Back home and back to authorial work, writing the as yet unnamed book 4 of The Modest Proposal Institute. I’m at the stage where I have lots of ideas but little idea on how to write them down. Anyhow, the way I deal with this is to write them all down in the hope some of the words will still be there when I’m finished.
While I’ve been getting started on book 4, I’ve also been putting the finishing touches to a separate project I’ve worked on, well on and off, for many years. It’s a book based on my aunt’s wartime diary and the speaking notes she used in a lecture she gave some years after the war. My aunt served as a nurse with the British 8th Army, working with wounded soldiers all the way from North Africa, through the invasion of Sicily and Italy, until the end of the war. My contribution has been to research the war and add some context of what was happening around my aunt during that time.
My aunt’s diary is now with a formatter so I’m hopeful it will soon be self-published. I’m not expecting anyone to buy this book, it will only be circulated to family members who remember our aunt or may have an interest in a long dead family member. However, I’ve enjoyed doing it because non-fiction has a lot to recommend it. There are no plot lines left hanging, for example, or characters who won’t behave as the story requires them to do. Historical events, if you don’t try to analyze or explain them, are just stated and that’s that. For a fiction author, this almost feels like a vacation:-)
Meanwhile, for those who haven’t quite gotten round to buying it, Rival Institutes is available on Amazon. You can buy it here.
