The Blogger is a Pub Rocker

A bit of cultural information; in Australia a new band can take the bit between their teeth and join what we call the pub circuit. Yes, I know, your country does the same thing, but I get paid by the word.

 Anyhoo, these various young ‘uns stiffen up the sinews, assume the aspect martial and hit the floor in front of a very demanding audience. Horatio at the bridge ain’t in it. If a band is below par they leave the stage either holding various damaged appendages or – what may be worse – they depart to the cacophonous sounds of silence. Because no one turned up.

 Except the owner of the bar who has just lost some serious drinking money due to the aforesaid band. Words have been known to be exchanged. Reflections made upon parentage, doubt cast over one’s mental capacity, sometimes (shudder) even irony is trotted out. Oh, the shame of it all, the inhumanity!

 Now it’s a long bow but I reckon that a blogger may be doing something similar. Sans the thrown beer bottles, the odour of unwashed flesh and dried bodily fluids. No, wait…I do know some bloggers who fit that profile. But that’s a personal hygiene choice, not the judgement of the masses.

 Okay, so the biggest risk we run (that’s a blogger) is to be ignored. Someone sticks their head into the room to see what the band’s like and quickly evaporates, never to return. People stop by to read the odd post, groan in boredom and forage into other electronic fields. Boy, can I get some metaphors going or what?

 Unfortunately we don’t have access to the same repertoire as a live performer. No volume control (let’s crank up the FONT SIZE AND GO ALL CAPS!), we can’t hit the electronic sound effects (switching from Arial to Courier doesn’t count) and we certainly can’t let off a bunch of explosions. Although the bloggers referred to previously do make sounds but they are more of a personal nature, more of a lounge act.

 Somehow changing the colour schemes of the blog and the images on the banner is not the same as a full on stage show.

 Sigh.

 But I have a solution, I want to bring a little rock and roll into the blogosphere, I want to start living on the edge. And this is how it happens….

 As I type, possibly even while you are still reading this, I want you to know that I am sitting here in fishnet stockings, paisley shirt, top hat and goth make up. A little bit of glitter for the ladies. I have already smashed two keyboards and the mouse is looking nervous, behind me is a large inflatable image of the dictionary, beside it is a thesaurus – both are dressed a little bit S&M (only a little because they scare me).

 The dog has contributed by being sick on the rug.

 I am signing off now, I clutch a frozen chicken in one hand and will be biting its head off. Somehow.

 Rock and Roll, baby….

Lessons from a small friend

“A man’s reach should exceed his grasp and who’s that at the door?” I think I’ve got that quote basically right, could be a word out of place but you can get the gist. Mr. Browning won’t mind, I checked and he is beyond the care of this vale of tears etc etc. Just give me a few minutes and I’ll get the right wording, it might have something to do with sandwiches.

But never mind the detail, feel the width.

He’s talking about stretching oneself, having a go, chancing your arm (insert your own phrase here…). He’s talking about living life.

I was dragging the old carcass around the traps today feeling deeply cynical and embittered by life – never won the lottery, parents weren’t rich (a great disappointment to me), my mental self image never quite matched the rather hideous reality. For years I tried to gull the old brain into agreeing with my view that I was an Action Man/Paul Newman/Charles Bronson sort of chap. All broody looks and hidden menace. Stupid brain, riveted in the real world, what does it know; the mirror is not my friend.

But now I’m mature. – sorry, got that wrong – now I’m older, and I see the world as it really is.

It was in this joyous frame of mind that I came across a beaming face about waist high; said face belonged to some young, innocent sprog who was blithely meandering through life unaware of its hidden traps and pits. Can’t stand the pits.

In my best world weary tone (which I do really well) I asked him to perform a small menial task. It needed doing and he was closer to it than I was- honest.

Well, you know what he did? Smiled at me.

