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

  • Hi Stephen,

    Yes, that's interesting.  One of the things that comes up on the AQ test, of course, is 'Are you able to work out a character's intentions when reading fiction?'  To be honest, I can't - unless it's absolutely obvious.  My ex-partner and I used to watch a lot of films, and she would always be able to figure out what was going to happen based on the behaviour of particular characters.  She thought it odd that I hadn't sussed it, too.  I remember as a kid, too, hearing my parents say 'I knew that was going to happen' when watching a TV programme or film, whereas I never had a clue.  This clearly doesn't bode well for someone who professes to write fiction.  Yet I've managed to write plenty of short stories which have won prizes.  On the whole, though, I suppose I haven't really written fiction that has complex characters.  My one novel was based on my own life.  My latest book is non-fiction.  I wrote a comic blog for several years, and it was very popular.  But the main character was based on me, and the other characters - I think now - were a little cartoonish.  Ideals of the kinds of friends I'd like to have, if I had friends.  They were all rather naive.  Thinking about it now, they were probably all different aspects of me.  Some writers, like Graham Swift, are strictly 'fictional' in their approach - saying they could never write about anyone or anything they know personally because that would then be a negation of creativity.  I'd dispute that.  Every writer has something of themselves in their work.

    I've belonged to writers' groups - including online - but have always found myself giving up on them, even when my work has been liked.  I prefer to follow my own path with my work.  Many times, people have asked me 'What does that mean?' or 'What's the purpose of that character?'  I find such questions tiresome.  It's like the playwright Harold Pinter once said to someone who asked him why a particular character had done a particular thing: 'Because it's what he did, that's all.  I had no control over it.'  I once won a short story competition, and when I received the critique afterwards, one of the judges had said that one particular character was entirely superfluous, and she had no idea why I'd put that character in.  I couldn't believe it.  That character's presence set the tone for the entire story, and in many senses was the most important character.  Even professed 'experts' don't always know what they're talking about.  If people keep asking for explanations, it's often because they're too lazy or obtuse to figure it out for themselves!  As for creative writing classes and MAs.... no thanks!  I had a friend who did an MA, and she wrote to me once in a great deal of distress because her tutor had taken one of her pieces apart in a critique.  I read it.  The guy was an idiot.  She was writing what she wanted to write - which is what it's all about, really - and he wanted her to write what he wanted to read!

    Fiction may still be your forte.  Don't worry about what other people say or think.  Bukowski didn't - and he still made a good career out of writing fiction that he wanted to write... which was also pretty much based on his own life.

    Well done with the article. :)

  • Thought this might be worth bumping. I recently wrote a short story with view to entering it into a competition and sent it round for feedback to the Writer's Group that I'm in. The feedback I've gotten so far is very much "nice idea, shame about the execution". It seems to me that my ASD mind is very good with facts, figures and processes, but has real difficulty in the sort of character work needed to make great fiction. This may come about with practice, but it has made me think that perhaps fiction writing isn't my forte.

    Non-fiction in fact (no pun intended) may be my area, as I'm getting an article published in the magazine of the heritage railway I volunteer at.

  • Hi Tom,

    This extract is really good - it's definitely compatible to an autistic person's life: like me, as such. I also tend to write the same way. I like your writing -- I read the short story you added below and liked it. It's a shame that you received no money for it - a life with a pen, some paper, and a desk with a computer/typewriter seems the perfect life when you enjoy writing so much! I've felt that due to my autism that writing is my only way in life - realistically, anyway.

    I love writing, (though imaginative thoughts can sometimes be very difficult for me to come across!) and I want to be able to write novels preferably, and maybe fictional short stories, however my brain just blanks out. I have no idea where to even begin haha. 

    Keep posting your good stuff -- it's nice to read when I log back on!

    Paige

  • I write non-fiction (have had some published – a couple of books, articles, also poetry), but also fanfiction: I like to "rescue" fictional characters I love but whom the original authors kill off or mistreat. I've been doing this since childhood. What I find interesting is that one of my all-time favourite literary characters was written as patently Aspie, over a century before Hans Asperger was working… Fanficcing him is a delight.

