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Welcome to my website
Email: wightwrite@btinternet.com
The Best Addiction
Writers are neither born nor made ... They are the product of their own imaginations whose adrenaline runs faster than the pen. They are addicted to book, or short story, or biography, article, screenplay of play script. They live in two worlds, the real world and the mind. They are artists to the core ...
Seldom have I met anyone without a need to write. Most will say something like: "If I could write a book about my life, nobody would believe it." Does it matter? Writing is a creation, a need to express oneself, whether that be fact or fiction. Whatever one writes, that is a reflection of the writer, giving the reader a glimpse into the mind of the author.
In 2000, I had a breakdown, and although I had once had a profession in journalism, I discovered creative writing during rehabilitation. From that point on, I just wanted to write. Rejection upon rejection later from publishers, agents and TV, I still want to do nothing but write.
However, writing is "an addiction without a cure," according to the BBC. It is also a discipline. Some novelists, for instance, dedicate specific time each day to writing. Even if they are suffering writer's block, they will sit in front on their computer with a blank screen until they write something, some gibberish, and before long the mind is tuning into sentences and the sentences start to weave a story.
I'm not like that. I write when the muse hits me. My danger is wanting to rush into print - a hangover from early days in journalism, working against the clock. Now I have had to learn patience. Write, leave, forget and come back later to the work with a fresh mind. There are always changes to be made that polish the story, hone it into something better, and finally be presentable for public exposure, even if the editors and publishers reject it. Still it is your valuable work. Someone, somewhere, will appreciate it.
So switch on your laptop, or dust off the typewriter, or just take out your pen and WRITE.
About Me
Born 13th October 1945 (Libran) in Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom - British nationality; Educated in South Africa and Rhodesia (1948-1963) and in England; B.Sc (Hons) LL.M from Keele University; Educated in South Africa and Rhodesia (1948-1963) and in EnglandMarried Je annette Margaret Anne Mitchell at St Bride's, Fleet Street, on 19th September 1981; one daughter Andrea Michelle Keeler (Actress), born 8th February1984. .
Picture: Daily Telegraph 1988 (by Anthony Marshall)
It was never my intention to become a journalist, yet for nearly 20 years of my professional life, that was my fate. Really I had wanted to be an Anglican priest, but after failing my second year of a BA Divinity degree at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, incredibly I was offered the post of editor of the local newspaper, Grocott's Mail. My aim had been to return to complete my degree some years later, but that never happened.
I progressed from Grahamstown to Industrial Reporter on the Natal Mercury in Durban, production sub-editor on the Financial Mail in Joahannesburg, to ultimately a sub-editor on The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph in London.
In 1988, with my wife's support, I enrolled at Keele University in Newcastle-under-Lyme where I obtained a first degree in computer science and law, and then a Master's degree in European, International and comparative law.
My ambitionEducated in South Africa and Rhodesia (1948-1963) and in England had been to read for the Bar, and to this day I am still a student member of Lincoln's Inn. Instead I became first a law lecturer and later a lecturer in computer science and law, with a three-year break in between working for a software reseller company.
After 2000, I had to retire from work as my health gradually broke down. We moved as a family to Freshwater on the Isle of Wight where Jeannette and I have a happy retirement together after 30 years of blissful marriage.