Can I be a Writer and own my own Business or will I be a puppet to past generations

Failure is not an option.

Due to the factor that I am presently going through some sort of mental block I have reached a point in the writing of my next book where I seem to have taken a turn down a one way street.

Call it writers block I donno but then you need to be a writer for that and I am unsure that I qualify what I do know is I will eventually start again and eventually finish what I started. Some days it lasts for an hour then I am of and running again other times it lasts weeks so I have decided too do a hub in the hope it will open me up to fresh thinking and allow me to continue and complete the first draft of my novel.

I have realised that writing this second book is a lot different than the first. I am a poet by trade so novel writing requires a lot more of focus and commitment. Thus the reason why I question myself as to wither or not I am a writer, in the true sense of the word. The eventual completion and publishing of the book will allow me that boast.

So I thought what would anyone reading this Hub want to know about me right now, during this time of halted growth, or so it seems, lack of brain power.

I have by now had maybe 11 book signings under my belt from my first book “For Irish Eyes” and every one of them was a fulfilling success. I have read in public doing the very thing I vowed I wouldn’t ever be able to do. I took part in the 2009 Irish Literature Festival here in Ireland and was also asked by the local Council of Coleraine Town in the North of Ulster to read my work and plug my book to help open The Guinness Folk Festival. I am not someone that likes to socialise and would rather hide behind my PC screen than talk to a group of people. For me it was always the same feeling when people would come up to me and say, “Hey Colin I am reading your book and am halfway through” I felt like they had my dirty underwear and were inspecting it. I realised that the book was really part of me. A piece of me I normally didn’t talk about or express. In fact in the intro of my book I mentioned that writing poetry was a way of taking my deepest emotions converting them into words and putting them on paper only for someone else to read those words and convert them back into emotions in their head.

Poetry and for that matter writing a tool the gift is measured in the level of ability to use the tool, that’s all. So when people you don’t know come up to you, in a nice way and say "I am reading your book” they are, for me saying “hey I am reading your emotions your deepest thoughts and your vulnerable hidden side I now know” well I mean, that is really freaky to say the least.

So I soon realised that, in writing you are really saying a lot about who you are and it is also a great way to reach a lot of people without ever actually saying a word. Tha hy my on linr a aignigwhen anyon asks m about myself is just say "Read the book, thts me."

Yet when I got behind the mic and read those words to an audience, this was like OMG I was wanting to disappear. I was asking myself loads of silly questions, “Did I sound nervous, was my hair ok, where they looking at my hand shaking, do I still have hair?” etc etc.

And you know what, they maybe did look at my hand shaking or notice the nervous voice but the one thing they couldn’t do was create exactly what I had written and was reading. This was my work my thoughts no matter how good or bad these words were unique to me I was really in command and they were listening to me! I had published and it would be here way after I am not even it it is just to anoy a few know it all writing critics. Who knows in 300 years it could be they will read my work take all sorts of meanings out of it and say they have discovered the "Mercer Code" That I had a genius of hidden meanings. (I kinda like that)

So you see you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone out of your shell because its well worth it. Even in writing a Hub, I cant spell as you can see my editor will fix that but I still write and you still get my drift. (alo your claim to fame will be you baught the origional "Mercer code" book, For Irish Eyes" lol.

I made myself a promise way back. I remember one night laying in bed I had just come home from a nightclub on my own without a girl. :/

That night had actually went well I met a girl and in my usual hesitant way and inability to socialise screwed it up by not asking her out. I new she wanted to hear me just say it yet my head was full of “what if’s” What if I sound childish or do this or that, what if I say something crappy? That night when I lay in bed alone I realised that I had created my world using a lot of “what if’s” and "I wishes" I was determind from that moment on that I would try not to say “what if” or “I wish” or at least cut it to as little as possible in my life. I thought to myself that night as I lay there alone, when I get old I want to be able to look back at my life and be able to say to myself that I didn’t say “what if or I wish on too many occasions nor had any thoughts of “I wish I had” done this or that, “I wish I had written more, I wish I had published that idea” “What if it had, what if it had worked”

Read my Hub on “I wish” If anything you will have a laugh but in it there are a lot of truths.

