All the fighting and swearing in London classrooms hadn't prepared me for a culture where homework was done on time and the worst form of misbehaviour was falling asleep in the back row.

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Writing is, by its nature, a lonely business. There may be the odd freak of nature who can tap happily away on their laptop in a crowded cafe with half a dozen strangers peering gormlessly over their shoulder, but for most of us, quiet and solitude is essential. For me, certainly, it's all part of getting inside the heads of my characters; to "become" them, I have to forget that I have a life outside of them, and create a vacuum for myself. It's a strange, internal process, but one which most of us perform without even thinking about it. There's only one problem: if you manage to get published, you have to start sharing your work with the world. But that's what we want, I hear you cry. Of course. I totally agree. Let thousands of people read my novel, if they so desire (and I hope they do) - in the comfort of their own homes, on the Tube, in the bath, wherever takes their fancy... as long as I don't have to read it to them.



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Anyone wishing to join me on Facebook can do so here. There are links to the e-zines with my stories there and other info etc. Share the love!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/edit/?id=50130108745#/pages/JwBennett/50130108745


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Like stirring from an afternoon nap and finding yourself in a coffin at your own funeral, I was somewhat discombobulated by the receipt today of a rash of ‘meeting cancellation’ e-mails. Unlike waking up from the dead at the point of interment - which one assumes would generally be regarded as good news, albeit disturbing to onlookers – the messages today were like that of a depressed fortune teller who can see only dark clouds gathering atop a backdrop of carrion crows.

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My poem, A Lapse in Concentration is now online at The Pygmy Giant.[link ...]

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This is the title of the book I have been working on. The book is a true to life story and follows the experiences of myself and the men I served with whilst I was deployed on a six months Operational tour of duty in the summer of 1991 in West Belfast. I have always been put of writing this book as there are so many books covering military actions by the SAS and Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan which tend to blot out what happened in Northern Ireland.

What makes this book different form the majority of other military books in this category, is I do deliver a real soldiers account, this story is not a political one I am writing it truthfully about my experiences not just fighting terrorism but battling fatigue, mismanagement, and our living conditions, I also wanted to highlight what affects a failing system had on us all when we returned back home in the November of that year.

This is a trench talking account of a Platoon of men brought together for a six month operational tour, it tells the tale of laughing through the face of adversity, this story shares some moments of complete sadness and heart stopping adrenaline pumping excitement and explains how me and my brother both Corporals serving in the same regiment were nearly killed in separate terrorist attacks in the same week.

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Personally I think the snow brings out the kid in most of us. There is still something of a thrill in seeing your own footprints in virgin snow and there are plenty of smiley snow-people beaming at passers-by from front gardens. And of course I just had to take some photographs of our snow-covered garden and neighbourhood. It looks so pretty and it has this knack of bringing out the community spirit in everyone, with neighbours all waving at one another where, more often than not, we are all generally too busy getting on with our lives to even notice each other.

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I was asked by the lovely folks here at Strictly Writing to write ‘some-thing a bit different’ for them. And as, over the past few months, they’re not the only ones who’ve called my writing (or me!) a bit different I realised I had my topic. So, this is a little piece about me, and about being different.

I’m a writer. I don’t work normal hours, I’m not on a salary, I don’t have a degree, so I reckon that does make me a little different to others. And it’s not an easy ride. I have the grumpiest, and most demanding, boss in the world, I have to work harder and longer than I’d like to and everything I do is down to me. So I’m inventing work every day. Constantly making things up. Other people would get sacked for that; I get paid. If I’m lucky.



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I felt it welling up this morning, although the dire coffee shortage seemed as though it might hamper things. I got dressed - already an accomplishment, already making this day different from the days of the previous month - and went out and bought some. It's sunny outside, it's hot. It's February, no wonder the plants are completely confused. Photos of snow in the UK, and here I was boiling in my cardigan.

I made the coffee, sat outside to drink it, and the welling up became stronger and stronger. With the half-drunk cup, I went back inside and fired up the laptop. The desktop is already on but its purpose is different. The laptop is for fiction. I started something, a new version of a very very old story I haven't found a way to tell yet....

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R, like me, just likes sitting in the warm darkess for a couple of hours. It's a kind of addiction, or folie a deux, without too many dangerous side-effects.

(sorry, you have to trawl down through the last entry to get to this latest posting. I don't know why.)

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