Bo Peep in micromanagement mode

The hardest lesson I ever learned about being a writer was when I spent time on Bo Peeps farm. It was a long time ago (20 years at least) in another country (I’d rather not say), and most of the people involved are long dead now (so I’m given to believe). I arrived at the farm in a state of disarray, my life in considerable turmoil after my leaving the Church and religious life. I was very slightly known then as a writer, and, the owner of the farm, Ms Peep, who had several buildings available for rent, gave me somewhere to stay, with more than a gleam in her eye. She seemed excessively pleased on learning I wrote (not that I told her) and mentioned loudly she was planning a book on the subject of her historically significant home. I said I was a novice in the literary game. “A few poems, the odd story, nothing special,”  I said. But she suggested I stay and at least consider the possibility. I said nothing beyond offering her free lessons. Yet despite such enthusiasms, Ms Peep had had previous experiences of members of the artistic community staying on her lush pastures and domicile of extensive cultural and historical significance, however they didn’t always come up with the rent and left suddenly, so  I was questioned about my ability to pay. Offended, but suppressing my anger, I offered three months rent in advance. This was declined and I was shown to my place and introduced to the other members of the community, who disturbingly all had had difficult times in their lives and were down at the farm trying to get over troubled lives. But I was told the good news. I was apparently already writer in residence. Yes indeedy. And I thought- me – a writer in residence? I was a kid (no pun intended).                           I’m the startled looking lost sheep (2nd from left)

“I hear you are writing a book about the place,” my fellow lost sheep bleated. My ego was tickled at the thought, or even the rumour I might be doing something as cool as penning a book. Me -a real writer? I might even make money. “Er, yes,” I said, while remembering some loose discussion initially about writing, but mainly assisting Bo Peep in her literary endeavors. I initially began making notes for the book, to the delight of my shepherd, and also began not only researches into the place, but began to get to know the people who lived there. And the more I got to know them the less I wanted to write about the place. “Everyone here has a story, you know,” Ms Peep piped up. No shit Sherlock, I thought. Do they really? “And they all come here for a reason. I watch over them, you know.” “What type of book do you want?” I asked. Our shepherd and glorious leader, put aside her shepherd’s crook for a moment and looked intently at me. Off in the distance one could see heavy dragon shaped clouds. As I looked up she spoke,. Bo Peep knew exactly what she wanted. “A light table top novel. Humorous. Good holiday reading.” Dear Lord, I thought. I was now a holiday novelist. I was rather more ambitious than that. Also, I was developing a problem with this. I mean, I thought of the people living around the Big House. I wondered if they would consent to being so trivialized, lives reduced to summer reading, their stories distorted into fiction. Was that fair? I wondered, no matter how much I employed the fashionable Kevlar of fiction to insulate myself from potential lawsuits, was it right to use these peoples personal stories, even if they were all to consent to it, as fodder for some type of lame upwardly mobile bourgeois tennis club boast over afternoon cocktails? (I was reading Karl Marx at the time, you have to forgive my naive revolutionary zeal)

So I was a literary butler. I wrote on demand, And Ms. Peep though polite and superficially friendly, ruled her flock with a crook of iron. Well, maybe not iron, that’s heavy – something really rigid but light – you understand.  But then  I knew I might make some coin if I allowed myself to be pimped out like this. Bo Peep had influence. She had spent years climbing the society ladder, and already had close personal friends on all the top golf, tennis, and croquet clubs. I could be marginally less of a hopeless unknown. But then I said no to the whole project. I smoked some weed and grew a conscience, fool that I was all those years ago. I told Ms Peep that I couldn’t do it. And she was very angry indeed. She made life rather difficult for me among the very herd I was trying to protect (see fetching photo above.) Things got ugly. I was accused of not very nice things down on the farm. The other lost sheep seemed to draw away from me. They were disappointed their names were never going to be in print. Eventually the arguments, accusations of being rude, disrespectful and generally not being an obedient sheep and new member of the herd of lost sheep, became too much for this nervous woolly jumper. Even a sheep has a smidgin of dignity. I decided to go my own way, move out and find other pastures green. It was the best decision I made. Bo Peep went on minding sheep, and looking for other lost shepherdable sheep to mind – lost vulnerable ones needing pastures safe and fresh. I kept calm, started another book, and never looked back. A nasty experience.