keyboard

It’s weird, this feeling, as I literally plonk through the day, you know that plonk thing……..a one fingered kid before a keyboard, no clue of how to play. I had packed, unpacked, packed, unpacked, remembered, forgotten, remembered again, added, removed, placed, argued with space, all of it. My case rests now. I rest my case. My frocks are few, and tatty (never clocked that till folding them for packing) two pairs of shorts, a few tees (they were tee-shirts in my day) various other things like a cardy, the obvious underpinnings, not that they would dare risk underpinning me, and an old dress. Ah, my favourite. She is frail, long, beautiful and always commented on. I can see the sun damage on her denim skin, the loosening of seams, the hole which reminds me of that time, I leapt a fence in the dark, in a moment of wild, not wanting to be left behind, which I wasn’t. I patched that tear, tare, and love the story in this dress. I remember her as she remembers me, showing up again and again, and, the sassy minx, always inviting recognition.

The plonk thing. Back to that. I have to be prepared for this big travel, the flight thing, the squash of people all scared and stressed and fussing and taking up all the room. We are reduced to a serious invasion of personal space and for over 8 hours, in the dark, breathing recycled air. I get the fear. So, I was packed and unpacked etcetera, and then there was breakfast, lunch and a wood delivery and gifts from two friends, well-wishing, and then what? The mist out there is beautiful. I focus on the mist, on the tearlet glisten on nasturtium leaves, on the barely-there maple, on everything in the garden that is standing still. I look at those rigid stalks, actually, we had a chat as I went out barefoot just now, and I ask them how they feel after Wind Ashley or Whoever, when they were blown right over, wheeched from their roots, blinded, stripped and, basically, denied any chance of a ticket to the Species Survival Ball. They chuckled. No, seriously, they did! I heard it through my bare feet on the sniggering grass. It’s safe down there. They, the Long Tall Sallys know that this is how it is, that it may be again, may not, but, trust them, they will work a way, and will not just survive, but will flower magnificent next time Father Sun bothers his butt out of bed.

I am wistful about leaving here, the mist twisty and soft, the rain, a skin treatment. I leave my best friends, moments I will miss, in the street, in homes, in the village, on the island. I will not miss, wheelie bins flying like missiles, ferries cancelled, roads skid risks, the sharp coldsnatch of everything you touch outside of heating. I won’t miss the materialism of Christmas, the sales that elevate at this time of year, a begging, a siren, You Need This. I will miss the warm loving go of people here, the ready to help, the offering, the turning up. This is my place, my home, and I know it. When I set off, tomorrow, for the drive away,the beginning, I will feel elated, excited, and scared. I will check in, find my airport way, find my seat, say hallo, and then, if I could see it, which I won’t this time, over three hours of desert, more, of Africa coming in to say hallo, eventually. And I remember the sounds, the trill, the shrill the thrill of a sudden encounter with a very big wild creature who wasn’t backing down. I remember.

I won’t see them this visit. Different location. Different fun. Off I go.

As you may know, it is essential to read, especially if you are a writer. I read avidly, even during the day sometimes, which would have had me thoroughly tutted at by Granny-at-the-gate. Reading is for pleasure and wifeys don’t do pleasure inside of working hours which numbered, in my recollection about 22 per day. But now I have less demands on my time by little or big people, although sometimes, just before collecting my book and settling into a chair, I do check the clock and feel a frisson of minor guilt. It is so much easier to busy up with faffing jobs that lift the dirt or fill the larder with goodly smells, leaving the me part of me just a bit skinnier.

When I am writing, I become lost in the story, as I am now. Nights are broken as I weave my web, and ideas come at the most inconvenient of times, when the night is dark as a cave and I know I should fight on to achieve my 6 hours of rest, but once the next idea comes, the something that might happen to someone, the how of it and its consequences gets a hold of me, then Lady Sleep leaves the room. Over the years I have worked with various top tips.

Get up and start writing. No thanks, its too cold downstairs.

Keep a pad beside the bed and write down your idea. Yes I do that sometimes, if the story is just a foetus without a name, but if I am well on with the tale and the tellers of it, I can just lie there and follow the thread. Often, almost always, a character takes me in a direction I never mapped out for them, and that aspect of story-telling has always surprised and delighted me. It is, as if, once named on a page, each character accepts an initial structure, quite quietly it seems, until he or she decides I’ve got it all wrong and should listen to what they have to say about themselves.

Yesterday, a woman took an action I would never have expected of her, with a confidence that never came from me. That action changed the whole course of the story and I sat back in my chair, fingers hovering over keys that had just become a jumble of confused letters. A moment or so earlier, I knew just how to write a sentence. I knew where he was going, what she would say, what they would do as a result. Now I stare down at a keyboard that is singing me, not the other way around. I have become a player in the greater game.

Some writers don’t like this state of affairs. Some painters, musicians, song-writers too. But for me, it is the time when I can, to a degree, let go of control, and enjoy learning about each character by listening to their guidance. I move wholly and completely into their world. I work to understand their feelings, often not my own, about what has happened to them. I endeavour to find empathy with choices I would never make, have never made, although I do wonder if that bit is quite true. If I have considered, even for one minute a choice of action not in sync with how I see myself, might that mean that I could do that thing in different circumstances?

When I am writing a story, I move into it. I have to, or nobody would believe in it and the book would be closed and sent to a charity shop, un-read. Good drama draws us in, involves us and we can emerge from a book feeling angry, upset or filled with a happiness that never came from the outside. We can love a character, or hate them, wish them joys or want to punch them in the tonsils, but we can never find them dull, for if we do, we won’t bother to read on because we just don’t care.

Once I have found my characters, and, believe me, I do find them, or they find me, more truthfully. These characters came to me in an ordinary moment when I wasn’t looking for them at all. Two people sharing lunch in a café, and the dynamic between them. It captivated me and the story began to tell me how it wanted to be written. I made notes, kept looking at it as I walked, worked, cooked, cleaned and gradually the protagonists revealed themselves. How they dress, laugh, eat. How they love, how they live, and how they wrote their past.

Then, one day, I know it is time to begin and not long after I do, there is a knock at the door and in they all come.