The writings of Max Robinson: My writing shed

Writer Roald Dahl had a shed in his garden which was where he sat to write many of his stories.

I have this in my garden.

A couple of year ago my wife went away for a week to visit her sister. When she came back she found this at the bottom of the garden. Not a shed but a summer house.

Proudly I took her down the path right to the very bottom of our estate😄😄😄😄 to show her the results of my work.

I had made numerous, and some, visits to B and Q bringing home all the materials then built the construction with my own fair hands.

It has been closed up for he winter but yesterday I swept it out, dusted the cold months out of the way and prepared to make it my writing shed.

I need to find some slightly more comfortable chairs then all will be set.

She Who Must Be Obeyed is going away again for five days next week so I plan a relaxing week in my writing base churning out many thousands of words.

My e-books had a good week on Amazon over the past seven days but I need to write more, a lot more.

I am having an amazing time as my ego trip races along in my TEENAGE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. I shared what I had written so far with friends on the Lewis's Facebook Group. Before the dear lady wife returns I will have spent several hours in my writing den finishing it.

A word to my many friends on facebook who are my former students - HAVE NO FEAR I AM NOT PLANNING TO WRITE MY TEACHING AUTOBIOGRAPHY !

However, if you want to embarrass your old "Sir" you may like to read what a thoroughly poor schoolboy I was myself - THINGS WERE DIFFERENT IN MY DAY.

The problem with being an Amazon e-book writer is the sales and stats page does not tell me which books have sold and which have not. I had a lot of fun writing this but do hope nobody is reading it.

I want next week to pick up my abandoned project THE FIRES OF HELL. It's rubbish in its present form.

Next week I want to get into the car, drive to where I have set the story and soak up the atmosphere. I can then return to my writer's shed, rip up the original text and start again.

I am having a lot of fun with facebook I now have one hundred and sixty-five friends - BOAST BOAST. Not bad having only been on-line for two weeks. YEH I know many of my friends have thousands against my less than two hundred but facebook is a bit of fun isn't it ?

For my friends in the Lewis's Group I am hoping, I use the word hoping rather than planning, to make a trip up to Birmingham. I want my camera and I to meander round the places in my story.

It would be good to drive up to where I used to live in Sutton Coldfeld he take the 'bus into the city centre. I have to confess it is about forty-five years since I was last on a 'bus and do not know how to go about using one ! No, honestly I don't. I guess that Birmingham i the twenty-first century is about as car unfriendly as any other major city so that option may be out. Train ? I am not putting my money into the already over-full pockets of Richard Branson - not after his stance on Brexit. Perhaps I will walk.

For my Leon facebook friends.......

Do you remember the series of stories I wrote and used to read to some of my classes ? Garatt's Gang ? Sadly, the text for that was lost years and years ago. Perhaps I may sit in my writing shed and compose it again.

One set of stories I wrote for my students was THE WILD ADVENTURES OF DI CENTRAL EATING.

For years that was lost but a couple of months ago I found a copy in my loft, typed it up and published it on-line. it is fictional but each adventure is based on something from my own childhood. It is not really a child's story but an adult's view on a child's life.

Road Dahl has something inside his writing shed, left, which I do not have.

Not literally IN the shed but very much associated with it.

He had this man. His illustrator, Quentin Blake. Without his amazing drawings I doubt Roald Dahl could have achieved half of what he did.

It is exactly the same with A A Milne and his stories, Christopher Robin, Tigger, Winnie The Pooh and so on,.

Even the genius of Terry Pratchett had his illustrator.

I am wondering if somewhere within facebook or even Twitter they may not be an illustrator for some of my stories.

I am sure that THE WILD ADVENTURES OF DI CENTRAL EATING. would sell far more e-books if it were illustrated. If it were illustrated I could market it on Amazon in printed format.

In the days before e-books my story PETER'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN PEN was published in paperback. I did give a set to Leon School but am sure they were binned years ago. I wrote that story for my son's 12th birthday, he will be 37 in September. That story would benefit enormously from my having an illustrator in my writing shed.

If anyone is interested in having some fun and, who knows, even making a bit of pocket money please do not be shy - drop me an e-mail mx@patrioticpensioner.com