It's time to fling some words around and see what sticks. They won't be about the never ending referendum debate, now into its second or third week of negativity, nor will they concern the never ending presidential elections over in the USA. What will they concern? It's very difficult to say at this point. Perhaps nothing at all. Please, consider this lovely void I have for sale, with only three previous victims.
This post could be about the always nerve-wracking first session with a new student, or the existential threat posed by cannelloni to the universe, or even the fun of coming up with a new story idea, no matter how brief the story itself may have been. One great advantage of having a student in English is that you get to write things for them to go over and correct, and get ideas for your own scribblings in the process. That is exactly how you end up writing about a bed and breakfast for alien visitors...
I can't provide any references, so the following will fall into the realm of 'unsubstantiated tosh', but it does seem true. In an introduction to a novel, which may have been 'The Master And Margarita', a famous writer was mentioned as thinking that writing a story without some kind of fantastical concept was a worthless exercise. It's difficult for me to argue with that. Without that genre twist, aren't you essentially just writing soap opera? Where's the imagination in writing something which doesn't go out beyond the realm of normalcy? Even adventure stories exist in heightened versions of reality, after all? Yes, perhaps you could do it in classical times, when there were still original ideas, but now?
Ah, unsubstantiated tosh, you have saved me from talking about the silliness of writing while extremely fatigued, and the delights of homemade sugar-free rice pudding. One day that pudding will work perfectly, one day.
O.
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