Due to a severe case of blog block as mentioned earlier I cannot remember if I have mentioned this before somewhere but I thought to myself what the hell, no one reads this crap anyway so I can practice my touch typing if nothing else.
I started reading when I was 14. I can hear people gasp in horror at this thinking that I learned to read when I was 14. Read it again.
My cousin was a very keen reader and it was him that introduced me to the novel. This sounds odd but up until then I had never really thought about sitting down and actually reading a book, thats what nerds did where I came from or at least this was my perception.
The first Novel I was introduced to was probably not particularly healthy reading for a boy of 14 Gor (John Norman). Even to this day I am not sure if it was the thought of all these naked slave woman that kept me interested or if I just liked reading. One things for sure I was soon hooked on reading.
I was staying at my cousins for a couple of weeks and managed to read 4 books and I came home with a whole pile of them. I think they didn’t like the Gor books but for me it was great. I was able to escape into this fantasy world where everything always worked out. I made short work of the Gor books and began visiting a local second hand bookshop and buying pretty much anything remotely fantasy related. It was also around this time that I encountered Tolkein and munched my way throught the Hobbit then the trilogy.
I also digressed into Horror for a short period but this was short lived. I read some King, Koontz, Masterton, Herbert etc etc. Most of the populars that hit the second hand book shelf got some attention.
It was around this time 16 that I stared writing a book at home. I got as far as 20000 words before I lost interest. This was due to me knowing I was a crap writer with little skills in english let alone how to write a book. We moved house around then and I still think that the pages I wrote are in the house we left because I had hidden them in the attic.
Since then I have been writing the book in my head or at least that is what I think I have been doing. Having never written anything longer than a few thousand words I have no idea how you go about such a task.
I have built up about 20 characters with lots of short stories that focus on each character. These stories are not necessarily part of the book they are just things I know about the characters and their history etc. Some of the stories feature in the book in various formats ie character B recounting a story about character C to character A etc or the character reminicing about something etc.
I have also the general idea for a plot which so far has been the hardest thing for me to think about. For some reason the characters come easily to me but the plots a lot harder.
I have enough managed to get enough of a book formulated that it took me 3 hours to recount the main part of it to Jenny on a long trip in the car (not sure if she was asleep or not 😉
This is just another of those things that I have got to do.