful of slight pieces but the average post has been nearly 700 words, a figure that I had neither intended nor could have sustained on a two to three times a week basis (the recommended frequency for posting) – other than over a short, concentrated period, as was the case with the travel diary I wrote for the U.S. West Coast trip back in March / April.

My struggle has, in part, been attributable to a disinclination to post anything that does not, at least to my mind, meet a minimum standard of literary quality. To put it more crudely, I don’t just want to put out any old crap.  Whether I have succeeded in that aim is, of course, for my readers to judge.

I don’t see myself resolving this dilemma someday soon, though I’ll keep trying. I have one or two serious writing projects in mind for the New Year, and material from those will only figure on the blog  occasionally for the purposes of showcasing my work. The challenge will then be to keep the flow of interesting posts coming regularly, though that might result in a reduction in both the number of words and literary merit.

This not to suggest for one moment that the average blog does not contain literary merit. There are many brilliantly written blogs out there, a handful of which I subscribe to myself.

So, despite the greater concentration on “proper” writing  in the future, extracts from which will appear periodically on the blog, I will aim to post as least as often, though they may be shorter, slighter pieces than I have found myself churning out in the past.

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Er………………….I’m a Writer – Part Two

In my previous article on the subject I referred to the awkwardness that always descended upon me in the past when asked what job I did (for those not familiar with it, I was a civil servant). But that is nothing to the reaction I now get when informing people that I am a writer (there I said it).

Nine months later, I have got beyond saying I am unemployed  – in fact I don’t think I’ve ever said that (such a snob), though, technically, it could be argued that, as I am below pensionable age, that might be true.  But as I do have a source of income (my occupational pension), I tend to fall back on the word “retired”.  Even then, house husband (to my wife – obviously) and part time carer (to my father) reflect more what I actually do with that (important) part of my time when I’m not writing.

What I want to declare every time, and with feeling, is that I am “a writer”.  When I do manage to blurt it out it is usually only after I have already said “retired” – my vanity prompting me to provoke envious or admiring noises.  I suspect that I will only feel confident enough to rely upon “writer” if and when I manage to make any money from my work.

But it’s not only myself who struggles with the word, however strongly I feel that it defines what I now am and do.  People don’t know what to say beyond “what have you written” (as if they’re likely to have heard about, let alone read, your piece – had you published anything in the first place).  Many will profess to be impressed and claim that they too “have a book in them” or “have always wanted to write”.  But they have no understanding of what it means to be a writer, to look at and think about the world through a writer’s mind (to be fair, that is something I too continue to try to come to terms with).

In fact, the declaration intimidates, and immediately labels you as odd (“different” might be a more charitable word), or – worse still – an intellectual (an accusation my underdeveloped capacity for reasoned thought disqualifies me from pleading guilty to). Even writing notes for this piece on a train into London earnt me suspicious glances from other passengers.  How peculiar of me not to be burying my face in my mobile phone and exercising my thumb muscles!

When I meet friends they will talk about anything but what I’m doing with my time. Whole weekends in their company may pass without even a question as to “how are you getting on” or “what have you been up to lately”, let alone “what are you writing at the moment” or “I liked that piece you wrote about the cricket last week”.  The idea that I could spend a lot of time writing, or not even writing, but planning and thinking about it, is incomprehensible.  It’s not a serious pursuit and one that does not pay (yet).

It was difficult enough in the period after I left work, when I was working towards my travel and tourism qualification, when I would have to raise the subject myself in conversation.  But at least that was a tangible product, enabling friends to ask “have you completed any more of your assignments” or “what grade did you get for the assignment on preparations for the 2012 Olympics”?

I’ve always regarded myself as a bit of an outsider – comes, I suppose, in part, from being an only child.  Whilst I had friends, they tended to be no more than one or two at a time, and I never had the need, or indeed desire, to join groups (other than sporting teams – Sunday school and the cubs were my parents’ idea). So I learnt to be comfortable in my own company (crucial for a writer), whilst not repudiating my Libran credentials for sociability.  In engaging with others though, both in the personal and work spheres, I’ll confess that it has invariably been on my own terms, whereby I have tended to “take charge”,  to be the one to plan and organise activities.

And now that my sole ambition is to write, and with the aim of translating what modest talent I have for it into hard cash, the often embarrassed silence that passes even amongst close friends, aggravated by my own hesitancy on the matter, is magnified. The answer, you might say, is to get on with, and stop pontificating about, it –  and you’re right, of course, though be assured this public self-analysis does help me to understand what I’m trying to achieve.

