Mission Complete!

Whassup, bro's!

Well, looks like the drinks are on me today (pah, yeah right!) as upon commencing this post, I have officially completed my target of writing seventeen posts in this here blog of mine in twenty five days. Goooo ME!

Right, that's enough conceited self-celebration for now!

As a long-time writer, I have often come across varying standards in my field, some that people would find offensive, disgusting and otherwise just weird (read some Edgar Allan Poe or H.P. Lovecraft and you'll see what I mean, bro's!) and it gets me thinking whether these guys actually gave a cr@p about what their fellow peers/critics thought of their work. The reason I raise such a subject as this is because I recall a time when I was writing my first story in 2009's NaNoWriMo competition and though no financial incentive was there, the goal was to inspire me to write a 50,000 word story in the month of November...


Now, to cut a long synopsis short, I can see now why I still rate that piece of fiction I wrote (entitled 'Maiden Voyage, intending it to be a double-entendre as it was my first attempt at having a heroine as my main character), as quite simply the best I have ever produced (until my more recent project, which I'll cover in future posts). The content was certainly challenging to write because, whilst I'd written about 'space' before, I'd never written with such feistiness/style showing what can happen to the human mind if left cooped up for too long a time in a small space.

At the beginning I wrote a warning, the sort you find before a movie... you know? "the following presentation contains scenes which some viewers may find offensive", simply as a common courtesy to readers of a weaker & more easily offended disposition. Why? Because it is, in all honesty, quite blue in places with the themes being investigated (btw, they do help progress the story, I assure you!) and they were themes that I had never even touched before as a writer, simply because I didn't know whether I should as far as my faith was concerned.

This led me to defining who it is exactly that I write for and I came to the obvious conclusion that it is not children that I do this for, I do this as usual, because I can, and also because I know I'm so damn well good at it. So to push myself outside of my boundaries as far as I had ever been before of course caused me to question whether what I was doing was truly 'right' as other Christians would see it. In writing, it allows you to get inside the author's head and see the way they think, resulting in 'M.V.' being challenging both to write and to read as well. I went as far as thinking of friends I once knew and what they would think of me when they read what I'd written because I knew it would offend them off in terms of who they thought I was at the time I knew them.

For a while it was a tender issue for me because I knew that under the 'old system' (I'll define between my 'old' and 'new' systems at a later date, I promise you, because it makes for interesting reading!) it was inappropriate and I should re-read what I'd written and rip out all the blue stuff.

I ripped it out, I re-entered it... I edited it out, I re-entered it!... the cycle seemed endless until I thought 'bro, what the hell is going on here?!' as I remember reading a very interesting article a few years back from an author that said "if you've invested enough effort into crafting your character, they will as good as tell you when you're writing whether a scene works as far as the sort of thing they would do goes (as wacky as that sounds, it's true and I speak from personal experience!). It was those scenes I knew were the ones that would upset the "old guard" (people that I used to know).

Then one night... something BROKE!

I got to thinking "bro, who gives a damn what they think? You're writing for you and your readers not them!" and made sure that I sought counsel from the only One that matters to me (I don't have to say Who that is, do I by now bro's!) about this whole issue because it was affecting me deeply.

To bring to a close then, here I am some four years on still doing what I do best, which is being me, quite possibly one of the greatest writers to ever come out of the North West of England and the 'common denominator of greatness' when it comes to creative writing.

'What gives you the right to say that bro'?' - I hear the cries from here... but let me tell you this, someone else once said that "if you want to know what your giftings are, take a look at what you're good at, what you enjoy doing et voila!" - so extrapolating from that, I say that I am good at creative writing and I really, really enjoy it... so by the logic that when God looks at me He sees perfection (because I am made in His image!), ergo I apply the 'common denominator' way of thinking, bro's!

Simples...


S.R. Cook
(aka The Lanky Penguin)