Hello world!

First let me start by saying that this first blog is going to be long as once I get started, I find it hard to stop! Be warned, make yourself comfortable and enjoy!

I often get asked, how did you become an author, and each time I can quote different reasons, as there’s never one single defining moment, such as a burst of light that comes on, enabling you to start scribbling. Instead, it tends to be a gradual process, a little like how you became a good driver. As we all know, being a good driver comes from years of experience and anticipation.

Becoming an author is a gradual process that uses your life experiences as inspiration. One of my favorite actors, who is sadly no longer with us, was Jon Pertwee. He is most famously known as being the 3^rd doctor in the Doctor Who TV show but has appeared in many other radio and TV shows, plus stage productions and movies. If you ever get the chance, I can highly recommend that you read his book called ‘Moon Boots and Dinner Suits’ where he walks you through his life, and how his experiences with other people enabled him to create characters that he used in shows later in his life – plus his book is also hilarious!

As for me, I was very fortunate to travel all over the world and meet people from every aspect of life.

When people ask me which is my favorite country, I always answer that it’s difficult to say, as it’s the people that make a country a favorite – if the people are nasty, then your opinion of that country is tainted. In my travels, I fortunately, or unfortunately, spent way too long in airports people-watching. If you’ve never done that you must try it. You sit there and observe other people, what they’re doing, what they’re saying, how they’re acting, and if you’re like me, you start to form opinions about where they’re from and what they’re like. I remember watching one man who was sleeping and had a nervous twitch which every minute or so would cause him to pull back his lips and poke his tongue out. I must have sat there for ages giggling at his expressions, especially when a family walked past and the wife grabbed her husband and complained that the man sitting there had leered at her and then stuck his tongue out. This resulted in the sleeping man being roughly awakened without having any idea about what was happening.

Anyway, if you’ve never people watched then you really need to try it. I also used to make up what people were saying to each other just to keep myself amused! Anyone who’s traveled on business can relate to this because business travel is not as glamourous as other people seem to think it is. I was also one of those people where something always happens when I was traveling and when I arrived home the first thing my kids would say was ‘so what happened this time?’ In fact, I’ve partly written a book about business travel so perhaps one day I’ll finish it – the trouble is that every time I read through it I start laughing, much to the amusement of my kids!

Sorry, I went slightly off-track there! Back to inspiration.

For me, I’ve always loved the English countryside. Now bear in mind that I was born in London and raised in a city environment, so the green fields of England have always attracted me. I have to grudgingly admit though that I hold the Scottish scenery in equal wonder! As I’ve now lived away from the UK for a long time, the thing I miss most about England is the green rolling hills.

I’m also interested in magic and mysteries like so many other people. Yes, I’ve watched the Harry Potter movies which have undoubtedly influenced me to a certain degree, but I was always struck by them being a little far-fetched and detached from my world. Now, there is a certain part of those movies which affects me deeply to this day. For example, I’ve always been afraid of snakes and feel extremely nervous when I’m in the snake house at a zoo looking at snakes through that thick glass – if you’re a Harry Potter fan, then you know exactly the part of the movie I’m talking about.

But I used to think that the best part of those movies wasn’t all the special effects, but the human interactions between the main characters. If you read Nature’s Marc, I hope that the human element shines through as I’ve tried to bring the growing friendship between the two main characters to the front of the story.

I’ve also always been into storytelling and when I was younger, I used to tell a lot of jokes. In fact, you could call out a subject and I’ll make up a joke about it on the spot. My favorite type of jokes are those that take time to spin out and pull the listener in, then you hit them with a punchline from out of nowhere. Actually, when you think about it, isn’t that the idea of all great books?

As for the book title, where did that come from I hear you asking? Well, that’s easy because Nature’s energy is all about us and my youngest son is named Marc!

I’m also asked how I came up with the storyline. That’s difficult because each writer has a different method. I know that some writers have their story beginning and ending all planned out before they start writing, yet some writers just have the ending figured out, then they work backwards. For me though, I had no idea how the story was going to end before I began writing, just a rough idea of what I wanted the story to include. I had the idea of writing something that combined all my interests, very loosely based on a Harry Potter type character, but I also knew that I wanted it to be more of a down-to-earth-type character with a sense of humor, but also possessing flaws. The idea began to form of how to start the story which first introduces this mysterious boy who wanders, fighting mysterious forces and possessing strange powers that allow him to tap into the energy around us. This is because I truly believe in the life energy that flows through us and forms our entire universe. There are certain lines from movies which resonate with all of us, and for me, apart from the famous line in Jaws “I think you need a bigger boat’, the one that hits the spot for me is from Star Wars – ‘May the force be with you’.

