Being a writer is an odd business.  For one thing, most of the rest of the world do not see writing as any kind of work at all.  A hobby, maybe.  Or a trivial pursuit to pass the time.  But not work.  After all, how hard can it be?  Writing is simply putting words on a page.  It does not take any kind of effort to do that.  Also, nobody is forcing the writer to write.  It is not like having a boss who expects you to turn up each day and put in the hours.  Writing is fun.  Why else would anybody do it?

How little they know!  Writing is fun.  Sometimes.  Those are the times which keep a writer going.  Because, when writing is going well everything is OK in the writer’s world.  Life is beautiful when the words flow and characters take on a life of their own.  There is no feeling in the world like it.  Unfortunately, it does not happen often.  Most of the time writing is not like that.  Most of the time writing is sheer hard slog.  Work and then some.

It turns out writing is something more than putting words on a page.  Writing is about burrowing deep into those hidden depths that most people are happy to keep hidden.  Writing can hurt.  If I want to create a damaged character in my novel, then I must seek out the damage within me.  Otherwise, my character will never come to life but sit, a cardboard cut-out, on the page.  As a writer, I must breathe a little of my own life into each character, my thoughts, my fears, my hopes.  By the end of a writing day, I feel exhausted with the effort.

Nobody makes me write, you might say.  True.  Nobody makes me write.  But something forces me to keep coming back to the page.  Who knows what?  There are days when I dread turning on my computer.  The story is going nowhere or my characters appear to have lost interest in their story.  Some days, I struggle to find a single word to write.  But I still turn up.  Try something new.  Write something, anything, in a bid to get the ideas to flow.  It feels painful.  Dispiriting and exhausting in a different way.

Writing is more than putting words on a page.  It requires effort and a great deal of thought.  At times, the writer’s brain can feel as if it has run the mental equivalent of a marathon.  At times, the writer just wants to give up and go and do something easier.  Like a proper job, where all you have to do is turn up and put in the hours.  Sometimes, writing feels like the hardest job in the world.
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But when the characters start to live, to do unexpected things, have their own opinions, then the job is easy.  All I have to do then is write as fast as I can, try to keep up.  On those days I would not swap writing for any other job in the world.
I just wish those days came around a little more often...
 

The birch yields
As passionate wind strips delicate fronds.
Elegant.
 
The oak resists
As obdurate wind wrenches ancient limbs.
Dominant.
 
The yew endures
As renegade wind rips evergreen spikes.
Sentinel.
 
The willow sways,
Lashing tortured wind with pitiless whips.
Triumphant.

(suggested by the picture prompt for the quickfic @ www.faberacademy.co.uk on 5 February 2016)

No-one understood the genetic quirk which caused a baby to be born with rainbow skin.  At first, babies showed only patches of swirling colours on their hands or feet, but, as they grew, the rainbow shades developed in intensity and spread across most of the child’s skin.

Parents were devastated.  They were afraid their child would be shunned, pointed at, locked away.  But the rainbow children carried a gift which could not be ignored.  The rainbow colours on the outside were pale reflections of the joy they carried within.  Joy which spread happiness to anyone who saw them.  The rainbow children were special.  When you saw one, you felt your cares lift, your mood lighten.  You felt privileged to meet one, rare as they were.

Society began to buzz with happiness.  People became more caring and co-operative.  Hearts were lighter.  Troubles were easier to bear.  The number of rainbow children increased until they became commonplace.  You saw them everywhere.  People got used to the sight of rainbow skin.

Rainbow children did not see the world as others do.  They had no interest in school and no interest in work as they grew older.  They did not seek relationships or interact with others.  People began to mutter about the cost of care.  Parents were blamed.  The mutation must be somebody’s fault.

The stress of caring for a child who could never integrate exhausted parents.  Without support some committed suicide.  Neither help nor understanding was offered.

Joy was not enough.

(for the start of this story, see Phases One, Two & Three below - filed in January)
It turns out that adding puppies and kittens to the household was easy.  Adding a baby was much more difficult.  After three years of marriage we were ready but the baby was in no hurry to arrive.  The puppy grew up, the kittens became cats and  headed for middle age and the baby refused to put in an appearance.
 
New plan.
We made a doctor’s appointment and prepared to enter the wonderful world of infertility treatment.  I’m sure you don’t want to know the grisly details.  Suffice it to say that life became more complicated.  We had a timetable, which meant extensive planning, especially now my husband was earning frequent flier miles on destinations all around the world.   Still no results.
 
Tests, next.  My husband had a low sperm count which was attributed to some medication he was on.  He switched medication and optimism reined, briefly.  Still no baby.  We started to think there was some terribly obvious aspect to making a baby that everybody else knew but no-one had let us in on the secret.  Maybe it only worked on a Tuesday, if there was a full moon?
Tried that.  Still no luck.
Hmmm.
 
Back to the doctor.  Exploratory operations next.  Lucky me.  A laparoscopy so that the medical profession could see if there was an internal problem.  I have nightmares about going to the dentist so I was not keen.  But I was determined.  We scheduled the op and discovered that I had severe endometriosis.  I might never have children.
 
‘Are you freaking kidding me?’
 
They weren’t.  The good news was that this moved us from ‘might have a problem’ to ‘this needs sorting’ and our specialist took it as a personal challenge.  After some discussion, I was put on medication for six months.  The bad news was we were not allowed to risk getting pregnant while I was taking the tablets.
 Hmmm.
 
If my husband thought ‘Are you freaking kidding me’ he did not mention it to me but was massively supportive.  Turned out I had picked a good guy to marry (as if I didn’t know).  Unfortunately, the tablets gave me massively debilitating migraines.  They started at the rate of one per week and accelerated to alternate days.  Three months in I could barely function.
New plan needed.

We returned to our specialist who gave us the benefit of his considered medical advice:
‘Come off the tablets.  Make sure you do not risk becoming pregnant for one month.  Then give it your best shot and see what happens.’
It may have been couched in more medical terms but that was the gist.
 
So we did that.
 
And it worked.
 
After eight years of marriage we had a daughter, who thrived and is now married herself.  Luckily, she turned out to love cats and dogs.
But not babies.
 
Hmmm.