Like a miner with an itch for digging up some jewels I’m heading back to the rock face for a while. (All this blogging and social stuff is very time consuming.)

The next Sean Yeager book is plotted and ready to roll, the characters are crying out for things to do, starving and bored some of them. It has to be done. There are myriad ideas and twists to be woven into a whole. Scenes galore to be sorted and sifted. The story has already happened it just needs reporting and relaying in a credible tone. Back to what it’s meant to be all about, writing to entertain others….

I’ll leave the broader debates about what youngsters want or need to read alone for a while. It is action I write and adventure I know. Yes there are some amazing authors like Philip Pullman around and all due respect to them (not that they need my seal of approval I know),  however I realised some things when reading recently: writers write what they feel compelled to write and are taken where the story leads them, it’s only afterwards that someone decides it’s a young fiction classic or such like.

But before I put a sock in it and go away…..

Having read about attempted murder, ritual use of burned poppy seeds, children fighting each other and an uncle threatening to break a child’s arm (in the space of 3 chapters)  I was a little taken aback. It seems to me that the classifications for books have either moved on or they were never there in the first place. (Spot that book challenge).

Further a teenager was on the BBC recently being given the luxury of a free plug on prime time BBC news (try and justify that one BBC!) She had apparently been spotted writing fan fiction in the fashionable genre of bloodsuckers and was ‘signed on the spot for gazillions of pounds’. Yes right, we believe you. The story continued that her version of vampire stories (not that I believe we need any other versions) was more graphically violent and darker than the others and therefore worthy of being published to a young audience. Ahem, and why is that exactly? Also why is the BBC reporting such things instead of telling real news or better still promoting my book? (Yes I know, it’s who you know and what is selling and telling fairy tale stories to the public) Because they have a book spot, for big publishers to use. There’s a pattern emerging here isn’t there?

So in summary it’s deemed okay to promote books about soft-porn to mummies on TV (across the channels incidentally) and graphic violence to young fiction readers also on TV. Morning BBC News TV. Err, great for you other authors! And are those same channels open to everyone? I somehow doubt that. Your network would need to include the right media types with the right surnames. Yes I am obviously jealous I’ll admit it….

Well whatever. Regardless of the BBC’s editorial decisions (which they will no doubt defend to the hilt and in fairness they were not asked for a statement when compiling this missive (like I’d get a reply??)) I believe you can entertain without graphic smut or violence and by using wit, humour and intelligence. I have proof – the 1920’s to 1950’s – see just about any film or comedy from that era. I may be in a minority of one, but you know I’m quite happy to have some values in a world that increasingly seems devoid of them.

I believe you can write and be engaging, entertaining and funny without resorting to graphic violence, sex and drugs. Is it any less streetwise? NO! We do not all live in streets with such things day in day out. Yes it is there if you look for it as a teen. It is equally possible to put it in it’s place as unhealthy, a waste of time, illegal, destructive, a distraction from getting on in life and something you can learn about properly later in life (particularly the baby making bit).

I believe adults should be protecting a child’s right to have a childhood right up to 17 years of age and beyond.  It is largely adults that mess up the world in the first place all things considered… (end of soap box). All too often I see mothers and fathers using DS’s as pacifiers and TV as a baby-sitter. Have they heard of Lego, drawing, building, papier mache, sport, painting and of course READING….

If you don’t believe me about the B&W era check out some Three Stooges, Marx Brothers or Laurel and Hardy, or a classic B&W movie (Some Like it Hot). They were better scripted, (mostly) better acted and better made. All the technology we have now can not replace intelligence, craft and wit. And it doesn’t does it? I give you the Transformers franchise to bore you rigid while you wonder what ‘dilemma’ they are solving and ‘why should I care at all about any of this clever, clever nonsense?’.

And yes of course there are far better films around too. (The Fifth Element springs to mind for entertainment, The King’s Speech for overall quality and insight). I could go on, but I’m no film critic.

Oh alright – Dark Knight takes itself too seriously and is an hour too long, Prometheus is good to look at, implausible, well acted in places and thoroughly silly by the end. That’s me out of recent films then….. By comparison The King’s Speech is nigh on perfect and The Fifth Element is derivative, silly and a whole lot of fun regardless. Done.

So while I get my head back into writing it will be a quieter period on the random comments and promo front. (‘hurray’ I hear the fictitious multitudes cry) You may also be pleased to know that yes social media does work. Sean Yeager is known and out there. The sales are trickling in. As someone said, first plant a seedling….. still waiting for a call from the BBC or a single printed newspaper however (lol). What Sean needs now is some more adventures…. grow tree grow!

Thanks for dropping by.

Check out http://www.seanyeager.com/ for more information.

See Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords etc for ‘Sean Yeager’ product previews.

Have fun.