Writing has been a strange journey for me. I’m a working man, an engineer to be precise, who has never been much of a scholar. Consequently, writing has also been a learning process.
I began writing in the 1990’s. At the time I was a working musician, an entertainer in the Yorkshire social clubs. I wondered if I could write a story, so I began writing in dressing rooms, quite literally on what bits of paper I could find.
Eventually, I had the basis of a story, called ‘Of Biblical Proportions’. I still have all the paper draughts, even today. I managed to get hold of an old laptop computer. They weren’t as readily available then. It wasn’t a good one, but it had a basic word processor. and I used the computer to type up the story from my notes.
I must be honest, I blew hot and cold with the project. The story was all over the place, lots of repeated ideas, a desperate lack of continuity. It seemed like a monumental task.
Over the following years I persevered until I got it somewhere close to readable, though a country mile from being publishable. I asked a couple of people to read it and the feedback was sort of on the line of… ‘well at least you’ve tried’
I left it alone for ages.
Then a few years later, I decided to have another read through. I did some research, bulked it out with additional detail, and edited it through several times. I knew it still needed work but I was actually pleased with my efforts. I liked the story and thought I’d written it quite well. So I decided to try and get published…
I’ll pick up from there another day.
Have a great day
Darren Cleave
The Book of Quantism 