Paul Malpas

It was about three months ago when I decided to go one step higher on the writing ladder.  For years I had always fancied myself as a writer, but one of poor quality.  I wanted to improve this quality and the only way I knew besides reading quality 24/7 was writing in a disciplined manner on a regular and determined basis. Putting together pieces of writing on various subjects but doing them  almost as a  daily routine and then re-reading and editing to try to ensure an increase in quality.  I was thinking for some time of a diary but that did not really get me to where I wanted to be.  Then I started to read of this comparatively new idea of blogging, which seemed to fulfill all the necessary parameters I had set myself but which I had no idea on how to float.

I heard about this seminar that Mark Attwood, my son-in-law and an internet marketing expert, was holding in Cheshire in mid November 2009.  It was called The Art Of Blogging For Business. As I did not have a clue what blogging entailed I thought that this might be a good start and went along hoping to learn something.  What I got was something else, far above my expectations.  Mark spoke for six hours only broken up by an hour from another really interesting guy and whereas a lot of it was above my head in terms of computer know-how, I grasped enough to make myself decide that this genre was for me.  I listened afterwards to the delegates talking amongst themselves and realized how much these professionals had got out of the day and I decided to take another step forward.  I approached Mark, informed him of my predicament, told him I was computer illiterate almost and surely I would need to go on a course.

“”Nonsense” was the brave words he used, “just do it” he said and he called over one of his associates, Steve Wild, explained my case and within two days I was set up with a blog vehicle on which all I had to do was press a few buttons in a predetermined sequence and hey presto!  A blog.

Initially I was rather scared as I stared at the screen wondering what to write about and 19 words dribbled out of my brain and down my arm onto the blog.  I read, re-read and edited this mighty piece, pressed a button and there it was on the printed page.  How proud was I?  The following day 545 words splattered themselves onto the page and from there it just flowed.  What was a trickle very quickly became a torrent and I saw an increase in quality but I suppose a lot of that could be down to conceit.

However as I wrote I could hear Mark’s words ringing in my ears “do not underestimate the power of the blog, it is a serious tool” but little did I realize that only two weeks into my venture and quickly getting into my stride, I wrote a piece, an innocent piece I thought, and I was inundated with e-mails and comments on my blog page.  A lot of people thought I was libellous, the editor of the local paper, who had the grace to ring me and let me know said she would sue me the next time it happened.  People I had known for years stopped talking to me all because I had written the truth.

This onslaught knocked me back considerably, I had never known anything so immediate and so powerful.  My style suffered as a result and the following days blog output was anodyne to say the least.  However buoyed up by encouragement from various quarters I continued my merry way but in a more watchful and circumspect manner and slowly cranked myself up to my present “tell it as it is” state.  I can honestly say I have never come across a more potent tool of communication than a blog.  I was not prepared for the onslaught although Mark had told me of the weirdos out there.  He had been attacked for months by certain individuals whose only motive was jealousy and whose only aim was disruption and now, don’t I know it, but let us soldier on and f… the begrudgers!

If any reader wants to follow my trail of self immolation, just refer back to my previous blogs on the subject, namely  Blogging On written on 9 December 2009, Keep Writing of the 18 December 2009 and The Importance Of Blogs of the 12 January 2010.  Happy writing, make it good, but do not be vindictive for the sake of it.

In  Blogging On submitted on 9 December 2009,  I explained that I initially persuaded myself I was doing this blogging to better my ability on the computer  and improve my writing skills, in as much as the discipline of churning out 1000 words plus almost daily would help me with construction and quality and also help  form a personalised style of writing.  My computer skills have not improved, I cannot fight my way out of a paper bag when it comes to using the tools provided on the screen,  because it relies on memory and has you go down the hill on the other side of life that particular gift of immediate memory becomes lost.  However I have now relaxed into a particular style; I suppose one could say it was light, emotional, cynical and humerous.  I have also conquered,  for the time being,  the discipline of writing 1000 words every day on whatever topic comes to mind.  At the moment, after 21 or 22 of these blogs,  I am not stuck for a subject, in that regard my religion has helped me considerably.  The quality of my writing is to subjective for me to consider, however practice must improve it, practice and reading.  The more you read the better to analyse the skills of the writer.  So I do both and hopefully will improve.  I do not, of course, aspire to be as good as my favourite wordsmith, the late John McGahern, who could paint a wonderful scene in a 100 words, which would take me 400 to write badly and never of course within a million miles of the quality of the Leitrim master.  As regards construction some blogs just fly off the pen and at the end make reasonable sense, whilst others have to have an amount of planning and prethinking.  I suppose it depends on the emotion and knowledge required as to how well the piece is fabricated.

All this daydreaming came about because yesterday evening I met a friend for a pint and a gossip and immediately he started buttering me up and telling me how much he enjoyed reading my journal and how he wished he could write because his head was bursting with ideas and thoughts he needed to relay.  Thoughts  I have noticed that have raised people’s ire sometimes, ill-considered and possibly immature, the truth perhaps, but often enough the truth is too direct for some.  Writing it all down gives you a buffer zone in which to consider the ill-considered.

