Quandary

There is always a worry about committing your words and thought to world in this manner. As soon as I publish this on my blog, it is out there forever. Even if I delete on the site the code or whatever it’s called, will still be there and anyone with the appropriate technical skills could retrieve it. This is a bit of a scary thought.

Especially when, as a writer, you are adamant and definite about everything you say. Your opinion at a certain time is etched in cyber stone for all the ages. If you say something, you better damn well mean it because it’s never going away.

Generally this isn’t too much of a problem for me. At this stage in my life I’m comfortable with who I am and what my beliefs are. I’m also quite stubborn so it would take a lot of convincing to get me to change my mind on something. If Jedward bring peace to the Middle East and fill the hole in ozone layer, they will still be a pair of half-witted fucktards as far as I’m concerned.

That doesn’t mean my words don’t sometime come back to bite me on the bum. Having complained about it here, I was surprised to find myself making a very public display of affection on the bus recently. I’ve also spoken with great affection about Fernando Torres and then he left me (well, Liverpool Football Club,) shattering my tiny heart and my belief in true football love.

The worse example of possible literary hypocrisy has yet to happen yet. You might remember a piece I wrote recently about my disdain for silly world record attempts and for people doing things for charity because it’s a bit cool. It managed to offend a couple of people who were none too impressed with my take on things. That is fair enough, everyone is entitled to opinion and I stand by mine.

The problem is, I’ve recently been asked to help out with one of those stupid world record attempts. Part of me thought if I want to have any integrity I need to refuse straight out but the other part of me wanted to do it. I was at a moral fork in the road.

The record attempt is to get the most people writing a short story. I’m not sure exactly how it will work but from what I can gather they want to get about 900 people to write a sentence each. My role will be to help out with the starting of the story and to make sure each participant understands the structure of the tale and how they should proceed. Interesting, yes?

It also will be helping out Fighting Words and another organisation I have done some stuff for before, See Change, which is a mental health awareness programme. So the upside of doing it definitely outweighs the negatives. I may have people calling me a charlatan and a hypocrite but I’m sure I can live with it. I;ll post more details closer to the event and maybe you can join me in my two faced adventures.

As long as I don’t have to grow a stupid moustache.