My mother might have been an idiom expert. She would use them all the time in everyday conversation. I think many of us, of a certain generation, do just that.
After something went wrong, I would often hear her say. “Well, it’s back to the drawing board then.”
When I was very young, I might wonder where or what this “drawing board” was. Whatever it was, we didn’t have one.
It’s a familiar idiom that is used when a plan hasn’t worked out as expected. It means we must start again from scratch. It carries a sense of disappointment with it, but it suggests not giving up. Time to have a rethink and try again.
It has been around six months since I left Medium (you can find out why in this six part series — The Truth About Medium).
I no longer post on Medium as much as I once did. Most of the time, I will import a post from this blog, to keep things going, and see if anyone reads it.
That was one of the difficulties at Medium: finding the audience and getting reads. It is a site that says it does all the SEO stuff for you. If it did, I’m not sure that it helped in any way. It sounds like a good idea, just post and trust the algorithm to find readers for you, but I can’t say it worked that well.
I tend to do my own SEO and keywords on this blog, with a little help from ChatGPT. AI is useful in that regard. In fact, I would say that I get a better response doing this on my own blog than I did on relying on Medium's algorithm.
Every writer is told, sooner or later, to find their authentic voice. That we should try to write true to the person that we are. For me, that is good advice, because my authentic voice is a simplistic one. It has to be given my background. I’m not sure that I could change it to anything else, even if I wanted to.
Let’s start at the beginning.
At school, writing was something that we had to do, once we had learnt to write, that is. For me, I don’t recall being a natural when it came to writing. If anything, like most things at school, it was a chore. I tended to prefer lessons like games or art.
Writing could be hard work, especially the grammar side of it. Turning an idea, a story, into something that read as it sounded in my mind did not come easy to me. I’m tempted to say that is still the case. I have to work on that all the time.
One of the things that I have noticed about grammar checking software (especially AI), is that it doesn’t always recognise the authentic voice when making recommendations.
A writer rarely enters a room without quietly taking notes. Not with pen and paper; that would be too obvious, but with something far more instinctive. I find myself observing what is going on around me, and the potential for a story forms in my mind.
A writer notices the way a conversation develops or stalls, the glance that lingers too long, and the sigh that says more than words ever could. The looks on the faces of everyone in the room, friendly or grumpy, hostile even, every room has its own look and character.
I was in one such room last Friday, when I had to pay a visit to a local hospital. A hospital waiting room is not a place where most people would want to be. Uncertainty about our health takes most of us there, unless you were in support or there to assist someone.
The hospital was busy; they always are, but the first thing I had to do was find the waiting room. Report to Ward 34, I was told by my local surgery. I diligently wrote down the details, including a long abbreviation that must have been code for something. It was the only writing that I had done for a few days.
Ward 34? I began to wonder about all the other wards (33 of them), and then how many more there were after 34. The hospital was a big place. I arrived at the main reception, where I noticed someone, who looked like he might be a volunteer, advising others on where to go.
“Do you know where you need to go to?” He asked.
“Ward 36.” I replied, without realising that I had given the wrong number.
“I’ll take you to the lift. From there you go to the second floor and turn left, and the waiting room for Ward 36 is at the end of the corridor.”
I recently caught a winter cold, which turned into an infection, or it came with it, just before Christmas. It was just a cold, or so I thought.
The common cold had taken a backseat in recent times, as COVID-19 got all the headlines. But it has been around a long time; there are about two hundred strains of it. It was just waiting its turn, or a new strain was around. Old or new, I got it from somewhere.
And it was a lingering cold.
A continuous cough is not just something that comes with COVID-19; mine from this simple cold lasted three weeks, and I’m still not over it. The cough pounds away at the rib cage — it’s like going ten rounds with Mike Tyson at his peak.
It all meant that I struggled to write. That’s the way it is when I’m ill. I might have good intentions, that having all that time, I will write. In reality, that doesn’t happen. Being ill drains any desire to do anything, other than to get over it.
You eat a meal without tasting a bite. You read a message twice and still don’t absorb it. Watch a YouTube video, without taking it in. Somewhere along the way, you forget to write. The hours drag on.
