Home Thoughts of a ‘Pantser’ Stuck in an Office Chair…

I  admit I thought long and hard before committing myself to writing another ‘as you go’ novel on this blog.  I have serialized novels previously and I think they have been well received – I even believe the current serial, ‘Satan’s Rock’ has an heroic following who I hope will not be disappointed with the ending, which is at last in sight.

Yes, at last!

The thing is, I write entirely for my own pleasure.  It is a ruthless self-indulgence.  Oh, I had a go at selling a few books when the wondrous fields of Kindle opened up to me, back in two-thousand-and-frozen-to-death, but my heart was never really in the publishing side.   I never considered authorship as a commercial venture.

Turning three thousand words a week wasn’t in the least onerous to me, back then.  I enjoyed the challenges that represented, the research, the editing, the constant plot revisions that writing on the hoof present.   

Now, I find it harder.

The Covid interlude and the old ‘advancing years’ thing have conspired together to urge me to move on, to sketch together short pieces like this and publish them, rather than commit a whole week’s writing to one piece of fiction.  I have to recognize physical limitations both on my readers’ part (it takes time to read 3000 words) and my own, which might serve as a warning to anyone considering continuing a writing career into old age.   Look into the history of any writer on record as still writing in their dotage and you will discover tales of loneliness, physical pain and the mortification of watching as horizons grow ever closer.

Not that I regard myself in such a tragic light; heavens no!   At 75 I am a warm, pulsating male dynamo with the heart of a lion and the strength of an ox – although I do get a bit short of breath now and then.   No, you see, the truth is, I was never fast – never a quick writer – and now I’m getting slower.  There are so many things I see that need to be written about and I don’t have the time to write them.   I have a different view of the world to many, and I need to get it out there.

Who knows, maybe someday someone will listen?

I’m planning a new page for this blog,   ‘Fred Anderson;  The Complan Years’.  Watch out for it!