Beginnings and Endings

Sark.  Photo by Roger Hyland

I have come to the conclusion that there are no beginnings or endings, simply a continual passage of time, which I used to see as linear, then circular and, finally, as a figure of eight - the infinity symbol, moving back and forth between past and present into the future...

I like to play with this concept when I write.  Beginnings are always scary but exhilarating.  A bit like a plane taking off.  The start of the journey into the unknown. Endings are different.  They need to be satisfying, both to write and for the reader.  They don’t need to tie up all the loose ends, because life isn’t like that.  And when you think you have finished, you often find that the perfect ending is actually the perfect beginning.  And vice versa. 

I use this idea when I teach creative writing workshops.  It encourages fluidity; an open-minded approach to the creative process and the realisation that it is organic.

Related posts:
http://creatabot.co.uk/2012/07/19/stories-we-tell-ourselves-by-jane-ayres/
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/journeys-and-shapes.html

Elastic infinity (photo by Jane Ayres)

Write what haunts you

       Photo of rocks in ocean mist by Roger Hyland

I just read an interesting post by Melissa R. Sipin called Write What Haunts You on Glimmer Train which really resonated with me. We are often told that passion for our subjects should shine through the writing, which I agree with, although this can often be hard to sustain.  Everyone has ups and downs with writing, days when you feel like giving up, or that you have no more to say, or are simply burnt out.  

But writing what haunts you - that is wonderful advice. I'm not talking about the supernatural here (although it can encompass this) but thoughts and ideas that compel us, that revisit us time and again; issues that preoccupy us; problems to solve, that won't leave us until we have worked through them.  Whether this finds release and voice in a diary or fiction doesn't matter.  We have pictures and images in our head that remain fixed - happy or sad - or precious moments and memories that we hold and will never forget. These "ghosts" can transform our work and lend it authenticity.

Most writers discover, sometimes over a period of time, that there are themes that they continue to revisit, characters they want to return to; or simply obsessions that embed themselves into the work, unbidden but persistent threads, that are so much a part of us that they will not be silent. 

What haunts us can be deeply personal, not to be discussed with another living soul, but which can find a safe haven through the words we write.

In my own work, journeys continue to haunt me and find expression. What haunts you, and can you use it to enrich your writing?

Related posts: http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/journeys

For the journey

Today I'm over at Creatabot again.  I love writing posts for this excellent e-zine.

Here's a taste...

So many great stories are about literal or spiritual journeys, in which the protagonist is changed by the process, whether she has experienced incredible dramatic adventures or pursued more reflective contemplation.  Journeys seem to be a recurrent theme in my writing.  More than 20 years ago, the first novel I had published, Wild Horse Island, was about a horse taken from.....

Click here to read the full article
http://creatabot.co.uk/2012/12/09/for-the-journey-by-jane-ayres/

Footsteps in the Sand - Guest blog from Jan Woodhouse

In response to feedback, I'm delighted to post a guest blog from artist, photographer and writer Jan Woodhouse.  Check her website www.artatwoodhouse.co.uk and blog. 

"Responding to your blog (which I really like) I was thinking about your comments on life journeys.  The word ‘journey’ has become a bit of a cliché, what with all the contestants on X-Factor banging on about their respective journeys.  But whether or not we use the ‘J’ word, I think we all have a sense of some sort of process in our lives, and try as I might I can’t think of another word that fits the bill.  I suppose the usual themes embody some sort of personal success or fulfilment, or an incremental building of self-belief. A notion of progress is usually implied.  But what about all those detours and diversions and interruptions along the way?  All those little passages that seemed so irresistible but turned out to be cul-de-sacs?  And yet perhaps even the darkest and dustiest of these had something worth finding.

On 28^th March 2010, not long after I started my blog,  I posted some thoughts on Footsteps in the Sand, and I guess this is still relevant.  Are we more interested in the footsteps we leave behind, or what we glimpse along the way?"

Jan Woodhouse

www.artatwoodhouse.co.uk

 Tarnished christening mug in old case

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/for-journey.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/journeys-and-shapes.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/more-on-journeys.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/wheels.html

More on journeys

I said in a previous blog that life is a journey.  I do believe this.  I feel it.  Not long after I had written it I started to read Super Sad True Love Story, a novel set in the future by Gary Shteyngart.  He was interviewed in the BBC documentary called Books - The Last Chapter (referred to in a previous blog) and this inspired me to seek out his novel.