I mean, the nerve. He smiled at me! Gave me the old cheerful hello, zapped to the task, knocked it for six and then swept back before me all big eyes and happy faces. I do believe there may have been rosy cheeks involved.

Of course my idiotic brain took over to pull a few facial muscles and I realised that I was smiling back. Joy had entered the building, lights came on in unused rooms. My attitude shuffled around and looked all embarrassed.

We chatted a bit and he left me, happy as a lamb. And Browning’s quote came to mind “A sandwich should heed the past and what’s that on the floor?”

I’m not sure why it came to mind, it seemed to have no relevance but whatareyagonnado?

His cheerful face and willingness to get involved reminded me about life and what it’s there for.

It’s for living. Tonight I shall be burning my membership to Cynics International and plastering the old dial with my best infuriating smile. And believe me, I do infuriating well; a dab hand at the old infuriating, moi.

But first I need a sandwich, one within grasp. That’d be heaven.

Letting the side down

This afternoon I was having one of my regular discussions with the dog over the matter of ethics, we have these from time to time in a seemingly futile endeavor to broaden his mind. It generally revolves around the concept of property ownership, the dog being more of a socialist consequently resents the notion of private property; unless, of course he deems himself the owner. He’s been reading far too much Lenin.

 The dog believes that the neighbours should seek permission from him before entering their own back yard, he thinks he’s using a lot of subtle arguments but basically he just barks. My rebuttal follows swiftly.

 Unfortunately he caught me this afternoon trying to scratch a few more words into my new novel (23, 000 words so far) and hence did not benefit from my legendary patience. I was struggling with the writing and feel embarrassed to talk about it.

 I will, of course, because I’m a loudmouth. But I’d ask you to keep it to yourself (I’m sure there’s some sort of blogger/reader confidentiality protocol.)

 Writing’s a bit of a grind at the moment. There, I’ve said it.

 I know writers should be all windswept and interesting, full of high ideals and thinking thoughts on a lofty plan. The words should flow from the muse, artistically arranged on the page by someone of scintillating talent. Fingers flying over keyboards, ideas jostling for space, that sort of thing. Possibly the odd faraway look out a nearby window to gaze over the scene idyllic, bluebirds in trees and the gentle lowing of cattle. Could be a sunset in there somewhere.

 But I’m letting the side down. At the moment the old novel feels like a grind, I have lovely little spurts for a few sentences, even a scene or two, but then I have to write some links, or a piece of description that’s been in my head a while – and I feel like I’m forcing the words out.

 Pretty sad, isn’t it? I mean, time at the keyboard is precious – it’s downright scarce. So when I get there I want to fly off to worlds unknown, not be confronted with my own turgid prose or struggle over every line.

 I’m not full of verve and energy, gushing over all things authorial (dibs on that word). At the moment I’m just a hack, bashing away.

 This is novel number three, and I’ve been here before on each of them. The first was good enough to get me into the winners circle with the Orbiteers (a dead clever bunch of writers) and the second was shortlisted for a state award. So I know that I’ll get there.

 But at the moment it’s the dog who is making the more cogent arguments about life. And he may be on to something, too.

 I’m off to bark at the neighbours.

Would you like fries with that book?

Want some money? Sure, go to the ATM, never a chance of encountering another human being. Petrol? Gimme that pump, laddie, I’ll be doin’ my own pumpin’. Anyone been to corner store lately and stood at the counter to ask for something? A packet of breakfast cereal, some mixed lollies? No, many of us have become attuned to the supermarket and a serve yourself lifestyle.

And there’s really nothing wrong with that but I began to mull over the implications of e-books. I have an e-reader (okay, I admit it, it’s an iphone) and I have noticed how my reading habits are getting a bit of a nudge. The particular app I use allows me to buy current titles or download a huge backlog of books free. I mean HUGE.

