Ee Gad!!! It’s been almost three weeks since the last blog post. I must be slipping into bad habits again. Either that or I’ve been so overcome with the busyness of life that I just haven’t had the time. Still, whatever the excuse its piss-poor of me and I apologise. Note to self – Must do better.

Actually, to tell you the absolute truth, the last three weeks have been punctuated with bouts of crappy health and soul-crushing lethargy mingled with liberal proportions of stress and haring around all over the place. It’s been a funny sort of time.

What I have been doing though is giving a lot of thought to my books.

A lot of thought as it happens.

At one point, can you believe, I even contemplated scrapping the lot of them and starting again from scratch. Yes, that’s where my head has been at.

You see, something has been nagging away at my mind for some time now and it’s this…

Is there really any need for all the foul language in my books?

That is the question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. And I’ve come to the conclusion that, actually, no, there is no need for it whatsoever. And I’ve reached the decision that it’s got to go.

I read an awful lot, in particular comedy authors such as Terry Pratchett, Tom Holt, Douglas Adams and the unimpeachable Jerome K Jerome. They all have a couple of things in common.

1. Their books are all arse-clenchingly funny
2. They don’t use bad language.

And if its good enough for the likes of them to keep it clean then its good enough for me.

Oh, for sure, you might read the occasional “Shit” or “Bastard” in their novels but the use of the F word is virtually non-existent. Especially where Pratchett and Jerome are concerned. Jerome of course was writing at the turn of the last century and as such would never have even gotten into print if he’d used even the merest of cuss words. But I challenge anybody to read Three Men in a Boat without crying with laughter, especially the pineapple scene. All good clean fun and quite hysterical.

And as hard as it is to imagine Lady Stark-Raven not effing and jeffing I think the time has come to clean up my act. Not that I’m a great user of profanity myself; I’m not, but I now just feel that using swear words purely for comic effect is, perhaps, a tad puerile and rather akin to some of the utterly pathetic new breed of comedians that we now see who seem to think that shock value is far more important than actual good old-fashioned humour.

So here’s the deal…

I’m shelving the current work in progress for while and I’m going to clean up the existing seven novels and then relaunch them. I don’t want to be associated as a man who gets cheap laughs at the expense of good taste.

I mean, don’t worry too much, I won’t be altering the plots or characters at all. I’ll just be taking out all the unnecessary expletives and replacing them with something a bit more palatable.

I’ve always said that the use of profanity and bad language in my books is to highlight what a sordid little world we live in in the 21^st century. But to be honest now, do I really need to highlight it. We all know, deep down, that we live in a time of sordidness the likes of which have never been seen before. Even in the days of Noah and Sodom and Gomorrah.

I’ve mentioned before how influenced I am by the Carry On films and seventies sitcoms. Now, if you watch any of them you’ll come across plenty of innuendo and suggestiveness but very little in the way of actual blunt crudity. I personally think that seeing Sid James going “Corrrrr!” at a bikini clad Barbara Windsor is far less offensive than much of the sexual extremism we see today in the movies these days.

Likewise, I feel that Stan and Jack, from On The Buses, talking about “birds” with leery grins on their faces is far less concerning than listening to the likes of Jimmy Carr or Ricky Gervais making light of the holocaust or the cast of QI or 8 Out of 10 Cats giggling like naughty schoolboys over some sexual jibe that’s been peppered with expletives.

Personally, I believe if you’re prepared to censor the Carry Ons but endorse comedy that makes sick jokes about the holocaust then you really need to speak to a professional psychiatrist as soon as humanly possible.

Anyway, back to my original point, I’m going to remove all the F words, C words, many of the B words (not all) and anything remotely religiously or racially offensive.

I want to be known as a comedy author who doesn’t have to resort to violent language in order to get laughs. And it’s getting increasingly harder to do that in this day and age. But when I read one of the Discworld novels or re-read Three Men in a Boat (which I do every year) and I find myself chuckling away or laughing our loud at the brilliant humour contained within I feel more and more convinced that it’s the right (write?) way to go.

So wish me luck gentle reader as I embark upon this most personally important of missions. It just might be the saving of the Blessham and Ingleby literary worlds and prevent me from doing something incredibly stupid. It shouldn’t take me too long and then I can get back to the current WIP with a clear conscience and a new direction.