Writing Workshop: Everything

Welcome back to the Wednesday Writing Workshop link-up! At the bottom of this post you’ll find the widget to post the link to your workshop posts. But first, I guess it’s my turn! And as usual on a Tuesday night I find myself simultaneously trying to do my workshop post and my coursework at the same time and trying to find some ingenious way of combining the two. This week my work is all about character creation. So I’ve chosen prompt #3 – write a piece of fiction based on a song you love, or in my case, create a character inspired by a song you love…

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The girl sits chewing her lip anxiously. Periodically she lowers her fingers to the keyboard, pausing hesitantly, perhaps tapping out a few tentative words before hitting the delete button. Sighing, she gives up and lifts her hands, putting her thumb to her mouth and stroking her upper lip with her index finger: an echo of a movement she has performed countless times over the last 27 years and a habit she is no closer to breaking despite now being married, and a mother, and old enough to know better.

In the last 48 hours she has run through the usual range of her emotional spectrum. Hyperactive, manic energy and enthusiasm to be quickly followed by withdrawal, anxiety, and lethargy, making even herself dizzy at the speed at which her mood can change. As usual she wonders what prompts such extremes of emotion in such a short space of time. Was it the weather? The planetary alignment of the day? The quality of her sleep last night (or the lack of it?).

Right now she is deep within the throws of creative angst; a familiar feeling of late, and probably the reason for her low mood today. Words have been building all day, circling round and round but with no outlet as time and space to write have been in short supply. And now as she sits, with all the time and space a free evening could allow, they will not come: drowned out by the far louder voices of the insecurities and nagging self-doubt that lurk in her cerebral spaces. She gives in to their clamour, an introspective mood and little or no viable output inevitable on this dark, cold evening; fatigue pulling at her eyes and her thinking.

She knows she can write, proud of her forays into the field. Yet simultaneously she is haunted by the feeling she is kidding herself, that even trying is both laughable and futile. This ambivalence is so typical of every other area of her life. The way she feels about her appearance, her spirituality, her understanding of politics: everything. She wishes she were beautiful and stylish and yet is scornful of vanity and shopping addictions. She sees meaning in everything and yet doubts there is a spiritual source outside of our own creations. She is drawn to liberal thought yet frustrated by its passivity. She has a capacity for deep thinking and intelligent debate and yet is overwhelmed by it. She is motivated by kindness, by the need to do good, and yet has little patience for people or things outside her own little world. She exists in a constant state of flux, pulled by the competing and conflicting parts of her self: positive and negative; wise and immature; confident and insecure; proud and ashamed; witty and dumb-struck; altruistic and self-absorbed. Never one thing, but everything all at once.

Her thoughts stray to the man in the front room. Her husband, patiently indulging her need for peace and solitude tonight, as he does most every day. She wonders how he sees her, if he understands this conflict that is so deep and intrinsic to her make-up. How can he when she understands it so little herself? And yet: his quiet patience, his ability to discern her mood without her needing to verablise, at times when she is quite incapable of it; a reassuring touch and stroke of her hair when she is feeling overwhelmed and withdrawn, and his good humour when she needs to pour out all the stored-up thoughts and feelings of her day in one long stream of verbal diarrhoea. These things tell her that he does.

Next week, they will celebrate an anniversary. A decade since they met and fell in love. A decade in which they have both grown and changed yet somehow stayed the same, somehow expanding and contracting their personalities, their individual journeys, in a way in so that they still fit together.

Sat, now with a rapidly filling screen in front of her, inspiration flowing at last, the girl thanks the stars that she has this one rock to cling to. That if she cannot know or understand herself, at least there is a man to love her through it. To take the light and dark, the ups and the downs – everything. To see them all, to love her despite of them and, most importantly, to still be here, not letting go.

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Ok, so this wasn’t a made up character. This was me – did you guess? But hell, autobiographical techinques for character creation was the first point in my course book tonight so I went with that… Hey! At least I wrote something! Believe me, that is an achievement tonight. It was inspired by one of my favourite songs, ‘Everything’ by Alanis Morissette, which must have been, I believe, written about me and about Ant and perfectly describes my feelings about our relationship. Give it a listen.

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So now it’s your turn! What prompt did you choose?

1. Write about an over-heard conversation. We could even make this one a bit of a research project. Get eaves-dropping people!
- Inspired by Rosie Scribble’s brilliant post Overheard

2. Tell us about the worst Christmas present(s) you were ever bought, and what you’d prefer this year.
- Inspired by Zooarchaeologist’s Things I specifically don’t want for Christmas

3. Write a piece of fiction based on a song you love.
- A most excellent suggestion made by the lovely Kelly at A Place of my Own

4. Tell us about something surprising that arrived in the post.
- Inspired by Dulwich Divorcee’s Surprises in the Post and this week’s disruptive postal strikes.

5. Share with us a story of loss, if this is something that you feel comfortable doing. And you can interpret this any way you like.
- Inspired by me, after my sad goodbye this week.

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the MckLinky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) andleave me a comment to let me know you’ve taken part. If you have the time it would be great if you could try and read and comment on at least two other entries. And be kind! It’s supposed to be a bit of fun – we’re not looking for the next Booker Prize winner here!

If you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve still got today! Or just wait till next week, when there’ll be five brand new prompts to get you thinking.

This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.

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