Bad Orchards amongst other things

When I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm often awake for a few hours, so I listen to either the World Service or Five Live. This morning one of the topics for a phone in was politicans and are they bad apples? One listener rang in and said, "not so much bad apples but a bad orchard - what about the Honourable Member for the Virgin Islands?" which did make me laugh.

Anyway, as I don't wish to dive into the murky depths of politics, I will leave that topic there for the moment, and stick to matters closer to home. Editing my novel.

I was advised that publishers like a variety in age of characters, and as my last novel has a young boy in it, I thought I would use an older character, inspired by Pip's cousins, whom I visited recently. They are 93 and late 70s and a wonderful example on how to age well.

I decided to use the 93 year old in my novel, but change him somewhat. He is now 86 and a little stooped but still has the same sharp brain and enquiring mind - and a brilliant sense of humour. Then I thought, well, what purpose does this man have? And I realised that it is to show the protaganist that there are several ways to be happy in a relationship. That there are often no definitive rights or wrongs - it's what is right for those people at that time. And also, that just because a relationship might last, say, 5 years doesn't mean to say that because they stopped being happy, it was a failure. Perhaps it was only meant to last 5 years, but surely those years were important?

I've called this fellow Petroc and he has a Colourful Past, as people used to say. In other words, he had an interesting and unconventional love life which leads to a more rounded view of people - or does in his case. Well, having gone down that route myself, I can only say that life presents you with choices. And, as with all good novels, what happens next depends on what choices you make.

I've always tried to be open to ideas, and while the choices I've made might not have seemed sensible to others, they have made sense to me at the time. I hope always to be open to taking a chance, whether in love, work or adventure. Though preferably, all three. And I encourage the characters in my novels to be, too.