And this is where writing lives.
To be a writer is to exist half a step removed from the world, constantly translating experience into language in a way that, hopefully, someone will like and understand. The writer is always watching, listening, and storing fragments away in the mind for future use. Even in moments of rest, or illness, thoughts are working, shaping sentences, rehearsing conversations, rewriting endings that never happened.
I never used to check my writing with an AI detector before joining Medium. And even when I first published on the platform, I didn’t check.
But then I read a few stories from writers who indicated their writing, or some of it, had been flagged as AI by an AI detector checker. I thought that I had better check my stories just to see.
For the most part, they pass with a big zero.
But occasionally, I receive a return that tells me that anywhere from 3% to 10% is most likely AI. My usual reaction is, “Really?” Often, it is only one line, one sentence, or at most a paragraph. Occasionally, it may consist of just a few words.
I ask myself why would the detector think that an occasional line in a story of several hundred words, or even a few thousand, is most likely AI-written? What is it about the words that makes the detector algorithm think that it has been written by AI? And typically it will say, 100% certain.
It was part of a story I wrote about the two end dates of summer in the UK, meteorological and astronomical. I wrote it for the reason given; the end date of the astronomical summer is later than the other date.
It was a simple enough sentence. Anyone could have written it. But the detector thought that AI wrote that line. It didn’t make sense to me. Was it because I had used a fancy word like ‘astronomical’? Or maybe it was the exclamation mark at the end? Perhaps AI did not think that a human would write that way, to emphasise being happy?
I remember the moment the title came to me. I was pacing around my home, thinking — searching for a phrase that might hold the whole story together. Titles can be elusive things, they are jotted down, forgotten, some look great, then they don’t. I had a handful of ideas, each discarded for one reason or another.
None seemed to bring the chapters together in the way I wanted.
At one stage, I had an idea that I felt could really work — to open each chapter with a subheading drawn from a song of the time. A piece of music that had shaped not only my personal experiences, but also the atmosphere of the era I was writing about. I imagined each song acting as a lyrical thread connecting memory, mood, and meaning to the story.
Then reality intervened. Copyright.
Yes, “fair use” might have allowed me to borrow a few lines, but even that felt like a legal grey area. The deeper I looked, the more it became a potential minefield of permissions and costs. Reluctantly, I let the idea go.
Still, once music had entered the conversation, I couldn’t get it out of my head. Songs have a way of unlocking memory, and as I sifted through those from my past, one stood out: Son of My Father, a 1972 hit by Chicory Tip.
I can’t say the band were favourites of mine, nor that the song had any special place in my life at the time. I remember it being played on the radio and Top of the Pops, but I was more into music by T Rex, Slade, Sweet and ELO. Years later, the song — and something in its story — resonated. It felt as though it was an ideal title for the book.
Here’s the song:
I later discovered that the title had been used before — in books, in other contexts — but that didn’t matter. For me, it fit.
Because although my book isn’t solely about my relationship with my dad, he is the presence that runs through it. The man, the mystery. As he left my life almost fifty years ago now, the book is most of what I know about him.
Writing Son of My Father was, in part, an act of discovery — not just about the past, but about what remains when memory fades and imagination takes its place.
I recently read an article that had over one hundred one-line sentences in it.
Most were short sentences, but it had the occasional long one, like the last sentence above and this one.
I got a brain freeze halfway through.
I couldn’t cope with it.
By line twenty, I had lost track of what the article was about.
Where was it going?
Did it have any meaning?
And
what’s wrong with using a paragraph occasionally? I might start now.
The humble paragraph has been used throughout history; why shouldn’t it
be used? What did it ever do wrong to offend people?
Actually, I’m having some fun. I don’t mind the occasional one-line sentence in my writing.
Until recently, I was not aware that Tipp-Ex, the correction fluid, was still available.
I have not used it in years.
There was a time when I was a regular user. It was a necessity.
For
me, that was in the days of pen and paper, long before the arrival of
the personal computer and laptop. And for some time after they became
available, they were expensive to buy, as was a typewriter or word
processor.
