Author: kepagewriter

I am a writer of literary fiction. My first novel Shattered Reflections will be out in the next couple of months and available through Amazon and Kindle. I am currently working on my second novel.

The Pen is mightier than the IPad

On By kepagewriterIn My Writing2 Comments

Despite the fact that I have an IPad, a macbook and a PC in my house, I still find myself writing first drafts on paper. It may be my age (I know that is starting to sound like a dubious catchphrase) but I definitely view writing work up on a computer as a second stage, as some sort of best version. By the time I write anything on the PC it has already been re-worked a few times on paper. (A sign that it is my age: until recently the English exam board demanded that one piece of coursework be handwritten. The students wrote their work on the computer and then copied it out in their best handwriting. I didn’t see why the PC needed to be involved at all.)

Part of the problem with writing straight on to the computer – for me anyway – is that getting ideas down can often feel quite urgent and isn’t always perfect. The ideas are key and need to be expressed. However, often you know straight away that the wording will need to be changed or perhaps you find that you’ve used the same word a few times. But the idea, that is pressing and you need to concentrate on that or potentially lose its immediacy. On paper, it is very easy to indicate what may need to be changed later with circling, underlining and with arrows and footnotes. Not so much electronically.

And once the idea is born, it is very easy to feed it with detail as you type it up so that the version on the PC is fleshed out and stronger than the first. I suppose it is a case of old habits die hard as I first started writing when I was a student 20 years ago when all I had was a word processor which was less than user friendly and now it’s just the way I work. Even though I love my IPad unreservedly (unlike my kindle which I still sort of view as a wolf in sheep’s clothing as if one day it will bite my hand off) I can’t see this process changing.

Constant Contact

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and informationLeave a comment

It’s been a weird couple of months. For various real life reasons – my own illness and my mother being in and out of hospital – I haven’t been able to have much of an online presence. As a result, I have been running up and down the road between my home in Sheffield and hers in Newcastle. Book promotion and blogging have been the furthest things from my mind. And even if I had been able to think about such things, she has no internet so it would have been impossible anyway.

It is astonishing how out of touch I felt. And how deprived I felt when I was there. It has quickly become second nature to be constantly connected. I don’t just mean in terms of social networking either. The idea that the knowledge of the world is at your fingertips is an easy one to get used to. Why bother racking your brains trying to remember something when you could just look it up? Especially when to takes such a long time to get my brain into gear some days.

It wasn’t that long ago, when the Internet was a mere babe, that we had to put up with a dial up connection. (OK, so it was about ten to fifteen years ago but that isn’t that long in the grand scheme of things.) It was a chore to use the Internet then; the tying up of the phone line, the constant loss of signal, the slowness of pages loading, the fact that downloading was nigh on impossible. All these things seem chronically old fashioned now. Now that we are used to being able to hop onto the web wherever and whenever we are.

It was interesting to note that when my mother came home from hospital, her main mode of conversation was the phone – the land-line not her mobile. She talks to people all the time and wouldn’t think of anything else. She does have a mobile from which she sends rambling texts which are signed off love mam. But she only does that as a last resort, when, for whatever reason, I am not able to speak to her.

By contrast, I can’t think of the last time I picked up my land-line and phoned some one from it. In fact, I could probably get rid of it if not for the insistence of my mother and my in-laws that this is the way we should communicate. If I want to speak to friends I use Facebook, I text. If I have to actually speak to them, I phone using my mobile. (It should be obvious to you that I absolutely hate it when people say I’ll message you or Facebook me even when that person is me. But then I was suitably pedantic when people first started to use text as a verb.)

It is quick and convenient to text or use Facebook. The recipient can choose when to reply and you don’t have to worry that they will be bathing the kids or sitting down to dinner or whatever. It is also incredibly lazy. Why waste the energy that having a real conversation would take when you can send a one sentence text? Convenience and quickness have become the baseline of our communication.

The other thing I have noticed lately – and I am guilty of it myself – is that no one is ever bored any more  Everyone feels the need to be constantly entertained. Just look at the commuters on the average train and you will see them staring at screens of various sizes, doing things that seem crucially important but probably aren’t. All are lost in their own little worlds. Even in the pub you often see groups of people or couples who are not talking but messing with their phones. Virtual communication 1, Real communication 0.

