So how do I write and where do my ideas come from? My friends often ask me and I have to admit I like it too when writers tell you their little ways. I tend to shy away from this question, preferring not to think about it too much and possibly acutely embarrassed by the reality of how I set about things. When I had read ‘Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ He explained how you need to grow a set of male appendages (which is rather difficult I must say and very painful!) I decided to stop hiding, bare all and man up to the consequences…… so here goes!
I write while I do practically everything else. I have pieces of paper scattered about the house with started thoughts and sentences. Hoping that maybe at some point through the day I will get time to write them up, getting more and more frustrated as the day goes on. Every time I sit down at my laptop a more important issue needs to be addressed, this can be anything from needing to fetch a broken disc cutter, the accounts or administering love, care and attention to a grazed knee.
Yesterday was a bad day for writing but a good day for thoughts, so this morning I am determined to write about my three sentences written yesterday and one written earlier in the year they were: -
Like a pack of cards the washing fell.
My life is like running a constant marathon.
I catch my thoughts in a butterfly net, it’s just a pity my net had a whole in it.
As a child I had once tried to climb into a sheet on the washing line, thinking I could get an idea of how it must feel to sit on a cloud (when I wrote that sentence down I knew there was a story there but as yet the idea is still only a seed).
Now for the fun part, trying to weave a story around those thoughts and including the sentences.
It was six in the morning and the house was quiet, still and anticipation hit the air. The laptop choked into action and started the weekly scan process that would take more of those precious moments of silence.
You see I had caught the most beautiful purple butterfly in my net and wanted to save its vision deep within my files to explore its true uniqueness. As it crept to the gaping tear in my net to freedom, my anticipation quickly turned to frustration. The mask like pattern on its wings held my fascination. I tried to hold on to this precious fragile creature but too afraid of crumpling those paper thin wings, released my grasp a little, it hung to the outer edge a while, flapping it wings, showing me its true beauty. Hoping to hold on to its vision my eyes held every movement, colour, reason and thought. It persistently sought its freedom of free flight, through and out of the open window it glided. This masked veil of beauty caught the breeze and flew out of vision and although not forgotten, would never be remembered as it was.
Saddened at the loss I took my laptop with me as I answered a child’s cry of ‘Mummy where are you?’ which meant the starting pistol on my days marathon had started. As he climbed into my bed snuggling up for a morning story I put my laptop on the ironing board.
With a trail of impatience my daughter came in and attempted to find her favourite top amongst the neatly stacked ironing pile, hidden in the corner of my bedroom. As she took the red t-shirt and before I would run and catch it, it all came crashing down like pack of cards. ‘Oh my days’ she exclaimed turning to smile at me as bright as the morning sun. The acceptance washed over me albeit tinged with a little resentment, as we picked the washing up and as neatly as possible stacked them up again.
I go back to my laptop and tick the relevant options on my little dog icon that protects my computer from harm and eats the spam. I jump on the bed and we read a story my little son and me. I then explain I have some work to do so he must run along and play for a while.
Take a deep breath of calming influence and start to type catching the essence of what I had seen earlier. Like little baby chicks they call their hunger and I, like the house martin outside my window fly to their needs. The cupboards are bare so to the shops I run at a steady constant pace I shop and bring home my booty as they swoon and swoop eating with delight and soon the bags are empty, their stomachs full and contentment spreads over them as a blanket on a sleeping baby.
To the ironing board I rush to and tap the fading memory. I look up I catch a glimpse of that dancing butterfly with joyous relish I join in its frolics in the beams of sun until the phone calls for my attention.
THE END
That was as far as I got. Now I didn’t get around to the climbing into the sheet on the washing line as a child and the piece is incomplete, as it’s the first draft and there may be typos and allsorts that need ironing out but that was the point I gues?
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