A couple of nights ago, I had the chance to meet up with people who in most cases I have not seen in thirty years. A very old friend of mine from my teenage years was fifty, and out of the blue I received an invite, which is something of a rarity these days as I have very much become quite the recluse over the last ten years.
For me personally, it was a chance to walk down a familiar lane into my past, and for the few hours that we assembled and laughed as we caught up on old times, it felt like I had travelled back through time to an era that was very precious to me. It was amazing how meeting these familiar faces and personalities gave me a strong sense of ease, as there was no awkwardness or long pauses, it was almost as if the assembled group just went from one way of being, straight into a past way of being as the years appeared to shed away, and we simply picked up where we left off.
Like many groups of people from the past, we all grew up together and hung out as teenagers, and with time we followed our career paths or settled down to start our own families, and as a result some of us lost touch. I for one headed off into the world of Horticulture, and my life became long hours of work, which did indeed take me away from the social scene. It was quite an eventful moment to walk into a room and meet those now much aged faces, which still bore the smiles and sparkles within the eyes of people who surprisingly, despite the difficulties of life and age, still wore that familiar air of youth and devilishness that I know so well.
The Dedication from Heirs to the Kingdom Book seven
I was very lucky in my youth to be a part of few social circles, and it is with these circles of very special people from my past that I draw the inspiration for my Specialists within Heirs to the Kingdom. It is these strong bonds from my youth, which have been the back bone of my writing of the group that unite as friends in the common purpose of fighting for freedom from repression. These people of my bygone era are my pool of characteristics and personality traits, which I have blended and shaped to form the strong personalities of my story. The feeling of comradery one feels within the pages of the book, are a very real aspect of my own life, and it has always been my hope to allow the reader to sense the strength of the bond, and hopefully identify with it, and relate it to their own lives and past memories and understand the importance of such connections.
I think it is more and more an important aspect of all our lives these days, especially in the modern times where it is so easy to become despondent with life and isolate ourselves. Modern technology does indeed take us from the group and give us the digital means to remain in contact, but it is also a very isolationist technology, and as my evening amongst old friends proved, it really is no substitute for the real thing of meeting in person. I have chosen a way of life that in itself is isolationist, as I am writer, and in order to focus on the task of assembling my stories, I lock myself away and use a combination of memory and imagination to work out my plots and characters. I am also and have been most of my life very much an introvert who feels like I am always on the edges of any social gathering. When placed in amongst those who I feel comfort around, then I feed off the energy of the moment and can interact with wit and laugh with ease, which probably does explain why these people of my past are so important, not only in fulfilling a part of my life as a human being who needs interaction, but also as the source of the deep bonds that binds us all.
In Modern life it is so easy to become distracted, and without realising it suddenly find the threads of our life are broken, I watch people sat in café’s and on the street as they look down at their phones, and go about their lives staring at their screens, without really noticing what is going on around them. These devices that enable us to communicate, I think most of the time work against the principle of their invention. It concerns me that in today’s modern world we consume small soundbites of friendship, and information as the guide to living, and it feels like we are missing the bigger picture of interaction on a personal level.
When I talk to those who read my books about the story, their comments are always centred around the interaction of the characters. It feels at times like what I see as the normal bond between friends, is fast becoming a major part of the fiction I write. It surprises me when I realise that people crave the same strong bonds and interaction, and yet to ask them to switch off their phone, is like asking them to walk through fire.
Meeting up with these very special people from my past, was such a wonderful experience, and in many ways it has fuelled yet more inspiration for my writing. The ability to sit and talk, share old stories and laugh with each other, was very much a deeply rewarding experience, and as I have remembered the way we once lived and the joy we had from our interactions, I have watched the youth of today and noticed a massive difference that maybe I had not really understood or connected with until now. Today’s modern teenagers do not talk in person, they sit in groups, but they do not face each other and smile, they all sit in rows with their heads down looking at the digital screen and tapping their keys at speed. Will they meet up in 30 years to talk of the fun and wildness of their youth? Will they even recognise each other? I am not certain they will, and I cannot help but feel some sadness.
Maybe the characters I write today will one day have a fictitious relationship that is seen as a snap shot of the past, and maybe the books of the future will be all about interaction via a digital appliance. It is somewhat of a sombre thought indeed, and does to a degree echo my thoughts throughout all of Heirs to the Kingdom, on walking away from the modern world to live a simpler way of life that is not as dependant on technology.
As with all things I will continue to watch the world and it will serve as inspiration for future works, but I think for now it does strike an interesting point, and one I feel I will continue to discuss amongst friends (In person).