video killed the radio star

When I retired from what, my mother would call ‘proper work’, I thought I was going to slowdown for a while. I decided to try my hand at writing a book. Not knowing whereto start really, I wrote a story about a good friend of mine. It took a while, but I enjoyed the process, took a writing course to get better at the art and embarked on a second book. That has since evolved into a series, which I hope I’m correct in saying we all love. One book a year; writing 15,000 words a month for 7 months, followed by a bit of fiddling about with the self-publishing tools on Amazon is not a bad way to spend one’s retirement, especially if you can slip in the odd game of tennis or round of golf.  

But it seems to be an author these days, you need to be a master of social media. But socia lmedia isn’t just one thing – it’s a whole bewildering buffet. A website, a newsletter, Twitter, (sorry X), a series of Facebook ads and a host of other icons. Far from being the elusive social media master, I think I’ve become asocial media monster. Suddenly I find myself friends with strangers, who I previously would have crossed the street to avoid.

More or less all of these involve building my own profile and icing that particular cake with a profile picture; just finding one in my phone photo library that doesn’t make me cringe or include a family member who has vetoed the whole process is a challenge. But that’s done. Then you write a short profile. Okay words, I should be comfortable with that bit.

However, these days it seems all authors worth their quills are making a Tik-Tok video to showcase their ‘author journey’. The prospect feels ghastly but ironically once I’ve jotted down a few notes I feel strangely excited about the project. I make a half-hearted attempt to learn a script but notice a bounce in my step as I approach the house of a friend who’s son in going to take the role of Spielberg and create something half watchable from 45 minutes of mobile phone footage. Charlie waves his digital magic wand and hey presto, I have a Tik-Tok profile and a video with over 1,000 viewings, which he tells me is cool.  Who knew? Not me that’s for sure. Anyway, If you’ve got 3 minutes to waste, here’s my Tik-Tok handle @phil.hall55

And while we’re tackling our fears and phobias I finally got around to mapping out the plot of my next story. Just down the road from our house is the Godstone sinkhole, which has been creating a pain in the backside 20-minute diversion for 6 months now, and is set to continue to do so for another 4 months! Aargh! But every cloud etc. So embracing the damn sinkhole; it now plays a key part in the next Inspector Bee case. Still working on the title; The hole of death, or Murder ina hole, neither cut the mustard, but there’s time for the title to appear. Any suggestions gratefully received.

Reverting to the title of this piece, music still rules the roost in my study. Mostly the radio, but today’s musical accompaniment is Beach Boys landmark eleventh album Pet Sounds from 1966 and in particular the track God Only Knows – the epitome of summer. Allegedly McCartney’s favourite album, so whom am I to argue.