Almost finished that is until I started reading through and editing it and realising it needed a considerable amount of work doing as there was repetition and then things I had to add. So now I'm setting aside a portion of every day to get it finished
I'm getting to the point of saying to myself "today I'll spend the afternoon on the book" or "today I'll give two hours to the book."
Those two hours often morph into five or six and I lose all track of time. Suddenly the whole thing amounts to 110,000 words and I haven't finished. The way it's going I'm going to end up with the sequel to War and Peace.
But I'm nearly there and I have to say I'm pleased with the result. I've pushed through with this project. What I mean by that is, usually when I start to write a book whether it's fiction or non fiction I soon get disillusioned and give up. But this time I have pushed through with four books - all of which I hope will see the light of day in 2024.
The autobiography I've already mentioned and I hope to have that ready to go by January. Then there's our book on Le Paradis massacre and I just have corrections and then myself and John Head will be making a few changes and that will be ready to go - hopefully once again by January.
Third up will be the first year of my daily blogs which will cover some of the period of lockdown. I have collected all these together and will start editing once the first two books are finished. I have a target here of May. Fourthly is my silly little seaside novel which again I need to edit and my target for that will be September.
Back to the autobiography. Yesterday morning I wrote one of the end chapters which was both easy and difficult to write.
I recently finished reading Odd Boy Out by Gyles Brandreth. He concluded this book with an open letter to his beloved father. So I thought I would do a similar thing and finish with an open letter to my beloved mother in which I tell her some of the things that I never told her when she was alive.
The words absolutely flowed and I considerate it one of the best things I have written for some time because it comes straight from the heart. At the same time it was difficult to write because it brought back many memories, some of which were painful and also showed a side of me not brought out in the rest of the book.
Obviously I don't want to spoil the book by publishing it here in its entirety but I'm happy just to print a small part of something that runs to over 2000 words. So here goes
"It's difficult now to remember just what I was doing when you died. I'm sorry but I don't remember your funeral. It's as if I've erased it from my mind. I can't even remember the date when you died as remembering you is what is important to me and not dates, although I always remember your birthday - June 10th and that of your mother, my grandmother, which is December 5th. I can't remember whether I called your mother nanny or grandma but that doesn't really matter. I do remember that she was as kind as you."
That's just a tiny piece of the full letter.
Now I would like your help in the concluding bit to the book. I'm going to list some of my favourite things and they aren't raindrops on roses if you know what I mean.
I'm going to list things like my favourite film, favourite book, favourite piece of music, favourite colour etc but very soon I'm going to run out of subjects. So I would like you to suggest other subjects for my favourite things and I will add them in.
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This afternoon it's the switch on of the Hethersett lights which I have probably mentioned many times before. I will be there to take photos and hope to bring you some tomorrow. Usually I'm very unhappy with my photos. I feel that I never capture the real essence of the event. Maybe one day I will capture something of the magic. Maybe that will be this year although I wouldn't hold your breath.
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Went into Norwich for football and should have gone home after shopping because the game against Queen's Park Rangers was dire. Norwich won 1-0. They had just one shot on target in 97 minutes of play. QPR had three shots on target in that time. That means there was a shot on target on average every 24 minutes and they call that entertainment.
Before going into the stadium we always offer our bags up to be checked. I have never been challenged until yesterday. The exchange went like this.
"Is that a camera?"
"Yes it's a portable"
"You can't take photographs."
"I don't want to take photographs. I have no intention of taking photographs. I always have it with me."
"You can take it back to your car."
"My car is two miles away. I'm now going into the ground."
"They will stop you if you try to get in with a camera"
I walked in and didn't get stopped. Inside the ground there were hundreds of people taking photos on mobile phones which are every bit as powerful as the very small camera I had with me and which I kept stowed away in my bag for the entire afternoon with never any intention of using it.
Before going to the match I had another look round Waterstones and there's piles and piles of new books in the run up to Christmas. I'm always particularly interested in history books. We used to have books covering all time, then books covering a century, then a decade, then a year, then a month, then a week and then a day. I'm going to write a history book covering one minute in a particular day and maybe follow that up with one covering a specific second!
The City was very busy yet again. There was scarcely any car parking available. At the prices charged for car parking in Norwich, the city council must be making a fortune.
At one car park I counted 19 cars queuing to get in. This is something I don't understand. Waiting in a queue knowing that if you are 19th in the queue you have to wait for 19 cars to come out. When you do get in you have to find the one space available and then take out a mortgage to park your car. Give me public transport every time even if it can be a bit haphazard at times.
*. *. *
A quick theory on memory. You know that people are always saying "He/she can remember what they did 50 years ago but they can't remember what they did yesterday."
Well that's not as bad as it sounds. The things you remember from the past are usually generalisations and things that happen regularly and are repetitive IE always having fish and chips on Fridays or going dancing on Saturdays. The mundane things from 50 years ago will be forgotten just as the mundane things from last week will be forgotten.
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Finally today hello to my new bloggettes. I've had a few joiners this week and they include Sean Flynn at our local butchers. I called in to say hello yesterday morning and we bought a load of meat for a family meal in celebration of today's Christmas lights switch on.
I noticed a couple of other areas in the village getting ready to get lit up. These included Tony and Margaret Dunton in Firs Road who have been putting on a Christmas display for over 20 years.
More tomorrow.