  • StephenHarris said:

    Have you got any feedback suggesting your writing is a bit deadpan and monotous? I just have and wondered if it might be connected to my ASD.

    No... but I sent the novel to a leading literary critic, and he responded that it was stiflingly self-absorbed.  I responded that that was entirely the point - to demonstrate what it's like.

    He never came back... and frankly, I don't care.

    As someone once said:  Critics are like eunuchs in a harem.  They know how it's done.  They see it done all the time.  But they can't do it themselves.

  • Have you got any feedback suggesting your writing is a bit deadpan and monotous? I just have and wondered if it might be connected to my ASD.

  • I do a lot of writing. I once dreamed of becoming a writer, but there's no money in that any more. I have fanfics I still write, but it feels like I only do that because I have nothing better to do.

  • I am currently working on a novel myself. It's a general literature novel set in a fantasy world that isn't exactly one - I describe it as 'Westeros with Walkmans' as the world is at a 1980s level of technology.

    It's about immigration and intolerance, with some satire in it - I plan it as the first of a series.

  • You have a wonderful gift, Tom, and it is such a pity you couldn't earn your living at it.

  • Yes, I was interviewed a couple of times by CQC and gave a detailed statement against him - as did another colleague.  He was clever, though, as bullies often are.  He hid his worst behind closed doors.  One service user, who had severly challenging behaviour, was especially targetted.  In my statement, I told how one day the DM said to this service user 'You'd better keep your ******* head down or I'll kick the ******* thing off your shoulders.'  I wish I'd been able to record that.  The same service user came to me one day shortly before I went sick and said 'XXXX has been hitting me.'  He showed me a bruise on his arm.  I told the senior on duty that day, who said 'That's a lie and you know it.'  Like I said, it was institutionalised.  It was hard to know who to talk to.  I mentioned to one other colleague what I thought of the DM... and it got back to him.

    CQC conducted a full investigation, and the DM was suspended for 6 months.  He was later reinstated, though, in a different home.  In the end, it was determined that there simply wasn't enough evidence.  Hearsay wasn't taken into account.

    No... I didn't have my diagnosis then.  That came later.  I was seeing a therapist while I was off sick.  She originally thought I had BPD.  I was referred to the CMHT, but the CPN I saw dismissed it with 'I can tell by looking at you that you don't have a personality disorder.'

    Right!  That's mental health for you!

    It was after this that the therapist thought she saw a deeper root - which is when I took the AQ.  I got the diagnosis last year - 2 years later.

  • Presumably the CQC got involved?

    Did you have your diagnosis at that time?

  • Thanks.  It was inspired by the life of Don Ritchie, 'The Angel of the Gap'.

    www.youtube.com/watch

    There's also Kevin Briggs, 'The Guardian of The Golden Gate', who's rescued many from that notorious bridge.

    I've been to the dark place a few times.  My only serious and planned attempt, though, was 6 years ago.  It was down to a combination of two huge emotional upheavals coming to a head at the same time.  I was working in a care job where there was institutional abuse going on.  I wanted to blow the whistle, but didn't know who I could trust, and was terrified they'd find out, anyway.  I felt powerless.  On top of that, a relationship came to a finish unexpectedly... and I simply felt I had no emotional anchors left.

    I was lucky to get through.  After that, I was sick from work for three years.  At one stage, I thought I'd never work again.  I wrote my novel during that time.  It helped me to recover.  I also did go on to 'blow the whistle'.  The manager of the home got fired and the deputy was suspended (and he was the worst offender).  He's back working in care now, though.  And they did find out it was me.  So far, though, nothing's happened... though it still haunts me.  Only last night, I had a dream in which he was after me, and I couldn't find anywhere to hide.

  • That is a different kettle of fish altogether, crafted, thoughtful but also wistful and suggestive of quiet and solitude.

    I live close to a jumping point and have come across people intent on finishing it but never felt sad enough or deranged enough to do anything like that myself. We hear the helicopters that come for the search fairly regularly and it always makes me think of the person that felt so bad that they couldn't stop themselves from ending it.

