The Journey So Far
I have not written anything here for a while, so I
thought I had better get something down, and not just something to advertise
my books. I'm not a blogger or any kind
of social commentator, I don't want to shout out my views or ram my opinions
down peoples throats, which is why I haven't put anything down here on a
regular basis. I thought well I have
been plodding along in this book-writing thing since May, well that's when I
had the opportunity to have something published, many thanks to Matt Hilton on
that score. I have been writing on and
off for the past couple of years, posting in Writers Cafe, and other web based
literary homes. With the advent of the
whole Amazon publishing boom, it has taken me a little further down the road, I
have gained quite a few friends from around the globe while plunking away at my
keyboard, people I could never ever meet if I was packing shelves at Tesco, not
that there is anything wrong with doing that, I've done it myself. Even though I was working Security at the
time, the management in their infinite wisdom decided the best use of their
Security staff was to stock their shelves, I digress, just one of my bugbears.
I did say I'm not one to shout out my
views so I do apologise, I have three books out in the world now, well four really,
but one is a book of poems, which does not count as hardly any sales have been
made on it. Just for jollity though,
here is one of the poems from it.
MANCHURIAN MACHINATION
A Poem by Andy Scorah
In a Manchurian world of
lysergic dreams
The world is not as it may
seem
Just like Marco and Shaw
turned into a political whore
Stalking the streets till
you reach the killing floor
Was the queen of diamonds
your call to war?
Or Salinger's angst ridden
tome
That made you carry a Glock
from your home
Was it murderous visions
driving you through the door?
The soundtrack to your
mental machinations
As the bodies hit the floor
Do you think you’re a
soldier of the class war?
Victims, aren't we all of
your death dealing gyrations.
There you go just one of my attempts at the poetic. Anyway, sometimes I
look back at the books I have completed and sometimes I wonder, did I really
write that, where the hell did it come from, especially when I compare it to my
earlier stuff, which wasn't bad, just rough around the edges. Sometimes I think
I should revisit my earlier work and smarten it up, but I tell myself no, they
are part of the journey to where you are now, leave them be, in the words of
the big I AM Simon Cowell, it is what it is.
From my humble beginnings way back in the mists of time in
a little village called Campsall, seven and a half miles from Doncaster, that's
in South Yorkshire folks, I buried my head in books. I dreamed of one day
becoming a writer myself, not that the local Careers office would offer any
advice, even my English teacher said I would be better off going down the pit
or joining the army, even though I consistently received top marks for my class
work.
Part of me is glad I never got back into it until my adult years;
I do think one of the main qualities of a writer is a life experience,
especially if you are writing for an adult audience, just my opinion before you
start shouting at me. One of the pieces of advice I was given along the
way was to join a writers circle, and attend some sort of writer’s
workshop/Course. I chose not to do these things, not that I thought I could do
it all by myself or that I would not get anything from them, for me I felt it
would dilute what I had, make my writing mechanical, this was an informed
choice after checking out what was available in my area. My teachers have been
books, thousands of them which I have read along the way, other help has come
from authors I have met, some who have read my work, and given me helpful
comments, and/or advice. The advice I would give to someone just starting out,
is to read loads in the genre you want to write in, study what the writer does,
how they tell the story. Also don't get too panicky over your grammar, that can
be fixed once your piece is finished. WRITE YOUR STORY, sort everything else in
the edit/proofing.
Nothing about my journey so far has been disappointing or
unsatisfactory, quite a few of the characters I have met along the way could be
characters in books themselves, writers are a fascinating bunch, mind they
would have to be to crank out the stuff they do.
One last thing I would like to mention before I close this,
if the police were to check my hard-drive, and I am sure this is the same for
most writers, they would think they had got themselves some kind of terrorist
or serial killer, researching the likes of crime scenes and types of bombs,
poisons, weapons. I hope they never have too, be kind of hard to explain, for
now I'm out of here, and have a nice day.
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