Have you ever found yourself writing something down that you’d never say out loud to someone? Last night my kid wrote “I miss you” to his dad on a messaging app. (His dad has been away for a few days with work, and gets back soon). My kid doesn’t like to talk about things he sees as trivial, let alone the big stuff, and is more likely to communicate verbally that he misses us by saying, “You’re a poop head.” But for some reason, writing allowed him to say this in a more direct (albeit less colourful) way.
Every time we discover a new medium to express ourselves with, it’s like adding a shiny new facet to our selves – and each one brings something different, has strengths, challenges, and potential. Writing’s definitely the medium I feel most comfortable in. That’s why I became a writer in the first place – to express the thoughts and feelings that I didn’t feel able to say out loud. For others it could be art, drama, science, music, sport, maths (my kid’s also counting the hours until his dad gets back, literally – last count was 86), and so on. You name it – it can be an outlet.
It was lovely to see that my kid could say something in writing that he was very unlikely to ever choose to say directly. Though there are many ways to say the same thing (including “You’re a poop head.”). This is the joy of exploring ways of expressing yourself. And when you find something that works the way you want it to, it’s magic.
Writing News
The other reason I’ve been thinking about communication is because I’m currently waiting for news on a manuscript. It’s out on submission, which is a publishing term for ‘sent out to editors in the hope that someone will love it enough to turn it into a book’. Always a nerve-wracking time, but I have plenty to distract myself with, including writing something new. I really love this book and its characters, so I really hope it gets picked up by someone. Please keep your fingers crossed for it, and me!
Recent Reads
I’ve been reading Normal Schmormal by Ashley Blaker and Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh, both as audiobooks. The first a non-fictional, funny and irreverent look at parenting kids with SEN that I really enjoyed (favourite chapter: I is for Ignore the Idiots). And the second a really ambitious, ‘big-ideas’ book both story- and character-wise, with a truly astronomical character arc! I loved the play with time.
Writing Prompt (for any age)
If you could send a message to someone, anyone, living or dead, who would you write to and what would you say that you might not out loud? Perhaps you’d like to confess a secret to someone from your past, explain to a celebrity how you felt about something that happened to you, or even tell the magpie that lives on the neighbour’s roof how much you like watching it flit about. You don’t have to show anyone else if you don’t want to – it could even be the start of a bigger piece of creative writing.
That’s all from me for now, until next month. I hope you enjoyed the newsletter, and please get in touch if there’s anything you’d like to share – or that you’d like me to talk about in the next one.