TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. How often this comes to pass. No matter how well I seem to organise my time there never seems enough of it. So how do I get everything done that is required of me? In short I don't, not in the time frame allocated anyhow. Mostly this is because I get distracted. This is a curse for anyone who has a deadline. During my University years I not only was interested in the subject being researched but also in everything else that came along with that subject or linked to it in some way, often with no true links at all but it just sounded interesting information to discover. Ah, how this changes the focus as well as broadening the mind. This was all great for the expansion of knowledge but when I went off at each and every tangent it meant losing focus on whatever I was intending to research. This just about sums up my writing life. While it is good for a writer to have knowledge of and an interest in anything and everything it can be both time consuming and too much of a distraction.
Finding that right word or that correct description often means leaving the page and entering another world, one of information rather than creation. This is true whether gleaned from a plain old dictionary or from an extraordinary online conversation. This in turn leads to a myriad of interesting facts and pathways to follow and sometimes it is hours before I actually return to my page with the one exact word or description I required. It also often arouses in me a desire to return to a subject only just touched upon and then this can lead to a whole change of direction of a plot or a character's needs. In fact, a complete change of story can occur. It is unknowable until received by readers whether this turns out to be a good thing or a bad thing.
So, judging how well time is spent and whether that time was a good or a bad influence is something forever debatable. Like time itself, writing is when a thought is translated in a fleeting moment from one mind set to another.  For some lucky writers their words seem to last forever, for others they vanish seemingly into thin air in a matter of moments. The essence of either seems being in the right place at the right time to be noticed and approved of. Such is the stuff dreams are made of.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I have always felt with some pride that I have kept my prejudices to the lowest possible level that is humanly possible. Yes, I do quiver  whenever I hear someone sound the H at a beginning of a word where it should be silent. Yes I do tremble with slight disgust at the way some people eat their food and yes, I do think most women work more harmoniously together than do most men. The former two prejudices I deal with silently, the latter I talk loudly about but back it up with facts.

I recently watched an episode of the UK, TV series VERA and grew green with envy at the quality of the writing. It revealed prejudice in a subtle, yet honest way with clever story telling, leading me to think one way, and so exposing my own deep rooted prejudice, one I thought I did not possess, and then completely turning that path of the story on its head, making me see how wrong I was to jump to a certain conclusion. It pertained to a particular ethnic group and while my prejudicial thought was only a temporary moment in my life it shows how easily we can all be roused/led to think and feel and do the wrong thing. So I admire how clever are such contemporary TV shows that deal with such issues in a serious yet entertaining way. It begs the question of whether entertainment should be used more to flesh out ideals and prejudices, rather than dictatorial editorials and political clashes. The world might be a more harmonious place if it did.

This ties in with my belief that good comedy, whether stand up or situational, has always manged to make people laugh first and ponder on the issues later. A brilliant tool to break down barriers. Whether self pride can be broken down entirely is something we all have to deal with but as they say, pride comes before a fall. So I hope the next generation of writers,whether in novels or for  any other form of media have the skills to debate the darker side of human nature with honesty, factual evidence and yet in an interesting and entertaining way. Long live good writers.

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