Monthly Archives: February 2014

The Wonder of Books and Song.

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I remember when I was just 7 years old and at school, and I was asked what did I want to be when I grew up?

It makes me smile now, but at the time I got into a huge amount of trouble, because for me it was not a great time being a child. My parents had separated when I was just four years old, and even though I was not aware of it, I was not going to see my father again until I was 35 years old, and at that scared and lonely age of seven, I missed him and wanted desperately to see him again. I hated my childhood years, I was in a school where my grandfather had been one of the most successful headmasters of his time, and was still remembered by all the staff, which had been trained by him. To be honest I never had a chance of living up to the standards expected from the staff of Mr Renwick’s grandson. The headmistress hated me, as she was reminded daily of her shortcomings compared to my grandfather, and went out of her way to make an example of me, my mum was also a dinner lady at the school and my every move was reported to her, so I took the added humiliation of being reprimanded very publicly by her. That resulted in making me an easy target for every bully in the school, and as I withdrew into myself, I was different, and awkward, and that made it hard for me to even be accepted by my brothers at home, life felt hard and was a miserable existence, I was a loner lost in world I felt I did not belong in, so when I was asked what I wanted to be, I replied very honestly, “An orphan.”

I can laugh now, but at the time it was like trying to live through a nuclear holocaust, I guess I was too honest and lacked great tact, something which at times these days I can also be a little guilty of. It wasn’t easy growing into a man without a father’s guidance, yet two things saved my life and restored my sole to happiness and inner calm as I grew older, they became the friends and faithful companions that would take me through the rest of my life, and in time help me come to terms with who I was, and who I was capable of being. I think at the age of 50, which I have arrived at this month (February 2014) I can say with clarity, they saved my life, and those two faithful companions have been my books and my music.

Words hold a great place in my heart, I have learned to live by them, as they have been the things I have held onto in the hard times, and my life has had its times of great sorrow and great happiness. My book case and my very precious vinyl record and CD collection are in many ways like a bar code of the days of my life, each coloured stripe marks a particular moment in time that is relevant to what I was doing and who I am today because of it. Every book on my shelf has the advice I needed to get me through a rough patch, and the lyrics of my vast rock collection guided me through my teenage years and have inspired me to grow and learn more and more about life and living through all of my days.

At the ripe old age of 50, I think through my reading and the endless years of listening to music I have finally learned to be at ease with the world and more importantly myself. I made it out alive, thanks to the hopes and dreams of every author and every crazy love sick or troubled musician, who opened their heart and wrote it down on a lyric sheet. To them I have much indeed to thank them for, I feel sorry for the youth of today, they have switched off from the world of books and music opting for the user friendly computer games console, which to be honest teach you little but how to kill your way out of zombie apocalypse or drive over enough police officers and pedestrians to get away from your crime scot free. Modern day consumer driven business I feel has ripped them off and left them high and dry, which if they read a book or too they would understand. I was enrolled into catering college at 16 (not my choice) and even though it was not a place I wanted to be, at that time I did not actually know what I did want to be, so I read all the books I could, and then took what I learned and turned it into lyrics to match all my favourite songs to revise by. It worked out fine as I silently hummed my way through my exams and walked out of college with all distinctions. I smile every now and again as I hear a track playing and remember a recipe or a particular part of my food science exam.

It was at that point rebellion kicked in big time, and off the rails I went, I was to say the least the last of a wild bunch of hippie radicals dragging out their existence through the 1970’s and I dumped catering and went into horticulture to be at one with the universe, and spend my life surrounded by plants. Again I had my books and music, my botany library is indeed a vast one and I very quickly started to shine as I had the ability to learn and apply massive amounts of information setting me well above most of my colleagues as a fountain of horticultural knowledge. I loved my working life in Horticulture, I learned the true meaning of satisfaction in a job, I never made masses of money, but I lived well and taught myself well beyond the limits of the examining board ending up as a public demonstrator, horticultural teacher, container gardening specialist, houseplant expert, tree expert and last but not least bonsai teacher, instructor and designer, not bad at all I think, and all thanks to my books and my love of music which played endlessly encouraging me in the background.