  • Here's one of my short stories which, I think, reveals another, more empathetic side to me.  It was very popular for a time.  Many identified with the subject matter.

    LAST THINGS

                 He could see the path from the caravan window, where it led up the cliff-head to the edge, like a parting.  From up there, on clear days, the sandbank showed like a tiny island - far out, beyond where the village had been.  At low tide, the signs were still there, poking through: an outcrop of brick, a line of wall - like the imprint of an ancient settlement, seen from the air over fields. 

                Even now, decades later, he still found remnants on the beach.  The white shrimp of a cup handle.  Jar shells.  A tooth-shard of plate.  A teaspoon doubloon, salted to a rind.  He collected these treasures in his pocket to put in the display case later, by the path on the head, where the visitors could see them.  The story was there for them to see, too – hand-written on index cards which he inked-in each spring, each letter carefully inscribed as he ran his tongue over the fringe of his moustache in the lamp-light.  The tiny drawings, showing the coastline then and now.  Where the inn had been, and the church, and the row of bothies – out there now by the sandbank.  They could read it, then they could see it for themselves. 

    They might see the seals, too – the grey humps of them, flopping on the sandbank like bloated cadavers.  They’d lie watching him, across the waves, as he combed the beach.  Remembering the old myths, he fancied them possessed of the souls of the lost, come back to haunt the place of their taking.  Sometimes, their moaning would weave into his dreams at night.  The people crying out as the sea swept them off.  He’d see their faces.  And then he’d wake.

    Occasionally, he found a bone.  A rib or vertebra, scoured of flesh.  Or a tiny joint.  He tried to match them up with the diagrams in his books, but he could never be certain.  Seals?  Dolphins?  He could tell, though, that they weren’t as old as the village.  The sea hadn’t had time to do its work.  He kept the bones, but didn’t put them on display.

    And then, one day, he found a jawbone – smashed, but still with some teeth in place.  After that, he always buried the bones.  Away from the beach, too, where the sea had claimed them once already.  In a hollow instead, back in the woods.  He marked each spot with a tiny cross of split twigs.  It seemed like the right thing to do.

     

    ~

     

    In summer, the visitors were mainly tourists, coming more for the view than the history, though they always showed an interest.  If he was working outside - hoeing the plot, or tinkering with the Morris - they’d hail him from the path in passing.  A raised hand, or a word that the wind would whip away.  Sometimes they’d stop for a chat, leaning on their walking poles, their cameras dangling, their back-packs like life-support systems.  Couples in shorts and shirts and trainers, their faces red and sheened with sweat.  There’d be more seasoned hikers, too – often alone, grown into their clothes, their features weathered by it.  The conversations would be similar, though:

     

                ‘Beautiful place to live.  Harsh in winter, I suppose.’

                ‘Doesn’t it get lonely up here without neighbours?’

                ‘I never realised how high that cliff was.’

                ‘What kind of seals are they?’

                ‘You’re so lucky.  I’d give anything to live like this.  All you need, and no one to bother you.’

     

                On the quieter days, if he felt like it, and the people seemed more interested than usual, he’d brew up a mug of tea for them  Maybe fetch a glass of something stronger.  He’d tell them, then, a little of the story himself - filling in details there wasn’t space for on the cards.  The way the sea had shaped the land and taken from it.  The wrecks.  The storms and landfalls.  The village, and his own distant connection with it.  The people who’d perished.  It always surprised him how few were the ones who knew anything about it.  Like it was something that had never happened.  Never registered.  Like the sea had claimed the entire existence: removed it from history and rendered it to myth.  He’d point up along the path, where the display case stood at the head – a big rectangular ‘stop’ sign.  He'd tell them the evidence was there.  Then he’d sit on the step and watch them as they headed on up – their backs leaning into it until they got there, where they’d stand like tiny scarecrows against the sky, looking.  At the end of each day, when everyone had gone, he’d hike up there himself, to check that everything was alright.  Sometimes something had been left.  A few coins, or a note in a plastic bag, under a pebble.  A thanks, he saw it as.  For services rendered.  Whisky money.

