My Two Published Books by Tom Robson

I, Tom Robson, began to write creatively in my forties after I moved to Nova Scotia. Originally, my work was either with or for my elementary school students, or purely for the satisfaction that results from creating.

Though my students were primarily the target audience for much of my fiction, poetry, and plays, I also compiled reminiscences of my ancestry, my early life in England, and later, my life after becoming an immigrant in Canada.

WRITTEN WHILE I STILL REMEMBER is a history of the times, as well as a personal portrait composed during the last thirty years. The collection of sometimes true stories and poems coincided with a distancing from my children and grandchildren, most of whom had little perception of the people, places, and situations that had shaped me. This book is meant to right that wrong—to give life to their shadowy predecessor. Too often, individuals wait until it is too late to discover the facts behind the elders in their lives. Of course, facts can be embellished by the elderly’s tale-telling.

I hope my collection proves that tales from an ordinary life can be interesting to readers outside the family.

WRITTEN WHILE I STILL REMEMBER is available on  Amazon  and locally from me.

My second novel, published 2017, a fiction romance, is titled WAIT AND SEE.

Brad and Kate meet at Richardson’s Bar and soon escape from a venue not geared to their forty-plus years. He doesn’t know why he turned into that particular bar in the city he was visiting. She wishes she hadn’t let her girlfriends drag her into that bar after dinner on the town. Such a happenstance meeting should be over quickly and casually. What prolongs this togetherness? Neither stops to think of the implications, not just for them but for their families. As the momentum of the weekend propels them into romance that neither searched for, their lives and those of the people who surround them have to be evaluated. What needs to change? Is it fair Brad and Kate initiate such change? As much as a quick resolution would simplify matters, it can’t happen. Given time and change, it may be resolved. Brad and Kate and those connected to them, like you, the reader, will have to wait and see.

Buy this book to find out what happens!

Available on Amazon   or locally from me.

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Wait and See!

WAIT AND SEE now available on amazon.com. Should be available on Amazon.ca in a week or so. Kindle version coming soon.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1927529492/

 

Brad and Kate meet at Richardson’s Bar and soon escape from a venue not geared to their forty-plus years. He doesn’t know why he turned into that particular bar in the city he was visiting. She wishes she hadn’t let her girlfriends drag her into that bar after dinner on the town. Such a happenstance meeting should be over quickly and casually. What prolongs this togetherness? Neither stops to think of the implications, not just for them but for their families. As the momentum of the weekend propels them into a romance that neither searched for, their lives and those of the people who surround them have to be evaluated. What needs to change? Is it fair Brad and Kate initiate change? As much as a quick resolution would simplify matters, it can’t happen. Given time and change, it may be resolved.

Brad and Kate and those connected to them, like you, the reader will have to wait and see.

The Spot Writers – “Enter the Void” by Tom Robson

Welcome to the Spot Writers’ weekly flash fiction post. This month’s prompt is “into the void.” Today’s post “Enter the Void” comes from Tom Robson. Check out his book, Written While I Still Remember. Amazon      Smashwords

***

 

Enter the Void

Autumn, 1947.

Blank pages exposed for the English Composition class.

Words to be inked onto that empty-page void

Which matched my eleven year old, Monday morning mind.

My empty imagination is not stimulated by suggested titles,

Six to choose from chalked, uninspirationally, on the blackboard.

 

They are not an invitation to fill the void.

It is a demand that, armed with pen and ink,

On a subject not of our choosing,

I will enter the void and produce a finished story.

 

It will be

Grammatically correct.

No misspellings.

Scripted in unblotched penmanship.

Punctuated.

Sequential.

Perhaps even interesting.

And it will be completed in one hour.

 

On Friday, our evaluated essays will be returned.

Decorations in teachers’ red, pinpoint the many errors,

Offer a destructively, critical comment

And an arbitrary letter grade.

The only rewrite will be six corrected repetitions of each misspelled word.

 

And on every Monday morning,

Period one,

Through this school year,

We will confront the void again.

 

Winter 1967.

Official, legal, confidential assessment reports,

To be perused by so many people.

Three for me to draft this week.