I also wanted to introduce the characters early on such as Marc and Dexter, in a true good vs evil way. I didn’t think about Toby’s appearance in the story at first as I thought about Marc being a loner. But as the storyline between Marc and Jake progressed, the idea began to form of having someone ‘intrude’ into their relationship, and it just seemed to expand from there. I would then write in spurts because there’s nothing worse than trying to write when you’re not in the mood. Think of it as a book that you’re reading. Even if it’s a good plot, if you’re distracted and can’t concentrate, you can’t get into the plot, yet at other times you get involved in the book and can’t put it down.

That’s the way that I was when I was writing, and found that when I was in the mood the story just flowed from my mind. I was constantly thinking about a page ahead of what I was writing, and the words just seemed to pop into my head to get to that next stage. For example, in one part of the book, Marc and Toby are being pursued by demons that are flying through the air and I put myself in their position. I knew that I wanted them to outrun the demons and escape, but how? Well, I simply imagined myself being chased across fields and through hedges, so what would I see and do? In the story they come across a tractor, so what would I do in that situation? Well, I’ll jump on it and try to use it to get away of course. Do I know how to drive a tractor? Who cares, let’s give it a go and I imagined what would happen second to second, from managing to get it started, bumping along a rutted field, to looking over my shoulder to get how close the demons were behind me. I also saw the opportunity to add humor, so I described Toby sitting behind Marc being thrown up in the air, clumps of mud flying off the wheels and snacking the demons in their faces, and the horrified expression on Toby’s face when he asks Marc if he knows how to driver as tractor to which the reply was NO!

If you put yourself in that position and think about how you would manage it, your imagination just takes over. Let me give you an example. Have you ever daydreamed and found yourself living a fictional life, and without conscious thought it rolls out into a kind of story? That’s what happens when you immerse yourself into your character and it almost becomes effortless. When the flow stops, you take a break, do something else and suddenly in the middle of doing something else you’ll think of what to write next because part of your brain is still working on the story.

No doubt, it helps if you use your life experiences to mold the story. In my case it was the countryside, interactions between the characters, worries about the environment, and having good triumph over evil.

Now I’ve forgotten what I started talking about but that’s the point. Once you start writing, your mind runs away with it and the ideas flow faster than you can keep typing. Don’t worry too much about the spelling and formatting as that will be dealt with later – if you stop and worry about how long a chapter is, or that you need to go back and check for typos, that will ruin your ‘thought-flow’.

Eventually when I had finished the book, I went back through a number of times to make changes to have the flow improve, or sometimes if something just doesn’t make sense. I also paid to have someone read through it and make recommendations because, even though you believe that you’ve written the perfect story, fresh eyes can not only see issues, but often give you new ideas about how to flesh out a character or storyline. You’ll also find that they suggest better words than the ones that you used, so again fresh eyes sometimes offer better solutions that you either use or discard. By the way, if money is tight, ask selected friends and family to read through your book and ask for their honest opinions. Be prepared to face criticism, but see it more as a learning curve.

I also found myself reading through sections, laughing out loud at some of the humor and when that happens, it’s amazing. Become one with your character and think, what would you do in that situation? Think human, admit fear, feel the strength inside you when you’re determined to win and think about how you would react if something went wrong. All of these relate not only to you but also to many readers. I remember watching a TV show when I was younger called Batman, starring Adam West. Whenever he got into a life-or-death situation, he would pull the perfect solution from his ‘utility belt’ that would save him. I would have given anything for my own utility belt, but I knew that it wasn’t real so it became laughable. It’s important to keep your feet on the ground when writing and help the reader engage with the characters and storyline.

Well, I hope that’s given you some insight into the workings of my mind. As I progress through this blog, I’m going to work through chapters of Nature’s Marc and explain how I came up with that train of thought, so that you can see the thought process that moved words from my mind to paper.

Who knows, at some point I may also drop hints about the sequel to Nature’s Marc and possibly to my business travel book!

Alan