Genres

Watching football (soccer) is an innocent pastime.  Not much opportunity to ‘wander off’ mentally.  Just relax, enjoy the game—occasionally boo the opposition and cheer my team on.

Wife brings mug of hot tea; life is good.

Then the commentator says something about a match statistic.

Suddenly, a flock of idea sprites rush in.

“Oy, you!”

“Hey!  What about this?”

They all shout at me.

“I’m watching football.  Go away!” I shout back at them (in my head, of course.  Don’t want to alarm Beloved).

They are persistent.

One of them is very rude.

“That’s very rude!”  I tell it, in a huff.

“Gotcha ‘tenshun, though.  Dinnit?”  It replies, gloating in victory.

“Oh, very well.  It’s half-time anyway.”

“Well, I’ss like this, see....”

There are those who watch football and there are those who play football.  Those who play football, very likely, watch football, too.

Then there are those who study football.  Deeply, I mean.

There’s a friend of mine—Rob.  He’s an expert on the game.  He can tell you every team’s nickname, how they got it, the name of the ground they play in, what the supporter’s song is.  He will, for example, tell you that the ‘Kop’ end at Liverpool’s ground, Anfield, is named after ‘Spion Kop’ in South Africa and that several clubs have, or have had, a ‘Kop’ end.  He will tell you how the Exeter City Grecians got their name or how Dundee United’s supporters became known as the ‘Arabs’.

This is not just a matter of remembering scores and League positions over the years—that would be more superficial.  This is having a deep factual, rather than statistical, knowledge of the game.

For my part, I have problems remembering who plays in what position and for what Club.  It is all I can do to keep track of where my team are in the League table.

No, no.  I just like to watch football.  I enjoy the game, whoever is playing, for it’s own sake.  Some of the best games this season have not involved my team.

How does this reflect on writing?

Well, I like to write.  I also like to read.  There are people out there who like to read but don’t write.  I believe most writers are also readers.

Then there are those who study books.

Just recently I discovered that there is a genre called PNR—ParaNormal Romance.  This came about because I have been watching India Drummond’s wind up to releasing her book, ‘Ordinary Angels’, and the ensuing, deserved, frenzy amongst reviewers.

You see, in my cozy little world there are only a few genres.

There’s Sci-Fi which is my favourite.  There’s Fantasy, which I also like.  And then there’s WhoDunnits, Humour and Period Romance; my Mum liked those.  After that my list tends to run dry.

That’s the point, you see.

When the publisher asked me what genre ‘The Hags of Teeb’ fell under I didn’t know.

“Well, Fantasy, I should suppose?”

I don’t study these things.  Why?  Because, to me, they are not important.  They seem to be hugely important to some people; some authors proclaim that they write ‘Steampunk’ (I had to go and ‘Google’ that!) or Gothic Dungeons and Dragons (which I have yet to ‘Google’).

I always thought of Tolkien as being a Fantasy writer but, apparently, I am wrong.

Does it really matter?  Really?  My stories are for entertainment.  There is no deep hidden sophisticated message buried in the text that is designed to philosophise about the state of the world.  They are just stories.  Something to keep you amused over tea and a biscuit, or two.

Keep labels for tea bags and jam jars.  Labels for writing are for academia not for authors and our beloved readers.  Neither of us wishes to be classified and filed under some strange nomenclature that someone has made up in a moment of idleness.

Now, speaking of tea bags, I do believe the second half is about to begin......