Facebook worked its magic on me a moment ago, when this picture popped up in my Memories.
This is me, three years ago today, perched on a hillside, looking out over the olive groves from the terrace of my sister’s little piece of Andalusian heaven, pondering, and determinedly typing . . . taking the very first steps in trying to put Who Stole Grandma? down on paper, or at least onto my laptop.
Our eagle-eyed eldest was most amused, piping up, “Still only typing with one finger!”
And he was right! After 19 years of being a head teacher typing all of my paperwork one-fingeredly, as a bit of a dinosaur, I couldn’t have changed even if I’d wanted to.
That morning, warmed by very welcome autumnal sunshine, I captured the 50 bullet points that were my starting point – 50 moments in Moosh’s life that I hoped to build into WSG, some of them joyous and laugh-inducing, others ranging from melancholy to heartbreaking.
For the next three weeks, I drafted a good chunk of my first draft in quite an unusual way: I wrote by mood or by measuring my emotional strength at the start of each morning. If I was feeling strong enough, I’d write the sadder sections. If I needed to be lighter, I focussed on the happy memories: it was all about emotion. At that point there was no chronology whatsoever. Some days I chuckled as I jabbed away, one-fingeredly; on others I shed a tear or two or simply broke down.
I was so taken by the idea of writing with a view that when, ten months (and many interruptions) later, I came to rewrite the ending for the gazillionth time, I asked friends if I could take my laptop to their Languedocian terrace overlooking vineyards and across at the Pyrenees!
It’s time to start my next book. Actually, I’m going to start writing two, completely unrelated books at the same time and see where my mood and my drafts takes me. So, I’m on the look out for somewhere quiet, with spirit-filling views – if you have any suggestions of where that might be, let me know 💜🙏🏽🍷
Mark Lanyon Storyteller 