Being a writer ain't all it's cracked up to be...Part 2!

So there you are, having now completed the next contribution to that fascinating world of classic literature; and if you happily mumble to yourself 'I'm the next Kafka', who can blame you. What you've done is what many aspiring drunken wannabe writers threaten to do, write a book, but somehow never manage to accomplish it. A book! A book! Esmerelda, for whom the bells endlessly toll across the bows of the old man of the sea, who's drifting the seven seas looking for Moby Dick, look I've written the book to end all books! It's a masterpiece, worthy of that immortal master wordsmith, Dr. Suess! The cat in the hat slyly raising an eyebrow in bored contempt, before falling back to sleep in utter disdain.

Having spent so much time writing the book, of carefully crafting sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter, you've not given much thought about that most telling of armchair critics, your audience. Dear friends will delight in you having finished your magnificent contribution to literary excellence before moving on to more urgent issues related to how soft toilet paper should be! Some friends will offer encouraging platitudes that further bolster your grossly enlarged ego. Some remain strangely silent, but you put that down to technical difficulties in completing the book buying experience over the Internet. Failure is nothing more than a euphemism for avoiding paying the price of a cup of coffee. But you give your friend the benefit of the doubt, because they have many, and you have absolutely none!

Reality is a miserable monster at the best of times, and to be honest the basis of your book. As a writer you're not just a writer, but all the characters in your finished ditty; or at least a delve into your dark and very distant past so as to wreak literary murder on those characters in your life whom deserve their fifteen minutes of belittling fame, something you've waited years to happen. Once the euphoria has subsided, there's a disconcerting silence and the long winding road of public appreciation is a mountain of such huge proportions it becomes ever more evident that Martin Amis you ain't, not that that was the plan in the first place.

You're thankful that you've made some sales, but nowhere enough to buy a loaf of bread every day for one full year. You begin to doubt your literary genius. You curse your friends in such mundane ways, that the knowledge of love is your's, and theirs, saving grace; there are times in your life when you can honestly admit you're a stupid berk for having such ungrateful thoughts, no matter how fleeting. It's quite sobering to realise that whilst literally you have so few friends, due to the endless hours, days, weeks, months and maybe years spent staring at a computer screen, your greatest failure is a complete lack of marketing.

I readily admit I'm no more knowledgeable about marketing, than I am about producing flying pigs. Such mythical wonders are commonplace in my every day life; at least they make more sense than marketing tactics. But where do you start? Well, I could become infamous through having gone on a shooting spree, but I don't particularly want to spend any time doing time. I could accidently produce a YouTube video that gets a million hits, but I've no desire to appear any more of an idiot than I already am. I could, at a stretch, streak through the centre of town but that's doomed to failure due to the cold weather, everything has gone into hibernation.

But having sat down and thought about it, I didn't write my two tomes with marketing in mind; I wrote my two books because I wanted to sit down and see if I had the discipline to do it. Both took up a lot of my time, but time that was usefully used on accomplishing my dream; one that appeared during childhood, went to sleep and woke again after many years had passed by. Nor did I have it in mind to actually use the books as a way to contributing back to society, but that part makes wonderful sense.

I've always had a social 'conscience', of following the words, no doubt paraphrased wrongly, of Sir Thomas More, who said that those whom are educated should use that education to best effect by giving back to society. It doesn't matter that I'll die as a pauper, not that that bothers me in any great way; money I've always had deep misgivings about the stuff, and I've never been a fan as such as it always manages to bring the worst out in people; there are exceptions to the rule and they know who they are. But the books are out there and they might just be able to help others achieve their 'dream'.

The thing about dreams is that if they're to come true they need the support to come to fruition. Yes, we can all sit down and develop a social conscience at this time of year, but do we actually make a difference? I'd like to think so, that's why I write books. I've no great desire to become wealthy, what on earth would I do with it? Yes, you might have an answer but the only thing I'd truly like is to carry on in some way maintaining my very simple life, doing the things I enjoy doing, being creative, teaching, and trying to make one individual per day smile.

I know this has been a long blog, you might be reading it and I thank you if you're still with me at this point; it's nice to think I've still got company! Anyway, my books are on sale, click on one of the book covers at the top right hand corner and it takes you straight to the site where you can buy an eBook copy. The vast majority of the book sales will go to three different causes I believe in. Yes, you can get a 'free' 25% download of the book as a sample, but for the price of a cup of coffee, $3.99, why not simply buy the whole book instead!

No, writing isn't all it's cracked up to be, but it's a great way of potentially helping others.