I tried using a typewriter, but I soon discovered that I was never going to master it.
I was left with a pen and paper.
But before Tippex, writing anything could be problematic, as mistakes stood out.
At
school, most of the time, I did not know that I had made a mistake. My
English teacher was the grammar checker. She would return my essays with
many red marks and notes in the margin.
She would comment that I needed to improve in certain areas.
“Could do better.”
So many boys had the same three words written on their essays.
One day I noticed that a friend of mine had a little white plastic container. He was applying, via a small brush, that was part of the lid top, a white liquid to his essay.
Once dried, you could write over any mistake.
Maybe with this magic liquid I could do better?
Of
course, you do have to know that you have made a mistake, and checking
words using a dictionary was very time-consuming. More so if the
alternative was being outside playing football with my mates.
I decided to find five English proverbs that best describe the writing journey.
Free image by Queena Deng from Pixabay
Here’s what I chose.
"The pen is mightier than the sword."
If you can write and tell a story, then you have a powerful weapon. This has been known throughout history. It is why the enemies of words try to ban or burn books, and why the writer is often seen as dangerous.
Become a writer and challenge the world.
"A picture is worth a thousand words."
Pictures do sell products.
It is probably why publishing companies and authors spend considerable time thinking about the cover image of a book.
Good
writers paint a picture with their words. Is there a better feeling
than finding a story that paints a picture in your mind when reading?
I had a moment yesterday, when I started to question what I was doing. It was very specific, concerning a project that I have been working on since late last year, when I decided to try my hand at writing fiction.
The end result is now within sight. I am writing the final chapter and conclusion.
So, the end is within reach.
However, yesterday I was on Twitter X, and noticed in my timeline there was a tweet asking about books written from a first-person perspective. The question was, what did people prefer, first or third person? Many replied, saying that they did not like first-person books at all. It seems to be like marmite, you either like it or you don't.
I had not given it much thought, but I was writing this book in first-person. I did so for the following reasons.
I have, what you might call, a love-hate relationship with grammar check
software. We all make mistakes when we write. I know that I do. The
mistakes are corrected during editing, but...
Welcome to The House of Fun My journey into Bedsitland had begun when I rented a small, partially
furnished single room on the ground floor of a terraced house, close to
where I had lived as a boy...
It has been a while since I posted, but I do have an excuse. Well, two excuses, actually. First, I have a book to write. Well, I'm trying to write. For now, the book is my priority, and it takes up a lot of time, as any aspiring author will know.
Next, I was in the process of writing a second book when I realised that these true stories might be more effective as articles. After reaching twenty-six thousand words, I have decided to set it aside.
Which led me to the website for writers and readers, Medium.
What is Medium?
I went to their website to find their definition of what they offer.
Medium is a home for human stories and ideas. Here, anyone can share insightful perspectives, useful knowledge, and life wisdom with the world—without building a mailing list or a following first. The internet is noisy and chaotic. Medium is quiet yet full of insight. It’s simple, beautiful, collaborative, and helps you find the right audience for whatever you have to say.
I decided that the best place to go to find out more was YouTube. I mean, you can usually find someone on YouTube who has made a video about their experience. I was right, but some videos looked like clickbait. They offered a magic formula. Just do what they do, and you can do the same.
There are times when you just have to write. Last night a scene came to me out of the blue, and I just had to write it down because otherwise I would probably have forgotten it. So, around midnight, I ended up writing about 900 words of dialogue between the two main characters in the book that is my first attempt at fiction.
I am finding that I am not writing the story from start to finish in one go, in that while I have the story in mind, a beginning, middle, and end, things tend to change as I go along. Then ideas for inclusion at any point in the story just tend to come to me. I start at the beginning of course, but at some stage, what I have already written, may need a re-write to include the new ideas. Seems like an anarchic way of doing things, but that is the way that I write. I suppose it is just the way that my mind works. It doesn't give me the whole story from the start!
That's what happened last night. The dialogue I wrote will be included in a later chapter that I am still some way off from writing. The scene is written now, and other than the inevitable editing, it is waiting to be included in that chapter, whenever I get to it.