Words on paper and set to rhythm have dominated my life, and behind the scenes they gave me something greater and deeper to ease my soul and help me make the changes within myself that helped me find the courage to change into what I hope is a better and more at ease person. They helped me to write and express what at the tender age of seven I was unable to. Writing allows me to open up and lay things out in black and white so I can read it back and understand the lessons of life and learn from them, writing has been a great therapy that has aided my growth as a human being. I still smile at the faces of those who I meet and they discover that I have walked away from horticulture and become a full time writer; it was something no one either saw or expected until I did a complete U turn and published a book confounding all my friends. These past seven years sat writing have been the best years of my life, for I believe my precious books have finally brought me round in a complete circle to meet the person I was always meant to be, and he is sat here at this very moment, wearing headphones and playing a wonderful version of Bachman-Turner-Overdrives, You aint seen nothing yet, writing this article.

The important thing here I feel is, that reading and listening to some incredibly well written music lyrics taught me, how to forgive, how to communicate and hold down a good job. I learned how to change and become more social, and the true meaning of courage. I have learned respect for all, and acceptance of the fact that everyone sees the world differently, and I will not always agree with them. It has taught me no one wins a war, as everyone suffers, and how everyone deserves a chance to show they have the ability to learn and progress. I also learned how to build a shelter and grow food; I have learned that the wilderness is like an open store filled with the needs of everyone. I too can kill zombies and fight off vampires, and I know all the best places to bury treasure. Most importantly I learned how to live and be happy and to know when to change things to make me happier, and spot the girl of my dreams, and how to hold on to her as I have and always will.

There is a great deal to learn from my life, I was a kid with no idea of what I wanted to do, I was unhappy and afraid of pretty much everything. I was riddled with self-doubt stumbling on from childhood into an adult life devoid of any direction, but I was never alone, I had the power of those who have been before me laying out their ideas of life in verse or fantasy story to guide me slowly forward. Books hold such a wealth of great advice and truths, as do the living experience of those who can be creative and translate that into song, its like having a vast bank of advisors beside you to guide you, and they can help you make up your mind about something, or bring a smile to your face and even make you weep with delight. The thing is they are there silently sat on a shelf waiting to be requested by you for something to take you through that moment of difficulty or give you a well-earned break from the reality of life. The ability to write has to be the greatest achievement of the human race, and we here in the UK we are in serious danger of throwing it all away.

In this country (UK) today we have less than 1000 indie bookshops, and we are slowly destroying our libraries and closing them down, which from the point of view of myself, a lifelong user, I think it is a massive and dangerous mistake for this country. The recording industry is a good example of what is in store for the book industry if we the people to do not take heed and take back what should be there for everyone who is need of it. The government is slashing budgets left right and centre and raising taxes, and soon like the music shops, all the bookshops will close and there will no longer be local libraries. The music industry once offered us a huge choice as did the book industry, but larger commercial enterprises are taking over and refining our selection, and great works are fading away never to be found again, those indie stores that kept us all in touch with all that was available are becoming less and less each year, and even with the libraries that remain open, thier range and selection have lessened, taking vital knowledge away from the good of all of us, and our future generations.

It is time all of us made it clear, we do not wish to see another generation of our young raised without the wisdom of those who have gone before us at hand. We need to use local bookshops and oppose the closure of libraries. We should see it as our duty to encourage everyone we meet to read and use what they learn in life and in leisure. So many complain about falling standards of education in schools, well are you surprised when for over ten years books have not been actively encouraged as a full and important part of a person’s life. If we lose more local bookshops and libraries, and allow the large corporate companies to rule and dictate the terms of our reading, how we will we ever recover as a nation in the future, if those that follow us, are not capable of reading a good well written and educational story? The music industry has lost any hope of keeping independent musicians thriving, the industry has been destroyed and rebuilt as a corporate money maker, and look at the results, it gave us Justin Bieber to inspire our children. It’s a scary thought indeed, and more fitting for a horror story, let’s not let it happen to our beloved book industry and libraries.

I was told at 16 by my careers officer when I wanted to enter into Journalism, “You don’t have what it takes try something else.” My library, bookstore, and music told me different, and today after years of attempts I am a published author, so let’s start now and protect and preserve what we have, and keep the knowledge and life experiences of every creative force with a pen available for future generations.

 

My Reason To Write

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If your only reason for writing a book is to make money, think again.

We all have that age old picture of the Dickens era writer with black ink stained fingers, scratching away at his parchment by candlelight, and to be honest, when you look at the industry today with all its high class technology, you could be fooled into thinking that writers have it easy and are sat on a good size pile of constantly flowing cash. But the harsh reality is, for the writer things have not improved a great deal from back in the days of Dickens.

