I am the most arrogant person I know

If I were a famous writer these notebooks would be worth a fortune !  But I am not a famous writer so they are worthless.

When writing my books I scribble into notebooks then type everything up later.  The scribbling bit is the easy part as my mind races with ideas, racing so fast that the pen can not keep up and the scribble becomes more scribbled.  Typing up the notes is that hard bit. For my current story THE BRIDGE HOUSE I am writing between one and two thousand words a day.

My notebook for the past week's writing cover the years in my story of World War Two.  I have been making a conscious effort not just to tell the story but to give an insight into the way my characters feel about the situation they are living through.

Yesterday I took three songs from World War One and built a slideshow of images around them.

In the story I am bringing World War one, of course it was not called that back then but The Great War, to its end. No longer needed as a munitions worker, Lily is wondering what she is going to do with her life. An entire generation of men has been decimated meaning there just not the husbands for young women to marry, many will be destined to become elderly spinsters. They were called maiden aunts and every family had them. There were three in my family.

William has suggested to Lily that they could be married but William is not well enough at this point in the story and Lily is not certain she wants to fall in love with anyone again.

Lily and William do get married, just as well for if they had not I wouldn't be here !

Their oldest son, Billy, is the subject of my book AN INTERVIEW WITH FLIGHT SERGEANT BILLY. In writing my current book I may be making a conscious effort to get inside the minds of the characters but standing back, looking at what I have written, looking at those scribbled notebooks I find this is my normal style of writing. Writing Flight Sergeant Billy's story I have tried to get inside the mind of the uncle I never knew. It was not a difficult thing to do.

The Bridge House and An Interview with Flight Sergeant Bill are factual although an author's imagination is wrapped round everything, fact and fiction merge to become one as I tell the story.

The Case Files of Dave McDermott is completely fictional but thinking back and looking at the scribbles notebooks I was subconsciously throughout trying to explain not only what the characters were doing but why they were feeling the way they were and how feelings controlled their actions.

The first case McDermott investigates is a serial killer brutally murdering traffic wardens. Nobody likes traffic wardens do they ?  While I am not condoning the murders my character commits I think the reader will have sympathy and understanding for him.

I have written two autobiographies. The first my schoolboy autobiography - THINGS WERE DIFFERENT IN MY DAY - and the second telling of my later teenage years when I left school and entered the world of work - THE STORY OF A TEENAGE ENTREPRENEUR (FAILED) . Of course these two books show how I was feeling and give an insight into my character.  I think one word sums up that character - ARROGANCE.

All these years later nothing has changed you know. I am still the most arrogant person I know.

The Bridge House will be published in mid October in both paperback and e-book format. ALL royalties from sales will be given to Ronald McDonald Houses supporting families of sick children in hospital. There is a purpose in my writing for this book and I am loving every minute of my scribbling. But there is that character trait of arrogance there. Arrogance that I will actually sell copies of the book when it is finished an published. If I do not sell anything I am going to look pretty stupid.

If I were J K Rowling and I put those notebooks of scribble on to e-bay I wonder how much money they would make.  Surely it would run into many thousands of pounds.  If I were to put those three notebooks of mine into an auction how much would they make ? Would anyone even bid for them ?

I always buy my notebooks from Poundland, the original cost therefore of the three in the picture is three pounds.  To finish my book I think I may need another five so the profits of Poundland will increase as I write. Do you think when I have finished writing the story, if I put the books on e-bay they would make back their original purchase price ?

Not likely.

Let arrogance speak.......

I will just have to become a famous writer then won't I ?