Doesn’t time fly.  For those of you who have contacted me asking if I have dropped off the planet and far away from the blogosphere, the answer is no, but other delights have kept me away from my keyboard.  Yesterday however I decided it was time to get back to it, and so had a little look about and found this pertinent blog by – in her own words –  ‘Vicky… a twenty-something book blogger and social media marketing ninja with a passion for thrillers, mysteries, dystopia, and women’s fiction.’ And this is her blog: 5 Things I Wished I Knew Before I Started Blogging Simple, obvious, with an up-beat tone – I don’t know why I didn’t have the same little chat with myself.  And then blog it. Hey ho.  Stand still in cyberspace and you miss sooooooo much!

But there we are.  Having read Vicky’s blog, I began to toss that old chestnut – what is the point of a blog – around again.  People are either trying to sell you something (most of them, actually), or want to teach you something, or sometimes just reflect on their lives and the life around them.  Obviously there are many blogs which are Last Diaries people need to share, a way in which to cope with whatever it is that is hurting them so.  The BBC’s ‘The C Word’ inspired by Lisa Lynch’s blog of her fight with cancer made me appreciate the power of blogging.  Innate human desire to support and encourage, to stand up and be counted?  Who knows.  I’m no psychologist.  But reading a ‘good blog’ (what is that, by the way?  One that makes you laugh?  Makes you cry?  Motivates you?) certainly has a good effect on the brain.  If the writer can make you think all day about something they have mentioned, or help you make a decision if prevarication has over-stayed it’s welcome, then I would suggest that that’s a good blog.

Where will blogging be in fifty years time? 100 years?  It may be that the keyboard would have had its day and we’ll be able to plug something in to our heads and just think our blog straight onto the screen.  If indeed screens still exist.  How creepy would that be?!  We’d have to retrain our brains.  Mine would go something like this I reckon..

Hello there and welcome to my blog god what do I say next note to self must remember to vacuum before the visitors arrive where was I? oh yeah hello there and welcome to my blog I’ve been thinking about this new way of blogging and how it can affect all our lives bloody hell the neighbour’s cat is pooing in the garden again..

Utter disaster.  I think for now technology can keep me stumbling over the keyboard and adddding extra letters where there shouldn’t be any. Keeps it human. Which, I guess, is exactly what a blog should be.  And that, in turn, is what I think the point is.  Here is a quote from the introduction of a fantastic book bought for me recently, 800 Years of Women’s Letters by the sadly late Olga Kenyon 

“My aim is to show that women’s letters are a valid form of literature…from the Middle Ages to today….they show women using one of the few forms of writing open to them with wit and skill.”

Isn’t that what blogging is?  A Letter?
But for us all to read?
Blog on!

Many years ago I turned on the tv late one evening and came across a very strange show. It was a comedy but with no canned laughter. The actors – who were meant to be real people – spoke straight to camera a lot of the time. The rest of the time they didn’t seem to be saying anything particular. Just sort of… wandering around…in a strangely compulsively-viewing way. Was this a joke, I wondered? I thought I liked it but it was a bit weird. But then I am weird. Then I laughed a lot. Then I wondered – am I meant to laugh at that? Is this actually real – or is this scripted? Not sure… what I had stumbled upon late that night was The Office. And the rest, of course, is history. And then along came Twenty Twelve, shortly followed by W1A. Genius writing.
I was soon listening to every conversation I could subtly over-hear, where ever I was, at any given time. In B and Q (other decorating stores are available – although probably not as orange) I heard one worker say to the other
‘Yeah…yeah..yeah… No.’. What does that mean? Did his friend understand what he was saying? Did he care? The more you listen, the more you hear these half-said sentences, half-thought comments that are verbalised for the mere sake of making a noise. When did this happen? Did it sneak in somewhere between 1998 and 2002 when no-one was looking but that new-fangled devil-machine The Internet was in full swing distorting our children’s minds and corrupting adult conventions? Possibly. No wonder the older generation has no idea what the mid-younger generation is saying – because these days they’re not actually saying anything. In a shop:

You: ‘Oh, no bag thanks.’
Till Person: ‘Would you like a bag?’ (till person gets a bag)
You: ‘No, really, it’s fine. No bag.’
Till Person: ‘You don’t want a bag?’ (thinks: why is this so difficult to understand?)(Till person gets a bag)
You: ‘Thanks.’ (unpack everything from bag you didn’t want)

Is it me?

W1A writer John Morton must have an amazing ear for human speech because so much of what you hear in his W1A script you know is real. You know someone somewhere has actually said – or rather not said – those words.
So how do you write that in a novel? How do you write that in a novel so that it is realistic? How do you write that in a novel so that it is believable? Ever read a novel and thought ‘No one speaks like that!’ ? Me too. Loads. Loads and loads and loads. Perhaps we should pay more attention to listening to people than to plotting the plot or planning the downfall of the main character. But it is so hard.
Along time ago, I once heard someone say ‘Less Is More.’ How stupid, I thought. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

But oh, how I get it now!

The Book Trust

Back to Basics – Speech Writing

Write To Done