Blogging For Beginners. Lesson Eighteen

Imagine your readers They’re real people.

Who’d want to read a book written by me ? Not just read, but enjoy ? Lots of people, I hope. Thousands ? Why not ? Where to begin ? Is there a magic formula, something to learn at a creative writing class ? There aren’t many core stories. The suggested seven seems too prescriptive. Cassie’s journey includes aspects of both the rebirth theme and the long voyage too , but neither of those themes were part of a master plan. Is she going There and Back Again, or finding her own new world ? Rags to Riches ? Depends what you mean by riches. Cassie develops her own ideas about this..

Hideous life events ? No use trying to make any sense of them. I didn’t try to make sense of Cassie’s devastating loss, the death of her weeks old baby in a road accident. Two of my younger cousins died in a road accident, when the family car was shunted. How did we all feel ? Even now, the memory’s painful. When I was ten, one grandmother was killed in a hit and run accident. Four years later, my other gran, who’d cared for me from birth, survived a public transport accident, but her horrific injuries were life changing. Loving, caring, constantly working for others, she was in a coma for months came back to us so slowly, even her speech damaged. Bravely, aged sixty three, she learned to walk again, grew strong enough to sit at her piano, play at last. Music gave her a voice.

Two special friends were missing from our wedding, For a pre-covid event, this was definitely low key, one of us only just back in work, the other half-way through a one year contract. No bank-breaking extravagance. No three day event, no Friday evening hog roast, no Sunday morning communal hangovers either. Two very small bridesmaids wore non-matching pink frocks, their choice, or rather, their mothers. (40C wash, could be worn again) The real stars ? (not us) Two even smaller tots, still in nappies, so not bridesmaids, ran about under their mothers’ hats. Friends took the photos. It snowed. Persuading everyone outside for a photo was cruel. That’s when we realised our wonderful friends were missing. No apology, no message of any kind ? Not like them … What was wrong ? Back from honeymoon, ( two nights, it snowed, we love snow) the news was heartbreaking. On holiday in France, their young sons had been killed, on their bikes. Unbearable. How does anyone go on living ?

Now, across the world, people live in everyday fear of an illness that might be trivial for most, might kill – but who ? Post M.Sc, my job in epidemiology involved writing the text of NHS public health information, translating data into a clear message. Too hard hitting ? Sometimes, our boss had to restrain us, warn us off too much reality.

Now back to Cassie Rejected by her partner, then losing her weeks old baby in a road accident, Cassie’s facing the loss of her surviving child. Her ex and his pregnant girlfriend, apply for custody, aka a residence order, because Cassie would be a single parent . Aspects of her lifestyle could harm her daughter. Supposedly an activist, she’s been targeted by social workers, checking up on reported bruises too. Cassie’s lifestyle ? Unfit mother ? Not drugs, not alcohol, nothing illegal, just anti-war. The nursery school confirms that a recent injury was nothing to do with Cassie, she wasn’t there, it happened in the playground.

Aspects of her lifestyle ? Pangloss to Cassie’s Candide, (my desert island book*) her lawyer friend Anna is furious, knows how these cases work. .

Anna was biting her lip, so hard, she’d pierced flesh, drawn blood. Anger barely contained, she said,‘ Aspects of your lifestyle. You do realise how serious this is ? Yes, I know, you’re not keen on nukes. Silent vigil for Hiroshima. Writing in all the wrong papers. On the page, they can make it sound more like ISIS. Mark will have all kinds of useful friends. You’ve been seen, far too often.’

The wrong papers ? Which ones ? No names, but in any country, some papers are more patriotic than others, especially in Brexit Britain. Watch, near a supermarket news stand, as people pick up their chosen opinions. All you need to know ? Where does prejudice begin, become racism, anti-Semitism ?

Cassie shuddered, suddenly afraid…‘ Peaceful protest. No arrest. Not even moved on. No confrontation, not from us. Last summer – last year I mean, one man was pretty horrible. Stormed at me.. ‘ People like you are destroying this country.’

Anna knows something Cassie hasn’t picked up…

‘ I know. You told me all about it.. Don’t you know who that was ?’

night ‘ Of course not.. Angry little man in the street. ’

‘ That was angry little Patrick Blake. Felicity’s father. Head of HBG systems. CEO, I mean, People like you really annoy him. Now will you listen ?

Felicity Blake ? The woman Cassie’s partner plans to marry ?

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* Desert Island book ? Why not Marcus Aurelius ? Alone in the world, I’d need to laugh. And hope for Voltaire as Friday.