Over the past twenty-five or thirty years, I've had (on average) at least one letter a year published in the UK national press; and, although I never set out to establish any records, I suspect that whatever success-rate I may have achieved was probably due to the fact that I've tended to submit short letters - thus making them useful as space-fillers rather than for any journalistic value.
Even though they may be short, I've always taken a long time to compose letters and, perhaps because of this, when my typewriter packed up a little over twenty years ago, my elder son gave me an early AppleMac Classic he was about to replace because I could use it as a word-processor - thus saving reams of discarded writing paper.
I had never used a computer. So, when I was confined to bed with a bad cold, I saw an opportunity to work out how to use it; and, although it was not planned, I started to write a story and - rather like the persperation from which I was suffering - words just poured out of me and, by the time I was fit enough to get up again, I had written over two hundred pages.
At that time, in the course of her work, my wife spent a lot of time in the company of the publisher, Andre Deutsch. Perhaps intrigued by a comparatively literate bus-driver, he offered encouragement and arranged for one of his staff to assess my writing. Sadly, the work I was doing at that time affected my ability to concentrate and I developed something akin to Writers' Block and, for several years, wrote very little; but, after retiring, I started to put a few words together again.
In the meantime, writing (as I do) for fun rather than gain, I've derived almost as much pleasure from researching a subject as actually writing about it; and, in that regard, I find it difficult to imagine how authors managed before the advent of the World Wide Web.
So, to get to the main point of this blog.
Although there is no doubt that the WWW is a wonderful invention, at quite an early stage in my own experience with it, I discovered what seems to me to be its greatest fault - and that is the ease with which individuals can portray themselves in a manner which, in many cases, is far from the truth.
One of my earliest attempts to make use of the internet was when I had the notion to track down all the chaps with whom I had shared a tent during the British nuclear tests at Christmas Island. As it happened, that course of action proved to be unsuccessful; however, I did manage to contact them all through letters to the local newspaper in the area in which they lived.
In attempting to find my tent-mates, I was introduced to internet forums: in particular, those intended for serving and former members of the armed forces and, for several months I enjoyed sharing experiences and banter with ex (mainly) - service personnel from around the world.
Unfortunately, in time, I realised that some of those using these forums could not have been who (or what) they claimed to be - something especially endemic amongst those disposed towards the military - and, although I've remained in contact with some, I don't contribute to the forums any longer; not least because a recent unpleasant hacking experience involved an individual who deceived me into believing he was a former member of a military unit with which I was attached.
Hopefully, others can learn from my misfortune.
Even though they may be short, I've always taken a long time to compose letters and, perhaps because of this, when my typewriter packed up a little over twenty years ago, my elder son gave me an early AppleMac Classic he was about to replace because I could use it as a word-processor - thus saving reams of discarded writing paper.
I had never used a computer. So, when I was confined to bed with a bad cold, I saw an opportunity to work out how to use it; and, although it was not planned, I started to write a story and - rather like the persperation from which I was suffering - words just poured out of me and, by the time I was fit enough to get up again, I had written over two hundred pages.
At that time, in the course of her work, my wife spent a lot of time in the company of the publisher, Andre Deutsch. Perhaps intrigued by a comparatively literate bus-driver, he offered encouragement and arranged for one of his staff to assess my writing. Sadly, the work I was doing at that time affected my ability to concentrate and I developed something akin to Writers' Block and, for several years, wrote very little; but, after retiring, I started to put a few words together again.
In the meantime, writing (as I do) for fun rather than gain, I've derived almost as much pleasure from researching a subject as actually writing about it; and, in that regard, I find it difficult to imagine how authors managed before the advent of the World Wide Web.
So, to get to the main point of this blog.
Although there is no doubt that the WWW is a wonderful invention, at quite an early stage in my own experience with it, I discovered what seems to me to be its greatest fault - and that is the ease with which individuals can portray themselves in a manner which, in many cases, is far from the truth.
One of my earliest attempts to make use of the internet was when I had the notion to track down all the chaps with whom I had shared a tent during the British nuclear tests at Christmas Island. As it happened, that course of action proved to be unsuccessful; however, I did manage to contact them all through letters to the local newspaper in the area in which they lived.
In attempting to find my tent-mates, I was introduced to internet forums: in particular, those intended for serving and former members of the armed forces and, for several months I enjoyed sharing experiences and banter with ex (mainly) - service personnel from around the world.
Unfortunately, in time, I realised that some of those using these forums could not have been who (or what) they claimed to be - something especially endemic amongst those disposed towards the military - and, although I've remained in contact with some, I don't contribute to the forums any longer; not least because a recent unpleasant hacking experience involved an individual who deceived me into believing he was a former member of a military unit with which I was attached.
Hopefully, others can learn from my misfortune.