I noticed on Twitter X recently that authors will occasionally mention their word count for the day. Some are quite impressive, writing several thousand words in a day. I'm not that productive, and I felt for some time that I was more of a binge writer than someone who could just write every day. However, I have tried to change this, and that was because of Covid.
When I tested positive for Covid, I decided that while under the weather, I would try to do two things. The first was to catch up on my reading. I have many books that I want to read, but just don't get around to it. Second, I was going to write more consistently. I ended up doing neither. I did some reading, but not much. Furthermore, I did no writing at all.
For two to three weeks, I just waited for Covid to do its thing and then clear up. Fortunately, It did, but then I thought about all that wasted time. I did very little because I did not feel like doing anything, but this wasn't just procrastination. I did think about what I should be doing, and then I set a goal that I would write every day. So far, that is what I have been doing. In the past, I have never really thought about doing a daily word count, but now that is what I'm doing.
So, in the last four days, my numbers are 1050, 1183, 2286 and so far today, 1058.
This is writing on two WIP. One, is my first attempt at fiction. I will write more about this in due course. The second is non-fiction.
Somebody posted on Twitter X the writer Ian Fleming's (he of James Bond fame), daily routine. Here it is.
Of course, it does help that he was a successful author and making decent money. For most of us, it is not realistic, but the general principle to write something each day if you can is a good one.
What works about writing every day, if you can do it, is that the numbers soon add up. Average 1000 words a day, and that is 365,000 in a year, and potentially three or four books. Of course, you need to have the ideas, and then there is all the editing, the promoting, etc, etc. So, it is never that easy as life, and procrastination gets in the way. However, while there is not much I can do about life getting in the way at the moment, I can do more to avoid procrastination.
So, yesterday I decided to change the look of the blog layout and theme, and I think it now looks better. It has a cleaner look to it, no background picture.
I also simplified the Son of My Father page, along the lines of chapter headings telling the story of what the book is about, so why not do it that way?
Here's a sample.
Chapter Nine — Son of My Father.
Chapter Ten — Big School.
Chapter Eleven — Related to a Film Star?
Chapter Twelve — The Family From Hell.
Chapter Thirteen — The Girl With Beautiful Eyes.
I also managed to write 2300 or so words yesterday of my new WIP (Really getting with it now, it does mean Work in Progress, doesn't it? Doesn't it?).
Things had started off so well. Last Tuesday, I wrote
about 1500 words in my new WIP (Work In Progress). Listen to me using
fancy terms to describe doing some writing. Still, I thought that 1500 words was a decent
enough amount, and I was looking forward to getting more written the
next day.
The next morning I didn't feel right, a
bit achy, a tickle in the throat, although that had been there for about a
week. A bit of a cough. At first, I thought, maybe it's a cold? Then, as the mind likes
to play tricks, I was reminded of the aches and thought, could it be
flu? I doubted it, but it didn't feel exactly like a cold. Feeling
lethargic, as the day went on, writing was put on one side. Then I
thought, could it be Covid?
I'd avoided it so far. I also had some
test packs and decided that I might as well use one, at least it would
eliminate covid, as I expected it to be negative (don't know why). So, I
did the test. The instructions indicated what a positive test would be,
and it would take up to fifteen minutes to confirm either way. It
actually took about half that time. Two red bars indicating positive. Oh
dear. I began to wonder where I had picked it up. In the previous week,
I hadn't been around that many people, so I didn't need to contact
anyone to warn them.
Now, it's the sixth day, and the only good
thing about the last week is that I did get some reading done, although
most of the time I felt too lethargic or listless to even read. I didn't
even think about doing any writing, although having Covid has given me
an idea to develop within the story that I was writing. In one of those
strange coincidences, the last thing I had written was how my main
character would need to be careful to avoid catching something serious,
given the options for treatment were no longer available.
So, this
is the first I've written for a while. It would have been nice to
report that in the downtime of being sick, I had written a lot, but
that's not the case. I'm now getting back into it, and hopefully, as
things improve from here, I will get a move on and write more.
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