Obviously, this could have a huge effect on everyone’s social skills. Especially now that younger and younger kids seem to have phones. Furthermore, what would happen if no one daydreamed any more  If every second was taken up with some form of electronic attention. Would all the great – and currently hypothetical – novels of the future remain unwritten? No more great discoveries would be made. (If Newton had been sitting under the tree playing on his IPhone when the apple landed on his head, would he have been able to draw himself away from Angry birds for long enough to hypothesise about gravity?) No more exciting leaps into the future. Sometimes you have to just be sitting staring out of the window, watching the world turn, to see the one thing that would make the world just a little bit better. Or sitting under a tree.

This song, picture, book could change your life

On By kepagewriterIn CultureLeave a comment

It may seem naive but I really do believe that art – and that covers music, literature, film, TV  paintings and sculpture – can change your life. Although perhaps I should explain that I really don’t mean that you see a single film (or whatever) and then you are a completely different person. I don’t believe that that really happens or if it does it is part of a process of change that has already started even if only on a subconscious level.

However, I do think that you are a product of whatever you read, listen to, watch. These are the things that help to shape how we think about the world. The things you love and the things you hate help to create your personality as much as the things that you do and say. They send a message to other people about what you think and about who you are. I really do believe that it is that important.

That’s why I find popular culture a little depressing at the moment. Reality TV. Simon Cowell’s choice of Christmas number one. It’s all so thoroughly empty. What sort of people will the current generation be, with their heads filled up with Made in Chelsea and their ears full of the aural equivalent of candyfloss. What will their world be like if this is all they expect from culture, all they think that people can achieve? A miserable world indeed.

I can still remember the first time I felt truly amazed by a piece of literature. At GCSe, I studied A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney. I was blown away. I was an avid reader even then but I had never read anything that felt quite so relevant to me. The characters seemed like people you might meet. A pregnant teenager, her black boyfriend, her (probably but never directly acknowledged) gay best friend, her scarily uncaring mother. It was much more like reality than anything else I’d read or been taught.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Macbeth and Of Mice and Men which we also studied. But well written as they are, they didn’t feel relevant in the same sort of way. I have no doubt that studying A Taste of Honey started to shape my opinions about important things such as racism, sexuality and freedom. A first step on a lifelong journey.

It is also true that the current educational system is failing students in many ways. For a start, there is no imperative to even study a whole text. As long as you read the scenes that are to be tested in the exam and watch the film, there is no need to read the whole thing apparently. Except for the obvious one of enriching lives by reading a piece of literature which presumably wouldn’t have been included in the syllabus if not considered worthwhile in its entirety.

A lot of young people feel disconnected from the literature that they are made to read at school and this is perhaps understandable when often the most modern thing they read is Of Mice and Men. Perhaps its about time they were encouraged to think that literature is about more than murdered kings and war. If they read something about their lives perhaps they would understand why reading is so important.

I have changed a lot since I was that sixteen year old reading A Taste of Honey for the first time, obviously I suppose. We all grow up, get jobs, study, have relationships and so on. As important as all that is, I would be a different person sat here today if I hadn’t read A Taste of Honey and all of the great books, films, art and music that came after that. I’m grateful to them all for changing my life.

Music to get excited about…

On By kepagewriterIn CultureLeave a comment

It seems that nostalgia is everywhere today. Maybe I’m just noticing it because it fits in with my mood at the moment. Just the other night on the Review Show one of the panelists was musing about how music didn’t seem as important these days. People didn’t seem to take it seriously. I can certainly see how this might appear to be the case with the rise of such nonsense as The X Factor, The Voice and Britain’s Got Talent which makes it seem like no one is serious about proper music anymore. Never mind the bad influence of YouTube. Or the number of ‘alternative’ songs that appear on adverts these days. Having just listened to the top 40 – there is no depth to the lows I’m prepared to plummet in the name of this blog, readers – it is hard to escape the idea that there is very little variety at the moment. Some of the voices are quite interesting but the ubiquitous banging electronic backing track makes for little diversity. Even the two bands that favour guitars – Fun and Mumford and Sons – are a little dull and pedestrian. Everything just seems a little safe. It is certainly hard to imagine anyone getting excited by these tunes the way I was excited by Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana or You Love Us by the Manic Street Preachers. Maybe the presenter was right.

