A respected acquaintance asked me for my thoughts on new writing, and if there are any new ways to write.

I have thought about this. Me, thinking is not normally a good thing – no good can come of it.

Follow my thinking: Sir Clive Sinclair invented that silly C5 thing. How ridiculous! Battery powered transport for urban dwellers – absurd. The man was a fool. Cars and motorbikes have internal combustion engines, the C5 will never work.

Retrospectively, he was a genius. Formula 1 cars are now part battery powered and all the major car manufacturers clamour to produce electric and hybrid powered vehicles.

You see it's all a matter of timing.

Enter the lowly audio book – a doomed silly idea. A failure on long-playing vinyl and a joke on multiple cassette tapes. Another disaster.

Books are written on paper, and they are far too long to be put into any convenient audio format.

For change and reaction, there is often a harmless catalyst, none forecast the effects of its presence.

Enter the arena: Messers Kindle and the e-reader gang. Well financed, these people are as I write, sowing the seeds of the destruction of the book as we know it, and in the finale, destroying themselves. For they will convince people 'a book' is not a permanent paper product. - And people will accept it.

Destroy the sanctity of the physical book and floodgates open, people become more open to new or other ideas.

Accepting that 'story is king', new evidence and the audio book come back into play and MP3 is in effect. How long does it take to read an average novel? You can get 22hrs of 64bit audio on a CD, and in all likelihood the DVD player in your lounge and the stereo in your car are equipped to play it. Not to mention MP3 players like the iPOD can also read your story.

What do we have? The Davinci Code read by Morgan Freeman. He'll read you a chapter before you go to sleep – just like mummy used to, and he'll read you the next chapter while you drive to work in your car. Have you every tried reading whilst driving – it doesn't sound easy, best let Morgan do it. The audio book has no competition, no more tired eyes while reading. Just think of it like listening to radio plays, but you get to choose. Old people love the Archers.

That's the old folk covered. The young?

No longer are you a nerd bookworm just because you like a good story. Nobody knows what your iPOD is playing you as you walk to school with Joanna Lumley reading you Harry Potter. And on the way home you listen to Henry V because it's part of the curriculum.

Young people used to love Jackanory.

So there you have it: people on their way to work headphones in ears with a best-seller being read to them by some celebrity.

Of course there will be those strange people who for some reasons like reading writing.

So yes, writing will change. Story will regain it's crown and once again voice will rule, and sell the product – but it won't be your voice.

 


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