I am me, and you are you, and other profundities

I'm waiting for a plum and almond cake to cook. I've never cooked a plum and almond cake before. The only reason I am is that Lindsay Rumbold, whom some of you will know from ACW, posted a picture of a plum and almond cake she'd made: the first home baking since moving into her new home. It looked plump and luscious, sitting there on a cooling rack saying, 'Eat me, eat me now.' 

That's the cake saying that, not the cooling rack. Darn that sentence structure thing.  

Here's Lindsay's cake. 

That was three days ago but the idea of a plum and almond cake has niggled at my subconscious since then, a bit like an ear worm, only in my brain, not my ear, and it's a cake, not a worm.

I doubt Lindsay and I used the same recipe. I changed the recipe I found anyway, adding some vanilla essence as I had no almond essence, and beating the ingredients to perdition rather than gently folding them in. 

I mean, who has the time to fold? Don't people have box sets to watch? 

I doubt my cake will taste the same as Lindsay's. I won't get the chance to find out either, as she lives miles away from me in Bedfordshire and that's a long way to travel, even for someone who falls on cake in the same way people fall on long-lost relatives at airports. 

You are now asking, when is Fran going to stop wittering on about cake? And, reader, you wouldn't be the first to ask. 

Let's change the subject, then, and talk about writing. 

Lindsay writes spy stories. She used to be in my local ACW group, the West Midlands group, which is the best one in the country. It's worth re-locating to the West Midlands for, if you happen to be browsing Rightmove just now. 

I don't know how Lindsay writes spy stories. They often feature aircraft, too. If you asked me to do this, I would gape like a fish out of water, my eyes staring in terror, begging, 'Please put me back where I belong.'

Her background in aeronautical engineering no doubt helps, whereas although I have a background in Aeros, I suspect that's not the same thing. 

My background in Aeros, though, does qualify me to write about bathroom scales and my struggles with them, which, if you've read my latest book, you'll have seen me do. You will also know that in that book Bathroom Scales is an actual character who speaks. 

No, no, not weight-obsessed at all. 

I've heard Lindsay read from her spy stories and they are very good. She knows what she's doing and I'm sure soon we will hear that she is publishing a spy novel. But not once have her stories featured bathroom scales, let alone a character with that name. 

Lindsay is Lindsay, and Lindsay's cake, and Lindsay's spy novels, will have her unique stamp on them. No one else will make a cake exactly the same, or write a novel the way she does. 

I am me. My own life, experiences and personality give me a voice no one else has. 

You are you. Ditto the above. 

So, what matters is, keep writing (or baking). Write as authentically as you can, with the voice you have. Interestingly, it's often other people who identify your particular voice, not you, and this is perhaps how it should be. 

Right. My phone's alarm has just buzzed. Plum and almond cake, I fear you are not long for this world.  

And here it is. Quick. Take a look, before it all goes. 

Fran Hill is a writer and teacher living in Warwickshire. Her latest book came out in May and is a funny/poignant teacher memoir written in diary form. You can find out more about Fran and her work by going to her website at www.franhill.co.uk