WRITING

Letters to Psychic Pam is new. Yes, another project, but it’s just a little one; I have to write a letter every day to a fictional character for about four months or so, then it all sits together as a piece of work – what’s it for, where’s it going? I don’t know yet, but it tickled my imagination. I found the idea in the writing workshop site in my links and thought I could take it somewhere. The story is based on a real situation but I’m twisting and turning it into my own thing. They’re only about 500wds, and I don’t absolutely have to do one every day but, at the moment, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

I began the other day with 60yr old Isabel writing a letter to her psychic, asking for a tarot reading through the post. After creating the first one, I was worried about getting interesting stuff every day; when this (previous post) fell out of my head yesterday I sniggered all the way to the end. So, am looking forward to seeing what happens.

Other writers are always telling me to focus on one thing at a time but it seems that, after all these years, this is the way I work...and I am inching to the end of stuff. Maybe it’s because of the poetry; poets need to put work away for long periods of time so must have lots of projects – and I learned a bundle from sending work out far too early. I have some poems, started twenty years ago that are still not quite right; some of these have been rejected many times; they’ve been re-worked, moved back and forth from poetry to prose and back again. I know they have heart; a diamond inside them – I just need to find it.

I must be feeling my age; this is the second elderly MC I’ve come up with, but I like her – she is off her tartan trolly, and is in fact a stalker on two fronts. This will be fun.

Happily, I am writing every day, at the moment; sometimes just for the blog but that’s okay. Stress is not something allowed in my life, these days. I’m working slowly towards some kind of crescendo that will be a re-birth for me – then maybe I can quit the day job and play with words all day (I don’t need much money). Ideally, there will be some clay in there too; the idea of settling down in a new flat with space for all my stuff is exciting; photography, pottery, art and crafts. I can actually see it being just a couple of years away; it sits in a frame, well-lit, at the end of the corridor but I am sauntering towards it: not running. I’ll get there, eventually, without breaking a sweat; we wouldn’t want to appear too desperate, now would we?