                The hardier folk came after the season.  The ones who knew - who had a connection of their own, perhaps, and came to pay their respects.  Or to watch the seals – beached up out there.  Or just to feel the rawness of the elements, the wind and ocean and sky, the slate light through the roof of cloud.  The occasional regular, who’d sit with him over a mug of soup or a toddy, and light a pipe, and not speak because nothing really needed to be said.  It was all understood.  It was all remembered.

                But then there were the others who came - any time of year, but mostly in autumn, it seemed.  They were unlike everyone else except themselves.  Not dressed or equipped for it – but prepared in another way.  They didn’t stop or wave.  They didn’t say a word as they passed.  They were never whistling or singing to themselves.  They didn’t seem to want to be seen – but he never missed them.  It almost became like a sense to him that they were coming.  A chill.  Someone stepping on his grave.  As they passed, they kept their heads down and their shoulders bowed.  Sometimes, they walked with purpose.  Other times, they might seem to be dawdling, as if unsure of the path.  He always knew them, though.  There was never any doubt about why they were there, and what they wanted.  Occasionally - just occasionally - there would be no hesitation in the matter.  He'd not even have time to put on his shoes and coat to get up after them before they were already gone.  Then all he could do was report it.  Mostly they would be found quite quickly.  Sometimes they were never found.  Then it would just be the remnants, perhaps.  Later.

                Usually, though, he had time.  There might be a hesitation.  A contemplation from the brink.  A taking in of the view, perhaps, as if to draw something from it.  A reckoning.  These were the ones where he had a chance.  He could make his way up, keeping his eyes fixed on them the whole time - watching them grow from the size of a thumbnail, to a finger, to a hand - building them up bit by bit until he was almost there, and they could be aware of him without being alarmed.  Most of them didn't want witnesses, he'd found.  Most of them never expected to see anyone else.  And now that someone else was there, it changed things.  They wouldn't make eye contact - just continue to look out upon it all, unmoving.  That was his way in.

                "Fine view, eh."

                No acknowledgment.  Just the looking.  Maybe a shrug, which might have been the wind.

                "I live just down there, so I see 'n every day."

                Casual... just passing the time.  Sometimes they'd steal a glance, down along the path, to where he was half-looking himself.  The caravan there like a tiny grey toy, a whisker of smoke threading from the chimney, the lamp burning yellow in the window, the Morris parked up by the shed at the back.  Inviting.  A small re-connection.

                "I'm brewing up a cup of tea in a minute.  I generally have one about this time."

                The thought was in there - he could see it.  An angling of the head.  Another sideways glance.  A shuffle.

                "Fancy a cup yourself?"

                He could usually leave it at that.  He'd set out the ground.  They knew where they stood.  Sometimes they'd turn to him, look at him directly for the first time.  That was more promising.  And it was like a switch had been set.  At other times, though, a little more was needed.  Something else to make the turn.

                "You can talk about it, you know.  If it helps.  I'll listen.  A cup of tea and a chat.  Then see what you want to do."

                And that's how it would turn out, mostly.  Following him back down - tentatively, maybe at a distance.  The chair by the door, facing into the room.  A cup and a chat.  Sometimes they didn't want to talk much - and that was alright.  They could just sit.  It was up to them and how they felt.  No pressure at all.  And he could just pass the time of day.  Tell them some of the stories.  The things he told the hikers and tourists.  A little about the life there.  Keeping it simple and ordinary.

                But if they wanted to talk - and most often they did - he'd listen.  He'd listen for as long as it took, adding his own thoughts if it seemed appropriate: another way of looking at the same thing.  The view from here instead of there.  He'd boil up the kettle again, maybe make some toast.  Comfort food.  And the smell of it, too - the toasting bread, the melting butter.  Home-made ginger marmalade.  Anything to keep them going.  Often, there would be tears as they opened up.  A good thing - to draw it all out, like a poultice.  He'd listen and talk until it was all done and said.  A hand on the arm, maybe.  Holding on.  And then was the time to ask.

                "You're welcome to sleep on the spare bed tonight.  Or I could drive you home.  The car's out there.  It wouldn't be a problem.  You just say.  I'm going for a drive, anyway."

