Category: Uncategorized

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Look in the Mirror

John Payne

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

This is probably a boring answer, but I wouldn’t want to be anyone else, even if I could be. I’m enough for me. Yes, I could do with more money, a home of my own, and a partner, but I’d want all those things as myself, not living out the fantasies as someone else. I’m proud of all my achievements, but I also own all my mistakes and regrets. The man writing this is a result of everything, good and bad, that’s ever happened to him. It’s difficult enough to be ourselves in this era of too-fast technology and seemingly endless political controversy and upheaval. Life is unique and complex, and we all need to appreciate ourselves more.

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100 Percent? Must Try Harder.

John Payne

If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

It’s more of a phrase. This trend of people saying ‘100 percent’ instead of ‘definitely’ or even just ‘yes’. I mean, it’s probably better than ‘110 percent’, but not really. At least when people used to say ‘110 percent’ it showed some kind of aspiration to reach beyond their limitations, but ‘100 percent’? No thank you.

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The Badger Helper Watcher Or Hidden Paths

John Payne

I’m making good progress on my children’s adventure novel: ‘The Badger Helper Watcher: The Misadventures of Sam and Sally Book One’. So far this week, I’ve typed a little bit up every day, so I’m hoping to keep up with that. I can definitely see how much I’ve improved as a writer since I first scribbled down the words in these now ancient notebooks, but I’m not editing it too much as I go along. It’s more important to get to the end and then edit it later. There are huge chunks that I can cut out (I’m up to chapter 59, so that tells you something about how ridiculously long it became) and I can see why I had to step away from it for a while, but in stepping away from it I went on to write (and finish, most importantly) my first full novel: ‘A Fifth Visitor’, so some things happen for a reason. All paths lead somewhere, I suppose, even if they just connect you to another path that you didn’t see coming.