Stand Up Writing

Stand Up Writing ©

By

Michael Casey

I read a few minutes ago on Linkedin that there would be a writing competition, a kind of XFactor for writers, you read for 2 mins, then you are judged. So what do you think of that? Me, I think writing is more than bubble gum that you spit out when the flavour goes. However I do think that writing can be like chocolate, something almost as good as sex, that you enjoy and then you get back to day to day reality.

So how would the show go? Would it really be the writer with the best blurb who’d win? Would it just be battle of the blurbs? Writing is so subjective. I bought Shadow of the Wind and I really wanted to read it, because of the blurb. Sadly I did not like it at all and then I stopped reading it ½ way through, and there are not many books I’ve dropped in my life. Then there is The Book Thief, which I regard as one of the best books I’ve read in my life, it’s so poetic, so touching, I cried as I read it, I even think it should be on schools’ book lists.

My own first novel is a slow starter as there is a large cast, however it is a rattling good read once the cast is introduced. So at Book X Factor should I read a blurb, or should I stumble as I flick to the climax. We have  starters and soups, then the main, and finally dessert, with a coffee and mint we finish the meal. Then arm in arm we leave the restaurant and head home for play, only we are so full of food we both fall asleep on the sofa. So much promise but no fulfilment.

Books are such fun, it’s really great when we discover a new writer. I can remember being introduced to Tom Sharp maybe 25years ago, before he was on tv. Then 5 years ago I can remember the IT guy at the Law Firm  saying how he’d just discovered Tom Sharpe. Books and Writers are candy for the mind, they do open our mind to laughter and tears and hope. The Book Thief is one such book, but would it win on XFactor for Books?

I can remember  my History teacher, Mr Trout, he said try Don Camillo. I did and I loved Don Camillo, I have an omnibus edition  in the bookcase behind me, next to the piano. Would Don Camillo win the XFactor for books, probably not, but it is a book you can reread over and over.  The spirit  in Don Camillo is the thing. Don Camillo may argue and fight with the Mayor, but they are still brothers.

Sorry you won’t be going through to the next stage of the competition. Not enough sex, nor violence. Great description of a sledge called “Rosebud” but it’s just not commercial. 500 or 600 pages for a first novel, 160,000 words, I think we’ll run out of ink if we try and publish it. No could you just take a few characters  out, could you miss the bit where somebody saved the undertaker’s son’s life. And you know the bit where……

It would be like being asked to save only one member of your family when the ship sinks. Words have meaning, words have power, and if you remove your false teeth your words have no bite.