I told him he was the ideal candidate, start blogging, spit it out, get people on their toes, make ‘em think.  He is in an occupation where something differs every five minutes, he would never be stuck for a subject.  He said no.  The thoughts in his head easily come to his tongue but not his pen.  I told him to relax, consider and slowly write it down, re-read and edit if he needed to, as it will have more power in the end.  But he still said no, he was worried about his spelling, his punctuation, his words, his only basic education.  In truth he lacked confidence.  So I think high up on the scale of things a writer needs confidence, besides the technical skills discussed.  Confidence to sit down alone, understand what you are thinking and put it down in a way that makes sense and you just hope somebody picks it up.

So all you people out there who care and get exasperated with the happenings of the world, get writing, the skills might or might not come but at least it is ordering your mind.

By the way, why is it that when you are your own editor you can read your own stuff 100 times and see that an improving change is needed every time.  It reminds me of trying to sharpen a knife that has lost its edge, it will always be blunt.  Whereas McGahern used to re-read, edit and rewrite 50 or 60 times before he was satisfied.  The difference being that every time he re-wrote, he improved the text until he eventually turned out a jewel.

I started writing this blog about ten days ago with the sole purpose in mind of improving my computer skills which were and still are fairly basic and practising my writing skills to give better construction and sense of articles of between 500 and 1000 words content.

I decided as a discipline to write about what effects me, on a daily basis.  This is difficult; journalists call it the daily grind, coughing up articles every morning.  My main interest was to try to buckle down to its discipline.  I had no real thought of  people reading them except for my family, who are the sternest critics.  Imagine my surprise when I started receiving e-mails advising and directing me as to content.  Two or three of these unwanted missives appeared before the blog was many days old, so it appears that instead of three or four family members keeping me on the straight and narrow, I now have six or seven avid fans criticising the hell out of me.  One from the address in England calling me the devil incarnate for actually writing the piece Once a Catholic.

So I say to all you good guys out there who know they can put the world to rights.  Start a blog, vent your spleen, do not come bothering me.  Put up on the screen in words of more than one syllable the things that twang on your heart strings.  It is great practise and will certainly give great discipline to your mind, which will, as time goes by, make you really understand the power of the blog.

In two weeks I have started to understand this power and although all power needs harnessing (ask the ESB in the Shannon System) you should not reign your writing back to the extent that the horse stops.  Let it have meaning and expression and especially soul, do not be afraid of telling it how it is.  Spill the beans, get it off your chest, cough it up and above all be truthful.  Do not hide behind nicety and neutrality, go as your mind directs and be man or woman enough to withstand the blows and above all believe in its power.  After all why should a man in England, judging by the tone of his e-mail. get upset about something I wrote in Roscommon and why should he bother his arse replying to somebody he considers to be a crackpot. I read pretentious unthought out drivel every day in the newspapers and in blogs but it does not drive me to respond but that might tell you more about my indolent self than it does about the quality of what I read.

So fight the good fight, publish and be damned, tell the truth as you see it, f… the begrudgers and do not expect to have a friend in this world.

This to me is a totally new and exciting medium to record my diurnal or bidiurnal thoughts. A diary without boundary, a chronicle without necessarily the need for chronology. I am looking forward to it so much, for its width and its power.

After two days of practice I have now to seriously put pen to paper or should I say digit to key. I have just found out that I am on Mark Attwood‘s Blogroll, so the complexities of the system will slowly unfold while I for the moment concentrate on style and the shift key. My expertise on the keyboard is not great even though I have typed out laboriously my 400 page memoir with one finger which is slowly being pushed into my wrist.

By the way Mark Attwood is an Internet Marketeer and SEO Expert par excellence as well as being lucky enough to be my son-in-law and I am lucky enough to be joined on his Blogroll by Drayton Bird, possibly the most famous marketing expert in the world who is also lucky enough to be born in Ashton under Lyne where my father went to school, by Katy Attwood who is priviledged to be my daughter and mother of three and a half Attwood children, by Ken McCarthy, an American, and also by a chap called Vince Samios who is misplaced ambition personified, no doubt emanating from the fact that he is Australian. I thought that they were only good at cricket and serving penal servitude.

In this exalted company I am expected to shine. So here goes.

I have just finished reading the main works of Diana Athill, a woman of 92 years  who did not start to write with energy until past her 80th birthday. Her work is mainly in Memoir form and so real and honest, you imagine you are living her life for her. As a fan of the memoir genre I find my own pitiable attempts need to be drastically rewritten for them to be half as interesting as her writing is to the reader. She has reached massive new heights in the content and presentation of this style of prose.

Her only claims to fame were that she loved to read, loved to love and loved the art of procrastination. Which is probably why she has lived to her ripe old age without too much trouble. Her titles are:- “Yesterday Morning”, “Instead of a Letter”, “Stet”, “After a Funeral”, “Make Believe” and “Somewhere Towards the End” and a novel  “Dont Look at Me Like That”, which I have not yet read. All it seems can be bought on Amazon for next to nothing. However her compendium edition “Life Class” just recently published with a forward by Ian Jack costs a few pounds more. Start reading, start loving and procrastinating and live to whatever age you want.

Here’s an interview with Diana in case you’re interested:

So I sign off with the thought that it looks like the hand of God has reached out and accomplished more than King Canute ever did. The waters of Boyle seem to have stopped rising just as they started lapping at my gateway.