Court ordered, during the appointed stay

Of the newly sentenced delinquent boys,

At the Classifying Approved school.

 

Deadline. The Monday morning meeting.

My findings will be presented

And a treatment plan prepared, by committee.

 

The already thick file that came with each boy,

Provides some material to fill the void.

On my blank sheets I must  compose a history

And a plan which will  suggest a conformist future.

 

Drawing from –

School reports,

Court documents,

Probation reports,

Psychological reports,

Pre-sentence reports,

Social workers’ home visits,

Delinquent history,

A personal interview  – and

Observations made during each boy’s three week stay.

 

Lined pages of foolscap paper are the void

To be filled with accurate information,

Grammatically correct,

Legibly ballpoint penned,

Error free,

Accurately punctuated,

Consistent and objective,

Following an ascribed pattern

So supervisor’s editing will be minimal

And  – most important –

The ladies in the typing pool will not complain at the quality of my prose.

 

The considered words of this draft,

Filling the void on the foolscap,

Must also fill the  void in knowledge

Of those, elsewhere,

Given the responsibility for the reform

Of the still unknown-to-them boy,

During his three years sentence for residential treatment.

The report will give the treaters awareness.

If they choose to read it.

 

Summer 2016.

There is no void until I create one.

Now, if I choose to write, I determine

What I write,

How I write,

When I write

What form or style the writing will take,

Whether to set myself a deadline,

Whether to share the writing that will fill my blank screen void.

Whether to even finish what I start.

 

Some writing is to be shared.

I may ask for feedback or criticism.

I may be self satisfied with what I’ve written to fill my void.

I may try to publish.

I may choose to consign this work to the depths of my computer’s memory.

And, if expedient, this will not be the first void-filling-prose or poetry

Whose fate is best served by pressure on the ‘delete’ button.

 

Why? Because my writer’s void,

Whether it be a suggested challenge

Or just blank space to be filled,

Is created in the mind of the writer;

A creator who can choose whether to

Enter the Void.

Or look elsewhere for one that’s more inviting.

One where content is the priority.

Because the mechanics of the written words

Can always be made to work better

Later in the process.

***

The Spot Writers—Our Members:

RC Bonitz: http://www.rcbonitz.com

Val Muller: http://www.valmuller.com/blog/

Catherine A. MacKenzie: https://writingwicket.wordpress.com/wicker-chitter/

Tom Robson: https://robsonswritings.wordpress.com

Hearing What’s Been Written.

All those years when I was in institutions for learning I did not realize that I was a visual learner or that I learned by doing. Listening was not a strength. I personify the expression “in one ear, out the other”.

          There are many of us about. I grew up without the visual delights of television. But I had books, comics, a vivid imagination and the BBC radio. (Some) of that I could listen to for an extended period. But teachers?

          Too many of them read from the text or lectured. The only attempt to capture attention was the copying of blackboards full of scribbled notes. And they dared chastise us for our penmanship!

           Late in life, long after my struggles with formal learning, I learned why that droning voice was turned  off as I, subconsciously, activated the switch that took my mind elsewhere. Where? I am not saying.

          Now I sit in gatherings of my writing group while friends read the prose they have sweated over  and that incurable switch still turns my mind to distraction.

READING WRITING.

I have a need to read what’s written.

Read it to me and my senses wander.

My interest’s not bitten

And my mind is left to ponder

What you’ve said, as my attention

Flits to posters, notebooks, things to see.

     Though it really isn’t my intention

     To ignore your prose or poetry.

     You’ve lost me. I’m not spellbound

     By your words, your message, your intonation.

     Even expressions most profound

      Will not live up to my expectation

That the switch I swear I will not close

Turns off my mind, so inattention

Wanders in. I miss your prose,

Your so-creative word inventions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate Atkinson Summed Up My Writing.

“So much of this is semi-deliberate, as if there is a part of the writing brain that knows what it’s doing and another part that is woefully ignorant.”

I am not big on quoting other writers, but this statement I like. I can excuse errors and bad writing by blaming part of my writing brain that is inconsistent. Trouble is, some days it’s a large part.