I am sure you will all agree that it is reasonable to be knocked a bit sideways when you learn that you have to accept you have limited time left. Certainly I spent weeks after hearing the news just NOT thinking straight. The big problem was not knowing how much time and this was reinforced when my doctor called and explained gently that it could be longer than had been suggested even, possibly, as long as a couple of years.
That demanded that I put my brain back into gear – albeit a very low one. No way was I prepared to sit around for a couple of years just waiting to pop off.
However, the big project on which I have spent probably a third of my working hours over the last four years is/was a ‘companion’ to my wife’s novels. This was to include not only details of how the novels were written but quite a lot about the places in which they are set – which are nearly all in the west country of England. Marcia’s descriptions of place are very evocative with the result that we started to get emails asking for photographs and more and more detail about the real places into which her fictitious characters roam (over half her readership is overseas so that is perfectly understandable) . It was as a reaction to those messages that I started the Friday blog (see sidebar to the right).
The ‘companion’ was to include details of the locations past and present and was to be illustrated by photographs (most of which were mine). It was the ‘past’ bit that has taken a great deal of time to research and I fear most of that work will be wasted.
So what is this big project? Well, instead of worrying about it going into book form (which would mean it would have to be finished to be anything at all), I have set up a site A Companion to the novels of Marcia Willett which has quite a bit of good stuff up already but is very much work in progress. It is the perfect project for someone in my position. It will only take a month or so for it to have enough information there to act as a reasonable reference source for Marcia’s readers but it is something to which I can add whenever I feel up to it – after all it is an almost infinite project. What could be better than that?
If you want to have a look, please click here and if you felt you could follow the site that would be absolutely wonderful.
Rodney Willett 