Keep Writing

 I like to be led by a story that I am writing.  I often think of a rather general plot idea and a main character, then start writing them down to see where they take me.  It’s an exciting way to work, as characters form and take on a life of their own.  But it also involves a fair bit of dead writing time.  I might have a spare half an hour to dedicate to the task, and spend 15-20 minutes of the just sat, pen poised over notebook, waiting for the muse to land.

 I am currently preparing a short story collection, but alongside this I have two or three blogs on the go – this one and my History Usherette one in particular.  Some might look upon this as an inability to apply myself, but I think that it is helpful to have one or two pieces of work on the go at the same time to help keep the writing flowing.  I recently had a perfect example of how this works.  Many of my stories are set in the 1940s.  I had a character – an officer involved in clearing the east coast beaches of land mines just after the end of the war.  I needed to find a way to work him into my story, and to give his personality a facet that would turn him into an individual.  As I waited for the character to form I watched an old film, which I intended to write about for my History Usherette blog.  The film was called ‘Appointment in London’ and it starred Dirk Bogarde as a wartime Wing commander.  The action was set in 1943 on a Lincolnshire airbase.  The one thing that stood out about this film, and that I chose to blog about, was belief in luck and superstition. It made apparent the fact that when people live with the daily likelihood of death (as bomber pilots did) they start to rely on lucky charms and to concern themselves with jinxes.

 I could immediately connect this to my mine clearance officer.  So many men were lost on Britain’s beaches as they were cleared of their wartime defences.  There is a common psychology there.  So, my character became superstitious and reliant on a lucky charm – and was incredulous with himself for doing so.  Here’s an extract from the story, called Amphitrite:

 The straight-backed man in uniform stood with his hands in his pockets, his left hand turning over a piece of seaglass as though it were a ritual.  The glass had caught his eye a few miles up the coast a couple of weeks ago, and since then his run of bad luck had ended.  Bad luck wasn’t strong enough to describe the loss of three men in such quick succession, but he had certainly felt jinxed in some way.  This land mine clearing job was taking its toll on his sanity, he felt.  He’d never been superstitious, he’d always had a feeling of superiority over those of his men that carried lucky charms about with them.  They didn’t work of course they didn’t.  He remembered that forlorn four leaf clover among the effects of that lieutenant, shot to pieces in France.  But still, as his men did a final sweep of the beach, he rubbed his forefinger along the smooth curve of the seaglass.

 This story would not have taken shape without the film blog.  You have to keep writing to be able to write.