A quick skim shows the classics such as the Odyssey and the Iliad standing shoulder to shoulder with Greek plays, a bit of Newton and so on and so on. Feeling insufferably smug I downloaded a few weighty tomes and bashed away at them. Damned things haunt me now, every time I look at my electronic bookshelf they’re sitting there. Just waiting for me to open them up…as I promised to do. J’accuse!

And I can’t delete them! Heavens, that would mean that I don’t want to read whatever it is and really that’s just not on. I’m an intellectual and I have the bumper sticker to prove it.

So there’s one downside to e-readers – chose your texts with care, young ‘uns, else they will silently mock thy pretensions. I happen to like pretensions, collect them in fact, so I’m pretty bulletproof. You don’t live with a saint of a woman, a lazy dog, two huge sons and the mortgage from hell without acquiring a certain carelessness regarding much of life. Red wine helps.

Back to e-books. I love them. Balancing out my selection of significant texts was a free book donated by a kind author (one of those wealthy, compassionate people – you probably know dozens of them). It was a great read, part one of a series. I read the entire book on the phone over a few days. Finished it one night and found myself at a loss. I wanted to read more of the series! In the bad old days I would have put off my yearnings – as young men are trained to do from puberty – had a cold shower and waited until the paycheck and a week-end. The crimson flame of my ardour may well have chilled in the cold light of day (young men stuff again). I may have even decided that I did not want to read the next in the series, it was all too, too silly.

But now, on that night, I merely did a quick search and found the next two books in the series available for download. Which I did. And kept reading until the wee, wee hours.

Now I hasten to add that I took pains to ensure that I was not duping some poor soul out of a buck. These books were free. I have downloaded several other books for a fee, all horribly cheap when compared to a hard copy edition. Don’t shoot me, I’m just the piano player.

But, and this is my point, it was so easy just to keep reading, to get the next book in the series. No cool down time. As a teenager once said “I want it all, I want it now, and I want you to get it for me.”

e-books allow our literary desires to become as that teenager. And while that is a mildly revolting thought it does raise some interesting hopes for us scribblers.

Perhaps e-books will assist the promotion and reading of our work in a way never possible with hard copy editions.

It’s all so easy. Fast food for the mind; I can feel my brain fattening.

Fanfare for Graham Storrs

Some time ago a bunch of writers came together for a short residential workshop to develop our Spec Fiction manuscripts; we were the first winners of a national award run by Orbit Publishing and the Queensland Writers Centre.

 And we were pretty terrified.

 The residential was in a quite lovely facility on Bribie Island, a beach nearby, lots of quiet all around. Fully catered, even with its own wet bar; we didn’t have to do anything except write and meet publishers, agents and each other.  Marianne De Pierres, author of the Parrish Plessis novels, the Sentients of Orion series plus the Tara Sharp yarns also stayed with us. That’s right, she didn’t just jet in for a quick hello darlings, she stayed in the trenches with us and was always available for a chat, some counseling or even just a glass of red. Or two. I am a big fan of this lady, not only for her writing but for her generosity of spirit.

 We met that first afternoon around a big table after catching glimpses of each other as we all arrived. Now I want you all to get a sense of what we were feeling here that afternoon; none of us had had a book published bar one; we were all a bit nervous.

 Personally, I felt that everyone else had earned their place by being a brilliant writer but I was just a schmuck. At each point in the registration process (getting the key to the room, confirming with the convenor that we had, in fact arrived, etc etc) I was sure that the mistake would be revealed. What mistake? The mistake that said I was invited into this group. Heck, these we REAL writers.

 Yep, I was sure that, at any moment, someone official would step forward and say, “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Hornby, but there’s been a mistake. You shouldn’t be here because you’re writing wasn’t good enough.” And then there would be that long, lonely walk back to the car while everyone watched.

 Just like being back at school, really.

 That afternoon we all discovered that none of us could embark on a life of crime, or be a spy, or work undercover. It turned out that we all felt the same way. By the end of the week we had shared a lot; our stories, our hopes and fears (writers have a lot of them) and our friendship. We now call ourselves the Orbiteers.

