Be Excellent To Each Other

So in the trauma fuelled new existence of this morning, certain thoughts have been crystalizing. The world is divided clearly into two sorts of people. The first you lovely, intelligent, rational folk on this forum and those who vastly dominate my Facebook feed - and make no mistake I deeply love and treasure every one of you.

The second are those ruled by the power of ignorance and fear, handily represented by the force of evil that is The Sun, etc. To pull a treasured quote from one of A Little Bit of Fry & Laurie's vox-pops, "Well, it's a slippery slope isn't it? One day you're reading the Daily Mail, the next you're a heartless, witless piece of shit."

These are obvious conclusions which have in turn sparked a third.

I'm powerless and drifting. And it's an unpleasant feeling. I can either be ground down by these feelings or finally pull my fucking finger out and do what I'm supposed to, and that is write. Write for you guys. Write for the people on my Facebook feed.

Write novels. Good ones. I'm sticking with photography, hell yeah, but this world is just too fucking ugly to look at right now and I need to create something that might turn things around for me personally, and maybe just maybe enable others to escape someplace else for a few hours on a rainy evening. So, from now on...

Waking at six and getting two hours writing done before work, with internet disconnected.

One to two hours in the evening, social events / photography permitting. Complete a novel. Move on to the next one.

Escape into fiction. Publish. Become insanely rich. Move to Canada, or something.

...

Of course, the novels could be terrible. But then the nation's full of idiots I've just discovered so maybe they'll buy them instead.

to you all.

Oh please do, Pete! Your piece on Jo Cox was lovely and very well written.

I have been treading water for a number of years now, for various reasons (some solid, others are basically excuses). Time to get my life in order.

I like this one.



Wait, what?

what an excellent plan Pete! I wish you all the best and I promise I will buy your book!

also, will you let us think up names for characters?

Can I be in your book?

And me. I want to be a shepherdess. When is it set?

If there are no sheep then I can be a hot air balloon instructor.

Can I be a riverboat captain running from his dark past?

Can I be his dark past?

Ooh!! Like it!

Can I be the running river?

BOAT

Boaty McBoatface

Can I suggest the author in your awkward first published piece that contains the author himself be called 'Writey McWriteHand'?

McRightHandWrite?

Can I draw the pictures?

Yes to all these suggestions, though Mimi your sheep may be hardy mountain goats. DavPaz, I can promise you your Riverboat, sailing dark wooded rivers burning Chinese lanterns. Grim, assuredly you can be his dark past, though it may lead to bromance.

You can be the Russell of leaves above the river.

Hmm, not sure I trust the Beex naming traditions, though!

Ooh, I could be the JBR of J...no, let's not start that again.

Joyless Brexit Repercussions

Can I be an brutal Ostrogothic warlord, dealing with his petty day-to-day problems totally unaware of the impending Hunnic invasion that is going to radically everything? Ideally the beautiful but haughty daughter of a Roman Senator should pop up somewhere along the line.

I should be the grumpy old caretaker, unmasked as arch-villain of the piece, bitterly citing those immortal words: "...And if it wasn't for you pesky kids, I'd have got away with it, too!"

Can I be the head of a secret mafia

can I be a wench?

Somehow I'm not sure I can shoehorn that one in to the novel, but I can write a short story on it for you, if you like!



You can be one where the kids turn up to the spook mansion and being investigating opening secret doors in bookcases and the like, before the police abruptly come along part way through and ruin the adventure by simply arresting the man whom they'd previously accumulated evidence on, thus leaving the gang somewhat at a loss.

Yes and yes.

Can I be a feckless drunk? Or a dragon? Or both

You get feckless drunk. With bad breath.

BOAT

I'm guessing tug boat.

Can I be the whiskey swilling pilot in the Amazons?

This is already the best fucking book ever!

Not enough dragons

Or unicorns.

I don't think you should bother with character names. Just use our forum babes. Then, when you become mega-famous and your book is a best-seller people will Googke all of the characters and BEEX is famous.

Can you make sure Mimi the goatherd can't type and has a constant problem with autocorrect?

She will be the best character in the boob.

*book

Wait, who are my forum babes?

Coo-ee!

Hiya!

In.

Will the villagers tall in hushed tones about a mysterious flattopped Scotsman?

Also, your book definitely needs an enthusiastic if slightly disshelved Union private.

Gimme a b, gimme an a, gimme a b, gimme an e, gimme an s. Wassat spell? Names.


I Googked that, btw.

Is everyone wasted?

Trying to be.

I got agreeably wasted last night!

All sterling suggestions possibly hampered by the fact that the first novel is mainly going to be in present times small town America, but who knows, maybe I can shoehorn like no one has shoehorned before? I shall call the book: Peter Evans' The Shoehorning, and thus pick up bonus Stephen King fans.

Mimi, as the first book is in a post-electrical world, that particular handicap might not be too much of a problem for you.

Post electrical small town America? In.

Also needs a dog that is unnervingly clever that gets shot near the end.

Spoiler!