Leaving The Politics Out.

A while back I found a list of short story competitions; more often than not they come with a theme, as this one did. I responded to the theme and decided to go for a horror genre. That’s horror in the loosest sense of the word.

Though I knew there was much wrong with the first draft, I still felt I had something. I sent the story to Mum and Dad for feedback: it was too long, meandering and about too many things.

I am now on the third draft, and having introduced a Doctor character I feel things are improving. Incidentally I have now missed the deadline for entry. The problem with the story is that I want it to be about many things. My story is about a single mother journalist investigating the suicides of three teenage girls. There is a story behind the suicides, and this is where the genre of Supernatural Horror comes in, but the bigger story is about how these suicides affect the journalist and her son. If it wasn't about many things it would end up being about nothing.

Whilst crafting this short story I have also been pondering the structure of a lecture I am soon to give on Personal Branding and Identity. When it comes to PR I am personally doing it all wrong. According to the PR people I most definitely should Not be filling my twitter feed with political statements and pleas that Lord Grenville Janner be brought to trial. Please sign the petition which you can find here.

Attempting Brand Identity

In PR terms, I should have a clear identity: Dark Fiction. Ideally I should have a defined image; this is mostly based on my hair. I should blog regularly (top marks there then) yet I suppose I should be blogging about Dark Fictional things, which I don’t. This is because as stated in a previous blog post “Which Me is Me.” I am not a character in a piece of fiction with clear motivations; I am a character with motivations that are often contradictory and difficult for others to understand.

My politics, my atheism, my being a mother, a lecturer and a writer are all massively intertwined.

So when I read a twitter post to a young singer song writer suggesting she “stick to music and keep the politics out of it.” I wondered what kind of music she would make if she left the politics out of it. What kind of songs would she write if part of her belief system was exempt? What stories would writers tell? In the end you would create art about one thing, when of course art is about many things and how they intertwine.