 One of our group, Luke Keioskie, had been published once before and so we held him in high esteem, especially after he schmoozed the chef into getting the bar to stay open late on that first night. Luke has had his manuscript published since that week – check out Dead America for a truly wondrous yarn about zombies.

 But the reason for this post is another Orbiteer – Graham Storrs. Graham will have his first novel published NEXT MONTH and has agreed to stop by this blog and do a guest spot. He has his own blog which is redolent with intelligence, thought provoking insights and current news in the world of writing. None of which you will find in my blathering.  I was lucky enough to read a draft of his novel, “Timesplash” and I have to say he is one of those rare SF authors who can plot out a detailed storyline with depth and elegance. I’ll just embarrass him totally now – he reminds me of Arthur C Clarke in his ability to make things real. Real people and real events.

 So next month you will have a treat. Graham will do his best to elevate the level of discussion normally inhabiting this blog; he will ignore the cheap laugh, he will forswear the insipid jibe, he may even attempt some good grammar. Stranger things have happened.

 I, however, will throttle each of his intellectual sallies; any of his insights shall probably be lost in my vapid mumblings and I urge discerning readers to look elsewhere for accuracy in current news reporting. The poor man will undoubtedly require some form of therapy after guesting here. As we speak I am preparing fart jokes.

 Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Losing my mind.

I’m becoming very comfortable with my own stupidity, it’s like a warm blanket I can pull around me when life becomes confusing. And life can be very confusing.

 The great elder statesman Winnie the Pooh once said, “I am a bear of very little brain – and I know how he feels (felt?).

 You see, I have written this post already. Earlier today I was in the garden pulling out weeds and doing a spot of writing in my head. As we all do. Those idle moments on the bus or pushing a shopping trolley when the mind asks permission to go for a wander. Permission I have learned, through harsh experience, that it is always wise to give. Damn thing goes off on its own anyway.

 There is a joy in pulling out a particularly noxious weed, complete with long intrusive roots, and formulating an elegantly pithy phrase in the mind, something dead insightful. Yes, I am a sad, sad, man.

 Thus it was I composed this entire post as I conducted my very own localised genocide on certain plant species. And let me tell you the prose I composed was riveting, I was impressed – and I’m not easily won over. Great stuff, it was. Such elegance, such wisdom.

 Ahh, the wisdom!

 Of course, you’re not reading it now. No, no, dearie me, no. Not a bit of it, not a word.

 Pity.

 Where did it go, I hear you ask; well, here’s the thing….I forgot it. Sat down to type it out and the brain was empty. I checked all the cupboards, looked under the mat – nothing. The mind, you know, does tricky things to a man. Leads one up the garden path, so to speak.

 It’s not the first time that my brain has let me down. Generally it happens late at night, just as the old grey cells are clocking off for the day one or two probably get on the sauce at some late night synaptic dive and start swapping yarns or lies or whatever it is that the stupid things do to unwind. Then one of them says, “Hey, let’s ring the consciousness and give it a story idea! Throw in some phrases – Al, you’re good with words; you come up with something to drive it wild.”

 Next thing you know I’m half asleep but the brain has started composing something really good. Reely, reely good.

 This, then is my dilemma – and I suspect I’m not alone here. Some wonderful phrases are lost for all time because they happen at those unavoidable moments when we are not sitting at a keyboard. Or have handy notepaper.

 Yeah, right. Handy notepaper. I know some folks snap out of a dozy sleep to jot down their every idea. Probably garden with pen and paper stuck on the trowel. Sadly, I am not that person.

 Are you?

 Of course I know how to stop this flow of brilliance. Sit at the keyboard and look at an electronic sheet. Mind goes completely blank.

 Life can be so unfair.

 So there you go, the story behind this post. The story about yet another lost story. And that got me thinking about Shakespeare.

 Come on, keep up.

