Truth IS Stranger Than Fiction

Seriously, this is perhaps a cliche, but Jeeeeeepers! - is it the Water Out There?!!! Or what.  As a Fiction Writer, I've got to say, if it weren't for Dragons, Wizards, Other World Battles, SpaceShip Adventures ... 

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Truth would definitely be Stranger Than Fiction!

I mean take the "Reality" programmes.  Not the awesome programmes like MasterChef, where I'm totally gobsmacked at the skill of others!  Nor the Quiz Programmes, which unfortunately we have aired about 12 years later than produced from the BBC because of the ratio : £ Sterling to South African Rand!  Nor the fantastic Business Acumen programmes.  I'm referring to the dating or so-called "family reality" which is huge in its popularity around the world!  What kind of precedent and even "reality" does it depict to a viewer?  We are supposed to become more intelligent as time goes on and the very young are surely indications in their smartness of this.  But the slightly older ... 

Maybe it is time to emphasize Fiction is just that, and it will always have its place and is amazing - also a way of "switching-off".  But REALITY must not take on this new role.  Let reality mean REAL - what an intelligent person embraces and rises up to!

Is Learning a continuous Journey for a Writer - Or is it Just Me?

I had already just started #NaNoWriMo in 2011, when via social media I came across Larry Brooks (@storyfix on Twitter).  Despite the time constraint of completing 50,000 words in 30 days, I decided to write in conjunction with reading his book"Story Engineering" and it really gave me focus.  Although I had already been eagerly reading all the "How To's" from the many successful talented authors I followed on social media, this book somehow really made me confidently finish the Competition successfully, and what a help in the later editing process!  This all resulted in my published book A Question of Love.

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Although I am in the throes of working on the very first story idea I envisaged, when I decided to become a writer (and incidentally this draft has been going through many re-incarnations) meanwhile, Larry has brought out a brand new book entitled "Story Physics".  This is proving to be also not only fascinating, but incredibly useful.  So I am once again pausing, soaking up the additional incredibly useful information on the process of writing.

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I don't think I will ever stop wanting to learn.  Creativity is continually changing, generations are searching for the new.  We must never stagnate and be open to as much learned information and advice as possible.

I know when I go back to my book, during or after reading "Story Physics" I will be well equipped to let the story flow.

The Childhood Friends - A glimpse of back-story

When my protagonist, Victoria, in my published novel, A Question of Love, was a child :

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she had a close friend, who lived next door.

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What is important about Grant, who my readers only get to meet as an adult, is that he was not the captain of the school rugby team, the head boy at school, the guy all the girls wanted to be with.  Nor was he the most popular amongst the other guys.  Because of the home circumstances in his childhood and early teens, he had to bear responsibility with the accompanying restrictions, for the well-being of his wheelchair bound mother, who had MS.  He becomes what other young people could regard a nerd, of necessity spending more hours than considered normal at a computer.

Only later in life, when computers become so widely used by everyone, as a result of his vast, mostly self-taught early skills, which provide an entry to a computer world of experts, he becomes a hugely successful businessman, and it is only then my reader meets Grant.