Writing is a hard but very enjoyable job.
I have spent many months getting up early and writing and rewriting, and then deleting before starting all over again. The plot lines, the continuity - making sure that the people don't change over time, trying to breath life into the characters to make them dance on the page, so that readers can picture them, like or loathe them and care about them or otherwise.
I have also had to physically recreate imagined acts of love, violence and even murder, frame by frame so that I could then write about them, describing accurately placement of fingers and hands, arms and legs, noses and cheeks.
I have spent months practising and developing my writing. For most of the Summer I lived at our caravan in Southwold, and ventured out every day with my notebooks and pens, looking for people and places to observe and capture, in much the same way as if I were doing prelims before painting a picture. I felt like an undercover agent, pretending to be absorbed in my book, but actually listening in on conversations, and people watching. I even took L out on a mission with me one day, and she was brilliant at spotting people of interest.
She pointed out a man and woman pushing a tiny baby in a pram.
"Yesterday, that man was in the Co-op wearing a t-shirt with photos of his wife and baby on it. Weirdo!" And then the following day, we caught a boat to Walberswick and a couple of old hippies with dreadlocks were fellow passengers. She later spotted the man with the t-shirt and the old hippy couple having a picnic on the beach, and felt like she had just fitted lots of pieces together and solved a baffling mystery. It made us laugh like drains! And whereas you could never predict that that would happen and that they would all be connected, these strangers who had made a passing impression on us, when you are writing, you can plant seeds and make them grow into something amazing.
One of my favourite observations from the Summer, was of two middle aged women sitting in the sand dunes, while I was scribbling away in my notebook on the beach below them. I didn't see them, but the wind was blowing in my direction and their voices were loud and clear. They were with their sons, Jacob and Curtis, who were probably about twelve. Jacob asked his mum (who I am calling Barbara) where she would be based when she started her new full time job in September, and would it affect him after school. Barbara said she would be travelling all over, and would have to do lots of business miles. Jacob questioned whether they would be long or short journeys, and when she said that they would be mainly long, he responded "oh that will be so good for the Nissan".
As he disappeared into the dunes, Barbara said to her friend (Carol?) "He's getting SO grown up. It's important for him that he asks these questions and is considering the impact of changing circumstances".
Barbara and Carol then packed their bags to go, and called to the boys to tell them it was time to leave. The ladies left and a minute or two later, the boys followed them, marching through the sand dunes back to the road singing "saggy balls, saggy balls, saggy saggy saggy balls." It made me wonder if Carol would have been quite as boastful, had she been a witness, but it also made me like Jacob a lot more.
So it's not all sitting at a laptop.
I get to be a spy, an artist, an actor and a magician. No wonder I am enjoying it so much.
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