 Do you think we got his best work? Or do you think he also lost a few great yarns as he was gardening, or dropping off to sleep.

 I just can’t see him keeping a quill and paper beside the bed.

Procrastinate Now!…Don’t Put it Off!

Procrastination may well be yet another bane of the writer; it forces the development of an iron will, steely resolve and rigid self-discipline.

 Qualities all us scribblers possess. In spades. Buckets of it…..

 Do read Stephen King’s “On Writing”, especially the bit on how he wrote “Carrie”. Now I’m not a big Stephen King fan – only because (I hasten to add in my craven, obsequious way) I don’t like horror; I’m a card carrying member of the Big Sook Society. It started when I was in my twenties I came across a copy of “Cujo” in the back of a ute.

 Small aside as I explain what a ute is for my non-Australian readers. And any Aussie Chardonnay drinkers.  A ute is a vehicle, full name is Utility (I looked it up) and is used by the blokes when we do blokey stuff like building bridges, going to barbies (sorry, barbeques) and chuckin’ around feed for the cattle an sheep.  A good ute is old, battered, goes like the clappers and comes with a blue cattle dog in the back. And the brakes should be shot.

 You can buy them this way, as new.

 Am I putting off telling the story? Sorry, back to me, “Cujo” and the ute. So there I was, sitting in the back as my mate did burn outs (don’t try this at home, kiddies), the day was a perfect blue, sun high in the sky, birds atweet and nothing around me but miles and miles of flat outback with a bit of bush here and there. This, I ses to meself, is a good time and place to try out this horror feller I’ve heard so much about.  Where was the blue cattle dog, I hear you ask? He was on my mate’s lap helping him steer, we all agreed this was the best way to raise the mean IQ of the driver.

 I got through the first chapter or two and was terrified, all I could think of was that cupboard and little glowing eyes. Little Glowing Eyes! I kid you not, neither the brightness of the sun nor the crystal clarity of the day could dispel my jitters; I threw the book from me and dumped some old tools and a tarp on it. And then I watched the damned thing to make sure it stayed there.

 No, I’m not good with horror stories, but I totally admire writers of horror (check out Joanne Anderton’s blog, a mate who is a member of the AHWA – the Australian Horror Writers’ gang/coven/clutch/cemetery…not sure of the group noun). An actual member!!!

 I’m getting to the point, I just put things off sometimes. And my point is this, Mr King wrote his work while sitting at a small table wedged into a tiny space in the midst of the chaos that is a growing family. Plus he had a job, sometimes several jobs. He did that, he wrote, he just got on with it. Somehow.

 He didn’t put it off and wait for things to change. What sort of things? Okay, writers out there, see if any of these sound familiar.

 I’m going to write:

     when I get some spare time,

     when work settles down a bit,

     when the kids are older,

     when the kids have moved out,

     when I’m not so pushed around the house,

     when I get my own space,

     this weekend,

     tomorrow.

 And my favourite…..

      one day.

 Today is the day we write, folks; tomorrow is another land, a foreign place (yes, I stole that) and it’s full of dreams.

 So get writing now, or I’ll set the dog on you.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Writing a short story is a lot of fun; generally it’s one idea, one concept, one neat thing which just takes a few hundred (few thousand?) words. Once the rough draft is in place the editing almost takes the form of gentle polishing -  a rub here, a small prune there; hold it up to the light to check for any slight imperfections and then sand it back a bit more. For me this is a gentle and loving process; at the end I have what I think is a little gem of a story. It stands alone. I can get on to something else.

 And flash fiction is even neater. I’ve had a few bits shortlisted for the odd competition, some published but all great fun. Very, very satisfying.

 Short story writing does have its downsides – think Oscar Wilde spending a morning putting in that comma and then taking it out in the afternoon. And if it doesn’t work then generally the whole story is trashed. Like a potter scrapping the misshapen bowl.

 But it’s contained, it has a certain finite time span.

