A Guest of My Old Writing Group

I forget things just now. Maybe it's an age thing. Maybe it's because my head is filling up with ideas and I am not writing as much as I should be - because I am also trying to do research for a biggish project that is taking some shape in my head. Anyway, I forget things, and have forgotten to post up a piece of information here. So, this is me remembering.

I have been asked by my old writing group to join them in a public reading in Carlops. This was supposed to happen at the end of last year, but the weather shifted it to February 4th. This will be a fun evening, hearing what friends have been up to creatively and sharing what I have done and a captive audience looking for performance. Love it.

I should do more of these, I think.

And today I wrote a new short story - so I could make space for the 'real' project to be heard in my head. I wrote a story that has an interesting structure, telling itself three times and telling itself different each time. Remember John Fowles' The French Lieutenant's Woman and how it ends and then offers you a second ending and then encourages the reader to choose between the two? I thought this was so clever when I read it. My story is, I think, in the same tradition. It was tricky making it work and I so am pleased with the playfulness of it and its neatness and also its relationship with a real experience I had.

And somewhere I saw stuff under the heading 'Why Write?' and thought it an odd question to draw so much comment. Write because it is a joy to do. Write because you enjoy writing. Write because it is fun to do so. If it is different for you - a struggle, a pain, a trial - then maybe do something else... life's too short. At the very least I am with Susan Hill on this - not having patience with writers who whinge about how hard it all is.