Monday 4 October 2021

Google have just advised me of a seeming unauthorised attempt to get into my account. This has jogged my mind yet again to let readers know what has been happening in my writing journey since my last blog post on 9 August 2020.

My prediction then that Covid like Wild Swans was only 45% through may not have been far out. I dread to think what might have been the position without vaccines. I am about to get my third jab as a booster. We know more people who have caught CV after being jabbed than we did before vaccinations started.

After I completed a draft of my book about the National Institute for Medical Research Building in Mill Hill London, which was demolished in 2018, there were a couple of outstanding issues. I needed to follow the progress on the replacement housing including a new high main block similar in form to that demolished. I understand this will be the last building constructed and a start is planned for early in 2022. I also needed to find pictures of the construction of the shell of the original building from 1938 to 1941 to find out what building methods were employed. Although I have not yet found any pictures I have found a substantial amount of detail on possible methods as used on similar buildings of the time and have received some expert views.  I have someone who can draw a picture of what the building may have looked like under construction and will include this in a later blog.

Over the last fourteen months I have collected an enormous amount of information and news and views on both changes to planet Earth and Covid for books I had in mind to prepare. At present I have not the energy to progress either of these draft books. What is clear is the future world post Covid and living with climate and environmental change is going to be different to the world of 2019.

Carrying on my aim of writing and reading for pleasure I have been writing one off short stories which may lead to some competition entries. Writing short stories to word limits is quite interesting and challenging. I continue to use my Stylewriter software.

My eyesight has worsened so I am reading far less than I used to. I always felt that sight was my most precious sense and a frightening and temporary loss of clear sight last June as a side effect of taking Digoxin for a health condition underlined this view. 

I am also detaching my writing from the family business BTMF Limited which I am closing and transferring it to the family while I am well enough to do so. I am still open to discussions with a third-party to take on some of my writing with a view to publishing.

I repeat what I said at the end of my last post - I wish you as writers, readers or publishers all the best in your efforts. Enjoy yourselves, have fun and take care in these strange times.

Douglas Burcham

Events since May 2019

 

In June 2019 I managed to complete a 166 page draft book on the NIMR Building a copy of which has been deposited in the Wellcome Library, opposite Euston Station. This to allow anyone else interested in the history of the building to make a good start on further research. Also copies have been given to those people who helped me most. Since then further searching has produced more information. Key missing data includes a lack of pictures on the original construction after ground and first floors of the building, including the type and number of cranes used. I hope somewhere there are photos in a snapshot album which may be brought to my attention.

 

Late in 2019 I set out to try to write a further non-fiction book on Planet Earth which has been my home for over 70 years. This is being written to help my understanding of climate change pollution and other issues facing the world in the future. On climate change there appears to be little middle ground in the debate. I have bought various books stating the case for and against and I have found the reviews for these books on Amazon are very polarised either 5 or 1 star.

 

In February 2020 I stopped work on this draft book in favour of trying to record history as it happens on the Coronavirus pandemic. Unlike reading fiction one cannot go to the last page of the book to find out what happens.

I am comparing the effects of the pandemic to the book Wild Swans where as one turned the pages I kept saying to myself it cannot get any worse. It did! From March to 2020 to August 2020 I reckon the world is about 45% through Wild Swans.

 

In June 2020 ten years after I started writing I wrote my last post on fiction writing on the TIPM website as link below. I may do a further post in January or June 2021 recording my progress on my CV book.

Overall I found fiction easy to write from 2010 to 2019. Non-fiction is much more difficult with various practical issues. On the NIMR building looking back into the past scarcity of information was a problem although most of what I found was true. On Planet Earth and Coronavirus there is far too much information and deciding what is relevant, true or false now and likely to be so in the future is a material problem. The Coronavirus book writing is keeping me busy which is good in lockdown.

 

I wish you as writers, readers or publishers all the best in your efforts. Enjoy yourselves, have fun and take care in these strange times.

 

Douglas Burcham

 

http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2020/07/writing-and-reading-for-pleasure-july-2020-douglas-burcham.html

 

 

National Institute for Medical Research. The Ridgeway Mill Hill London

Construction start 1938. Sadly torn down for new housing in 2018.

