Creative Writing

Writing has been my main obsession since I was ten.  When other boys my age got footballs for Christmas, I got my first typewriter.

Since that time, almost half-a-century ago, writing has been my sanctuary.  Imagination has never been a problem for me.  The difficulties I've encountered in the 'real' world have driven my need to invent other worlds that I feel more comfortable in.  Over those years, I've spent my evenings and weekends, and any other spare hours, writing.  I've written short stories, poems, plays, scripts, and one novel.  I've had a few things published, including the novel, but never made any money out of it.  That used to bother me.  I wanted to make money and become independent with it, so that I could then spend the rest of my days alone, writing - like Annie Proulx, for instance, or Charles Bukowski.  Just me, my desk and chair, my word-processor... and my coffee machine! It wouldn't have to be a fortune.  I can live on minimum wage, and have done for many years.  I've pared it to the bone.  Everything - including relationships - has taken second place to writing.  If I had a guaranteed income of £12,000 a year, I'd give up work and sit alone at home and write.

My novel was a semi-autobiographical account of living with mental illness.   At the time I wrote it, the suspicion was that I had Borderline Personality Disorder.  Since then, I've had my ASD diagnosis.  I now read the novel and realise it's all about living with Asperger's.  So... I'm going to rewrite it from the new perspective.

Here's a snippet from the original text.  See if you identify:

From Chapter 7

'I moved into this flat on my own. My sister and I weren't speaking then, and I didn't have anyone else to help. I didn't have much anyway. My only big stuff was a fridge, a wardrobe, my bookcases and sofa. Most of it came to pieces. I used the camper to shift it all. I started at 9 in the morning and finished at 11 that night. It took 12 trips in total. 12 trips-worth of stuff from a tiny bedsit. Each trip meant between 8 and 10 times up and down the stairs, carrying boxes and bags and even the fridge, a stair at a time. So, an average of 9 times up and down on each trip. There are 50 stairs from the car park to my door. 50 x 9 x 12 trips = 5,400 stairs I climbed, carrying heavy weights. Then the same number down again. Then, at the bedsit, 18 stairs x 9 x 12 trips = 1,944 stairs down carrying the same heavy weights. Then the same number up. Total stairs up for the day = 7,344. I made some extra trips, too - to make sure the old place was empty, to put the camper away, to check the meter - so I can probably round that up to 7,500 and be about right. A stair riser is about 7 inches. The stairs here are, anyway. 7,500 x 7 = 52,500 inches, which is 4,375 feet. The summit of Ben Nevis above sea level is 4,409 feet. In moving that day, I climbed almost the equivalent of the height of the highest mountain in the British Isles.

It reassures me to know this. I climbed more than a physical mountain that day.'

Does anyone else write?  Be good to hear from you.

Tom