However, it’s not as if rubbish music is a new phenomenon. Even though I love eighties music, I know there was also a lot of rubbish. This can be seen quite clearly when you look at the chart from this week in 1982 when Shakin Stevens and Bucks Fizz were no.1 and no.2 respectively. Not good. However, what is apparent is the variety. It might not all be amazing but it certainly didn’t all sound the same. For example, there was electronic in the shape of OMD, Soft Cell Human League and Japan; Metal in the form of AC/DC, Meatloaf and Foreigner; Pop music such as Altered Images, Adam and the Ants and Madness. Not to mention alternative classic, Drowning in Berlin by The Mobiles which was loitering just outside the top 10. To me, it seems unlikely that modern teenagers will be looking back on the current charts in 30 years time with such fondness as I look back on this one. Although maybe they will, as nostalgia is as much to do with memories and timing as it has to do with the actual quality of the music. Remembering being young will probably cloud their judgement just as it clouds mine. But still, what would be the stand out classics from those tunes that all seem largely the same.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to suggest that good music does not exist. It certainly does. You only have to listen to the new albums by The Decemberists or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – to name but two – to know that this is the case. Certainly in Sheffield – and most cities, I would imagine – there is a thriving music scene. Bands working hard, creating a fan base, honing their skills; a sharp contrast to the quick fix and the quicker disappearance of the X Factor generation. I certainly know which I’d rather listen to.

So is the gap between mainstream and alternative bigger than it used to be. It seems that in order to be in the charts, you have to be safe and similar. You need to guarantee sales. Hence the lack of excitement. I’m sure that people are still serious about music and there is still music to be serious about. Just not the nonsense that is in the charts.

The Eureka Moment

On By kepagewriterIn My WritingLeave a comment

Is it possible to say exactly where your ideas come from and what inspires you to put pen to paper. It is a question that people seem compelled to put now that they know that I have written a novel. I find it hard to answer, to even know exactly what they want me to say.

It may be that it is a long time since I first started to write Shattered Reflections. It was on the back of finishing my MPhil which was on masculinity and violence in Contemporary Fiction and I have no doubt that my reading for that – American Psycho, Frisk, Resentment, Exquisite Corpse, Maribou Stork Nightmares, for example – inspired the themes. But I am not sure that this is what they mean when they ask the question. They seem to want an eureka moment. An incident maybe, a person or a story on the news that sent me running to my laptop. But I am so far removed from the origins of that book now that any such moment is lost in the mists of time.

I am mostly inspired by what annoys me. Which to be honest is quite a lot. This is why I am toying with the idea of Science fiction for my next work. Although I feel more comfortable with the term speculative fiction. Mostly because what I write is unlikely to be very sciency but also because I like what is suggested by the word specualtive – speculate, if you will, on what would happen if… For this I do have an Eureka moment although I am not sure yet where it is going to take me.

I was in the supermarket. (And it goes without saying that this is a task that I hate.) When I got home, I wrote a paragraph about the horror of it, the lighting, the expressions of desperation on the faces of my fellow shoppers. I was a little hungover which made everything seem to be going slower than it actually was. It was a depressing Sunday morning moment.

I’m not sure where this will go yet. I have to think of the characters, the story, really before I can go any further. A lot of planning and reading will need to be done. Still it is the first step on the road to something new. It is exciting, the new ideas flying around like startled butterflies. A new reading list is needed and I’m looking forward to re-visiting old favourites such as Brave New World, as well as discovering a whole new world of science fiction.

20 years ago today…

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I know its my age – the looming horror of forty which is only just over the horizon – that is making me think back over my life. Maybe I have just got to the age where you can’t help but think that you have had your halcyon days. The music, the films, the TV were all better then. (I don’t really believe that, by the way, there is still excellent music, films and TV. My tolerance for the rubbish has just got lower.)

20 years ago, I was in my second year at university, in a student house with five other people. The house was damp. We were burgled and the landlord genuinely suggested that we spent a night without a door rather than have and come and fix the one that the burglars broke in their haste to get our stuff. My library books got so damp that I had to pay for some of them as they were unusable.

None of us had a car. Or a computer. In my third year, I eventually purchased a word processor. It was huge and useless. Like a really slow electric typewriter. It felt like the height of modernity. The university wasn’t much better. They had BBC computers where you had to manually add the formatting. It really did seem like it would never catch on. Compared to my current electronic dependency (it does genuinely seem as if there is always some piece of equipment charging), it seemed like a more innocent time.

