The tragic loss of my life's work

Although this is my very first blog, I am an accomplished writer. During the course of my 33 years so far on planet earth I have written hundreds of poems, thousands of short stories, countless newspaper articles and columns and a few (albeit only partially completed) novels. Every spare moment of my day, which doesn’t add up to much after the full time day job, laundry, cooking the husband’s dinner, cutting up pieces of paper and other important craft projects, worrying about lots of things, and time spent making sure any spare weekends are stuffed with plans to catch up with friends and family, is occupied with writing. I love the process of writing. I love giving pleasure to others through my writing. And I love reading about writing and how others do it. Writing, in a nutshell, is a large and important part of my life.

Is any of the above true? Oh yes. Most of it in fact. Is my writing any good? I’m not sure yet, but in any case for me that isn’t the main point. Will I be publishing my life’s work on this blog in an attempt to find out? Ah. Now therein lies the problem. You see, my stories, my poems, my articles and all the rest are now much to my despair irretrievably lost to me.

How can this have happened? you might ask. What awful set of circumstances can have resulted in this devastating calamity? And lost how? By now you may even be imagining a tragic house fire in which all of my worldly possessions were destroyed. Or handfuls of papers, thrown from a bridge in a crazed and impulsive fit of writer’s despair at yet another publishing house rejection, floating down towards the river below to be lost forever. Or, since this is the twenty first century, a computer screen, completely blank save for the heart-stopping message “Files corrupted due to unknown virus. Hard-drive wiped”. In fact, the truth is far less dramatic and at the same time far more sad. The truth is: hardly any of my works have ever been committed to paper.

So, a writer I am, yet if ever called upon to prove the fact I would have very little evidence with which to build my case. And when I speak of the enjoyment of giving pleasure through my writing, I mean mostly in the form of letter writing, which although this depresses me to admit includes email “letters”, the crafting of which (like my text messages which themselves comprise full sentences and are always properly punctuated) I take very seriously indeed. Aside from this, my writing thus far has been mostly in my head. I don’t mean by this that I am delusional and my poems, stories and articles are imaginary. I mean that rather than writing things down I usually only get as far as composing in my head. I have occupied myself for many years with this virtual writing thing and it is a habit from which I have derived very great pleasure and at times comfort.

It started over twenty years ago, at a time when it was still considered safe for children to travel alone, during solitary walks home from school when I would entertain myself by composing stories aloud. I would edit as I went along, much as one does when typing, starting from the beginning over and over again as I discarded draft sentences and phrases in favour of improved versions. But recording the stories never occurred to me. It was purely a temporary distraction, forgotten as soon as I reached home and my key went into the lock.

It is a custom, however, that has followed me into adulthood, save for the “aloud” part which would frankly be alarming for fellow commuters. Anyone who lives and works in central London knows that a large part of the day is necessarily spent on the move. This is prime “writing” as well as reading time for me. Rush hour commuting also provides access to a large source of material. A recent title from my imagined newspaper column, for example, was “Whatever happened to "excuse me"?” This kind of writing can be therapeutic, then: a release for the annoyances of every day life.

But it is not just for exorcising the inner grumpy old woman and is mostly engaged in just for the enjoyment of the process itself. Only very recently, walking home one chilly and dark evening, I wrote a whole article whilst walking down the hill from the top of my (rather long) road to my house at the bottom. The article was about the road itself, a beautiful and in my view fascinating street, which for the benefit of anyone remotely interested was designed by the Victorian architect E.J.Tarver and mostly built in 1878 in the Queen Anne style. That one lingers still in the mind and I must write it down before it too disappears for good.

But why the need to begin recording my writing after all of this time? Well, composing stuff in one’s head is all well and good and there is nothing better for killing half an hour’s walk to the station, but it is not nearly as satisfying as committing to print. Also, I do like to record things. In fact this has become almost a compulsion. For example, I have assumed the role in recent years of official family historian and found the process of investigating and recording details of the past eight generations of my family extremely satisfying. And I enjoy the act of looking back and recalling. I have kept a diary at various times throughout my life, but never consistently. There are whole periods of blankness which I would love to revisit but which are not recorded save for in the odd photograph. How nice it would be to have access to some of my thoughts during those times. I find all of those things incredibly life affirming. Mostly, though, this is about giving “my writing” (and I do blush to call it that) a real outlet.

So, what specifically will this blog be for? Not for inviting critical analysis certainly, at least not at first. Although I do intend also to begin for the first time recording (elsewhere) the poems and the stories. But primarily it will be a place where I can simply engage properly and completely in the writing process and revisit my attempts at a later date. And if anyone else gains pleasure from reading my blog then that will also be very nice indeed.

There. It is done. Step one on the journey to proving, to myself if to nobody else, that I really do love to write.