Thread: Once upon a time there was a box of matches.

The package from Amazon arrived a few days before Christmas but I did not open it because I knew what it contained. I put it to one side close by the roll of seasonal wrapping paper in my wife’s study. On Christmas morning we sat and opened the gift packages which these days are for both of us to use and enjoy. Understanding how to use the slim do-it-all camera will take months to learn. It is not a camera it is a mini computer. The slim mobile phone which comes complete with all sorts of previously unheard of gizmos has to be connected to the unseen system in the sky but we can’t find its call number on the box. And then there is the A5 sized thick lump of animated black & grey plastic wizardry which really does look uninspiring and dull compared with the purple and chrome Fuji camera.

The instructions which came in the packet were irrelevant; the name of the game for the new user appeared to be to press every button in sight to see the effect. It did not help that we were sitting in a part of the house where the signal reception was poor, nor that we were trying to use the device at the same time as a significant percentage of the population of our time zone. For a couple of hours we decided that the machine would not work unless we could remember the password for our WiFi router. We put the thing to one side until I discovered that the evening’s TV was rubbish.

Bored I picked the tablet up again and pressed a button or two. Suddenly I see I am being called; ‘barry’ - with a small‘B‘. This modern style of familiarity always irks me. At least they could have called the new customer: ‘Mr Barry‘. Then suddenly I notice that I can select a book from a list of thousands and can ask for an extract of sample text to be downloaded to my home page. I note that all I have to do to ‘buy‘ this book is to push a button marked ‘buy‘ and within a few minutes a copy will be sent over the ether to the device in my hand. Indeed I don’t have to get the car out, drive over the ice strewn roads to an enormously expensive car park, in order to select and choose a book from a crowded bookstore. There is no risk of accident, no risk of infective disease, no chance of speeding tickets and no money to pay for parking or toll fees. All I have to do from my armchair is press the square marked ‘buy’. But I won’t get a hard copy.

I try two sample extracts from ‘horse’ books, decide the writing styles are not for me and eventually I work out how to erase the sample extract without pressing the ‘buy‘ button. I do feel that particular square ought to be highlighted.

I poured myself another glass of wine . I sat and pondered. A decision had been made. If I am ever to tell the story of Joe, then this Amazon way has to be the way. When these devices look a little more inviting, and certainly when the format is in colour then the sale of traditional paperbacks will fall off dramatically just as when in my youth during the early days of Penguin, paperbacks stole the place of hardbacks. I can even see Walmart giving similar tablets away. I can envisage how in the future I am going to be known by a combination of my Amazon number and my emaiI address. So Create Space (an Amazon company), here I come. But not yet.

My story of Joe embraces my buying him, my living with him, my trying to reschool him and a fearful accident by which he nearly killed me. Eventually I send him away and finally sadly comes about his demise. There is no need for me to sit and work out the plot; the facts are more relevant to life than any fiction. The sequel will be the story of how I discovered that DiDi, Joe’s successor, is a very different type of horse and that I can’t ride her for some very relevant reason. Put bluntly, I am not nowadays a good enough a rider. However the problem is that the stories, of probably some 300,000 words, were written over a five year period. The text must be adapted so that the story is told in the same tense, in the first person, in sequence and without repetition.

So this little grey and black slab has turned my world upside down. I am faced with hours, maybe months, of editing in the certain realisation that much of the previous effort of editing was an utter waste of time. I suppose some of us have to learn by our mistakes.

Now, here I sit typing this to you guys and dolls. You have in fact become ‘chums’ of mine. I communicate with you like thinking but faceless pseudonyms more than I talk with my neighbour and certainly more than I talk with my family. If I had not discovered this particular forum then I might have decided that writing a book was out of my reach. Even now what worries me is that I might do another Anna Sewell, that is to see a book on the subject of a black gelding ‘published’ only to pass on a few months later. I suppose that is not the way for me to think.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, I should have ignored Amazon and bought a box of matches.

This is excellent Divus,

Don't have a mobile/cell-telephone or "slab" and your view of this amazing new world resonated strongly.

Waiting until the very end for, "the box of matches", was worth every minute.

Loved this and looking forward to your next.

Best, Ian

As always, a good illustration of why, personally, I have little patience with 'fantasy' writing. Whether in a factual recounting, or a fictional account solidly rooted in reality, the tale of mankind living out our lives on Earth provides all the material needed.