I never imagined my mobile phone would become such an integral part of my life. As ever, I was probably one of the last people to get one and then one of the last to get a smart phone. It is just so very tempting. To phone. To upload a photo. To be in constant touch if you so desire. No one ever needs to worry. There is no need to lose touch. Communication is so easy. Easier equals better, right? That seems to be where the march of progress is taking us.

Could communication be diluted by the ease with which you can do it now? No one ever thinks that just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. 20 years ago, if I wanted to phone home, for example, I had to go across the road to the phone box (as we decided this was better than fighting over the phone bill) and hope that the person on the other end would agree to reverse the charges. This would usually end with someone – one of my housemates usually – banging on the door so they could use the phone. I’m not saying this was fun – and in the North West rain, it almost certainly wasn’t – but you did have to make it count. You didn’t feel compelled to inform people that you’ve just eaten a ham sandwich. Or that you were bored. (If you’re posting that you’re bored on Facebook, you need to seriously think about what you are doing with your life.) When did it become obligatory for people to communicate about every aspect of their lives? 

I seem to be suffering from the opposite problem at the moment. I can’t seem to find worthy detail to post. I’ve got Facebook block. Nothing seems important enough. I can’t help sitting in front of my screen and think who cares. Don’t get me wrong, I like Facebook. It is useful for keeping in touch with people who live a long way away and who I definitely feel closer to than I would have done but for the most part it just seems like the root of all inanity.

It surprises me, this nostalgia. I always thought that I was quite cynical. It turns out I am a romantic at heart. Who’d have thought it? Perhaps communication, like knowledge, should be hard won. It should have meaning and it should be thoughtful. Perhaps I should update my status to ‘my longing for the past is only matched by my happiness that I no longer live there.’ I don’t miss standing in a cold phone box but I do promise to think before I post.

A nostalgic longing for the past.

On By kepagewriterIn Culture2 Comments

Earlier in the week, I watched a preview screening of Josh Radnor’s new film Liberal Arts. It a film about growing up and is filled with a nostalgic longing for the past, for all those things that everybody claims are lost or dying – reading, letter writing, burning a CD and it left me with a longing for my university days when there was such pleasure in receiving a long letter, hand written and heartfelt, from a friend in a different part of the country. None of us – that is me and my school friends  – communicates like that any more even though we are still scattered all over the place. We don’t even e-mail any more, just message on Facebook or texts. Of course, it is a sign of how busy we all are. There are easier options now then having to find the time to write a letter but part of me still wishes that we had to do it, that there was no other option but to sit down and ponder what news we had to tell. Of course, I could still do it but it would be a bit pointless. Everyone knows my news anyway – facebook has seen to that – and I know their response to it as well. All in far less time then it would take for a letter to arrive and be read. This is progress, apparently.

Early in the film, Radnor’s character, Jesse, is walking along the street reading a book and I was struck   immediately by how this scene would never work with someone walking along with a Kindle.For a start, you would not be able to see what was being read. At least part of the point of reading in public has to do with showing off what you are reading. Not only could you not bear to put this book down but you are showcasing your taste and, possibly, your intellectualism. I know that it irks me that when I read my kindle on the train, no one can tell what I am reading. I always try to see what other people are reading as well. But also, it wouldn’t suggest the same sort of romantic idealism if Jesse was carrying a grey plastic oblong rather than a book with a beautiful cover.

There is a sense of nostalgia at the moment for the loss of something that hasn’t disappeared yet but it seems inevitable that it will. I have seen several articles in the last few weeks about the death of books once everyone has a kindle or the equivalent. And it does seem inevitable. I was never going to have an I-Pod, a kindle or join Facebook and Twitter. Now I have both those things, have joined both those things. I always succumb. Eventually, I guess, books will be like the rows and rows of LP records in my spare bedroom – only present in the houses of people over a certain age.

In some ways, it is strange that so much fuss is being made about the way in which something is read or listened to. Does it matter whether you’re reading from a electronic screen or from a paper page as long as you are reading? Obviously not. I know that some of the sixth formers I taught found it much easier to read from a kindle than from a book. And obviously that pleased me. But this is not a cold logical argument. It is emotional, nostalgic and romantic. It is obviously romantic to take the time to talk about books, to search in second hand book stores for hard to come by editions. It is more romantic to write long handwritten letters rather than a one sentence update on Facebook which someone will then like. And it is far more romantic to hand over a CD you have burned with a handwritten card than to send someone a playlist on Spotify. (Although arguably not as romantic as making a mix tape.) Similarly, when it is my birthday I will still be asking for physical books and CDs. The thought of some sort of electrical exchange seems cold and somehow not real.

