A return (of sorts)

I'm writing again - this time properly, and hopefully in a way that will lead to something happening a little way down the line... But the most important part of this isn't that I'm hoping it goes somewhere - it's that this is happening at all.

I stopped writing for various reasons - I'd always turn my hand to a poem or two if the moment took me (or allowed it), but with the exception of the (currently dormant) Ood Cast, I hadn't done anything for a long time - something approaching four years.

I started up again thinking that it might be a nice distraction and would get some of the half-decent ideas out of my head. So I began taking notes for an idea. Just sitting down and brainstorming an idea re-awakened something in me that filled me with some kind of joyous light. Creating a character, and planning their journey through the story that was taking shape in your head is something wonderful and sacred to me - learning about the characters too. In this case, to my utter confoundment, I found that these characters are already formed in my head.

In amongst the joy of writing about these people, and seeing whether I can tell their story to a level that does it justice, I wondered where they came from. The answer is simple, but complex: they spring from people I know - some very well, some less so - and also from music. Some of you reading this may well have been reasons I've got these people in my head. Some of you I know precisely, some I think may be a mixture.

What bits and pieces of the puzzle I choose to write on a particular day always tend to spring from what kind of music I've been listening to... I'll write another post about some of the music affecting me at the moment soon - but if I'm in a Paul Simon kind of mood, I know what sort of scenes I'll be working out later that day. And that isn't always predictable - love songs don't always mean a scene about love, for example. Something very odd happened when I was listening to "Rocky Racoon" by the Beatles, for a start...

The long and the short of it is that I'm rediscovering what I thought I'd never lose... the joy of writing something. Maybe its more true that I didn't lose it, but more sort of buried it somewhere and remembered where that was. But with a lot of other stuff in turmoil round me, this is my one little safe harbour. And its not even important in the slightest if anything I do gets into print or onto a screen - its the joy that I want to hang on to. Although success would be great - I would be lying if I said I'd hate that.

And now that little door has opened again, more are being left hanging wildly off one battered hinge:
I have more ideas in my head than I can cope with - too many more projects I want to start and more impatience than a ravenous dog in an unattended butcher's shop.

For all of this, and for all the other things going on, I'm really and unreservedly happy about that.