The copper clad roof on the skyline called “The Lavatory Window view”  
in my home in the 1950s.

©MRC

Formal names.

• 'The National Institute for Medical Research' - NIMR - from 1937 to 2015
• ‘The Francis Crick Institute – Mill Hill Laboratory’ From 1 April 2015 for a short period to its vacation and move to the Francis Crick Institute in Camden by the end of 2016.

Other names have included.

•  ‘The Mill Hill Depot’ or ‘HMS Pembroke’ when occupied by the WRNS from 1942 to 1946.

•  ‘Dales Folly’ by those who did not agree with the move from Hampstead to Mill Hill in 1950. This after Sir Henry Dale the NIMR Director from 1928 to 1942.     

•   Nikolaus Pevsner rather insultingly called the building a ‘bulky, brown brick colossus.'

• The original 'cruciform property and sprawl of industrial boxed buildings' should never have been allowed in first place. Recent comment by a Mill Hill resident.

Since the middle of February 2019 I have been collecting pictures and stories about the building structure as an obituary and scrap-book because I would be sad if the building were forgotten. There are several publications about the people and their achievements, including the excellent MRC book recording the 100 years of NIMR. So I do not want to duplicate these.

I have a number of pictures from the time of its opening in 1950 and post vacation in 2016 but few in-between. Any photos taken during its construction from 1938 to 1940 and while occupied by the WRNS would be welcome.

I know at least one other person who has catalogued the building’s history. Several have written webposts. I would like to make contact with any others or people who worked there who have views on the building design as a place in which to work.

To make contact just use comment below or email - Alexander@allrighters.com. Thanks.

Welcome to the fantasy home of the Allrighters

Why continue with this web site?

While trying in February and March 2019 to put together eighty years of history into a book about the now demolished National Institute for Medical Research Building in Mill Hill London the fickle nature of the internet became apparent. Even over a few weeks historical research information on sites came and went with much being un-archived. All the time I speculated whether others were also travelling the same road with each of us unaware of our existence. I found one person and am sure there are more.

Also I wondered if there might be out there in the ether someone who enjoys self publishing but struggles with writing who might want to discuss taking on some of the Allrighters million draft words of fantasy fiction and publish them.

Two long shots, but thinking as my self publisher Duncan - if you do not tell people of your hopes they will not know you exist. We are but an email away.

This site was originally set up in 2013 at about the same time as the Allrighters first book Ywnwab! – You Will Never Write A Book was being prepared for publication with contributions from other authors.

During the last couple of weeks the landing page has been redesigned to reflect the results of making a start to writing. Apart from a six monthly update this page will remain static. The action will take place on this blog page. 

There are links to this Writing and Reading for Pleasure Blog and also to the old pages as an Archive. Only the first page of the archive has been updated. On the other pages some web sites are no longer accessible as mentioned in the first sentence above.

Enjoy our blog posts ...

 

2019 Reflections

In a month's time I will have been writing for nine years which despite various ups and downs has overall all been an enjoyable and rewarding experience.

I see my last blog post was nearly two years ago.

Just because there appears to be no activity on the surface does not mean nothing has been happening. Like a duck much has been happening out of sight in trying to bring all my writing of over a million words in over a dozen books up to manuscript proof stage.

Earlier this year 2019 I thought I would close my blog and web site down in July 2019 but during the last few weeks I decided I would give the site another two years life. This goes past the June 2020 date when I will have been a writer for ten years when I thought I may put down my pen for good. I tend to get involved in leisure activities for about five years when I get bored and move onto new activities. Perhaps writing is different and in any case there is nothing yet on the horizon to take its place ... except aging and the footsteps of the Grim Reaper getting closer behind me.

The nine years since 1 June 2010 seem to have flashed by.  Each year has produced its share of navigation adjustments.

From June 2010. I started writing in the belief I could learn by doing. By accident I had got over the big hurdle of making a start which stops other potential writers, no doubt because I like Goethe's idea about making a beginning when doors will then open.
 
