There I was, in the Old Town, merrily carousing with my new-found partners in fiction Paolo and Giulio, when suddenly ‘kataplof’. My mojo was distracted. By facts. And opportunities. And pretensions to commentary on historical things. About Which I Knew Nada. Nothing. And Nuffink. In that order.
Having been pootling along on a simple story about God’s Cobbler, I, or rather El Mojo, was distracted by words like ‘Prussian conflict’ and ‘Italian colonialism in the late 19th Century’. So I started doing some re-re-search, to the crowd say ‘overdue fine don’t argue’.
And I became vaguely interested in Modern European History, for the first time ever. So much so that I Capitalised It (it’s my version of Brotne’s ‘reader, I married him’). And I discovered Wikiquote. Not much of a discovery, as I believe it has been there all the time. Like America. Or Jaffa cakes. Ok. Not jaffa cakes. But I suspect that orange flavoured biscotti have been around for centuries.
Anyhoo. So my simple story of cobblering. Or whatever it is that cobblers do. Cobble, I suppose. So cobbling might be better. Definitely not bobbling in any case. Or babbling. Where was I? Oh yes. My simple, albeit Deity-linked cobbler, was now some kind of symbol for the march of fascism throughout Europe 1870–1942.
And suddenly it wasn’t fun any more. It was work. References had to make sense. Village names had to be checked. I was looking up Italian colonies in North Africa at some non-specific time in the window 1890–1910.
And it was spoiling the story. El mojo had been distracted by Mr Literary Ego Nonsense and was forgetting the golden rule — which is to write. Not a lot of writing happens by reading. I don’t believe that lovely Mr Gaiman goes ‘that’s a great idea, I’ll just go and read around it’.
Write it. Young man. Write it. Then worry about the colour of his breeches and historical authenticity. If. It. Matters.
Which, frankly, it doesn’t. God’s Cobbler does not care for these trifles. He cobbles. For God. And possibly Country (GAH! Ego is at it again). Paolo wants to be his apprentice. It’s as plain as the laces on his boots. As plain as the mud that cakes his boots.
And as plain as the fact that he now needs to punch Giulio on the nose and go looking for El Mojo and that thieving magpie Ego and entice them back to the keyboard.
Possibly through the medium of Jaffa cakes. Hurrah.