 Then there is our monster in the writing process– the novel. Oh, what a beast we have here.

 I can’t speak for other writers, this is just me. But I can’t bring that same level of shining and polishing from a short story to my novels. At least, not to all of it. I do focus heavily on the opening chapters, the conclusion and then as much of the rest as I can cope with before I begin to consider performing acts of random violence on the world at large.

 Then I take a break, wait for sanity to reassert itself before rejoining the fray. But it’s a good thing, this editing, this polishing, I do like it, I like the feeling of finding the perfect phrase, the bon mot. The choice of voice, of perspective, the level of detail, the colour of the words – that’s why we write (well, it’s why I write)

 It’s just that a novel is so big. So, so big.

Now stay with me here as I digress a tad. I’ve been reading some Charlie Huston – I recommend a look at his work. He describes himself as not so much a writer of noir but a writer of pulp; the distinction gives a pretty good of what he does. His first page freaked me out, I almost threw the novel away in disgust. What was this guy thinking?  His dialogue editing reflects what can only be called a casual approach to concept of inverted commas. Casual as in they don’t exist, hence my dismay as I tried to work out who was speaking (he rarely identifies the speaker) and what they were saying.

 So at the end of the first page I shut the book and felt betrayed by the writer. Guy was a schmuck.

 And then….and then I did something which told me that this guy had something. I turned the page and kept reading. I was mildly surprised at my actions, part of brain just bypassed my judgment centre and told my body to get that book back in action. I wanted to know what happened next.

 So here I am, finishing the writing of the first third of yet another of my novels and Mr Huston throws my brain into disarray. I go back and look at my plot, my voice….my dialogue. Should I change stuff around?

  Therein lies yet another dilemma to the novel. If you write then you must – you simply must – read. And in that reading a writer will come across many other authors with different styles, most of them absolutely gripping to read.

 Do we go back and rewrite our stuff to match the latest, great read?

 Do we jump on the bandwagon?

 Well, no.

 I like Charlie Huston’s stuff (I suspect a lot don’t); but I’m not Charlie Huston. If someone wants to read stuff in his style then they would read a book by, well,  Charlie Huston, not Terry Hornby.

 So I go back to my work and take the angle grinder to the prose and incorporate all of the good things I have absorbed from all the books I have read, filter it through my own voice and then thump on the keyboard.

 Whatever comes out has to be the writer’s own work, that bandwagon looks pretty and shiny but I suspect the floor is not as comfortable as we think.

 Garçon, the number three chainsaw, s’il vous plait, I have some editing to do.

The Writer as a Performance Artist

Picture the scene, the writer prints off the last page of the last edit of an Opus Magnus. Deep sigh of satisfaction, of job complete, of artistic cravings satisfied (albeit temporarily, until the itch grows again).

 The completed manuscript is then placed carefully on a bookshelf – or better yet, tucked away in the bottom drawer of the desk.

 The writer sits back feeling complete, nothing further needs to be done for the work. It is enough that the manuscript has been written. Now for the next project…..

 So what’s going on here? Does a writer see the finishing of a manuscript as the end of the project?

 Nope, we want someone to read it. We want an audience.

 If we can broadly categorise artists into two groups it may be interesting to discuss to which group the writer belongs. The two groups are artists who need an audience for their work and artists to whom the completion of the work is the main thing.

 In the latter group we may place painters and sculptors; in the former would be dancers and actors. I am suggesting that it is not an unknown situation for a painter to finish a piece and feel a sense of completion. No audience required. The same argument may be applied to those lonely sculptors living in the bush and doing stranger and interesting things to bits of wood and clay.

 Certainly a dancer derives pleasure from the dance, but few go through a couple of months of rehearsals for a dance without the possibility of performing before an audience.

 Singers – well, a foot in both camps, really. I certainly discourage an audience when I’m belting out a tune in the shower. Some sights the world is not meant to see.

