Title
Stop Writing, Fool
by
Arthur A Perkins
A Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 - Arthur A Perkins
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AAP
arthurperkins@btinternet.com
Memoir of a Tree Waster
Stop Writing, Fool
by
Arthur A Perkins
My motives in telling this tale are purer than white. If I can persuade somebody to give up writing as I go along, then my living will not be in vain. So, without further ado, I begin my story long, long ago. And if I had known then what I know now, I would have consulted an addiction therapist and taken up a profitable hobby.
At the age of 22, I received my first rejection. It resulted from a competition in the Manchester Evening News. They wanted cartoons based upon the festive season. My entry needed to be very simple because I was no kind of artist. So, I had these two hot-water bottles hanging up on the kitchen door and one was saying to the other: 'Brrr, it’ll be cold underfoot tonight.' Rejection, though unconfirmed, was implied by the non-arrival of the prize, a twenty-pound turkey. With the benefit of hindsight, far better if that short, perfect caption had terminated my literary career.
Twenty years went by without further literary temptation. Then a colleague at work mentioned a current short story competition at BBC Television. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed when I produced 5,000 words about a nuclear site worker who kept a ledger to record any minor offence against himself (debit) and his subsequent revenge (credit). Off went my story into the ether, never to be heard of again. Maybe I should have taken note of this second hint or stuck with cartoons.
Unfortunately, from that short tale, I caught a heavy dose of the writing virus which laid me low for the next ten years. Aspiring authors who read this tale will know how it goes. We wake up in the night and stumble out of bed to scribble a few notes. Or we rise at dawn to put in a couple of hours before work. In the meantime, our wives are neglected, needing an appointment to share a conversation. And God help the kids if they interrupt the important writer’s literary flow. As for the dog, best if I say no more on that subject.