Goodwood

Goodwood

Sunday 6 February 2011

Laughing at my Clumsiness

I am the clumsiest person I know. Honest!

Yesterday, I catapulted myself into a small shop!

On reflection I realise that my shoe must have the caught the lip of the step, which sadly I didn’t see and then I made my entrance. I cart-wheeled over the threshold and landed flat on my back, somewhat surprised to say the least. All I had wanted to ask was, could I have some change for the parking meter?

The shopkeeper came running to my aid to find me prostrate and winded. And no I didn’t get the necessary coins for the meter – she had no change. Of course today my buttocks’ ache, I’m not at all surprised by this sensation but more than that I am hugely relieved that my ungracious entrance did not have an audience, for this I am thankful.

Life has a habit of making me think twice: I didn’t see the pronounced lip and I certainly didn’t expect to fall. Although based on previous personal experience I know I do this more frequently than I should. Falling seems to come quite naturally to me and to date I am lucky, I haven’t broken anything. I seem to bounce awfully well and that might be due to sufficient padding wrapped around these bones, or good fortune! However tenuous that may sound after a fall.

My characters meet life head on, Alicia has no idea that when her car hits the tree it will start a change of events that she neither expected nor wanted to face up too. Just one simple act, an ordinary event, can have a massive impact on a life, especially when I have free reign to invent a series of happenings. Part of the thrill of writing for me is making ‘it’ plausible, if this happens then can that really follow on from this invented event? I find myself asking and examining this question often.

I know I get a huge thrill from my beta-readers when they tell me that a scene I have created is believable but then perhaps this ability comes from a life of minor disasters that I have experienced personally that I can draw on, like yesterday: what if the shopkeeper had been tall, dark and handsome and chatted me up while I was lying down flat on my back?

Now there’s a thought - I feel the need to write an implausible end to this event for a short story about a possible disastrous date, lol.

1 comment:

  1. I find it really useful to draw from experience in my fiction at times. I hope you're not feeling too bruised today.

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