                A few had stayed.  But most of them wanted to go home now.  In the car, they'd usually sit silently as it rocked and squeaked over the ruts towards the made-up road.  Maybe they saw it the same way he did.  Symbolic.  The rocky path back to the smooth again.  Some lived nearby, but others had travelled in from further away.  If it was a great distance, he'd drop them at the station and wait with them for the train.  A few more words.  Then the parting.  A hug.  A kiss, sometimes.  And he might see a smile again.  The light going back on.  Hope again - for a little while, maybe.

                Messages often came afterwards.  Notes or cards, which he kept in a box under the sofa.  The gratitude.  The stories of moving on.  Of remembering... of never forgetting.  Sometimes a photo, too.  All kept under there, like souvenirs.  The family album, he thought of it as.  His family.  The ones he'd brought back into the world.  For better or worse, he often thought.  But that was the thing, as he would always tell them.

                "There's only one sure way of finding out if it can get better.  Give it the chance to."

                The one's he'd missed were still a part of it, too.  The pieces found, in the rock-pools and seaweed.  A cigarette lighter.  Buttons.  Earrings.  A glasses frame.  An empty foil strip of tablets - the plastic caps caked with sand.  They went in the box, too.  It seemed right.

                One woman once.  He'd had his hand there for her, and she'd reached.  He saw the ring with the large purple stone, like a milky iris.  Just there, within reach.  But then she'd pulled it back and turned.  Her hat came off as the wind grabbed it.  He caught it - grasped it hard as he looked at the space she'd occupied.  No sound.  Just the sea out there, the seals on the sandbank, the wind in the grass.  So close.  Which is how it is, he thought.  The gap between here and there.  A single step.  Less than that.

                Those were the nights, when he lost them, that it all crowded in again.  The whole lifetime, and then reduced to those few seconds.  The distance between finger-tips.  The absence of presence.  He'd lie awake there, turning it over.  How were they missed?  Were they missed?  Had there been anyone left to miss them?  He'd worry at it, hearing the wind whistling past the windows and feeling it in the rock of the caravan.  He'd hear the seals then, too - always on those nights.  Like they were mourning down there.  Crying out for the souls of the lost.  And it was then that his fancy told him that that's what they were.  The seals.  The lost, come back.  Revisiting the final place.  Never really leaving after all.  The life going on, as some people thought of it.  Passing into another form.  A passing on from a passing on.  A new beginning from an end.

                That became his reassurance.  And the others became his legacy.  And he'd think of them all - days on the beach, poking among the rocks and pools.  Finding the things.  Things for the box.  Or the hollow up by the woods.

                Or the display case - up there on the cliff, where they still came for whatever their reasons.  Where they could stand as he was standing now - looking down over it.  The endless sea and the endless sky, and the play of light on the endlessly moving water.  At the remnants of the village out there, still poking through.  And the seals, laid up on the sandbank, basking there, like the living dead.

                At all of it.  All of it moving through the rest of the day and into the next, where anything might happen and it all might end in a world that would end one day anyway.

                Or it all might start over again...

     

                                                                                                               

  • Hi, recombinantsocks!

    Yes.  In fact, I sent it to Professor John Carey, the academic and literary critic.  His main comment was about the stifiling self-absorption... at the expense, as he put it, of reader involvement!  Others have read it and not found it so off-putting.  One reviewer even went so far as to say it probably offered better insights into the world of mental health than many case studies, and recommended it as required reading for trainees in the profession.  No chance of that now, I feel!

    It was very strongly autobiographical.  The sister was based on my brother.  We've fallen out on and off over the years.  Mental health and autism to him means strange people with weird clothes -  and possibly weapons!  He doesn't 'get' me in any respect. 

    My mother is the only person in my family who understands - and I think she's an undiagnosed Aspie.

    Be happy to send you the full text if you're interested in having a read.

    Cheers,

    Tom

  • Interesting and revealing!

    You weren't speaking with your sister - I think this is common amongst siblings with autism.

    Lots of detail about the logic, numbers and objects in your life but no suggestion of any feelings or emotions. No description of the flat being nice or comfortable or agreeable etc!

    Entirely consistent with an autistic life!