WRITING: SUSTENANCE FOR THE SOUL

 

I’m a writer.  I don’t know about everyone in my family, but I know my paternal Grandmother wrote a story about a doll named Belle, and my father, who loved reading stories in the Saturday Evening Post, tried his hand at writing one he titled “Play It Again, Sam”.  I read both stories and both were good – but never published.

I’ve always loved to write.  As a child I remember writing short little stories about things and when I was in school I was always eager to take on the extra assignments researching and writing about the subjects we were studying at the time.  It was nice that I got extra credit for doing it, but I did it because I loved doing it. 

I’ve written a couple of novels, a number of novellas, and stories for my grandchildren, plus the occasional newspaper article and other odd bits here and there.  None, with the exception of the newspaper articles, have been published, but that doesn’t make me any less a writer, of course.

At first I wrote long-hand leaving plenty of room between lines for corrections and rewrites, etc.  I still write long-hand when I’m on vacation.  One advantage is you can do it anywhere including on the beach.  Here’s an example from one of my romantic novellas, “Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo?”

For a time I had a small portable typewriter, but I actually preferred writing by hand to the small typer.

It was when we were given a word processor that things changed.  What a difference!  It had a bright blue screen with bright yellow text.  Not the easiest combo on the eyes, but it was great being able to correct mistakes and delete and rewrite lines right there onscreen!  Back then I saved things on 5” ‘floppy disks’.

Eventually we came into possession of a computer which was even better.  Bless its spell-checker program!  I may be a fairly good writer, but I can’t spell worth a darned.

The gray background with black text was better than the bright yellow on bright blue, but when I found out I could change the background and text colors, I went to a soft lavender background with white text.  For my eyes, it was the best combination ever.  Unfortunately, on subsequent computers, I’ve never found a way to bring that color combo back.

This is my current setup – computer & printer and a few other helpful things – headphones for listening to things without disturbing anyone else, a small lamp that lights up the keyboard without having to turn on a big lamp so I won’t disturb birdlet if I want to work at night.  A small fan if it gets a bit warm.  And on top of all that, I have a lovely view out the window of the surrounding trees and hills – restful inspiration if I’m pausing to think about what I want to say next in whatever I’m writing – a letter, an article, a story . . . 

It was while I was writing my second novel, “Forever In Time”, a time travel story taking place in the early 1300s around the time of Robert the Bruce and Scotland’s famous Battle of Bannockburn with England that I first ‘met’ Sepia Saturday’s ScotSue.  Needing information about the lay of the land and other things back in that period, I wrote to the Scottish Tourist Board in Edinburgh.  Because the area I was inquiring about was in the Borders, my letter was sent on to their office in Selkirk, and further, because my questions were of an historic nature, it wound up on ScotSue’s desk as she was their historian.

At first our exchanged letters pertained only to my questions and her answers, but after a while we each began to add little tidbits about our own lives and when I had no more questions, we continued writing letters to each other.  And then, when we both had access to email, the friendship took off.  That was 28 years ago.  ScotSue was actually the one who introduced me to Sepia Saturday back in 2013!

We met in person for the first time in 2015 when my husband and daughter and I took a tour of Scotland’s Highlands and Western Isles – a wonderful trip, by the way.  Four years later, in 2019, we met again when we toured England and other areas of Scotland.

That particular novel which introduced ScotSue and me to each other actually made it to the desk of an editor with a large well-known publishing firm who told me it showed promise but needed a little work which my agent should be able to help me with.  Unfortunately, my agent was busy with her more established clients and had no time for me, so I ended the relationship and put the novel into a drawer where it sits today.  I should probably get it out one of these days and see what I might do to make it more acceptable?  First step would be to find another more helpful agent.

Meanwhile, I've not been idle.  I’ve written several short romantic stories that I might be able to publish through Amazon as books for Kindle readers one day if I drastically update my computer program which scares the heck out of me.  But we’ll see . . .

Even if I’m never published all is not in vain for I love to write and get much pleasure out of doing it.  The thing that surprises me the most about writing is the fact that no matter how exact your outline may be, once you get going with a story, the characters simply take over.  I find myself looking back over what I’ve written wondering when the heck I lost control – when this character or that decided to do or say their own things which I had never planned for them to do or say?!!  On reading helpful hints from well-known published authors, however, it is apparently a sort of phenomenon that happens to every writer.  What’s kind of frustrating about it is the characters’ versions are generally better than what I had intended for them to do, but - oh well.  If their version works better, who am I to blow against the wind? 

Below are samples of back-page teasers for a couple of my short stories:

From “A Rogue By Any Other Name”

From “The Vanishing Bride”

This was a story I wrote for my youngest grandson.  Funny thing, I forgot children like lots of pictures with their stories.  I had the pictures of the dragon and the knight, but nothing else so when my grandson asked me where all the pictures were, I had to scrounge around on the internet to find more to accompany the story to his satisfaction which is/was fine so long as the story remains private.  If it were ever to be published I’d have to use my own art, of course.

A few years ago I saw this cartoon and it gave me the idea of seeing what would happen if I set up something like it in our local library.  The idea was to encourage people to add their ideas to a story I began with a single paragraph. The response was fun, interesting, and in some cases, rather amazing.  Some wrote additional short paragraphs, others wrote pages.  Some were funny, some mysterious, some sad or downright scary, and all were in so many different styles.

I had intended to have the library keep the resulting work on a shelf when it was finished so people could read it and this was done for a while, but after a time I was asked to retrieve it.  So oh well.  I have it and once in a while I get it out and read it again for fun.  You should try it with your library!  I know you’d get a kick out of the result and who knows how many would-be writers you might inspire with the idea?!! 

:-> 

La Nightingail