Real people make real characters

Genuine old Peregrino, Santiago de Compostella

I've saved a girl's life, had people try to kill me in a riot, found a murder victim with a gunshot wound to the back of his head, crashed a car at high-speed and survived, avoided being shot by a LMG by metres, learnt to fly airplanes, met a burglar coming out of a broken door with a gun in his hand, witnessed sights too horrendous to mention and fallen in love so deeply it's embarrassing. I've also left a business English class whilst unknowingly leaving my boxer shorts on the office floor for all to see. I could go on, but then you'd never need to read Kicking the Cans... *

Magical secrets on a routine street

I've spent 46 crazy years living a life worthy of a book, a very long book. I have met people that I didn't know existed - didn't realise could have existed. Yet there they were, larger than life and so real. More real than any book I have ever read.

When I need to add characters to my book I need real people, real characters. I can't see my characters unless I can see the person. And if I can't see my character then they won't exist for you either, no matter how much I tell you about them.

So, where is this all going? Please, if you have any writing ambition, LIVE YOUR LIFE! No one else will do it for you, and a life worth living is a life worth dying for. And once you have lived it, and met those people you didn't know existed, only then can you add them to your book as real people, real characters.

They exist, do you?

* My life, too much has happened for a single book, so KTCs is my first autobiography, starting from zero and finsihing at the end of my (official) education. How I survived at all I'll never know...