Pen Pusher...

... for Knots in the String...

I don’t think I ever longed to be a writer because writing was just something I did from as far back as I can remember.

Like breathing.

It’s always given me a feeling of contentment. Even comfort. As I’ve said many times, the kind of feeling any creative might get as they work at their art. Creative angst has never been a part of my experience, it’s never coloured or colours my creative existence. Writing just is, because more than anything, I write for the joy. If readers are entertained, then that really is wonderful and a magnificent bonus.

How many times have you heard a writer say that it’s a compulsion to write?

It is true, you know.

On the days I don’t write, I feel incomplete. When I settle to a manuscript, the hours fly by as I exist in my 12^th century (or lately, contemporary and fantasy…) bubble.

When I begin a new story, when I type or handwrite those first words, the feeling is as close to ‘coming home’ that I can describe. It’s where I belong. In a world I’ve created and where I get to call the shots and where mostly, life doesn’t really surprise me because I’m creating the surprises.

In addition, as an introvert I can be an extrovert without fear. I can play payback with bullies and win. I can wear sapphires and pearls if I want or eat pottage or rustic bread and cheese for every meal and I won’t be judged. I can advance or retreat as I like without condemnation.

I listen to my 4 year old grandson telling me about his world – about the friendly aliens who come in their rocket ship to his garden to visit and about George the Dump Truck who has a pet rat and a pet mouse who recently had a haircut. ‘Nanny, they’re only in my imagination, you know,’ he says with a sageness beyond his years, and I wonder to myself if this darling boy who builds Lego kits suitable for 8 year olds, and who can write his own name and can read whole words, may have inherited a creative streak and be a budding storyteller.

Golly, I hope so. It would be a wonderful legacy to pass on.

And a refuge for him perhaps, in what is a rough, tough world.

And on that topic:

Over summer, our little community has been intimidated by two teens who have been hammering on people’s doors through the darkling hours and throwing stones on roofing and against windows. During daylight, they’ve been intimidating with their pushbikes and an electric motor scooter. They’ve almost caused vehicle accidents as they double and triple-dink with no helmets, inattention, speed and with a phone in hand, filming themselves (no doubt for Tik Tok).

The police were informed by a large number of complainants but were unable to do anything without evidence.

Finally, someone managed to get a video of them trespassing in the night, throwing stones and thumping doors and it was given to the police and the police paid the family a visit.

The kids admitted to the misdemeanours on seeing the video.

The kids were threatened legally with confiscation of their wheels for a week and possible charges of trespass, but the father said on his honour the kids would not do anything wrong again.

The next day, the kids were once again hairing round the town full-speed on their pushbikes on footpaths, a dog on the loose, no helmets, and lo, they ran up the back of a ute parked on the side of the road!

So much for a father’s word and discipline…

This is the stuff that a writer could salt away for a future contemporary novel. Only ‘the names would be changed to protect the record’ and with the dictum that this would be ‘a work of fiction and no likeness to any persons living or dead…’ etc etc.

We lock our gates every night and I thank God for the back roads where the terrier and I walk away from the Madding Crowd and where we share our silences with native birds, echidnas and (last evening), wallabies. I always pick up a gumnut and smell it as I walk – an astringent pomander – restorative.

I go home, the terrier collapses, replete with having read doggy news (ie unusual scents and excitements) and I have a cup of tea and a piece of delicious berry and triple choc brownie. Celestial yumminess!!!

I happily settle to streamed TV whilst I stitch.

Practicing the Betsy Morgan bits on a linen scrap, seeing if my mind and fingers can manage demanding designs.

But taking up most of my time has been the re-issue of Passage with a stunning new cover.

The image was taken by professional photographer, Alistair Bett. Al captured Annie’s loneliness, her beloved dog, the island and the sky with simple sensitivity.

I wrote Passage after my husband had a shocking farm accident and as they rushed him to hospital in an ambulance, the thought crashed through my mind that I might lose him. I didn’t, happily, but the seed for a novel was sown. It became a journey through grief and PTSD (with a much earned, happy ending) and when the great Irish contemporary fiction writer, Cathy Kelly, gave it the thumb’s up, I was filled with relief and vindication. It was my first foray into contemporary fiction so it was a scary time in more ways than one.

Being a re-release, it will be a week or so until it is available as an e-book, and a little longer for the new print edition.

Reading:

Plant catalogues.

Manuscript.

And…

Watching:

Coalition about the hung parliament of 2010 in the UK. Excellent dramatisation.

Hope Street Irish crime in a coastal town. It’s not as dark as much of the Noir we watch is. We’re enjoying it.

Listening:

Spotify - my own playlists where I wander between ballet pieces and more contemporary music that I love.

But most importantly,

Richard E. Grant’s With Nails. I like Grant’s voice, his cut-glass articulation. I like his biting assessment of the world he inhabits. I’ve read three of his memoirs thus far but this is perhaps the coarsest. Maybe it’s because he’s dealing with Hollywood… there’s an inevitable crassness about the people he mixes with that makes my hair curl. However I enjoy his fly-on-the-wall journalling.

Being a writer demands a kind of vigilance or mindfulness, of tuning one’s senses to one’s surroundings. It can be a pleasure and a curse.

But it’s not hard every day to see that truth is stranger than fiction and that life is filled with material if one is alert to opportunity. Most writers always carry a little notebook for the times that ideas appear front and centre. This summer is one of those times.

Thank you for reading. And because this has been a newsletter on writing and writers, I leave you with this quirky song - one of my faves.