I was at the dentist this week, which is never the most pleasant of experiences for anyone I am sure, thought I did have a very interesting conversation as I was waiting for my treatment to begin. I’ve been going to the same dentist for around 20 years now and I’ve never discussed my creative side with her before, but she casually asked me if I had been doing some writing of late. As my author name is a slight variation on my birth name (Ross Alexander being my first two names), people that know of me do not always associate me as a writer, so I was intrigued as to how she had worked this out.
It turns out that she subscribes to the Bloody Scotland newsletter and the most recent edition had my photo on it (under Val McDermit and Denise Mina of all people) and she worked out via my first name, photo and my East Lothian base, that her patient had won runner up at this year’s short story competition. I sometimes get shy about my writing for some strange reason, but it was humbling that she noticed me, read the story and said how much she enjoyed it. It certainly made the rest of the appointment that little more bearable.
I wrote previously that I was undertaking a challenge this year to listen to the complete 1001 Songs to Listen to Before You Die and I managed to achieve this last month. It was a really interesting experience, listening to songs that I was familiar with, songs I had never heard before and songs that I hadn’t heard for years. I listened to the list in chronological order and came to the conclusion that the quality dropped off from the mid 1990’s (in my opinion anyway).
I decided to move on to the longer term goal of listening to the 1001 Albums list. Unlike the songs, I am just picking albums at random to listen to. I do enjoy listening to an album in its entirety, in the track order as it was released. It is too easy nowadays to just listen to the songs you like, shuffle the album or skip certain tracks, but I think there is a certain charm in taking the time to listen to the full work as it was intended.
I know that it will be a few years before I get to the end of this particular challenge, but I’m sure that I will enjoy the process…
Thanks again for reading my blog. You can read ‘Life Wasted’ by clicking on the Bloody Scotland icon in the Books tab of this website (the link to the story is at the bottom of the article). You can also still buy Going To Firhill Is Murder & Other Stories, my football related, crime novella (and 4 other short stories) via the links on that tab. Funds raised by the sale of this book will be going to the Jags for Good charity (more details on that tab).
Ross Alexander Writer 