During my Arvon Course, Elinor Cook and Evan Placey, presented the idea that every writer repeats the same topic. It could be something that makes you angry or frightens you.

I had a think about this, trying to determine what mine might be. Elinor's was 'why do heterosexual relationships not work.' I concluded that mine is 'why do bad things happen'. For example, Our Kid, deals with home grown terrorism. Killing Rainbows discusses the persecution of public artists. Reg: The Self-Made Man covers the abuse of power over the weak - young women or the naive.

There is also another theme running through much of my writing - that of duality. This was pointing out to me be a friend. I can see it now but wasn't aware of it. This binary discussion of male/female is present in Sea Glass. The discussion of alternative lives was used as the basis for Tick-Tock. Whether this greater self-awareness will affect my writing, we'll just have to wait and see. 

I was pleased to have finished reading Aristotle's Poetics and Robert McKee's Story. The first book was bought as one of those free translations prevelant on Amazon. The quality is generally okay but this one had a whole chapter that was unreadable. I know there is some critiscism over his preference for the dominance of plot. I wonder whether this may have been because so many of the characters were well known? Characterisation is the reason given for Marvel's critical dominance over DC's superhero franchises. 

Let's finish with a little excercise from Arvon. When thinking about a new character, write 20 things that they remember. Need to find a character to perform the excercise. Type people into a search engine and pick someone from one of the images.