Writing will not make you rich overnight, well not for 90% of those who choose to do it. Yes there are those chosen few who the chips fell right for, and they have the privilege of living a life of comfort and security. For the rest of us that is a dream we can only dream of, as getting a book written edited and then out for sale is a mammoth task, and that is just the first hurdle, then you have to make it sell. Most of the big publishers are not that interested in new writers, there is little money to be made as the investment in promotion is very high, and the returns may not recoup their initial investment, they prefer the tried and tested route of known name celebrities and writers, as their first consideration has to be profit driven. Self publishing does give you a much longer term programme, and personally considering the fact that with a traditional publisher you have pretty much the first four months of release to make a profit in order to stay on their books, then self publishing does make more sense, as you have time to sit back and wait, especially if you are constantly writing new material. This is how a lot of writers are starting to think now, looking at the bigger longer picture, but even so, the rewards in the form of financial gain will never be high.

It’s a very real fact that your average writer earns less in a year from writing than most people do in a month of working at their usual job, you may see the handsomely priced books at £5, £10 and £15, but believe me, when it comes to the royalty of that price being paid out to the writer, it has dropped to less than 10% of the book price per sale.

So why do it?

The fact is that most writers are book geeks, they love literature and reading, and are driven from within by a compulsion to sit for days and weeks slaving away slowly crafting the limits of their imagination into words, that hopefully one day they will share with the rest of us. It’s not very glamorous, and at times it can be quiet boring, and yet the need to write drives all writers forward.

Looking at my own life, I sit alone separated from my family, happily tapping the keyboard lost in a world of my own invention, I lose all sense of reality and time as I watch the words appear on the screen, and I feel the rush of whatever related emotion is present within at the one lost moment in time. Where it all comes from I cannot say, I have a plan in my mind of what I want to say, and how I want the story to develop, but I can assure you the finished result is far superior to what I had first imagined.  Woven into my thoughts and my words via this wonderful process of merger between my conscious self and the depths of my soul something wondrous and beautiful is created, as every thought I have ever had and every experience, be it happy or from the depths of my despair fuses into the words of the person you think to be the creator of the story. It may sound odd, but the conscious part of me cannot happily take all the credit, because writing unleashes huge deeper parts of me, and that is something that I find mind-blowing, as it reveals parts of my own self that even I was not aware of when I began. I suppose that is my reason to write, that part of me is cooler, wilder and far more adventurous than ordinary everyday me.  Put plainly I would say, its more addictive than any drug or substance you could offer me, and leaves me thoroughly exhausted with just the single thought of deep happy sleep to occupy my mind as I drift off slowly.

Reading what I have written back is like reading a code known only to me, as I gasp at what has been revealed. To any other reader it is simply a story, a tale to captivate the mind and intrigue the soul, but for myself alone at my desk, I see my life, my feelings, my hopes and dreams, it’s so deeply personal that it almost feels like standing naked before the world, my only security is that I know no one will ever truly work it all out.

There is no part of the process where I have thoughts of money and gains, I feel no need to embrace vanity and be adored, if anything I am possibly one of the most reluctant writers to publish. Publishing is a drag; I find it tedious and annoying as it takes me away from writing, as I am forced to promote the book. I am the worst possible person alive to ask about what I write, because when I look at what I have committed to paper, I find it hard to break out of my deeply private sense of privacy and talk at any length about how the story came together. I am in many ways also the biggest critic of what I have written, I am never satisfied with the finished result and always feel it could be better, so promoting it is not an easy task, and I would much rather be sat at my desk lost and alone caught in that moment of wonder where it all spills out onto the page.

Selling a book feels like real work, writing comes to me in an uncontrollable compulsion, and there is nothing in the process that I do not take great joy from, money plays no part in it at all. I cannot think of sales and income, it is too much of a distraction from the process of physically writing.

I am a pretty rational person, and yet I am a full time writer, I know it means things can and will be tough, and as selfish as it sounds I don’t care, I have spent the last 30 years of my life breaking my back working in horticulture from dawn until dust, in every kind of weather, and I was not rich then either. It’s nice to sit at my desk, snug and warm and rest my aching body that has the scars and has paid the price of my labours since youth. Writing has afforded me the time to watch the world and take note, it has given me back a family life, and a chance to walk in the world and enjoy its wonder, it doesn’t pay in sterling, but the rewards have been vast in so much as it has taken a tired workaholic and given me back a life of quality and value.

There is little financial gain to be made from writing, but there is the huge payoff of knowing that I have shared something deeply private and special with those who turn the pages of what I write about. I have the reward of being closer to those who I love and love me, so because of writing I feel I have become the wealthiest man alive, and if by chance I do need money, well hey, there are always part time jobs.