Statistically I don't exist by Sheila Claydon

I received a letter from the Office for National Statistics. It said I had been selected from the UK's Royal Mail's list of addresses to form part of a sample that represents the entire country. What it really means is that it's a mini census about a specific issue and the information given helps government departments, local authorities and charities make decisions about how they will spend their money.The European Union also uses the results as do schools and universities.

I know it works because a number of years ago a much needed local traffic system was approved as a result of a similar survey. This one, however, was not about transport and roads, it was about employment.

A man wearing a identification card on a cord around his neck duly arrived and, once he'd got his computer to work, started asking the questions. The first ones were easy. Name, age, household, health, da-di-da-di-da. So were the next ones about qualifications, past employment, retirement, tax benefits etc. Things started to get tricky when we started talking about the present though.

It didn't seem like a difficult question. Are you still in any form of paid employment? But it was.

Yes, I'm a self-employed writer.

A fair bit of hemming and hawing and then 'There isn't a writer category on the list."

Try author.

Ah yes there is one for author. I can slot you in there. Do you work full time or part time?

Part time.

Would that be mornings or afternoons, or part of a week?

All of those...sometimes.

Could you be more specific?

No because there's no pattern.  I work flexibly. I might write almost full time for a week and then, because of other commitments, not work at all for two weeks.

By full time do you mean Monday to Friday?

No. It could be Monday to Sunday or, in another week, just the Wednesday.

Do you work in the evenings?

Yes.

How many evenings do you work?

It's impossible to quantify because it depends on what else is going on in my life.

Do you work at night?

If you mean right through the night then no but I sometimes work really late.

Would you say you write every day?

No. As I said it's flexible but I do look at my work related emails every day.

So would you say that's two hours a day or is it more than that?

Far less than that usually but occasionally I have to follow something up immediately and that might take a bit longer.

So can I put two hours a day?

I was feeling sorry for the guy by then so I almost nodded because I really, really wanted him to be able to tick a box. I didn't though because it wouldn't have been true.

So fellow writers (or authors if you prefer) how would you fare if the very nice man from the Office of National Statistics visited you? Would you fit into his nice orderly boxes or are you like me, an 'if and when' writer who has to take her chances when she can?

I'm not sure what the government and all those other worthy bodies are going to make of my answers. I guess they won't even see them, they'll just see a minor blip in the employment statistics that will eventually be published.  In the meantime maybe I should try to work in a more orderly fashion. After all it would be nice to be able to tick one of those boxes.

One of my heroines had to tick boxes. That was Claire in my book Reluctant Date. She was ticking boxes on an Internet Dating site though, and that's a whole other story.

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A Writing Challenge by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

PURCHASE FROM AMAZON

I was at a meeting with some fellow writers and, as writers do, we were talking about writing. One of them gave us a writing challenge. We had to write five beginning sentences for five stories. We had ten minutes to do it.

Here were my five:
My mother told me a joke on my wedding night saying. "The difference between rape and rapture is co-operation."
The day that my brother blew his hand off is the day that my father started drinking.
Whatever the past, the future is spotless.
I don't give a dang, for I have seen the elephant.
The only time I like water is when it is cold and the day is hot.
As each one read hers, we discussed them trying to figure out how the story would go. At the end of the meeting we decided that we should take one of our sentences and build it into a short story, or the beginning of a novel for our next meeting.
I took my second sentence and here is the beginning of the novel I wrote around it.
     The day that my younger brother, Ralph, blew his left hand off, was the day that my father began drinking. Not that he hadn’t drank before. He'd have a beer on Saturdays with the neighbours or a drink at family gatherings but it was that day that he began drinking every day as soon as he got home from work.
     And the change was immediate. When he and mom came home from the hospital after leaving Ralph, Dad went to the cupboard and pulled out a half empty bottle of whiskey. He got a glass and poured it almost full. He drank it down. I was watching him as mom told me and my younger brother, Jimmy, that Ralph had lost his hand and would be in the hospital for a few days. Dad took time off work and he and Mom went to see Ralph every day. But every evening Dad drank himself into a stupor.
     When they brought Ralph home from the hospital the only change in Dad's routine was that in the morning instead of going to the hospital he went to work. He got up sober, left the house at his usual time and was sober up until the moment he entered our door after work. It was once that door was closed on the outside world that he'd sit in his chair in the living room and pour his first glass of whiskey or vodka or rum whichever he had on hand at the time. Mom would serve him his supper there while the rest of us ate at the table in the dining room. His evenings varied little. Sometimes he'd stare at the television set, sometimes he'd stare into the corner of the living room. And he continued drinking all evening until he passed out, usually in his chair, sometimes on the couch, occasionally he made it to bed.
     He became, and remained for the rest of his life, a functioning alcoholic.


West To The Bay

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Gold Fever

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The Travelling Detective Series boxed set:

Illegally Dead
The Only Shadow In The House
Whistler's Murder

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thinking about THE BIG BANG THEORY by Karla Stover

Author Karla Stover shares her thoughts on:
The Big Bang Theory, and what it says to writers

     Page 19 of a book called The Wrecking Crew talks about the beginnings of rock-n-roll. Extrapolating from two paragraphs, it says, “Unlike the small companies, (indies) the behemoths such as Columbia and Mercury opted to stick with traditional pop offerings: the New Christy Minstrels, Johnny Mathis, and Tennessee Ernie Ford—those they knew would sell. They waited years before grudgingly signing a rock-n-roll group: Paul Revere & the Raiders.”

     Translation: businesses don’t like to take chances.

     But someone did with the Big Bang Theory.

     I started watching the Big Bang from day one—that is, in 2004. Hard to believe it’s been on 11 years. In 2004, Friends was winding up and so was Fraser. NCIS, L&O Special Victim’s Unit, CSI Miami and any number of other shows featuring pretty people were new and fresh. But none was as fresh as the Big Bang. With the exception of Penny, the characters were kids we knew, but not well, in school; they were usually found in Science Club. I wish I had known them better, because thanks to the Big Bang guys, I am now able to answer some of our newspaper’s quiz questions when they pertain to science. But I digress. I think part of the show’s initial popularity is that it was different from everything else. CBS took a chance.

     The behemoth publishers don’t want to take a chance on anything new, either. Stephen King’s Carrie was rejected 30 times because, as one letter said, “We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell,” but how did the publishers know?  Maybe because the year before Carrie came out (1974) the best sellers included Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Evening in Byzantium, and The Billion Dollar Sure Thing. Then, a publisher took a chance and created a genre industry.

      To my way of thinking, the last big chance that a TV network took before the Big Bang was The Waltons and the last monumental chance taken in publishing was the Harry Potter books.

     Right now, I’m working on three books, one is non-fiction, two are historical fiction, and one of the historical fictions is YA. The YA historical fiction is taking a chance. The other two are playing it safe. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. As I sit here, typing, the only neglected genre I can think of is battlefield fiction. All the others, mine included, are out there jockeying for readers with all the others of its type

     The Big Bang may have been new and different but, I write what I know, what I love, and what I like to read. Guess I didn’t learn the lesson.