Running Away

The darkness in the shadows that always seems to follow you has woken up. Cold and rain and danger and never ever being safe. Until, coming up for air, an oasis of calm, or was that just the cusp, the forgetting, the false security. Yes, because there is the gnawing, soaring sensation again and all will never be well. 

Others deliberately turn their backs, glad it is not them singled out. So you run, down the rain-soaked streets. Relentless running and a stitch and then in breathless exhaustion, you are forced to slow, even though you know that might well be the end.

Inevitably, we are all running from something; a visceral, indescribable evil that is the other side of ourselves. Maybe that is the creature pounding after you, just your shadow reflection. Just everything you don’t like about yourself.

Silence follows your revelation, you stop and turn slowly, ready to confront. The other sadder, angrier, more dangerous you stands there, an unfriendly mirror. There is only one possibility, only one way out. You walk forwards with outstretched arms. It is time to accept, to forgive, to be whole.

Novelists, Go Back to School!

Writing a novel can be lonely, if you don’t count the made-up people walking around your head and clamouring for attention.

After three terms off, I’ve gone back to my creative writing evening class and it’s like coming home. Over the years the group have unwittingly become good friends. We bond over our common drive/love/sickness to write. We get excited about and share books. We go to the pub afterwards. The class are an eclectic lot, from romance-writing accountants to Daoist bus drivers to dystopian opal miners. Yes, I know, less plausible than the characters in your novel but that’s reality for you.

Nicky, the charismatic and endlessly inventive teacher leads us through exercises, discussion and homeworks. She helps us hone our writing skills and stretches us in different directions. Poetry, flash fiction and reviews refocus my novelist approach to rhythm, cutting surplus words and integrity.

With the homeworks, I complete, I finesse, I finish and as they’re only a page long, it’s almost instant gratification. What an antidote to scaling 80,000 words! When sharing writing, any praise, of course, is lovely but more crucially, the constructive feedback is gold. For example, on my own, there was nobody to point out my blind spots. In class, somebody will ask, ‘Are your characters floating in space?’ and I’ll remind myself to include an indication the story is set in a coffee shop.

The class is also a wonderful distraction from my current phase of researching and sending out to agents. The waiting and hoping game might have been eating me alive right now, but it’s not because I’m considering how to interpret my next homework. I’m also reading a borrowed book many miles out of my comfort zone.

Most of all the class is fun. And isn’t that why we pick up our pens in the first place? It’s easy to forget that when you're on the third draft of your novel and discover a gaping plot hole. The class helps me get back to those simple motivations; to create, to entertain, to connect.

So, novelist, don’t sit in your garret with only your protagonist for company; remember the real world! I wish I’d come back sooner. In class, I’m always learning, and it’s always fun!

Thirteen Seconds Before the Story Starts

A dark side street. An orange streetlamp from twenty metres away turns the trees grey but doesn’t give enough light for clarity. There is undergrowth, there are lurking places, there are puddles and cracks on the ground. What light there is, picks out imprecise diamonds of smashed glass and a sad rainbow of oil where a car has leaked. No honest person would stop here long. It is a place that causes the hairs on your neck to prickle, it is a place that makes you wish you were home. And now a gust of harsh wind brings litter with it and the start of smattering rain.