More than Writers

Eek! It’s happening again - I can feel myself morphing, changing, being pulled by some strange force into the very character I have created. OK - it doesn’t always happen - after all my last protagonist was a red-headed male with an untidy beard.  The closest I came to his character was hiding all my empty coffee mugs in drawers and neglecting my houseplants. But then there was the star of Trying to Fly.  She was younger than me, and I thought I made her fairly distinct but gradually the process happened.  I think it was her fault though - I wrote her hair as curly but then she changed it into a straighter bob.  I’m sure that’s how it went.  And she had a scarf - just like one of mine.  I had quite a hunt to find the beautiful teal jumper which was her favourite, though, so I was being sucked in. Maybe that’s why I’m writing about a 22-year old at the moment. I must retain some of myself so I will hang on to my senior age. She’s young, she’s slim (I’v...

Another ACW member wrote a recent post on this blog about the difficulty of the first sentence of a piece of work.  But I’m surprised she didn’t mention titles.  I have just sat for twenty minutes trying to think of a title  before writing a single word of this post.  I seem to be nurturing a strange idea that having a title might help me know what to write. But, in fact, I know it makes sense to have an idea about what I am writing before finding a title.  This is not how my random mind works.  I often start something then gradually it unfolds in front of me.  When I’m writing novels, I enjoy writing a few key scenes before filling in the rest of the novel. Am I really unusual in this? I understand the need for chronological order.  Indeed, nature illustrates this for us all the time.  If something is unusual we notice.  Like, for example, the forsythia twigs I picked on Christmas Eve having blossomed already, giving me a very sprin...

Sometimes on a Monday, I jump on the train to London to go to ballet lessons for greatly aged people like myself.  I have a lovely day meeting friends for coffee, go to two lessons, coming home in time for tea having used journey times to write or read.  A day of tranquillity.  But last Monday I didn't go, partly because there were some ACW things to do, but also because I had a hospital appointment later in the day so would have to hurry back after one lesson. Ken, my other half, was pleased I stayed home, because we had a motor home specialist coming round to do a few minor repairs to the motor home, so he needed my opinion.  When it came to fixing 'the little bit of water that's coming in over the door' it was a shock to find out that we had a really bad leak with extensive water damage and the estimate to fix it and replace all the panels was £3000! Reeling from that and thinking our motor home days might be over, I began to concentrate on a few other th...