Warm regards
Toni
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Being a writer ain't all it's cracked up to be...Part 1

Why are you an author? What motivates you? Why do you feel the need to put yourself through such a repititious and gruelling period of endless rewrites, redrafts, mind numbing grammar checks? Why, O Why do you do it?

One answer, and it's a cliche, 'I've got something to say about my view on the world.' This is often the only answer that anyone, or everyone, can get their head around, and I've no need to remind fellow authors such a remark doesn't even come close to the amount of dedication needed from the first word to the very last. Yes, each of those words finds its eventual place on the page. Often you find words buried deep away in that swirling, fluidily crammed lump of grey gristle sitting on top of your weary and bent shoulders.

Then you go through the bloody process of trying to figure out what bit of the 60,000 word jigsaw fits where, and why must it have an order and structure to it. It's your 'baby' who somewhere along the way becomes the devil and you hate and despise it, mainly because none of what's on the pc screen remotely resembles the very conception of an idea you had in the first place. Then you hate it some more!

But your thing of 'beauty' will teeter on the balancing line between sheer madness and immense fruitfulness; and which writer hasn't exhausted every known English derogatory and brutal cuss word imaginable in their quest to finish a chapter that seems to be of an entirely different animal than when you first started it. All the time remonstrating with yourself because your 'beginning, middle and end' is nothing like that. O the tricks that playfully disrupt your thinking, that when you think 'eureka!' 'by god I've got it', nothing could be further from the truth. Finally finishing a chapter could, if you've a battered mind to be, be better than sex; more often than not it's a period of unwillingly performed S & M.

Yet at some point in time, of many days when a six word sentence was all that you was capable of, due to a brain that refuses to function, refuses to obey the commands shouted at it, refuses to accept the 'Lord & Master' has a god given feudal right to a tithe of six horrible words, you finish the book. You've finished the long process of rearing your baby, and reached the point of letting go and sending it out into the world. Despite your baby having mocked you, run away from you, refused to accept your greater wisdom, or stupidity as the case may be, you send it out into the cold light of a brutal world.

Now, this is the point that the former love/hate relationship with your book becomes a full-blown love affair of the highest magnitude. There's nothing like that feeling of having accomplished one of the greatest feats known to virtually every author, a completed book! Despite the weariness of the long tedium that is an inevitable part of crafting a book, your heart lifts, a smile erupts...

And we will continue the final part next time!

A cup of coffee can change the world!

Following on from my last post, the earth's not moving in term's of interest stirred in my idea to help in some way the global occupy movement, a school in New York, and finally subsidising lessons for English language learners. And I have to ask why?

It may well be my photograph, which admittedly resembles a convict pose. Sadly, the camera lens and I have never had the remotest desire to form a 'love affair', and there's never been a photograph my entire life that would happily hang on a wall, or sit on a shelf, piano or mantelpiece. One might happily reside in Madam Tussauds Chamber of Horrors alongside the likes of Frankenstein or Quasimodo. No, I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm perfectly resigned to the fact, after wearing my mug for so long, my path in life would at least be different.

But then again, it might be the idea I'm a complete stranger to virtually everyone on Planet Earth, and here I am asking you to buy a book, which I might think is better than it is, but you get a choice of 2, 'Nick & Jenny' a serious piece of fiction and 'Danny's Navel Adventure' a very comical look at one man's quest to discover if he's ever been in love! So as I'm asking you to buy one of my books, you might be asking 'is there some ulterior motive behind this, which is just a ploy to sell a lot of books, on pretence of good charitable deeds, so as to fill his pockets for himself?' A perfectly reasonable thought to my mind, and fully understandable if you're leaning in that direction.

Now in a world that's become increasingly sceptical, and most of the time we're thinking that everyone appears to be ripping us off, such thoughts are always there, so I can't blame anyone if they do think that. All I can do is come up with an idea that, if it works and that needs your help, it will benefit a number of people in different ways.