After a month an old friend said acidly, "You will never write a book." Looking back now this probably provided an enormous spur to prove her wrong. When a child when asked at a family gathering what I wanted to be when I grew up I said a scientist. An aunt fixated "by one's station in life" said I was too big for my boots. Again looking back nearly seventy years later I feel this again sowed a seed of rebellion for me to make more of my life than others in earlier generations. Circumstances were different as they had come through two world wars and a depression. But as promised in the Festival of Britain 1951 life was going to be better with more opportunities, and yes I have made my own luck on the way.

By the end of 2010 I had written 100k of unusual modern fantasy fiction in "my way," towards my million words in three yeras target. I then set about reading the Teach Yourself book my daughter had given me about writing in July. To 2010 although I had read more nonfiction than fiction the story-books I enjoyed told straight forward stories and there was not much "show not tell,"  or "three act structures." I could not understand why editors and publishers would want to rewrite "my" stories to make them "their" stories.

In 2011 I sensed that I needed to test the water and engaged two editors, selectred as they would not try to make my book their book, to comment on my first book - GEMINI. They both said my book was unusual and I had broken many "rules of the literary world!" If I had interpreted this "as do not bother," I could have stopped than. As I did not have a very high opinion of the literary world bracketting them with my aunt resting at her station I carried on.

By January 2014 I completed a million draft words. This seven months later than planned. The reason for this  being during 2012 and 2013 I did try very had to "write as one is supposed to write" and in reading too many blogs written by those who knew how to write. The penny did drop in the end that many of them had either not written many books nor if they had did the reviews match there advice.  The two shining exceptions being Stephen King in his "On Writing" book and John Braine's similar "How to write a novel"

In May and June 2013 I put together a small story-book titled "Ywnwab!" - You will never write a book - to go on sale at the Tenby Festival and Penfro book fair in September. In July and August I went through the tedious and painful process of preparing the book for printing in hard copy and ebook by York Publishing. Of course they knew and were experts at what they were doing and I as usual was learning by doing. The printed producy was excellent despite my text not being up to the same standard. I sold a few and gave away many but as I had not ordered many I have not been left with a garage full of unsold books.

In 2015 and 2016 I struggled to make progress in turning my million words into final books. My target of writing 1000 words a day to complete my million words was a great success. I failed to find a similar driver for editing rewriting and completing. Over the six years my first book GEMINI had taken too much of my time and grown to over 400k words and been broken down into 20k chunks before ending up as a trilogy. During this period I also decided I would write and read for pleasure and not bother about marketing and selling any books. I started using Autocrit which proved a great help and decided on my writing style as present active. I 2016 I did a few hours writing consultancy on a book conversion.

During 2017 I started writing a monthly blog for TIPM and did so for a year before reducing the contributions to twice a year. I also gave up reading many web sites where the same content was coming around again. My reading words also dropped sharply as most attention was given to completing books now using Style Writer for self editing. Late in 2017 I discovered Dox direct and managed to learn the uploading process for main text and covers. By the end of 2018 I had over a dozen books printed up in A5 format including the Original GEMINI of 2011 ans a second edition of Ywnwab! in A5.

In 2019 I expected to carry on  with the remaining fantasy fiction books. However for the first six weeks of the year the housework and repairs neglected for the previous eight years caught up with me. Then I have spent the last two months working on a non-fiction work about the NIMR building in Mill Hill London. This involved much research building on work done in the early 1980s on a project essay. This showed me how fickle the internet can be on retaining history and also getting people with information to share ones own enthusiasm.

I have also reviewed the Allrighters web site. A new home page tracks what happened after I made a start in writing on 1 June 2010. The results, a précis of this post, show what is possible by writing a few new words everyday. The old site is retained as an unamended archive. I am having to remember how to write a blog. Since my last post Data Protection Law has changed.

Your privacy is respected. Allrighters will endeavour to treat any information held about you under Data Protection Law. You can ask what data is held, amend or delete it or opt out of receiving updates by contacting us at Alexander@allrighters.co.uk

Good writing and reading to you all.