Liberal Arts is like a love letter to all these things. All the things that are more time consuming, more difficult but ultimately more meaningful. Reading brings people together in this film and it teaches them how to live their lives. You have to hope that this will still be the case when everyone is reading books from a oblong of grey plastic

I’m staring at a clean white page…

On By kepagewriterIn My Writing1 Comment

It’s not often I find myself staring at a blank page for very long. I can usually pull something from my head onto the page – even if it is something that I end up changing irrevocably or ditching all together. However, today I have been struggling. In fact, the day before as well. I was struggling to think of something to write about here, in my blog.

It is both funny and exciting that people read and seem to enjoy my blog. And unexpected. I had no idea how much fun it would be to write or how seriously I would start to take writing it.

When I first wrote, a mere two months ago, I had never even read a blog. I had no idea of the sheer amount of writing out there on the net. I read books, newspapers and used the Internet to buy stuff, find information but I didn’t look to it for anything else. I hadn’t really caught up with the rest of the world. I didn’t really want to.

How quickly things change. First of all, there is the sheer excitement that people are reading your words. It no longer feels like I am shouting in the dark. I can imagine an audience out there. Connections have been made. I didn’t realise, at first, how much it would feel like a conversation. Both when I am reading other people’s blogs and when they read and comment on my blog. I have learned things, felt supported and, perhaps most importantly, I have discovered other writers. It is good to realise that other people have felt the same way you do and are willing to share their experiences and help you along. I never imagined when I started this strange journey that one of the results would be the feeling of being part of such a warm community. It’s good to know you all.

So I can call myself a writer now….

On By kepagewriterIn Becoming a writier, Updates and information5 Comments

So it is out in the open now. I have written a novel and it is out on Amazon. A wider circle of people now know. I can safely say to be people that I am a writer. They can ask that question and I can say ‘Oh, a novel.’ Previously, I always avoided using the word writer. Even though every spare second was spent writing. Anyway, I had an real job. And that was what I gave as my occupation if anyone new asked. It would have been pretentious to use the word writer before this point. And a little embarrassing. I’m not sure why I thought that I needed the solid proof of being published but otherwise, I think, it would have seemed a little too much like intellectual masturbation.

I was always writing though. I think that as I have not previously mentioned it, people think Shattered Reflections appeared fully formed in the months since I have been unemployed. However, this is a work that has been years in the making. Writing sentences, paragraphs whenever I had the chance: on the train to and from work, when I had finished planning lessons, instead of reading in bed at night, while I ate my breakfast. Notebook upon notebook which then had to be typed up, checked and checked again. Without the last months of employment freedom, I would never have managed the final steps but the actual novel was virtually finished by then.

But now I am getting used to saying it. Although still with a small feeling of silliness. As if it is still not quite real. Perhaps because I am not making very much money from it at the minute which means I will have to get a ‘proper job’ when the money starts to get a bit low. And I’m getting used to the ‘oh I’ve always thought I would like to write a book but I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Well, you just start. For me, there was never any choice but to write. I’m not expecting to become a best-seller or make millions. (I mean, it would be nice, obviously but it is not my main motivation.) Regardless of how many copies I sell, how much people like it, I will always write because I have to and because I enjoy it.

Strange Days, Indeed

On By kepagewriterIn Updates and information2 Comments

I wasn’t really sure it could get any stranger. The whole process of publishing Shattered Reflections has seemed surreal. But now that it is out in the world, potentially being read right now, I have to admit that it feels a little bit weird.

Part of it is nerves, undoubtedly. Obviously there has been feedback, checking and what have you before but this is different. For a start, people will actually be paying for it. Previously, it didn’t seem quite real.

Everyone close to me has been superbly supportive. Immediately, people are buying the book, liking my facebook page and I am hugely grateful to them. But it does make me nervous, people I know reading it. It is rude in places, violent in others with a fair bit of bad language thrown in for good measure. I’m not sure I want people who know me to be able to see into the darker reaches of my mind.

My book. My novel. They are exciting words, good words. Not like the words what next. They are frightening, difficult words, no fun words. But they are the ones that I will be working on over the next few weeks.