18. Getting one thing straight

Getting one thing straight – The known unknowns: Another thing no one told me was pick a genre!

As far as I’d paid any attention I thought the prevailing advice was, write what you know. Or write what you read. Or was it choose your favourite author and emulate? The best advice, commercially, is see what sells and write that, with steroids. I haven’t had any creative writing teaching since GCSE English, so don’t ask me. I just wrote what popped into my head.

I wrote surreal comedy to begin with because I enjoyed reading it back and I love the way comedy allows you to skew perspective and stand things on their head until the absurdities fall out of their pockets. Some ideas petered out in a page, or fifty and then one didn’t and I ended up with a book. It wandered between comedy and pathos with a supernatural theological twist and I love it, but maybe that’s just me. Like minded friends and family did too. As my previous post, I hope to dust it off one day, tidy it up and see what you think.

In the meantime, another idea took root, grew and blossomed. Stark and fellow inhabitants muscled in and gradually took up all the spare space in my life and I wouldn’t have it any other way. One day, there will be more time…