It's been a while since I posted anything on here and so not surprisingly my my viewing figures have been flatlining in recently weeks. The reason for my absence, in case you haven't seen my postings elsewhere, is that I have been in Edinburgh helping my aging parents one of whom has spent most of the year in hospital. After going in for a fairly routine back operation he picked up all sorts of horrific infections and his immune system even turned in on itself. The sort of sequence of events you wouldn't wish on your enemies but my dad is a stubborn old chap and he sent the Grim Reaper packing on a couple of occasions.
So he's now home and recovering remarkably well. My mental health took a fair beating over that period and culminated in something of a breakdown a week past Friday. But with the help of my loving wife (and a very good therapist) I am now returned to Lancaster and trying to get back to some sort of normality.
A few days ago I got an idea for a short story. Perhaps not even that, just a piece of writing of 1500 words or so and so I sat and started typing. Since then I have been sitting down at my trusty, if at times rather slow, Black Box PC pretty much every morning and the words have been flowing. But this is not a follow-up to my concert memories book. Far from it. This is fiction though it is based in and around Lancaster.
The hero of the story (or perhaps victim would be more appropriate) finds himself being drawn towards a pretty young student and a charming young man but on each occasion things so badly wrong. He has hallucinations, finds himself facing up to feelings not explored since adolescence and at one point fears he has been kidnapped. Who are these mysterious people? He feels his world is slowly falling apart and some sort of mental breakdown is just around the corner. <cue dramatic music>
So that's the story so far. This is my first attempt at writing fiction and it's an interesting experience. I'm sure every author has their own way of writing. Some will doubtless spend long periods planning, researching and developing their characters before they even think about putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard as is more likely these days. But I'm just writing as the ideas pop into my head. I'll keep you posted on how it's going.
Now then, what about the Folk and Acoustic Music Show I hear you ask? Well I intend to start recording my shows again this week with my return to Acoustic Spectrum having been penciled in for the first Monday in October. While away I was still listening to some acoustic music, mainly as my Americana man, Mr Jones, continued to Dropbox me albums and I was able to download them onto my dad's laptop. At one point I was thinking, do I really want to carry on doing this? Maybe I should make some changes, include some older stuff, more acoustic rock, etc etc. Well, we'll see how it goes. It is very rare to get feedback from the punters who tune in to music shows on the radio, even in this day and age of tweeting, Facebooking and so on. So all I can do is assume that my listeners are happy with the mix of mainly North American and British artists I feature and carry on regardless.
So here's to more writing and more music.
Cheers,
CB
