They say that the only constant in life is change.

And they also say that nothing lasts forever.

And they say that writers should avoid cliches, but hey, I’ve just started this post with two, which only goes to show that rules are made to be broken (yay – cliche number three).

Which is my round-about way of leading to the topic of this post. The passing of one of the great influences on my life. The (reported) end of Mad Magazine.

Well, it’s official. We’ve clocked over the halfway mark of the year. And, apart from my usual goggle-eyed amazement that another six months has raced past so quickly, this can only mean one thing. Time for my regular mid-year progress review.

If you’ll remember from my posts at the beginning of the year, my writing goals for 2019 got a little messed up. I began thinking I was going to move in one particular direction, then made a rapid about face and headed off in a completely different one. Which is going to make assessing my progress a bit more complicated than it usually is. But I’m always up for a challenge, so here we go.

This week, I’m going to continue on my nostalgia kick. But I’m going to go even further back. Back to the days when I was a tiny little fellow, way before even school kicked in. Back to what I realise now was surely one of my formative influences.

I’m usually quite coy about giving away too many personal details, including exactly how old I am, but I have to say the clip displayed below is a bit of a giveaway. It’s an episode of an old Australian television show called Adventure Island that dates from the late 60s/early 70s. So any attentive readers out there should get a pretty good fix on how many years I’ve been kicking around for.

I’ve posted before on this blog about how with every year that passes, I find myself growing more sentimental. I find myself reminiscing about the past, and about those things that had an impact on me in my formative years.

One of those early influences that has jumped to the fore in recent weeks has been the wonderful British sitcom from the ’80s – The Young Ones.

I’ve mentioned before in this blog how I’m a bit of a control freak. I’ve discussed how, in most aspects of my life, I like to be the one in charge. I like to stay in control and I don’t like leaving things to chance.

This applies to my writing as much as anything else I do. It’s important for me to stay in control of my narrative. I keep tabs on exactly where the plot is heading, and exactly what all of the characters are up to. I can’t allow any loose ends, or leave any plot point hanging. I have to be in control of it all. If I have to choose between neat and messy, I pick neat every time.