 But we writers drone on and on about how we just want to write the book, we even consider the act of publishing to be a separate issue. Even such a level headed fathead like myself has had those vaguely superior airs when considering that a writer writes, publishing is for the fortunate few. Lucky sods.

 I am above such slavering desires, my work exists for itself…yadda, yadda, yadda. Sour grapes ain’t in it.

 Of course we want an audience for our work!  A real grown up audience, too; not just mum, dad and the bloke who owes us money. But someone from a far off land, a place where wondrous things happen and a stranger chugs up a contract.

 And that’s my thesis. Writers require an audience, we are Performance Artists.

 Nothing wrong with that, but it does mean we are desperately interested in the changes overtaking the publishing industry. Traditional, physical publishing is more and more elusive, e-publishing is certainly on the rise, the waves of change are coming through.

 And stop differentiating our art into the writing and the publishing – it’s all one.

 Surf’s up, baby. Cowabunga, Shakespeare.

Heathcliff was a Vampire

Read any good books lately? Looked at the authors? Just bring that soapbox a little closer, please, I feel the need to waffle…

When we read an author who thinks as we do there is the understandable tendency to say to oneself “This writer’s on the money. Got it just right, beautiful characterisation. Must have a wealth of wisdom and understanding of the human condition. Well done, that person.”

Or something similar, because our yardstick is us and our own experiences.

Spotting a dud is also pretty straightforward but we sometimes let them go through to the keeper if we are happy to go along for the ride. ‘I’m chasing a bad guy, it’s night and he’s homicidal. Gee, this dark alley looks like it could be just the thing; I’ll nip down barehanded and see if he’s nearby.’

Too many groans and the book slides to the floor, joining the choir indivisible of novels.

Almost there, hang on a bit….

But then there are the books which some of us just love while the rest of humanity looks on askance. Que?

Particularly major characters.

Is it… drum roll while I duck for cover…something to do with the sex of the author?

Do males write ripping yarns which the blokes think are just spiffing while the gentler sex wonders when we lost our marbles.

And do the ladies stretch out a yarn with major characters to die for, with lots of chaps quite willing to help them on their way?

It could have something to do with our shared cultural experience and upbringing. Nature and nurture combining to make us a bit fat headed when it comes to writing a fully rounded character.

So blokes write one dimensional characters with bits of biffo and stern gazes; the wimmen have heroic pale youths with smouldering looks and flowing locks.

And if we like that sort of stuff then the story makes perfect sense. Of course, to the rest of the world the storyline, characterisation and plot all look a bit, well, naff.

Not saying, and let me make this perfectly clear, that all male writers churn out this stuff; nor am I saying that all female writers only populate their novels with heartfelt wusses.

What I am saying – put that rock down, please, madam – is that a writer must be very wary when constructing a character. A good writer – male or female – generates a real human being, someone that we can identify. Warts and all.

So when we are reading a novel which has received rave reviews but which we just don’t get – it may be because we are hamstrung by our own prejudices, our own expectations.

I was shamelessly eavesdropping on a conversation of my colleagues – a dreadful habit which it took me years to cultivate – and they were discussing the reaction of some of our pallid youth to a recent play. A well known play, it’s been around the block a few times, it’s got cred. Trust me on this.

Said juveniles were dismissing the main male character as being not right, wasn’t a major player, author got it all wrong. The actor was, of course, a cretin for playing the alpha male this way. When asked to expand upon their thesis (and I’m paraphrasing here, grunts and raised eyes were the norm) they said that the main character should be like Edward from Twilight.

‘Cause that’s what heroes look like/talk like/smell like/should be.

John Proctor should be a vampire.

There, I’ve said it.

You dunno whether to laugh or cry, but I shall fall back on some infallible advice once uttered by Neddy Seagoon – a man who’s take on life I have often admired.

“Right! It’s around the back for a quick brandy!”

I’m right behind you Ned.