I know exactly who is to blame.

Let me clarify that. Being creative in this day and age is not easy. There’s so much that’s already been done. It’s really difficult to come up with something completely fresh and new.

I think it’s like that in a lot of different areas. Music for instance. When I listen to new songs, I’m always thinking “It sounds just like this” or “It sounds just like that”. There are so many great songs that have already been written that writing new ones just gets harder and harder.

It’s just the same with stories. How do you come up with an idea for a story that’s fresh and new when so many stories have already been written? I’m sure that whatever I write, there’s always going to be someone who has the same reactions to my stories as I’ve described above to new songs. It seems to me that with each subsequent generation, as more stories continue to be written, it just gets harder and harder to come up with new ones.

Sometimes it used to really get me down. I’d get so frustrated. It just didn’t seem fair that I was living in an age where so many things had already been done, and so many stories had already been written.

And that’s when I realised exactly whose fault it was.

It’s time’s fault. I think that’s clear. Thanks to time, I’m forced to be living in a later period than all those other writers who got in before me. If time was a little more flexible, maybe I could sneak back and get my stories out first. But no, time has to be strict and linear and one way only, leaving me stuck right where I am.

Of course, recognising a problem is one thing. Dealing with it is another. What can I do against this unfair behaviour by time? For a while I thought about maybe suing time – taking it to court for infringing my freedom of expression. But I had a funny feeling I wouldn’t get far with that one. I considered the options of relocating to a different universe where the laws of time are a bit less rigid, but I just couldn’t face the stress of packing and moving again.

So I guess I’m stuck with the situation as is. There’s nothing I can do against the random unfairness of time. I’ll just keep badgering away, hoping against hope that I can come up with that truly original idea.

And if anybody out there should develop a time machine, please drop me a line. 

Of course, this is my typically long-winded and overly-verbose way to introduce the actual topic of my post this week. Faith in readers. And no, that doesn’t mean I plan to talk about the religious beliefs of readers. It’s something else entirely (and hopefully a bit less contentious).

It’s another one of those things that people often tell you. You have to start your book with a big bang. You have to attract readers from the very beginning with excitement and adventure and lots of stuff happening. Don’t give them time to pause and think and reflect. Just bash them over the head right away, so they don’t have any chance to escape.

Okay, I can kind of see the point of this. Beginnings are vitally important, and you need to make the most of them to attract readers to your story, especially with all the competition out there. It’s just that the whole “bash your readers over the head with action” thing to me is a bit of a downer.

I’ve always taken a bit of time to concentrate on my story beginnings. I try to start with something that will attract attention. But I also don’t want to be too in your face. I like to leave a little room for a sense of intrigue. A bit of “hmm, what could possibly be happening here?”

Of course, there are some readers I won’t bring along for the ride. That’s okay. Better to find out at the beginning that my stories are not for them. But I like to think there will be enough readers to wonder what it is all about, and decide to keep going. In short, I like to have faith in my readers to take the time and the mental effort to engage, without me having to knock them out and drag them back to my cave.

If you’re the type of reader who likes wham bam thank you ma’am, then enjoy. If you’re interested in taking a little more time for something different, maybe I have something for you. 

I’m not doing any study. Oh no. As far as going back to school, I’ve definitely done that for the last time.

It’s actually part of my work. That’s right, my job means I get paid to learn stuff. And I don’t even have to do the exams. Sounds like not too bad a deal to me.

Anyway, one of the main things I’ve learnt through my work-related exploration of psychology relates to memory. To summarise, when it comes down to it, we’re really not very good at remembering stuff.

I can definitely relate to that. I seem to forget stuff left, right and centre. But it’s actually even worse than that. Not only do we not remember a whole lot of stuff. But even when we do remember stuff, we tend to remember it wrong.

This explains how you can be describing some sort of incident that happened in the past with someone who was also there, only to discover that this person has a completely different recollection of it from the one you had. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? The answer is, probably neither of you remember it quite as it happens.

