The relationship you have with your characters can get pretty fraught at times. Granted, you create them and set them on a path. The thing is, over time, they have a habit of rebelling against your intentions. Especially when you’re putting them through a ghost story.
I’ve recently been challenged by Christine Ardron of the endlessly inventive Predgarians blog to have one of my characters answer some question for her. What can possibly go wrong?
Hi.
This is not going to be a blog. Not as such. For which I apologise. I always like to try and serve up a decent sized portion of my brain to you each week. However, this week, I don’t have it in me. It has been a truly strange week. My gran died and it has left me feeling totally and utterly devastated. Since then, I’ve been living in slow motion world, surrounded by small talk and sulking away for quiet moments. I’ve been feeling numb and it turns out numb is no way to write. You would think writing would offer some escape, but first you need to get past the fog in your head and I’m not there yet.
Storytelling is such a fundamental part of who we are now that I don’t think we could really separate it from our lives. Stories are how we talk to each other. They’re how we relate. They're how we relax, either together or alone. Let’s face it, social media is just one long, never ending story we’re telling to our friends. True, some of the character arcs are pretty vague and there are repeating plot points and bad grammar all over the place, but it’s a story none the less.
Read MoreWhat I’m trying to say is that a really productive writing session hinges on a particularly mercurial lynch pin. It depends on finding that certain kind of flow that comes from precisely not focusing on anything in particular. Instead, you allow yourself to be swept up in your own story. You’re trying to reach a moment where it’s no longer clear who’s steering: you or the story.
Read MoreI think I just spent too many years of my life assuming writing would be the solution to all my problems. I never realised back then how much of writing would be about other things. Selling myself being one of them. I never saw that coming as a kid. I just wanted to write. It felt like a clean and uncomplicated way to live. Writing seemed a way to keep away from the world, whilst engaging in it. I could hide in a pretty decent house, send my stories off for people to read and pretend that everything was A-Okay. Boy, was I wrong.
Read MoreSo, say you’ve gone to see the new Marvel movie; well, then you discuss that. You write your piece, tag it and put it out into the world. That would draw the, ahem, crowds. That would get people paying attention. You would not, for example, dump that idea at the last minute and decide to write about roughly the same topic you blogged about last week. That’d be crazy, right?
Read MoreWhenever I see a little, brightly coloured egg hidden almost out of sight in a park or garden so a kid can find it, I begin to wonder what sort of bird lays an egg like that. Or what comes out of it. Never mind picturing the bewitching cuckoo beast that leaves trails of unborn young out in the world, for children to follow. Possibly into the woods. Nothing good ever comes from going into The Woods. It’s the same as The Moors, The Cave or That Old Hospital.
Read More I always knew this day was coming. Ever since I started the blog. I knew, one day, I would hit the wall. The barrier. I’ve reached the blog plateau. I’ve got nothing to say and an allotted time I set myself to say it in.
What’s the proper etiquette here? Do I walk away and hope no one notices we went a week blog free? That feels very much against the aim of whatever this is. I want to keep a dialogue open with you. Because, you know, I’m Mr Needy.