On Me - apologies for the indulgence...

Another special day today. It's the Opening Night of my self penned musical play: KOOL KAFE! Go here for details.
Kool Kafe poster

BUT - you know me. Never one to let the grass grow under my feet, I've been working on a new project. Namely, a graphic novel. Here's what I have so far:

Turbopants
It's early days of course. I just wanted to show you what I've been working on this week - in between tech rehearsals for the play!

Oh, and don't forget - you can still get a free copy of my latest novel. Just click on the piccy here:

Willow - free download

Go here to get your FREE copy of PSI-Kids: Willow.

Keep Writing!

Rob@easywaytowrite.com

THIS WEEK'S ARTICLE:

On Me

Rob Parnell

Readers of this newsletter often tell me they enjoy me talking about myself. I hesitate to do it often. Less is more as they say. But once in a while I guess is okay...

People tell me I'm prolific and get a lot done. Well, first off, it doesn't feel that way to me - which probably explains why I seem to get a lot done!

I have this constant itch inside me that never feels I've done enough. Maybe I'll always have it.

I get bored often - I could be easily distracted - but luckily this character trait is countered by an insane need to get a project finished too.

I don't plan to get heaps done on a daily basis. Experience has taught me that doing just a little every day can mount up over time. To think I've written over 500 articles on writing in the last decade - a truckload of novels, screenplays, short stories and writing courses - and I still feel as if I haven't done anywhere near enough...

Call me obsessive. I've been accused of that. But, as I say, it doesn't feel that way to me.

I think I'm lazy, believe it or not.

I never liked working nine to five. When I left school I worked in a few factories for a while - and that was really awful. Talk about good grounds for suicide! I couldn't believe people actually dedicated themselves, day after day, to such depressing lives.

Maybe I was just unlucky. Dad was convinced my academic qualifications counted for nothing and, at barely eighteen, he got me a job in a chicken processing factory. God, the smell! It makes me gag now just to think of it...

Not to mention the awful cries of the poor chickens on their way to the 'electric conveyor of death.'

I lasted about a week and a half and promptly left home, never to return. I've often wondered whether that wasn't Dad's plan all along!

Anyway, after working in a cheese processing plant, a greenhouse construction factory and a job that required me to pick tools and bits of machinery out of a huge stock room for some mysterious purpose, I eventually realized that the office staff started work two hours later and finished earlier than the shop floor workers too.

I walked out on that job, and got another working for the local government social security department. I didn't get a desk but at least it was in the warm - and I learned quickly that all you had to do was carry a piece of paper and people thought you were busy...

Pretty soon I'd made up my mind to become a musician and a writer - anything to get away from the daily grind of soulless work.

I borrowed six hundred pounds from a kindly bank manager (which I'm sorry to say I never paid back) and I moved to London where I joined a rock band as a bass guitarist and started writing plays for the Royal Court Theater.

As luck would have it, I also signed the lease on a houseboat - where I lived on the Thames in Chelsea for almost a decade. Sweet.

That's how I got started on this creative path - in case you ever wanted to know.

I've been trying to live creatively ever since. Of course, every now and then I've been pressured back into 'proper' jobs, but even the good ones really only convinced me I wasn't destined to take that path.

The best job I ever had was working for London Underground as a contract administrator then manager for the Piccadilly Line - for all the wrong reasons of course. I loved my co-workers with a passion and spent many hours with them drunk out of my skull.

We even formed a rock band called the The One Unders and played covers for the staff at a Christmas party. Ah, rose-colored joy.

I don't drink anymore - I'm sure many of my previous co-workers will be shocked to hear that - and I think this is one of the reasons I get so much done now.

(Notice that neat little segue back into the topic of this article?)

I've always had this desire to create something out of nothing. Whether it's music, writing, art or whatever, I don't seem to be able to stop myself.

And being able to do it full time now is a dream come true.

I don't know whether I'll ever be as rich or famous as Dan Brown or JK or Stan Lee, but you never know...

I don't do what I do for fame and fortune. I do it because I can't do anything else well enough - like take orders for instance - to justify wasting my time on anything that isn't artistically creative.

If I have a life purpose, I'd like to think it's that I can act as an inspiration to young people who feel their artistic urges are not being encouraged or taken seriously.

In a material, money driven world, I'd like to be thought of as the guy who got that dream life - writing, creating, exploring possibilities - by just wanting it enough.

Too many people believe that their dreams are just that. Things to harbor, and unrealistic expectations that need to be quashed.

I want to show, no, prove, that this is not the case.

Your dreams are there to guide you - and to make you take the plunge - and follow your heart.

Do what you love first, and let the Universe work out the hows - and where the money comes to pay for it all, of course.

If you want to live your dreams, then don't worry so much would be my advice.

Do what I do.

Take it easy, have fun, and everything else will surely follow.

Keep writing!

Rob at Home
rob@easywaytowrite.com
Your Success is My Concern
 Rob Parnell's Easy Way to Write


THIS WEEK'S WRITER'S QUOTE:

"Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art." William Ralph Inge

Previous Newsletter includes:
Article: "Give Away Your Fiction"
Writer's Quote by Lord Goodman

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