1. The 'Occupy' groups around the world are fighting to maintain a core principle of trying to find a different way to live in the future. Unless you're a banker, or a politician, or an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, most of us believe we can't continue with the old status quo because it's hurting far too many people. I'd like many become largely disenfranchised from the political process because I'd largely lost my belief in democracy. 'Occupy' has returned that belief and made me believe that change can occur and a better world can be had for all. We need to break from what was, or is still, there. We accepted that our 'betters' knew better, what we now know is that our betters are a small band of financial brigands wholly intent on denying us a more equitable world. It's no longer a 'pipe-dream' it's there in the reality of the Occupy encampments in cities throughout the world, that crosses borders, cultures, religions and every political spectrum. The 'occupiers' need support in many different ways, what they don't need is continuing apathy and a sense of loss.
2. Then there's a school in one of the five boroughs of New York, whose whole remit is to show disadvantaged youngsters that life doesn't have to end up as a drug addict, hoodlum, gangster etc. As a teacher myself, whatever doubts I may hold about the effectiveness of statutory education, I still believe that a life spent learning is one much more beneficial than a life spent in ignorance. The individual who learns is one who questions, and the greatest learners are those with a desire to change the world around them. Such individuals may not make massive changes, but they will change their environment for the better. I left school at the age of fifteen, destined for a life of poverty and drudgery, an individual controlled by the environment I was servile to, hidebound by a class structure determined to keep me in my place. One day for no apparent reason a small seed of hope, belief and with the encouragement of a few rare individuals I entered a top ten British university and life changed for me; I was 37 years old. My potential may never be reached, but every day I learn and I try to make a difference in some small way. I'm no saint, far from it, and I'm as complex as the next individual, but I believe that the process of learning can not only change who I am and my relationship with the world, but those I choose to try and help.
3. Finally, as an EFL teacher I will often find learners who can't afford lessons because they do not have the economic means to improve their English language skills, so enabling them to better their lives and those of their families. That disturbs me greatly because I'm in no position to offer them the support they should have. No one eager to learn should be denied the opportunity to learn because of money, such an idea is as abhorrent to my thinking as the banker profiteering from the misery they have caused. Whilst not wishing to appear, especially at this time of year, as some sort of 'do gooder' on a 'mission', but I'd hope, using the only 'tools' available to me, to open a small window and give back to others.

Above are the reasons why I want to sell one of my books. The cost of each book is $3.99, the price of a cup of coffee. If a cup of coffee can make a small difference to the world, isn't that a world you'd rather be a part of. I want the world the change, I believe I can make a minute difference. Together, by 'giving up one cup of coffee', the eventual difference could be enormous. What kind of world do you want to live in?

Warm thanks.

Tony

1 cup of coffee is going to help a lot of people!

Everyone who truly knows me, knows that I've always had a social conscience and that I've spent most of my life fighting losing battles, mostly because I hate injustice, that the law is an ass, that politicians are duty-bound to being completely ineffectual when elected to power and love the life of corruption and corrupt practices formed by ideologies which protect and serve the '1%'. I am by nature a quiet protester, although in the past I've been known to stand up for what I truly believed was the right and proper thing to do.

My rebellious nature is highly ingrained and first surfaced during the late 60s, when my 'hero' at that time was Tariq Ali, one of the student leaders who went on demonstrations and to my young eyes was the ultimate rebel with a cause. At the same time the youth of America rose up in demonstrations against the Vietnam War, and then the French students also got involved. It was a fascinating time for me because it showed that people with enough passion could change the world around them. It was a couple of years later that my then aunt Hazel called me a 'Marxist', although I had no idea then what a Marxist was, but it sounded so exciting to have pinned to me a label I could wear with real pride. Equally, even though I was wearing rose tinted glasses, I also saw on my nightly television screen images of the police and state brutality being inflicted on demonstrators for voicing their protests against democratic governments, acting not in the wider interests of society as an whole, but acting to maintain the status quo. Some 40 odd years later nothing has changed.

These were the few years of social upheaval, of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy dying in front of me. Nixon was becoming 'Tricky Dicky' who happily sanctioned the bombing of Cambodia. The photographs of war photojournalist Don McCullin entered my conscience and rammed home the futility and depravity of destruction on innocent people, all in the name of democracy.

Today, as I write this, people are becoming 'occupiers' standing up for their right to a decent life, of following democracy in its purest form of social participation, of trying to hold those responsible for the terrible financial mess the world is suffering from. Today, my conscience is again outraged that 99% of the world is being sacrificed to maintain the corrupt practices of the 1%.

I, like many, cannot get to an occupy site, but I can do something useful but it needs your help. I'm in the process of setting up a bank account in the USA, which will be used to help the OWS groups around the world, and hopefully help a school close to New York, and further help me to set up my own online teaching company so that I can subsidise lessons for people who can't afford to pay but who should be helped to make a better life for themselves. Everyone needs a break sometimes.

All you have to do is go and buy either one of my two published e-books, 'Danny's Navel Adventure' and 'Nick and Jenny'. They each cost $3.99, which is the price of one cup of coffee! That one cup of coffee is going to, hopefully, make a real difference to the world we live in. Click on the books at the top right-hand corner or the link here and it will take you straight to the page where you can buy either book.

All of us have the opportunity, right now, to make a small difference. There are people out there trying to make the world a better place, and that's the world I want to live in.

Thank you for your support!

Warm regards
Tony