Why I Write and How I Write

An author is someone that writes. Thus, I write because I must write.

I have always read and written. Words are magic and can take you anywhere. Become more real than reality, be reality. And when you are back from reading, good reading, you have been refreshed and you have grown; you see the world in a different light.

I have always written in private: letters to newspapers, short stories, loads of (mostly religious) poetry and a few novels. I have attended a couple of evening classes in creative writing.

I write in the great tradition described by Stephen King like this: “Stories are artifacts, not really made things which we create and can take credit for, but pre-existing objects which we dig up.” Personally I believe these artifacts are ideas God had when he planned our existence but never used, or perhaps they have been realized somewhere else, in some other universe. Anyway, when I sit there and wait for a story to unravel itself, I know I will be the first to read my own book.

Of course, this applies to writing fiction. When I write non-fiction I am more systematic!

Anyway, returning to fiction, it is not my fault that as a story unfolds it becomes like one of Shakespeare’s stories – a mix of comedy, romance and tragedy – but with more action.

Naturally, in the background (the subconscious?) things are cooking. I worked as a computer consultant but was “burnt out” due to excessive work. Thus, frustrations of life, marriage, political commitments that led nowhere and so on fuel whatever it is that digs up stories. Add to this all the books I have read. I began reading fantasy and science fiction in the sixties – long before these categories became household names. Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Andre Norton, C.S Lewis, Van vogt, Vonnegut, C. Simak. J. Pournelle, P. Anderson. I read what I could find. Today I read less of science fiction and more of travel literature, biographies and books about Society, Politics & Philosophy.

One way to describe this novel is to describe its DNA as taken 20% from J. R. R. Tolkien, 20% from C S Lewis, 15% from J. K. Rowling, 5% from Paulo Coelho. And the remaining 40% taken from, well, I’m not quite sure 🙂

One of my favourite authors today is H. V. Morton, my ideal is Winston Churchill. And my dream is to fight for truth in writing in the spirit of George Orwell.