So today I felt that if I could help someone that reads this Hub, who maybe is thinking of publishing or would like to be a writer but has stopped and hesitated, it could prevent them saying “what if” and “I wish” and this hub would be a worthwhile deal and thus fulfil "The Mercer Code" :)

Let me start by telling you that being a writer is what I have always wanted to be and do, I do not find writing a burden, it isn’t like work to me. Some days I start at 7.30am and finish at 11pm without eating a lot just drinking tea or coffee, coke, I mean Cola and all that healthy stuff.

Other days I don’t write but I never sit and slack. I research for info online or in books I read. I keep buzy,Something I failed to do in the past!

I still haven’t reached the point where I can survive on writing I must pay the bills so I manage a company three days a week and write two days. The weekends I spend with custody of my kids. The job pays the bills and i needed even though I know I am being used where I work and seen as a spent force (for the moment). I did go thre with comitment ike in writing and expected a return but there are always convenient excuses so as I cannot ge anywhere with them I will do it without them. I do it to survive but I am in no way a spent force and will be spending others forces.

Being a writer isnt easy you have to devide your time with the need to survive no matter what the cost and when you have been through the mill you realise you have no walls holding you in regard to how far yu will go to survive.

However If there is one thing I hate it is people thinking i am stupid or nieve and silly I may be mad but I am not stupid. In the work place people eventually take you for granted and think you are finished but fail to see the sting coming only this time around I am not going to be so plesent and I have been smart enough to keep some things in my pocket along the way to groveling for an employer.

Sometimes people help you do thing and make decisions that they will regret and sometimes they where your friend all along its only time that will show and the ending actually rests with them. Similiar to publishing a book but that is also another story yet to be told and one that will be dictated by their actions not mine. The way I see it is build up your life around the things you dont like even if they tunoutto be not hostile you will have something big to jump to anyway which is what I always insure. In life you must be smart in writing is the same. Collect things along the way from your friends and those you feel are your enemys, things they say or information that may be of use to you and prove important to them then use it fully at the end for your gain to ride yourself of your deamons.

So before I turn into the Jeeperss Creepers lets get on with this hub.

I didn’t start writing to earn money but if I can earn money writing and eventually survive on doing what I love then that’s a bonus and should be part of your focus.

I have to tell you, that as a writer I am no better than any one who hasn’t published nor am I any more the writer, as I said I query if I am actually “A writer”.

I learn every day and I make big mistakes everyday. The secret is simple “don’t give up” persistence and the attitude that failure is not an option and a willingness to listen to others and change your approach can and has got individuals and for that matter Great country’s like America out of a lot of shit to put it mildly and won the day.

Take criticism as constructive help even if it is sarcastic and childish because by doing so you evolve. If someone says ‘you are crap and you know nothing, then the fact remains that either they are right, “You are” or “They don’t have the brain cells to understand your work.”

Either way you can learn from it because they have reacted to something you have written so whatever they say is a compliment really. You set out to get something read and it was, (by them) they read it! Even if they rubbish it they must have read it and it certainly caused a response right?

Also never be afraid to write or say anything to anyone regarding thoughts and your work, what I mean is don’t feel you are at too low a level to write you don’t need to be a dictator or nasty I am talking about feel free to express and write down your opinion and your way of seeing the world. Who knows we may just like it!. As I said I don’t see myself as a writer but I still try and I will get published, its not if its when. So, when I finally publish this novel and it sells, then for me, on my scales, I will be a writer, to others I already was either good or bad.

Just a few weeks ago I met a guy John Boyne who wrote the book “The boy in the stripped pyjamas” which as you may know, was made into a move. I met him during my reading at the Irish festival and he told me that out of seven “published works” everyone said “wow that is fantastic” that he personally as the writer inside, felt only three where a success the other four were failures.