Seven Month Update

I have made a new contribution to my "Writing and Reading For Pleasure" series on Mick Rooney's TIPM site for February 2017 as a  reflective post on happenings in the last seven moths.

When I started writing this post last Friday I should have been on the hospital operating table. A small procedure making me either into a "new grumpy old man" or  a frightening and fear filled start along a road to becoming a "bionic man" but instead the x-ray machine to progress the Asimov type procedure broke down. Totally unexpected, but it gave me a few hours to write a TIPM post and do other things on my long to do list. Fortunately I only have to wait another three weeks for them to try again.

I made my usual annual trip to France for two weeks at the end of June 2016 using the direct London Marseilles Eurostar to Lyon. Then various time-consuming local links to my remote destination. Despite being unwell while there, I had the reassurance of my host plugging me into the local emergency services just in case, which thankfully I did not need. I also managed to return home, albeit with the stress of various connections and having to exit the Eurostar and reboard at Lille for security all thanks to Osama Bin Laden. Apart from the Lille experience I recommend the Eurostar service and see it has been expanded from the twice a week service of last year.

While in France I surveyed the time I had available in my life and the various pressures. Since 2010 when I started writing essential activities, other than writing, had been crowded out. These now needed attention so I took the decision to restrict writing to a major push on self-editing my million words written between 2010 and 2014 and to drift my reading back to non-fiction. The casualties were keeping an active web presence and checking web advice and posts which were taking much scarce time at the expense of editing time. 

I also took sometime to filter all the advice I received and read about how to write since 2010. Reading some of my early stories I felt they were much fresher than more recent writing. I decided in my efforts to improve my writing I might have been squeezed into literary conformity by those giving advice. Many had not managed to write best-selling books or receive consistently high reviews in their own writing.

I have found my self-editing and limited external edits on my writing long and painful. As previously pointed out in earlier posts I am a learn by doing person. Being a writer is not a short-term activity. While reading the splendid autobiography of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland - Sky Fever - I chuckled at his bravery in trying to fly his first own design and built aircraft. When airborne he did not have enough time to learn how to exercise control before crashing and destroying the aircraft. Fortunately he survived to build and learn to control later aircraft by flying.  He did not copy the designs of other pioneers because he thought they were all feeling in the dark.

The main character in my long story-books, Henry Cross, believes in time travel and finds himself in much the same position as Sir Geoffrey. He has to learn how to control time travel once his journeys back into the past and into the future have started. Unlike the time travellers in H G Well's book Henry has managed to return to "go" so far.

Stephen King and many other authors I respect have a high regard for the craft of writing short stories. Taking this as a foundation stone I have gone back to my original approach of formatting my long story-books as collections of interlinked short stories, each with the following structure.

Fundamentally a good storyline, normally but not always with a beginning, middle and end. A good hook at the beginning to keep readers wondering. A memorable moment or moments, some titillation, a surprise and/ or a twist in the tail or both. A theme of LOOKING and SEEING runs through my writing and I have ordered books on the subject by the late John Berger to study and expand my own thoughts.

Both of the professional editors who examined my writing in 2011 remarked about my writing being "unusual". This could have been code for "rubbish" but if so I ignored their advice and ploughed on. I spent much time from November 2015 to May 2016 in composing a 5,000 word short story for a competition. I had looked at past entries and thought I could do as well or better. I did not get anywhere because I reflect the sifters of entries probably did not recognise the merit of my unusual fiction.  Later testing of the text with  editing software gave a high rating, at least the equivalent of recent and old speeches by our national leaders which I have also tested for fun. The editing software is much franker than my professional editors in describing less satisfactory text as "dreadful". I wish those editors had given me such advice but perhaps it is easier to accept such a comment from a machine than a human. Gary one of my professional editors says most people, over 50%, stop reading books because they get bored. As readers do not know what to expect from page to page of my writing I hope I can hook them in.

Since last June my decision to narrow my writing focus has borne fruit. I have at last cracked the tense I wish to use deciding on "predominately active present". This a means to move towards my hated mantra of "show not tell" in producing active rather than passive descriptions of events. The changes have been very time-consuming.

