Graham Kershaw

As a youngster I remember reading a book from cover to cover for the first time: ‘Lord Billy Bunter’. I was on a compulsory visit to the school library. This humble beginning launched me into the w...view moreAs a youngster I remember reading a book from cover to cover for the first time: ‘Lord Billy Bunter’. I was on a compulsory visit to the school library. This humble beginning launched me into the world of libraries and book shops. By the late 1960s I was reading a variety of books from James Bond, horror and science fiction to fact, those that inspired my imagination. On Saturday afternoons I used to wander around bookshops with my friends. I dreamed of writing a book of my own. The subject for this was easy: ‘science fiction’, my favourite genre. I thought up ideas and put pen to paper on an evolving tale about the distant future upon a remote planet called Drallagoon and its links to Earth. I remember mentioning my story to a friend who was keen to read it, but soon gave it up as a bad job. I had no idea how to structure such a long piece of work. I tried again with a new story called ‘Leaf’. As before there were bits of it that were okayish, but certainly not good enough to be read and enjoyed. Years passed, I got married and forgot the stories, unless I happened upon them. When I did, short versions and new tales were started and left abandoned. Then in 1990, with a three-year-old son, a large tumour developed in my head. After some unpleasant operations and several months rehabilitation I began a new life as a volunteer worker for Social Services. This also led to a resurgence of my fiction writing. MY ONLINE PICTURE WAS TAKEN AFTER THIS SURGERY. I enjoyed the new work, and though not well enough to pursue a proper job found I was able to offer welcome support to several resource centres - from ‘The City of Plymouth’ to ‘Tavistock Town’ (about 12 miles). I became interested in teaching adult students with 'learning disabilities', and undertook teaching qualifications to help there. After the completion of a ‘Certificate in Education’, followed by a course on organisation, I came across these old writings and decided to begin a new tale from them. My recent College and University work helped me to plan and organise, and the writing soon became an enjoyable hobby. To further improve my voluntary work I returned to the University - this time for a ‘B.A. in Education and Training’. My story writing stopped again, but when I did return to it I was fresh and suitably critical. Despite all this the story still wasn’t up to scratch. I knew nothing of ‘passive speech’, ‘show vs tell’ or ‘omniscient voice’, and my editing was poor and inconsistent. Nevertheless I did manage to prepare and bind the books to an acceptable standard; I also self published them and sent them off into the world all under my own steam and for nominal fees. My local main library even stocked one - for a while. I didn't put much into the marketing side of course. I knew the books weren’t up to the mark; not as far as enthusiastic distribution was concerned. I needed to learn more so I joined an online community - writing.com - and began reviewing the stories of others, who seemed to suffer all the problems I had encountered. I slowly learnt and honed some of the required skills to write, publish and review until I was ready to use other online platforms such as: Twitter @bookwrite1, Wordpress bookwrite1.wordpress.com. Also Amazon and Smashwords. At present I review Indie novels for ‘The World Literacy Café’ and randomly as a customer of my Twitter follower authors. My novels are developing and I feel happy enough to post them on Amazon. No interest so far but that’s just fine. Small is good, and a start of ‘nil’ gives me super scope to improve. So, what of the tale? Well, it was my intention to produce a long tale, multi-layered with simple presentation, but complex motives - from different angles becoming clearer with each new book. The scene is set in the remote future, much as the first tale all those years ago. An alien invasion dominates the past, (our distant future) but few know of it. All appears tranquil, and yet a secret project is under way involving the mystery of God himself; it’s a project from beyond the dawn of time.view less