Word Weaving

I'm a writer it seems. One of my earliest memories is of standing triumphantly before the brilliant bright white wall of my teacher's classroom, aged four or five, having just completed a masterpiece of image and text with a felt tip pen. When my teacher enquired why I had decided to express myself on the walls I calmly showed her the three allocated pieces of paper already used-up and explained that the wall was much like a large piece of white paper onto which I had 'expanded'. The fact that I didn't get into trouble - my thought process being so genuine- but instead was encouraged with more pens and paper felt like a turning point in my life, the moment I created and was rewarded, when I first became a writer.

But writing is tough. So many times I've sat before a blank page or my PC staring into space awaiting a visit from inspiration. Looking into the air for the words that would do justice to the colourful pictures in my head:

"The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it." Jules Renard

Finding 'it' is a tricky business. Finding the thing that triggers a memory, emotion, sensation or the single line that will prove to be the building block of a story or verse - a snippet of dialogue, a funny visual composition to spark the imagination.

They say: write what you know. But what if you haven't made up your mind about reality yet? What if you struggle to piece together the memories which evade you only to be hurriedly stitched together like mismatched carpet samples?

Perhaps it should instead be: write who you know, that might be easier. I can find myself hiding in the left elbow of many an invented character along with ex-boyfriends, disastrous crushes, co-workers and people I've met on the bus. But how do you corral the voices all together into something that makes sense to ensure that they don't all jump up and run riot - overpowering you? Therein lies the difficulty.

Still, I've never been a quitter. A procrastinator, maybe...