Writing a Political Novel

There are worse things than Writer's Block!

I had an idea for a political novel, a thriller about the presidential election.

I started writing it back in the nineties, but then there was the Bush/Gore election,

which so divided the country politically that I realised fifty percent of the

population would go to the bookstore, open the back page to see who won, then put it

back on the shelf.

So I decided to rewrite it as a parody. Then along came Sarah Palin, raising the bar

for what people would realise was parody. so I decided to go for a human interest story,

a struggle, featuring an unknown young, idealistic, charismatic speaker who wows his way

to the White House by inspiring the nation, coming out of nowhere to become - dare I

push the envelope that far? - the nation's first black president!

Not wanting to be seen as trying to ride on someone's coat-tails, I had to shelve that

idea too. Then I decided to return to the parody angle, no - a farce! A candidate so

ridiculous that his election would be inevitable, simply because he would brazenly

brush off ANY criticism, and the media would love him so much for the ratings he gave

them that anything he said became national news - a product of the reality TV generation!

As I put the final touches to my masterpiece, Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring.

I threw my manuscript in the fireplace. I knew I had been defeated.

"Truth is stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense!" - Mark Twain

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