I don't know if this happens to other writers, but just recently, I've begun with this idea that's just bursting with life - in my head - and then stopped, because for whatever reason, however hard I try, although there's the beginnings of a story there, on paper, it just doesn't flow. Maybe that's because I've a lot to learn, but it can feel like that as soon as I commit it to paper, the story dies, which means it was never really a story in the first place.
There's another thing I've mentioned before - which is that you don't tell people. You can tell the dog or the cat or the sheep, all of whom are very good listeners, just not people. Not until your story is well on it's way to being something, because embryonic stories are fragile beings and if you talk about them too early, you murder them.
Anyway, recently, after batting around what I thought were properly good ideas and realising after trying to write them that maybe they weren't, something new came into my head, completely out of the blue. And it just so happens it has flowers in it. And this time when I started writing, for the first time in a long time, I kept on writing and it started to work. And after talking it over with Bernard, I gave some chapters to my husband and teenage daughter. (Bernard's one of the dogs)
Now, in our house we have a bullshit buzzer. Also, in another life, my husband would have been the most scathing of scathing critics. The kind you dread, or worse still, don't read, because they rarely say anything good. Actually, it's not too late for him to do it in this life. He's not always right, you understand, but has terribly important opinions to be expressed quite loudly. All you other writers out there: I hope your critics are a little quieter. For unknown reasons, I still ask him.
His opinion on this occasion was not bad, it depends where you go with it.
Well, duh. Talk about stating the freaking obvious. (And before he points it out, yes, I know, that's a tautology.)
Teenage daughter is gentler - but after eighteen years, I'm quite good at reading between the lines. At least I think I am. Like when she says, 'I like it...' then hesitates, so you know there's a big invisible 'but' she's leaving out, just because she's a kind daughter who wants to encourage her mother. Apart from being kind, she's also a brilliant writer. She even has an agent who's interested in what she's writing, but that's her story.
Back to my own story, there've been a few 'I like it... but' moments in this house, only this time, she said, I really like it and I've scribbled on it. I hope she wasn't just being kind because inside, I was whooping rather excitedly at this point.
It's early days, but so far, I'm loving where it's going. I'll keep you posted. x
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