The second paragraph reads, “Don’t let them tell you life is a journey.  A journey is when you end up somewhere.  When I take the number 6 train to see my social worker, that’s a journey.”

That made me think about my journey.  Where do I want to end up?  I don’t know the answer yet, although we all end up in the same place ultimately.  Journey and destination.  Both matter.

Train journeys and car journeys both provide great creative space, I find, whether I am driver or passenger.  Ideas fire off unprompted in a way that rarely happens if I am staring at my computer screen.

I’ve just read Rumblestrip by Woodrow Phoenix, a monochrome graphic book all about what happens when we get behind a steering wheel.  The layout cleverly simulates a car journey and as you read, you feel as if you are in fact on a virtual car journey.  I came across this book in a store in London at http://www.theschooloflife.com/

I keep promising myself I will go on one of their day schools some time.  Anyway, the book provides alarming statistics about deaths caused by driving and is thought-provoking.  I sometimes dream about driving a car, and when I drive at night, I sometimes wonder if I am dreaming.  Woodrow Phoenix describes it perfectly:

“There is a dreamlike quality built into the experience of driving.  A car windshield is a big window.  And also a screen….locations unwind on the other side of this rectangular glass almost as they do on a movie screen….you sit cocooned in your cabin….everything outside your windows is contained, the rest of the world an arm’s length away…..you glide through location after location as if they were erected just for you to drive past.  Every journey is a narrative with you at the centre.”  

I love that last line.

Related posts:
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/for-journey.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/footsteps-in-sand-guest-blog-from-jan.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/journeys-and-shapes.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/wheels.html

On connections

I’ve been thinking a lot about connections.

The internet is all about connections.  As someone whose favourite place as a child (apart from the riding stables) was the library, the opportunities to explore and research and learn through the internet is what I find most exciting.  Your own, constantly evolving, library.  Amazing.

But the internet has spawned it’s most popular child, Facebook.  I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook.  Although it’s power and influence alarms me, I have a profile.  I post from time to time.  I like the way I can stay in touch with my friends and share events and thoughts with them.  It enables us to make connections and feel part of a community.  Humans need to feel connected.

We enjoy comedians when we can recognise the situations and emotions they describe.  I was watching Michael McIntyre the other night and I laughed because what he was saying was so familiar.  It’s the same with the writers we click with.  If they create characters that we can empathise with, we care about them.  We need to feel connected, part of something bigger.  To know we are NOT alone (although we are). It creates a necessary illusion.

Ironic that on so many levels humans have the tools to be more connected than ever before, yet on a deeper level we can feel disconnected.

More on this will follow, because as I approach my fiftieth year a number of interrelated topics demand my attention - as a writer and as a human being.

Journeys.  Connections.  Identity.  Purpose.

For most of my life I have set myself goals and targets.  I would feel adrift without them.  But recently I have realised that more important is purpose.  More elusive but offering a deeper level of satisfaction.    I haven’t identified my purpose yet but I will.  Soon.

Related posts:

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/connectivity-and-communion.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/running-writing-and-living.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/on-books-digital-landscape-and-bigger.html

Journeys and shapes

I was once asked about my need to document everything.  I had never thought about it directly.  Maybe it was a way of not forgetting.  That’s why I always make lists.  But it is more about remembering emotional states, situations.  Having proof.  In nearly 50 years of life I have experienced so much yet how much do I remember?  A tiny fraction.  That makes me sad.  I want to remember everything, to be able to access my hard drive whenever I choose.  It can be a struggle remembering a long way back, yet we might hear a piece of music or smell a scent and in an instant, it can open a door to access a long forgotten memory.  How amazing.

Everything we have done or felt shapes us.  The people we meet and how they impact on our lives.  Love and loss, pleasure and pain.  It makes us who we are and we are evolving constantly, incrementally.  As writers, who and what we are, all the baggage we have acquired or offloaded on the journey, finds a way consciously or unconsciously into our work. 

When I re-read work written years before, tiny details – a name, a turn of phrase – can once more evoke a situation, a person – and I retrieve a once forgotten memory. 

Writers are told in manuals and on courses to write from experience.  But we can’t help it.  That doesn’t mean it has to be literal but it often is.  Writing can illuminate, help us understand ourselves and the world. 

Life is a journey.  Writing is a journey. They are inextricably linked.

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/for-journey.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/more-on-journeys.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/wheels.html