Life’s Worst Foes

 There are so many reasons not to write now.  My most powerful incentive to write when I was young was an appreciative audience.  The most exciting interactionI had was the audience for a novel I wrote at the age of 13.  It was based in an imaginary world inspired a little by Nepal, but the characters all were living an almost aristocratic existence and, despite the fact that they, like me were in their early teens, no one had any parents.  In that sense, it was a little like the novels by E. Nesbit.  There weredearly loved parents in her books, but they were absent always, and the children had an unusual degree of freedom, minded only by an overly burdened elderly aunt or housekeeper.

I wrote the first chapter and shared it with a friend.   She begged me to continue.  I then shared it with my family and other friends.  They urged me to continue.  Every new chapter was eagerly awaited and read, and the readers fell in love with characters I created.  That was the best part for me, to have the power to create a guy or girl real enough in the world of my imagination to evoke strong positive responses.

Alyhough I never had experienced a sexual kiss, I was able to write passionate love scenes.  I still am aroused a little myself by the memory of that turning point in the book where Bastien finally breaks his icy reserve and kisses Sophie, admitting that he does love her.

I wish to God my mother had cared enough to keep a copy of that book.  Nome of my later work had as much acclaim.  I suspect the writing was not that great, but the experience was.

I took writing classes randomly later in life at the local University not so much to learn how to write as to share work with others.  I met my furst husband in one of those classes.  I alwaus enjoyed collaboration, because it was effortless and so much fun.  One of the hooks that a childhood friend used on me recently in order to try to gain control of my mother’s assets was the idea of literary collaboration.

‘Let’s rewtite our story!’ he offered.  ‘Let us give it a happy ending.’  Nothing in the world could have been more enticing, and at the start, I actually thought he appreciated me as a writer.  In fact, he could not have cared less.  That hurt more than the significant financial loss he caused me.

The other disturbing and thoroughly unsatisfying aspect of this collaboration was his desire to manipulate the ending not towards happiness, but towards my suicide.  There is something kind of mental about that, and certainly is not something to inspire confidence in him.