A Novel Enterprise

I've started to write a book. I've been thinking about it for a while, formulating a narrative, characters, sub-plots and alike. Sam and I have even spent nights talking about the twists and turns, what should happen to the main character and the moral that the story should impart.

Now I feel ready to start putting words down. I don't want to give much away at this point. It's about loss in many ways. Inspired by the huge number of lost people I've come across while traveling. It's also about difference, cultural and personal, how being in close proximity to difference for long enough leaves an indelible mark on a person. I'm waffling, I'll just write it and then let people judge.

Another idea is to write about our volunteering experience. There are characters here you couldn't make-up. In fact if we tried to explain the kind of people we have come across, people would say, "Your making it up!" From the failed priest whose an orchid collecting development worker, through to, the ex-doctor to the Prime Minister office, who spent time in prison as a political prisoner and was forced to renounce his faith. Oh, and he'd also been in the army, and is the most mild mannered man I have ever met in my life. He's not sure why he was arrested for being a political activist, it just happened as he was about to leave the country for America. We discover more and more about this man day by day. Fasinating!

Then there's the comedy double act. They are something else in themselves. Particularly when one keeps shouting the other in English all the time. He then will drop into French, back to English and start pointing at everything that isn't tied down trying to explain what everything is in Lao language. He leaves our head in a spin, but always with a smile on our face.

Well in some way or another all these people will be appearing as characters a book. Whether its the comedic true-story of our time here, or the semi-fictional story that I've just started. It's all too precious not to put down for others to read.