I made a cryptic comment in my last post Who Writes Like. I guaranteed I chose the first author that came to mind and that there were reasons it was Terry Pratchett. I’ll do my best to explain why that happened. No, I’m not explaining about Terry Pratchett, I’m only explaining why his name was the first that came to mind. Should he choose to read this blog he can explain himself or not as he chooses, he’s certainly capable.
Terry Pratchett is the author of a series of books about a place called Discworld. He has also written other novels including my favourite, The Bromeliad Series. I came to read Terry quite by accident. My kids were little and we used to watch the ABC together. They were screening a wonderful little series about Nomes called Truckers. The series was delightful with a fabulous storyline, great characters and some wonderful ideas. I loved it so much that when a book of the same name sprang out at me from the bookshelf of my favourite bookshop I bought the whole series. I was delighted with the books. They all had the same things I liked about the series except for the visuals, I had to imagine the visuals. I was so taken with these books that I bought another book by the same author on the very next time I was in the bookshop. That book was Sourcery and I must confess I wasn’t quite so enamoured of it. I’ve re-read it and I’m still not that excited by it. That put Terry off my reading list for several years.
I’ve always been very involved with my kids and their reading. I’ve always tried to read everything they read before they read it. At least until they got to about 15 or 16, now I read more for me than for them, but in those days I read for them. They have always been very good readers and my youngest reads twice as fast as I do so I was struggling to find the time to read enough to keep ahead of her. I visited the library, found audio books and started listening to them in the car. I found Hogfather. I listened to Hogfather and subsequently forgot to turn it off when the kids got into the car. They stopped talking to listen and started laughing. I figured this was a good thing as the series was very well written with no swear words and with concepts I was happy letting them read. Fabulous, another series they could read!!
Fast forward a couple of years to when I was bored. Browsing the web and newsgroups to find something to do and I came across a reference to a Discworld Convention in Melbourne. I whizzed across to the website and had a good look around. They seemed like nice people and I thought “I can do this, I can help on this committee”…famous last words. After a few emails I finally got to a committee meeting. Truly, I did help and I had a wonderful time and made some fantastic friends. That convention was such fun I ended up as the Vice President of the committee for the Second Australian Discworld Convention and am now retiring from convention committees in order to focus on family and business.
So, there you have it in a rather large nutshell. That’s why the first author that came to mind was Terry Pratchett.