It so happens that the boy in the stripped pyjamas” was on his success list J and btw it has changed his life. Today he has sold over 5 million copies world wide. All from an idea he said he wrote in two nights. Two night? Yes he had the idea and in two nights had a plot. He then wrote the book. This was an ordinary young guy who was doing what I am doing now and suddenly he is in Hollywood. For me he is “A writer, a success” to him he is still the ordinary guy which is true. You know what; someone in the audience asked him “was your book becoming a Hollywood movie the panicle of your writing career?

He said “No, for me the best day of my career was when I published that first book ever and I got the box of 100 books from the publisher. I had come home from work and the box was on the door step, I lifted it inside and opened it up held the book in my hand and said to myself ‘I did it’ now I am a writer. For him the value was in the achievement of reaching his original goal. The movie was an added bonus.

When listening to him speak I felt like an ant as I had just published a 68 page philosophical poetry book about experience I have had here in Ireland along with a few other poems related to legend and folklore. This Guy had a Hollywood Block Buster and there was me sitting with my paper back.

In the room at the time where a lot of big names in the literature world some I didn’t know as I have had no writing background or schooling I left school at 16 and became an electrician eventually owning my own business only to become bankrupt and have to work for someone else again. Then my marage broke up I lost my kids 3 daughters. I see them at weekends now. After that huge storm in my life I just one day started to write in 2006 some poetry as a way to get out my daemons now I am talking t writers and guys that have made movies, but that’s another story (Read it on my web page) J

Anyway I was told by a writing workshop teacher who was also present at the reading, that many in the room had read my book (as it was sort of short) joking! And had found it was full of life like each poem was a story they could relate to and the use of words to create colours and happening in way they didn’t see before was great “It was not like regular poetry” they said. My head was so big by this time I couldn’t get out of the room!

I also had the same reaction from my friend on the Hub here Rebecca Emrich , I am sure known by many of you, who I new already was no fool when it came to writing yet was also kind enough to review my book and gave the same response. I started to think to myself “All these people who have a lot more experience than I do cannot be wrong maybe, just maybe I have done something that is good” The rest is history because the sales have followed. I began to write two novel showed the start of one to Rebecca and we are now working together towards completion. I write and she tells me what is good and bad, she would make a great lumberjack cutting out all that dead wood! (just joking Rebecca) but really she has shown me so many different ways I never seen and is steering and helping me to completion.

So you see you can be at the bottom and meet guys at the top and realise they are just like you only got lucky and noticed but most of all they were focused and persistent and listened to those that know better and or just have a different approach. They didn’t give in if you want it you can get it but it depends how much you want it.

My father used to tell me a story to show me this perspective. There are two guys each put in a room for life but one has managed to smuggle in a small tea spoon, he is determined to get out. The other thinks this is silly and accepts his fait but this guy starts to dig. It takes him almost a life time because he strated in one place dug so far then realised he had hit rock and could not go on. So he starts all over again even though by this time neither he nor the spoons are doing so well. Eventually just when even he was beginning to forget why he was even digging, breaks the wall and he can see a glimmer of light. The rest of the wall crumbles so easy and so fast once he has exposed just that tiny glimmer. He had done it, he is free. He was just like the other guy in one way a prisoner but he was different in that he wanted to be free so bad he persisted and didn’t understand failure (he also had a spoon!).

If you are going to write then sit down and write 100% not on a laptop in front of the TV. At a desk or table in a room that has no distractions other than a window maybe or picture or photograph which can be your TV of inspiration.

Then start to write even if you have no story in your head just write, something will give way and you will find a story maybe not where you thought. That writer guy I told you about, John with the 5 million sales, well he told me one thing. When he first started to write he had a plot already thought out with some of the key characters in it but now he doesn’t do this he just sits down and starts to write and what ever happens happens. Either way can work for you so don’t tell me you have no ideas!

Some do it with a plan others just lift the spoon and dig until they reach their goal and win the rest accept that they are Mr or Mrs 9 to 5 .

So Stop reading this crap and start writing your own! J