Narration.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say a few words about narration. It’s a very misunderstood branch of literature in my opinion.

This is how it works. I keep getting stuff from the author….usually via the editor. They send it to me in emails, I narrate it and send it back. It’s my nonchalant tone they’re after I think. Easy enough for me. I don’t even try and I don’t worry about where it all fits in. I assume it’s all part of some larger pattern but that’s their business.

I know a lot of narrators develop identity problems. It’s an occupational hazard. Not me. I just sail my boat and try not to pay too much attention to world events. I’m well out of it. And I probably have another 10 years or so doing it if I’m lucky. I’ve got no plans. Bit of money in the bank. Live pretty much day to day. Live where I want but I prefer somewhere warm with a nice view, no bedroom tax, no IKEA and no automated phone menus. That’s about it.

What’s this novel about then you ask? Assuming it ever gets written. Well I’ll tell you what it’s not about.

It’s not about a funny awkward girl who falls in love with some cool rich dude with his very own helipad and a dungeon full of sex toys. There may be a pirate or two but no zombies. Nor will there be any cute little dragons called Zork who want to be like all the other little dragons but can’t breathe fire. There will be no breakthroughs in cruise missile technology and no startling revelations about the Illuminati, no psychopathic serial killers in rural Texas complete with mandatory vivid torture sequence, no oversize sharks and no bullet-proof transformer-type robotic creations crashing through foliage under the weight of extraneous features, no zombies and there will definitely not be any misunderstood vampires. Nor is it the heart-warming story of two Afghan lesbians overcoming all odds and finding fulfillment in Essex. It has nothing to do with a runaway Haitian slave who joins the US Cavalry only to change sides at the battle of Little Big Horn or the adventures of a 16-year-old concubine at the court of Genghiz Khan. Notes and false starts to those and other abandoned projects do exist somewhere but they all, let’s be frank, turned out to be beyond the author’s literary skill level. They didn’t excite me much either. Sorry about the rant but I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.

The point is narrating gives me something to do and it frees me up to ramble on about my own life.  I can keep this post-modern stuff going ad infinitum. They probably delete most of it but I don’t mind. It makes as much sense as all the other things people do. Well it does to me. And that’s what counts. Who else gives a toss?

So why do it?

Why not?