True to the title of this blog, I watch myself at the moment living in a strange hiatus between novels. I have lived for a whole year inside the world of my novel The Woman Who Drew Buildings - Durham in the present day, Poland in 1981, inside the minds of Marie, this woman in a coma and Adam, a boy just out of prison...
Now, because the paperback is just out, I've had to return for a while to last year's world of eighteen year old Cassandra, who worked in a factory in Sandie Shaw and The Millionth Marvell Cooker in those wonderful times when sex and rock'n'roll was on offer even if - to be honest - drugs were in short supply. Signings and talks about this novel mean that readers are well up on my stories, so I have to be the expert on the lives of all these people who originated in my own head.
It's crazy, isn't it, inventing all these people who live and breathe in my imagination, only to lose them when they get between hard covers? But, of course they don't leave you do they? They hang around and people the air, as significantly as do my flesh and blood family and my solidly human friends.
And then, oh dear, around the edges of my life come creeping the people who will drive the reality in the new novel - Estella, the woman who sees ghosts and writes astrology columns, Michel who guards the life of a young boy who has powers beyond time. At least I think that's who they are...
I wonder if other writers live such crowded lives?
Perhaps all this is life thrice tasted.
Wendy R
PS Why not send me a post here so I can see whether this blog works?
When your head is so crowded, it's quite miraculous that you always seem so calm, calm to the point of serenity. Or perhaps we, the outsiders, mistake watchfulness for serenity? You're taking it all in, and who knows when or where and in what guise it will pop up next?
ReplyDeleteBravo on your new blog! I look forward to reading your updates.
Love, Dx