The Fiction Writer's Fate.

The way I wrote my short stories – and the two longer works – was quite different from the way one is ‘supposed’ to write fiction. I never planned anything and there was no conscious attempt to apply structure. I simply walked into an alternate reality handed to me by my imagination and reported what I saw there.

Maybe it isn’t surprising – and I expect this is true of most fiction writers – that during the course of writing the stories, the reality in which they were set felt real to me. And as time went by I felt my connection with the routine outside world diminishing, especially after Mel left and the paid job I was doing came to an end. Now I realise that the writing of fiction played a large part in turning me from the sort of person who chooses his very small number of associates with great care, into something close to a true recluse.

But this has come at a price. There’s no longer anyone in the real world to associate with apart from Mel and my small family. The rest have all gone. And the urge to write fiction burned itself out some years ago so there are no alternate realities in which to move and observe. It’s hardly surprising that such a situation should lead to a sense of emptiness. Most of the time I find it tolerable; sometimes I find it desirable; at other times it approaches a mild form of desolation.

Yet sometimes something intriguing will happen. This afternoon, for example, I was disposing of some plant debris when I heard a voice say ‘hi’ from the direction of my gate. I turned to see the source, but the person had walked beyond the gate by then and all I saw was part of an arm and a hand waving to me from above the line of the hedge. I walked down the garden and looked up the lane to see a woman – youngish I would say – striding purposefully uphill. I hadn’t a clue who she was so I went back to the autumn clearance work.

And such is life to someone who continues to breathe but occasionally wonders whether there’s any point. I’m hoping that when I do finally shuffle off this mortal coil, the point will become clear.