Writers live in a paradise of their own making. They merely sit down and commence writing as thoughts are flowing through their mind and are instantly transported into a world of their own! It does not matter what the surroundings look like and unlike the external world, there is nobody interrupting with ‘What are you writing now?’ or reprimanding ‘you don’t need to write that!’ or criticising: ’What a lot of rubbish!’ The writer is master in his own world and as long as there is something to be written down, there is work to be done! The thoughts are literally queuing up in line, waiting for their turn to become reality in form of words.
Sometimes, it is a poem that, like a little ditty, goes round and round in one’s mind, virtually begging to be put on paper. The comparison with music is well founded as the rhymes or rhythm of the consonants can be compared to a melody.
Only recently, I woke up and there was this flow of lyrics in my mind:
There is an island North of Queensland, from the world so far away, native children play on beaches, laughing, in the foaming spray.
On and on flowed these verses, effortless and seemingly inexhaustible, compelling me to write them down and to publish them on this blog site.
Some other times, I have ‘received from somewhere’ a whole story, first in a dream which I noted down immediately in key words. Re-reading it in the morning, everything came back to me, crazy or fairy-tale-like, a story within a story and therefore unusual. Again, I had something to publish!
There are several stories I have written with this method and this method works very well for me.
My first two books ‘Life on The Road’ and ‘On the Road Again’ are recollections from my working live, hilarious and original. All my funny, embarrassing and incredible encounters have been carefully noted down on the very day they happened. As a commercial traveller, I always had, in my early days, a travel typewriter with me -yes, young authors, there was such a thing- and later, a laptop computer. Sometimes, I wrote late into the night, recording the funny situations I had encountered during the day.
Like the day I saw two men dancing on the footpath, however, at closer proximity I discerned a man and his Great Dane. Another time, a show dog had only one testicle and to be able to enter competitions, his owner had arranged for a silicon implant, indistinguishable from the real thing. But, come show day, the judges found this dog with three testicles and a scandal broke. A brand new hospital in a country town had its PVC flooring installed upside down, with the backing up! The town’s people, the architect and other dignitaries were very happy with this installation but wanted to know from me how to remove the advertising message…..Another time, a nerd had built himself the biggest surfboard in the world, so he claimed, an enormous board but extremely light. He invited me to be present at the setting of his world record, only he could not reach the waters as the breeze from the ocean caught the board like a sail and literally kept blowing him back from the beach and across the road where a house gave him some wind protection. Dragging footsteps outside a motel room, combined with heavy breathing and groaning alarmed an elderly spinster inside. In the morning, it turned out to be that of a bull who somehow had left his paddock…On and on came my memories as I worked them into very entertaining books.
Between verses, short stories and my current manuscript, I enjoy the company of like-minded authors giving mutual support and exchanging ideas. Cross-fertilizing each other (in a literary sense!) and try to raise my standard of writing to a new level.
Peter Frederick
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