Big Family Solidarity

Over the course of my book-publishing jolly, I’ve come across various crowd-funding campaigns by authors, hoping to finance their work with the help of the general public.  I’ve kept my own costs reasonably low, so it’s not been something I’ve felt the need to embark on personally.   (Sadly this means there’ll be no hardbacks available from me.  Soz.)

But from the opposing side of the creative cause, I do like being given the chance to throw my loose change into someone’s project/life work, now and then.  Aside from supporting actual charity, it’s as good a place for my spare cash to go.  Definitely better than Candy Crush lives, anyway.

This week I got a mysterious package though the post.  It contained a t-shirt, a tea towel, a DVD and a badge - clearly the perks from donating to a Kick Starter campaign.  The trouble was, this was for a comedian I only know via Twitter (I’ve literally no idea what the catchphrase on the T shirt is referring to) and was pledged whilst I was drunk.  A while back, I woke up to an email thanking me for my generous donation of the previous night.   Ouch.

As we speak, however, I am soberly watching another Kick Starter clock up the dough - Caitlin and Caroline Moran’s sitcom, Raised By Wolves.   It is slowly racking up, with another 20 days to make their target, and I really hope they do. There are many reasons to love this, but for me it is the realistic depiction of a large family that makes me laugh loudest.

I don’t know if it is the ease of over-sharing with the period talk, the crowded bunk beds that house more bodies than they were designed for, or the constant lack of space and privacy that make me feel the most nostalgic.   But it is spot on, and a rare example of my being able to relate to a TV family.   As well as that, there are the excellently drawn characters, a LOL-fest of a script, and the exceptional Rebekah Staton as matriarch, Della.

So as the next three weeks pass by, I shall keep the faith that this particular family is kept alive by the kindness of strangers.  Because otherwise it’s down to The Cosby Show to represent, and we just can’t go there anymore.