Anders writes a book...

I really should do a little more with my writing. What a Wonderful Life is all very well but given its limited audience and eclectic nature it’s hardly a work of substance. It tells a story, but that story is so fragmented and esoteric that I often wonder myself where some of the roads have come from and where some of the turns are going.

Perhaps I should have another go at writing a book, or finish the one I’ve almost finished but never quite.

It isn’t the writing - words are pretty easy to come up with – it’s keeping the attention of the reader beyond a few hundred words. You need that ‘what happens next’ excitement to keep the pages turning from start to finish, and to do that over the length of a hundred thousand words novel is no mean feat.

For me, the big problem with writing a book is that it probably needs a story and, as everyone knows, that requires a start, middle, and an end. I’m sure that I could do that, but it isn’t the way I generally do things – I often start in the middle, end at the start, and sometimes I don’t even begin the end. I’m more of a ‘daub of middle’ here and a ‘splash of start’ there kind of a guy, rather than a straight line chap.

Then there are the characters. Books need characters and they have to be believable. Even the characters I know in the real world are so unbelievable that they could never hold-up in a story and I’ve never known any inscrutable Chinamen to base my villains on – so that might be a challenge (as problems have come to be known).

Of course the biggest problem (sorry challenge) is plot. Sticking to the plot might prove to be a bit of a problenge. It isn’t in my nature to follow an entirely logical path, or even a bit logical, so I might fly off at tangents and introduce all kinds of inconsequential thoughts as I write. Still, I suppose that is what an editor is for. It doesn’t help with the big plot problem though. To write a book you have to have a tale to tell in the first place and preferably a good one.

They say it’s best to write about what you know. Given that I know practically nothing of interest to anyone other than myself that might prove to be a bit of an issue. I do have my blog though… Ah yes, I can imagine the blurb on the back of the jacket now…

Anders ‘Cloggs’ Van der Hoogte writes a blog he’s cleverly called ‘What a Wonderful Life.’ Anders has attracted a lot of followers to his blog - both real and phantom - and when his real followers start getting killed off in mysterious circumstances Anders decides to investigate. Could the killer be one of the phantoms? Anders sets out to track them down one by one and get to the bottom of the mysterious killings. Is it a really a wonderful life or could someone want Anders dead?

Oh well, we’ll see.