Thursday 13 August 2009

Silence is golden... as long as it’s not forever Mr Williams.

I’ve been silent for a while – so what?
Ok that’s a bit of a rude way to start a blog, but I was thinking this morning about why I haven’t written anything for a while and the simple answer is – I haven’t had anything to say!
I know I know, if you have a blog write something regularly and all that or people will get bored and not come back. But if you’ve nothing to say, then why bother saying anything at all?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people adhered to this rule in real life? Those people that always feel they need to fill the silent moments with the sound of their own voices for instance?
I’m the type of person who if you meet me in the doctor’s surgery and say “How are you?” I’ll say “I’m fine thanks,’ even if my arm’s severed at the shoulder, hanging on by a thread and blood’s pouring out of my wound at a gallon a minute.
But my mistake comes when I say ‘And how are you?’ and my questioner will then begin a very detailed account of how her piles are playing up so badly that she can’t sit down for more than a few minutes at a time, this makes eating a problem for her, so has in turn set off her irritable bowel syndrome giving her excruciating stomach cramps, which then jarred the trapped nerve in her back last night... you get the picture.
I think you know you’re truly comfortable in someone else’s company when you can sit in a companionable silence with them. Whether that’s a boyfriend or a best friend. If an occasional lull in a conversation feels awkward and you feel a need to desperately fill it, then you’re either not truly comfortable with that person or you’re one of those horrific people that just like the sound of their own voice.
Here’s a thought - what’s worse when you go out for a meal?
The sound of someone’s voice constantly being heard over everyone else’s in the restaurant as they jabber on under the illusion that their life is so interesting that everyone else needs to know about it. Or one of those couples that sits at a table and hardly speaks to each other all evening. Not because they’ve had an argument, but because they’ve known each other so long they’ve run out of things to say to one another.
Both are equally sad, but in different ways.
Personally I love the sound of silence – when I’m on my own. These days I rarely have the TV or the radio on in those glorious few hours when the house is empty in the day and my family is out. I know many people who spend a lot of time at home on their own feel lonely, and those external sources provide much needed company for them. But not me, I revel in the quiet. It’s thinking time. Writing time. Or both.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my music, but music is there for other things - to motivate or to relax. A lot of writers write to music, I’ve tried this, but don’t get on with it, it’s too distracting. It has to be total silence or nothing for me.
So to me silence is definitely golden...
Talking of music Robbie’s back!
Yes apparently Mr Williams will have a new album out in October, and by the look of this video he’s shaping up quite well...
Just hope the music matches the new look Robbie ;-)
What else is new?
Still chasing around after a publisher for From Notting Hill with Love...actually. We’re subbing to the US and well as the UK now which is quite exciting, if equally as slow!
The annoying thing is I have so many ideas of how to promote this book WHEN it’s eventually published, that the marketing department of whichever publisher is eventually cleverest to take it on will love me!! ;-) Surprisingly authors have to organise quite a lot of their own promotion when their novels are published, unless you’re someone such as Mr Rankin or Miss Rowling...
But I’ve got loads of ideas in place already *publishers if you’re reading this take note!* you’ll love me honestly you will :-)
But until that time I keep plugging on with my new novel, which I’m pleased to say is coming on very well just now. As a recent status update on Facebook noted:
Ali McNamara is liking how fishing - so incredibly boring before, suddenly becomes sexy when you write a scene in your new novel about fishing off the west coast of Ireland with a handsome Irish chappie ;-)

Until the next time,
A x