What is sad is the thought that there are youngsters out there who want to write but say they have nothing to write about, when in truth they have the same experiences as the rest of us. They don't see the drama inherent in a man's encounter with a horse, a boy's encounter with a pair of pliers, or the everyday trials, tribulations, and victories of an over-the-road lorry driver or merchant seaman.

I do understand the economics. Werewolves and vampires apparently have sales appeal. But then so did the everyday adventures of a Yorkshire veterinary.

What is sad is the thought that there are youngsters out there who want to write but say they have nothing to write about, when in truth they have the same experiences as the rest of us. They don't see the drama inherent in a man's encounter with a horse, a boy's encounter with a pair of pliers, or the everyday trials, tribulations, and victories of an over-the-road lorry driver or merchant seaman.

normally I stay out of this side of the forum because of just such comments, but I have to come in sometimes just because of them also.

Garza, why is it sad for them to write in a genre that isn't yours? Or write in one they enjoy?

i'm curious, can you enlighten me as to why you say 'they don't see.........'

How do you know this? It feels like a shift in POV, yours onto theirs. That always catches my eye. But for example if you said, 'I think it is sad.....' then well it is your opinion, but to state ' What is sad.......' is stating that it is.

words are so fragile, if you use them incorrectly, they break your meaning into something else.

you should respect all genres.

Sync

Yes it is sad When they don't write about anything at all because they say they don't see anything to write about when there is life going on all around them for them to see and the say it out loud in my workshops that there is nothing to write about.

When did I say it's sad for them to write in a genre that is not mine? If you have the imagination then fine. But there is a whole world of experience to write about whether you have that imagination or not.

They sit in my workshops in Belize and Salvador and Guinea and say 'there's nothing to write about'.

How then is that just my opinion? Please explain that.

Sync, it would be sad if you felt a need to deliberately avoid this side (do you mean ‘non-fiction‘?) of the Forum.

If we regular attendees 'over this side' are to learn how to present our thoughts without giving offence or distress to other readers and writers then the error of our ways must be pointed out. Personally I can envisage how my words might have been misunderstood by a reader whose English language is of a different origin or even from a different age group.

The benefit of contributing to wf.com is to write knowing only too well that one's mistakes should be pointed out by the discerning eye of an accomplished writer, of whom there are several on this forum. I am not too worried about minor grammatical mistakes but I am concerned that the obscure way in which I sometimes chose to write does not give offence.

Interestingly I had reason not long ago to look up how many viewers there had been to threads I had written on this and on another forum which from time to time I contribute to. I was very surprised to find that by far the most popular thread to readers was a sci-fi story namely pure fiction although based on some facts as to the frailty of mankind. However the fun from writing to me lies not in figments of my imagination but life itself which is full of drama. That is the genre I chose to write about.

I do often tread a fine line by causing a reader to remember a sadness in their life. Maybe I should be more careful.
Who is to tell me if I go too far?

I will disagree with the 'sad', and end this hijack.

Thanks for the reply

Sync

Some people may say it's not sad for a young person who wants to write gives up altogether and writes nothing.

I do find it sad.

Personally, I give up.

Hi All Dear Friends,

Yes, very sad if even one kid has lost interest in life, for whatever reason.

I believe we all celebrate the amazing advent of new life and a new generation carving out a new world for themselves and I am reminded of these words...

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

...extract from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Also, I am slowly coming to understand his further words on children, "You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you."

The latter is hardest to understand yet I do see the wisdom.

Deepest regards to y'all and hoping my intrusion may help in bringing all together in one harmonious accord.

Ian (nervous smile)

And with that magnificent poem, Gentlemen, in the spirit of Christmas, I am going to have a glass of fine Chablis.

Join me if you will.

"The compliments of the Season to you all".

Dv (with a smile on my face)

PS: what I am trying to say is that Garza and Sync are actually of one accord and it is only words which make them feel they are at difference with one another.

Oh Divus, what a lovely intervention. I shall raise my cup of tea in good cheer. Happy Christmas all. (big smile)

Divus, excellent story! But I have learned to expect nothing less from you.

So glad to see, gentlemen, that the struck match was doused with good will. Now that's how it should be done. Kudos to you all.

This dummy didn't understand the reference to a box of matches.

Oh Ox, - I have you down as an erudite one.

Look up in the dictionary the meaning for the word "Kindle" - which is not otherwise mentioned in the article but which is in fact the focal point of it.

Dv