I can tell you that as a writer, I find this sort of thing happening all the time. Sometimes I’ll read something that I wrote a while back. I might groan or avert my eyes. Then I’ll say to myself, “Did I really write that? Did I really think this was something that was worth putting on the page? What on earth could I have been thinking at the time?” Of course, I have absolutely no recollection. But I guess the page can’t lie.

Anyway, I think I had a point when I started writing this. What a pity that I can’t remember what it was. Mind you, if I did I’d probably remember it completely wrong anyway, and it would end up all messed up. Maybe it’s better this way for everyone.

Enjoy the week. May it provide you with numerous enjoyable, if most likely incorrect, memories for the future. 

I have a guitar. Sometimes I actually pick it up and play it. Sometimes I even manage to convince myself that it doesn’t sound to bad.

But that’s not all. I’m actually a member of a band. And it’s not just any kind of band. It’s a conceptual band.

Okay, so there’s an obvious question here. What exactly is a conceptual band? To be honest, I’m not completely sure myself. All I can tell you is that as a conceptual band, we play conceptual music. We’re actually working on a conceptual album as I write this. And once that is released, we plan to go on a conceptual tour, playing our conceptual songs in a series of conceptual live concerts.

I can’t wait to be a big conceptual rock star. All that conceptual fame and fortune. Fighting off those conceptual groupies.

Of course, it’s never as easy as you think. Unfortunately, my conceptual bandmate and I (there’s just the two of us) have recently not been getting on so well. It seems that we’ve had some disagreements over conceptual creative and musical differences. I’m afraid that if it keeps up, we may have to have a conceptual breakup. And where is that going to leave me? I’ll be forced into a conceptual solo career instead.

Anyway, there isn’t really any further point to this post. I guess you could say that it’s a bit of a conceptual blog post. But if anything changes in my strange, conceptual second life as a musician, I’ll be sure to let you know. Maybe I’ll get some conceptual videos up on Youtube, or get up to some conceptual hijinks on an airplane

Till next week, I hope your fun will be more than just conceptual.

Just last week, I was reading another one of those blog post tips for writers thingees that was going on about all those cliches you should make sure you avoid. And this one even came from an agent.

Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before. Cliches are boring. They’re lazy writing and they devalue your story. We’ve heard them all before, yada yada yada.

You know what  I think. I think that constantly being told to avoid cliches is becoming more boring than the cliches themselves. I think avoiding cliches is the biggest cliche of all.

When you look at what is up there on the bestseller lists, you see how much of a lie the avoiding cliche thing is. What’s the first thing you usually see? More of the same. Volume 27 of this series of volume 238 of that series. More of the same of the same of the same. It’s pretty obvious if you ask me. We’re not bored by repetition. We love it. We embrace it. We’re all constantly crying out for more of the same, more of those good old cliches.

And I think this is especially rich coming from an agent. From where I’m sitting, they’re the ones helping to perpetuate this whole repetition thing. In their position as gatekeepers for the industry, they’re the ones who have a big say in what gets through and what doesn’t.

Funny thing is, when you actually try to push something that does things a different way, and tries to strive for something that avoids those cliches, what do you get. “Oh dear, this is a bit hard to categorise,” or, “This is going to be a bit difficult to find a market for.” I know. I’m one of those shmucks who actually took the avoiding cliches thing seriously and tried to do something a bit different.

At this point, I suspect it’s all a bit of a lost cause. And besides, I’ve pretty much decided that writing a cliche free story is nigh on impossible. Because, as I look more closely at that list of cliches we should all be avoiding, the main thing I can see is that there actually isn’t much left. By the time I get through expunging all of those cliches, I don’t think there’s anything left I can actually write.

So I say embrace the cliche. Enjoy it for what it is – a mechanism that allows your reader to place your story, and make some sense out of what it is.

That’s enough of my rant for this week. Here’s one final cliche to finish off with – hope you have a great week.