A year ago I spent some time making notes about the processes of narrative, what it means to tell a story, what defines that story, and how we frame it to entice our readers. Certainly something sticks with me better if I have context and space to find out more about it - what is it? how is it? why is it? what will it be?
I never reached an ultimate singular answer - a magic catch-all. That means I can carry on exploring and of course provides the best excuse for reading so many books about the writing process! In a nutshell, what I did conclude was that for something to work for you, you had to like it.
I never reached an ultimate singular answer - a magic catch-all. That means I can carry on exploring and of course provides the best excuse for reading so many books about the writing process! In a nutshell, what I did conclude was that for something to work for you, you had to like it.
It's all about telling a story, using words, and not leaving your audience on the outskirts.
I am driven by narrative and an insatiable thirst for knowledge - I always want to know more, and I want to explore why. Everything is visualised in a full blend of words and images - printed pages, shining graphics, and a full sight and sound walkthrough.
The backstory part one: obsession with words
From the very beginning I wanted to read and write. From the moment I could talk in reasonable sentences I wanted to know what everything said and what it meant. In the meantime I was busily trying to tell my own story of the world around me with scribbled pictures of round people and lollipop trees. By three, my parents and grandparents had caved and started teaching me. I was reading simple books and then just kept on tearing through my parents' bookshelves - supplemented with additional French and drawing tuition from my grandmother.
For years, much of my artwork and creative writing has remained stuffed in an old 'pleather' portfolio with a faded Daler Rowney stamp inside, and across a mix of paper scraps, used as bookmarks, stuffed at the back of drawers, occasionally on the walls of our home.
The backstory part two: so how come the website?
There was never time to knuckle down and do much. I had a job that I loved and I seemed to be constantly at work, on the A34, or running between childcare/school/children's sports clubs. Then coronavirus and lockdown hit employers' and shareholders' purses and my job was unceremoniously axed to make savings.
In what some have speculated to be the toughest job market ever experienced in the UK I needed to show what I can do and I needed a project besides job applications and home educating my sons.
So now, I've opened that dusty old art case again. I've gathered up some of my scribblings over the last year or two from between the pages of various books. I've gone through my computer folders, and I'm sharing it on here.
My curriculum vitae