I have been helped by two features of the AUTOCRIT computer editing old system that is - pointing out passive text and overuse of words. The old system which processes text over the Internet crashed recently and I feared it would stay down, but it is up again. While AUTOCRIT was down I looked at other editing software packages. I have been evaluating STYLE EDITOR and find it good to use with a direct link to and from MSWord for editing. It would be even better if it included the over used word facility found in AUTOCRIT. I wonder what editing software other writers reading this post may use. Analysis of this post in draft signals an easy read rating but poor style and fair active writing and flow ratings. I will tune up before publishing. (My tune up now shows good text in style flow and active writing.) Any comments on the result would useful.

When I was writing towards a target of a million words an average daily writing target provided good discipline and pressure to write. I have failed to find a similar spur to completion in self-editing. This is because some sections of text are easy to bring up to a standard while others take many attempts. I am happy with my creativity expressed in the form and mix of my plotting with only a few matters where I have forgotten the plot. I am very pleased I did the million draft words in a continuous process rather than book by book. I amaze myself at some of the stories I have forgotten I had written. In various places I left chapter headings and notes for detailed writing later. A big mistake because I find I am struggling to complete these, perhaps because whatever the reason I could not originally is unchanged. I have not experienced writer's block in any other matter.

Since June 2016 I have managed to self-edit and bring text up to near publishing standard for over 300,000 words in my first long book trilogy. I have also found on my computers all but a couple of over 100 free-standing short stores and made them into another volume of nearly 100,000 words. The two lost stories are niggling me as they must be somewhere. Despite my good intents my computer filing is not as good as it needs to be for saving my writing. I am pleased my concentration of effort has been worthwhile.

May I wish all writers, readers and those considering publishing an interesting, enjoyable and productive year in 2017. I will stop now as I have gone past my target word count for the article. I have some more material to write a later post when I am a new grumpy old man.

Douglas

The state I'm in ...

Douglas continues his TIPM writing and reading for pleasure series for June 2016 with reflections on six years of writing and the future.

I woke this morning Wednesday 1 June 2016 at around 3.00am calm and fed up with my normal sleep patterns ruined by medication. Almost exactly six years ago, I woke in a cold sweat, while in France, fearful of those who were chasing me to death for something my parents or I had done in our lives. I started to compose a story and wrote it down as soon as first light came. I have not stopped writing stories since.

As I travel between restless sleep and dreams, I reflect on the last six years. The positives of writing a million draft words and creating structures for many story-books. The mind stimulation I enjoy in meeting other writers individually, in writer’s groups and at events and people in the book publication world. I also set up a web site for marketing my own writing and a local writing group.

I mull over my mixed feelings about devoting so much time during the last six years to the lonely activity of writing at the expense of keeping up to date with family administration, family relationships and maintenance of home, car and friendships.

I have a picture showing man’s ancestors coming out of the sea and rising to great stature only to sink back in bad postures in front of computers. My daughter says if I had not spent so much time in front of my computer I would not be in the state I am in today. I do not accept all her wise words and everything she says!

Although I have enjoyed the writing side of being a writer, the self-editing, publishing, marketing and other related tasks have proved less positive.

I dream of having many years to finish my books and to get involved in the hard world of publishing and marketing. I dream again of being a best selling writer and stalls on Reading Station full of my books and Ingram Spark distributing my books worldwide.

I wake up and in the cold light of day see my alarm clock showing 9.00am. Coldly I reflect on the reality of my current position. I have again like many previous nights been in bed for nine hours but only slept soundly for two at most. After getting up I can look forward to at most four hours of normal activity before a medication hangover catches up with me again for most of the afternoon when I often return to bed for more catch up sleep. Evenings are restless when my concentration levels are low - my normal bedtime reading for an hour or so is now down to more like ten minutes. TV is mostly unsatisfying and I will leave the decisions on the EU to my children who perhaps may not even vote.

A strange positive is my dreams are even more vivid than in the first five years of my writing career. When I wake at various times in the night, I scribble the scenes down. Then in the morning, I find I can write the stories up without reference to my notes. The act of scribbling seems to have fixed the content of the dreams in my mind and I quickly get on a roll. A good thing as the scribbling is usually hard to decipher.

