An Idiots guide to Writing, by an Idiot

An Idiots Guide to Writing, by an Idiot ©

By

Michael Casey

Well its a bit after 3am I had to get up because of the pain, so after I had a hot drink and Totoro our cat following me downstairs, I let her out into the dark of the night. So while I’m waiting for the pain to ebb away, like the tide going out as I am a Canute with wet feet I have decided to write this piece for you.

Immediately I can relate a story about 1^st year in grammar school and how I mispronounced Canute in class with Mr Reading our teacher. Need I say any more. That’s how I write, I get an idea or just a title then I go with the flow. Like a Cunute disappearing under the waves. Ok I’ll stop with the Canute references, but because I chose ebb and tide going out that led to him in the first place and me getting wet feet.

So if you are a draughtsman everything is planned and finally you have the end result. For us Wordsmiths things are a bit different. Now I chose Wordsmith not because I’m pretentious but because I could then mention the fact that my dad was a Blacksmith. I could talk about the Smiths the band or the film Mr and Mrs Smith. Which would then lead to marriage and love and marriage, horse and carriage and the old song from an old film. Or just go down the Brad and Angelina route.

See it really is that simple, well if you are this idiot writing then that’s how I do it. If you remember trivia too then you can slip in alliteration always, no matter if you think its pooh. See a bit of doggerel as well, what more do you want. And on it goes, even if the reader wishes you would stop. At which point my shoulder hurts so much from sleeping in just one position for 2 years since my unplanned quadruple heart bypass, that I nearly have to stop.

But like Canute I command the pain to stop so I can finish what I’ve started.

See or is it Sea? Its like rolling that cheese down that very steep hill, it was on tv recently, hence the reference, anything in peripheral vision gets drafted into the web of words. Spiderman Spiderman you are a writer if you can, see I didn’t say it was pretty just a witty ditty. Which brings me back to 1^st year at grammar, maybe 46 years ago, I made a witty comment and Terry O’Callaghan said it was a S**tty comment, so HE got the pump from Mr Ely our gym and woodwork teacher.

 And that may have been the start of my career as a wit and then writer, though my sister sagely says, people don’t understand my jokes, they think I’m serious. So do I need to telegraph my jokes as Americans do in their tv humour?

All in all words are like water, they flow, I am just a beaver who blocks the way and sends words this way and that a way. The moral of the story is, if a fat silver haired writer in shades from bloody Birmingham can do it, then ANYBODY can be a writer, just like this idiot talking to you. I have to stop now and take a pain killer, I wait till I cannot stand the pain before I take them. With my internal organs the way they are I don’t’ want them poisoned any more. I have kidney scans next week, they could scan me to try and find my personality, but a rectal scanner would just disappear into a black hole. Always finish with a smile, and then go to bed with somebody to cuddle up with, flesh is a great hot water bottle after all.  

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