Different chapter, same book: the power of memory

We are constructed from memories.  We are making new ones every second.  How, what and why do we remember some things and not others?  Memories are a treasure trove of data, sensory experiences, adventures and emotions that we can process, translate and re-invent to create new stories.  

When the present becomes the past, our perception of the experience changes, undergoing a mysterious transformation.  Often it is only in hindsight that we appreciate the value of what has gone before. Regeneration is about change and transformation, and we are all – like Dr Who! - regenerating constantly.

These issues are explored in the amazing Life after Life by Kate Atkinson, which I would recommend to everyone - especially if you are a writer.  In this story, the heroine is born, dies and is reborn many times, each life different, although sharing common threads.  (It reminded me of some of the ideas in the film Sliding Doors - the consequences of one action compared to another.  How the same story can have different endings, or different stories, the same conclusion). Is there such a thing as fate or is life simply a sequence of random events? 

You can check out my review of Life after Life and many others here.  It always fascinates how stories can be so differently perceived by different readers. It's one of the challenges - and magic - of being an author. 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16181718-life-after-life

Sci-fi visionary Philip. K Dick is another writer who shares my obsession with the nature and construct of memory, a topic he explores in so many of his stories. It was a theme that haunted and obsessed him.

Does memory re-visit the past or simply re-construct it?  Is memory life itself? Is life, memory?

These are questions I keep asking.  Can we ever know the answer? 

Related posts:

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/picking-flowers.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/life-stories.html

Run Wild, Run Free: memories, imagination and nostalgia

Recently, I returned to the Isle of Wight for a weekend.  I remember, over 40 years ago, wonderful childhood holidays spent there with my family; carefree days on the beach in the sun (remember sun?).  On the train to Lymington Pier to catch the ferry, I felt the old thrill of excitement as I watched the wild ponies in the New Forest, and I recalled a book I read as a child called The White Colt which was made into a film called  Run Wild, Run Free starring the young Mark Lester.  It was a tear jerking tale of a mute and emotionally damaged boy whose life is changed when he befriends a wild colt on the moors. This got me thinking about the reasons we revisit books and places that meant something as a child; those precious happy memories.  

I had a penfriend on the The Isle of Wight as a child; David, who lived in Newport and had a pony called Copper.  Most of my penfriends had ponies and my childhood dream was one day to own a house in the country with a paddock and stables attached for my future horse.   

Do memories play tricks on us?  Or is it just that so much changes over the years?  Including dreams.  I enjoyed my visit to the Isle of Wight, despite the chilly winds and cloudy skies, but left with a tinge of sadness.  Like so many seaside resorts that depend on tourism, it has suffered from the recession and the popularity of cheap flights, and holidays where the sun is guaranteed.  It seemed smaller and lonelier somehow.  I wondered how it will look in another 40 years.  

Hopefully, whatever the future holds, ponies will still be running wild and free in the New Forest.

Experience has taught me that it's not always a good idea to go back, to revisit special places.  Better to preserve those wonderful memories intact. 

Related posts:http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/happy-endings.html

http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/run-wild-run-free-memories-imagination.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/my-bookshelf-and-precious-memories.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/grief-and-writing-routine.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/write-what-haunts-you.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/picking-flowers.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/wise-words.html

Models, playing god and storytelling

Recently,  I went to the Hornby Visitor Centre near Margate.  Apart from the sheer nostalgia of seeing all the historic toys, what really struck me when I gazed at the vast model railway was not so much the trains, but the miniature village with its houses, people, farm animals and buildings. A microcosm of what it means to be part of a community.

When I was a child I loved my model farm, which comprised of a host of plastic farm animals, which were arranged as I wanted them, which did as I wanted.  It provided me with hours of fun. The horses were my favourites, of course, and I made my own stable block out of balsa wood and glue. I created my own world and controlled it in a way that isn't possible in reality.  Playing god in a small way.  Deciding, making choices about where things went and what happened to them. Becoming a storyteller.  And I thought of what it had in common with writing and reasons for writing.  I was controlling my own imaginary world.  Creating stories.

Related posts:

http://www.janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/art-of-storytelling.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/once-upon-time.html
http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/that-other-place.html

Happy Endings

I’m currently enjoying the boxed DVD set of Ace of Wands, a 70s TV series about a telepathic magician called Tarot who, with his loyal assistants, solves intriguing mysteries.  When I was a kid I absolutely loved this.  I was in love with Tarot.  I was always a sucker for a hero with superpowers.  As soon as I pressed Play and heard the theme music from the series I became an idealistic dreamer again.  Maybe this is sentimental nostalgia rather than any logical thought, but I remember the 70s as a more innocent, naïve age somehow.  I miss it. 

I recently re-acquainted myself with another children’s TV series of the70s, The Tomorrow People.  About a group of telepaths from the future who solve mysteries and save the world.  Sounds familiar.....

In both dramas, the heroes and heroines are pacifists.  The acting might be a bit wooden and the sets wobbly but what they have in common is their positive outlook and the fact that good always triumphs over evil.   

Watching programmes like this triggers off a whole chain of emotions.  Pleasure, wistfulness, joy.  For a short magical while, I am transported back to a time before mortgages and emotional responsibility, before life got complicated and grown up.  I think it’s good for our souls to revisit this part of ourselves.

As a pony-mad youngster, my favourite programmes included The Adventures of Black Beauty and The White Horses.  Both featured a girl who loved horses and her adventures, whether in Victorian England or 60s Yugoslavia.  I longed to be that girl with a horse.  It was my ambition, a dream that kept me warm for a long while.   The sense of longing this ignited was part of growing up.  I never became that girl but it doesn’t matter.  That craving inspired and fuelled my writing and is still there when I write my pony books 40 years later. 

Happy endings are reassuring.  That’s what the children’s dramas I enjoyed had in common.  Maybe that’s why I feel good when I revisit them, tinged with a whisper of sadness for something lost.

These days, the only kid’s series that makes me smile is Shaun the Sheep.  Fun, funny, lovable, simple and with a positive message.  Always a happy ending.  It’s what we all hope for. 

Related posts:http://janeayres.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/black-beauty-past-and-present.html

Life as a Literary Device: A Writer's Manual of Survival

Recently, I read a wonderful book by Ukranian-born cultural commentator and journalist Vitali Vitaliev, memorably titled, Life as a Literary Device: A Writer's Manual of Survival.  Amazon describe it as “an analysis of how literature has bound his life and an exploration of how to survive in the modern world.”

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-as-Literary-Device-ebook/dp/B006ZSVMKS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1335707855&sr=8-2

Reading it was a wonderful springboard for me.  His comment, “I dread unlimited choices, which to me can be almost as baffling as no choice at all,” really resonated as making choices is at the heart of the craft and philosophy of creative writing. 

I also loved the survival tips, which were interesting and thought-provoking.  One of these suggests re-reading familiar books from childhood, which can be calming and reassuring at low points. How true.  This form of bibliotherapy rekindles happy memories and nostalgic thoughts, as we also associate the actual text we are re-reading with the circumstances in which it was read.  I count myself lucky that my dearly loved, and sadly recently late, mother used to read to my brother and I when we were very young, while we were snuggled up in bed, and this helped to nurture my love of books, leading to many hours spent reading under the covers by torchlight when the rest of the house was asleep.

I liked the advice “Relax about tomorrow and just see it as gathering information for your survivor’s guide.”   Yes, life is a survivor’s guide, a giant research project, as we accrue the knowledge and experience that will guide us on the journey.