I should not want anyone of my acquiantance to take offence at the foregoing.  It is rather a statement of fact, and a consequence of who and what I am, and something that I must work through myself.  And, hey, perhaps we”ll speak of nothing else in future!

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To Tweet or not to Tweet

Current estimates are that there are 200 million people with a Twitter account, a mere third of the number of registered Facebook users.  I count myself a member of both communities, but it is the value of Twitter that I want to consider here.

Until recently I had used it essentially as a vehicle for providing me with breaking news on subjects that interest me whilst I am on the move.  And it is simple – just identify the information you want, select the accounts you need to follow to enable you to obtain that information, and away you go.  I just leave my mobile logged into Twitter and I can follow the rolling news as it happens. I can even programme it to provide instant text alerts, something, however, that I would not recommend unless you want to wake up, as in my case, to more than a hundred alerts detailing, literally, the blow by blow account of a baseball game played six thousand miles away whilst you were asleep.  

A more recent and useful example was when I was able to read over by over updates on Kent’s T20 cricket match against Glamorgan whilst dining in an Indian restaurant.  Unlike the chicken dansak, sag paneer and Tiger beer, it didn’t go down too well with the other diners, including my wife, but learning of Kent’s spectacular victory, grasped from the jaws of defeat, made my evening!

I am now taking a more active role in the exchange of information, and it is very satisfying when your contribution is valued sufficiently that your  tweets are responded to, particularly by people in the public eye (be assured, however, that these are artists and sportsmen and women, not “celebrities”!).  Moreover, the number of people following my tweets has been gradually expanding.

There is the added benefit, as many established authors increasingly claim, of using Twitter both to hone your writing skills by creating pithy, relevant tweets of no more than 140 characters and marketing yourself to prospective readers and agents by adding links to your work. 

But it is a double edged sword.  The pace at which news spews into my inbox, some of which compels me to respond to (I am a writer after all (keep telling yourself Tony)), takes up time that could, and should, be expended on “proper” writing i.e. drafting more serious and substantial pieces.  There has been a clear ratio between the increased time I have spent on social networking sites and the lack of blog activity in recent weeks.  The balance needs to be restored, and if it takes this analysis of my relationship to Twitter to help me to understand that, then I am half way to achieving that.

There is still an important place for Twitter in keeping me engaged in issues that interest me, including sport, travel, writing and current affairs, provided it is not allowed to divert me from “real” writing.

However, if, like most of my acquaintances, you haven’t tried it, give it a go and see for yourself.  Be warned though – you may get addicted!

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This Writing Lark

It all began with a crew-cutted boy barely past his seventh birthday publishing a three part novel about the “Little White Bull”, inspired by the Tommy Steele song.  Well, it was written in three separate notebooks, though each contained but a handful of pages.  Public acclaim in the form of a local newspaper feature followed but the shy lad with the bottle green zip-up cardigan proved the proverbial one hit wonder, unlike Tommy Steele, and exchanged his pen for football and cricket bat. Writer’s block had set in alarmingly early.

The next burst, or rather dribble, of creative activity emerged at university when, surrounded, for the first time, by hundreds of attractive, intelligent and refreshingly accommodating young women, his poetic, as well as primal,  juices poured forth.  A passing resemblance to Neil Young, an extensive West-Coast and Dylan-centric vinyl collection and the coveted all-night slot on student radio kept the “ladies” (true hippie that he was he never used the term “chicks”) in thrall, but the lovelorn verse was excrutiating, even if  the paper it was “composed” on made a satisfyingly good roach.   

After university, “life” took charge and, for more than thirty years, the writing took the form of business plans, appraisal reports and other worthy but dull publications in the service of successive governments.  He strove to put some colour and sparkle into them, but “house style” and corporate terminology strangled such efforts.  All the while friends and colleagues acclaimed his talent and said that he should write for a living.  Work commitments and a natural indolence prevented him from acting upon their encouragement until he managed to extricate himself from the former a little under two years ago.

Having completed a successful home learning college course on travel and tourism, during which, once again, his tutor and others who sought his advice on a range of destinations praised his abilities, he has finally, more than fifty years after he “exploded” upon the local literary scene, decided to give this writing lark a go.  It is as if that little white bull had “come charging right up to him” and told him that he was a “brave little bull”, perhaps not the best in Spain, because after all he doesn’t live there, and that he should now test his capability of producing worthwhile written work that others might enjoy.

So there we are, dear reader.  Aside from more interesting offerings be  prepared for a series of anguished posts over the coming weeks, months and years on the subject of writing itself.

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