Blur

Writing is one word following another, the accumulation of the words becomes the chapter and then the book. You should realise the process is as simple as this. Do not think there is anything else to it. Write about something which has happened today in 100 words, when finished you have a short story. Hone the story, when it becomes sharp to read (it will) it then has an effect upon the reader. This effect is the sign of  an artist at work.

Yesterday a woman asked if she could use the waste bag I was filling at Lizzy’s shop = A statement of fact. Try this…

Yesterday, I was helping Lizzy to spring clean her shop, goodness there were some memories within the dust. And a timely warning about thrift and money spent on unneeded items, was it me who used a John Bull printing set to make our first business cards? And so many sizes, colours and shapes of display jars. An immense job, it took all day, Lizzy doing all of the work as usual, I was thinking how much she had made the business her own, customers buying crystals, incense and salts all day long and me a beached whale watching the spring clean. I was in a trance, the past, the building of a business, mistakes made, success’s learned, all represented by these discarded items now awaiting disposal. A woman walked up to the bag and threw in an coffee cup. I looked at her, her action made me angry, indeed, she sensed my emotion. ‘It’s only a cup’ she said. There was no reply, I thought ‘How dare you deface the grave of happy memories, you bastard’ My anger subsided ‘Time for a cup of tea Lizzy’ ‘Yes Ian, throw the bag into the skip will you’? And that was it, a bag full of memories defiled by someone else’s paper coffee cup, thrown into an anonymous grave. Life is a mystery to me.

Not exactly Graham Green – Writing is an exercise of re-writing  memories, and examining all of the facets, and forming a story from the information. We can distort them into fiction or clarify them as fact or do whatever is desired. So what would you write about the picture above – Did I mention she had just placed an old paper coffee cup into a waste bag?