I have travelled this path before in 2013 to 2015 but then I stopped taking  medication and soon felt my normal self and took natural substitutes. I said to my pharmacist I thought I was now taking serious and not optional medication and he said, “yes … you cannot stop taking these”.

When I exchanged e-mails with Jeffrey Archer in 2012 he said he was writing like mad before ill health over took him. Even though he is older than I am, he seems to be going strong while I may have fallen by the wayside.

A friend in his late sixties said to me he has made a list of things to do before he is 70. Based on my experience this seems a very good idea. I have been highly amused to peruse books listing 1000 things to read, view or travel to all over the world. The difficulty is that for the travelling one does need money that often only flows a little more freely later in life when it is too late. Perhaps children need to be given a list of a 1000 books to read when they are in their teens to stand any chance of reading a 1000, with new publishing substitutes, by the time they reach 70. I have probably read over 1000 books in my lifetime.

I am not too downcast, as I have managed to do most of the things I wanted to do in my life except those which are impractical or highly impossible. I have left my main character in my books, Henry Cross to do these – fly like a bird, play cricket for England, build a new house from scratch, travel in time, all with some spicy decadence … a la John Betjeman’s dying wishes.

My father died when he was 70 of exactly the condition I am suffering from so I am grateful for modern techniques and even the horrible medication in giving me some additional years. I have enjoyed a good family life, music, holidays and events. I look back with pleasure at having flown on Concorde, seen a SR71 Blackbird and a Lightning fighter flying. I have shared the powered glider controls of my now deceased friend who was very safe but I think may have been so concerned about losing his pilot’s licence he did not go to his doctor soon enough. I have sailed 10,000 nautical miles in all but one of the oceans of the world and travelled as a tourist around the world. I have driven a steam locomotive and travelled on the footplate of another as well as a diesel.

Faced with less time to devote to writing, some things have already gone or are going, any desire to publish, marketing, reading other people’s web and blog posts. Reading hard copy books is also much curtailed … so sorry Stephen King. On reflection, I have not read an e-book for well over a year and notice this may not be unique amongst readers. The slowness of my current reading is illustrated by my reading of a large volume of futuristic short stories by J G Ballard. All 1186 pages still only 82% through after a start in January. I would take this book to a desert island along with my eight discs - if I were ever asked.

Outside of keeping family life and friendships going, the one thing I want to do is to bring all my draft writing up to publishable standard but I fear this may be beyond me now unless I can work much smarter and stop raising the bar on standards. I will continue to beta read writing friend’s draft books, as this is mutually helpful to my own writing and theirs. If Mick is happy I will continue with this monthly post albeit it in less gloomy mode.

I may try to submit a couple of stories to competitions a year.

For those writers and others in good health and younger I would recommend based on my experience doing what you want to do in life and writing soon and do not put off.

New events and news outside my cocoon, which I have noticed, are:-

• An HMRC attempt to tax adult colouring books as incomplete books. I did not realise that “incomplete books” are taxable. (Or, how one is defined.)
• According to one book retailer, buying a book has become a means of reflecting our personalities as well as enjoying a good read. Ho, ho what’s new I ask?
• Children are being bribed or incentivised to read by parents … surely this is doomed to failure. As one commentator said rather than being able to define a lower sub plu-perfect particular clause or similar in a Stats test, being introduced to the first pages of several classic and current books may be more interesting and effective and light a fire of lifetime reading in children.

I am not sure what will be in my next TIPM post. Probably reflections of my usual annual time in France if we are both in good enough shape to travel - by the time I plan to go.

Douglas Burcham started writing on 1 June 2010 and self-published under the Allrighters’ name a story-book 'Ywnwab!' in September 2013. A million words of draft writing reached completion in January 2014 split between 900,000 words of fiction and 100,000 words of non-fiction. The latter being about writing and memories of buildings, trains, boats and planes. Since then slow progress continues to be made in the conversion of the draft words into final books ready for possible publishing as story-books under the Allrighters’ name.

For past TIPM posts see - Last post