Going Well

            I’ve been visiting an elderly relative in hospital for the last couple of weeks. He underwent an operation which was successful and which the surgeons were pleased with; but he seems to have given up. He keeps saying things like: “I’m near my end,” causing all his family distress. He barely eats anything, even food we bring him in ourselves. And because he doesn’t read, and can’t get to the television room, and won’t pay the prices for the hospital’s tv/internet services, he pretty much lies there all the time. Waiting for us to visit him.

            I love this relative, but it’s driving me up the wall. Behind his attitude is a fear of change. Someone more positive, who’d had the same operation he’d had, might be on her feet by now. And I can’t help thinking ruefully that in his position I’d be able to occupy my time no bother. I only wish I had time to read.

            Stephen King, in On Writing, says that if you’re not reading then you’ve got no business writing. So I’ve been making a concerted effort to keep reading even one page per day of a title I’ve chosen for pleasure.

                                                            *

            I’m writing. A fortnight ago, I decided that I was going to force the issue. I remembered an old idea that I had kicking around but which I hadn’t attempted to write yet. I wrote the idea down, then wrote some notes about the characters in it. For me, that is a breakthrough; and even though the notes could be more comprehensive, nevertheless I had a better idea of who these people were.

            I based the protagonist on someone I know in real life but whom I don’t like very much. I figured, well, it’s a horror story, I want the protagonist to be under threat of death…Strangely enough, I’ve come to quite like the character (though not the person he’s modelled on).

            Last week, I began writing the story itself, and I’ve been writing it steadily ever since. It’s going to be a short horror story. And the thing which has really inspired me is the book Ron Carlson Writes A Story. It seems to have energized me, especially his dictum that a writer stays in the room (that is, at the keyboard or the notepad until she’s written that day’s work) and the idea of discovering things as you write each new line.

            I’m aiming to write about ten thousand words to have something to edit. I’m taking my time.

            And as I’ve been writing, the rest of my life has felt correspondingly better. I don’t know why that should be- maybe when inspiration strikes, it strikes all over. I certainly want to make the best of it.