Every writer who admits to friends or strangers that they write soon learns to expect the question:
“What are you writing now?”

We writers have an answer, prepared for this moment.  In my case, my answer is either “A comedy thriller, very silly but great fun” or “A murder mystery, set in the Peak District” depending which of my current works in progress I’ve been battling with most recently.  And, for most people, this is enough.  They don’t really care that much.  They’re being polite and are now free to talk about subjects which interest them (almost never anything to do with the proud writer’s output!)  I know, I have these conversations and I hear other writers have them too.

But, sometimes, I am thrown by a further question.
“Why do you write?”

This one is unexpected.  For one thing, it usually comes from someone who evidently thinks I’m not up to the task of writing a novel and the underlying subtext is:
Why waste your time ‘writing’?

But it is a good question.  Why do I write?  I could do other things.  I have a small business to run, a house and garden needing my attention, pets to walk, feed and care for.  I have family duties and mortgages to pay.  Why waste hours of my time writing?  I may never get paid for it and, let’s face it, in our society worth is usually measured in hard currency.  Isn’t writing speculative fiction merely a peculiar form of OCD? 

I’ve puzzled over this for some time and here is the answer, my answer, to why I write.

I write to free myself from the constraints of ‘real life’.  In my imagination, I can go anywhere, be anyone, do anything.  Life, alas, is more constraining.

I write because I crave drama but am also a realist.  Adventures are great to write and read about - but to live them, not so much.  I have no desire to scale Everest or plunge the abyss of the deepest ocean.  Too cold, too dangerous.  But I can write about them and experience the thrill of danger - safely.

I write because I love answers and reality rarely gives me satisfactory ones.  In a story, things have to make sense.  There has to be cause and effect, a daisy chain of events which lead to the satisfying conclusion.  Where life is chaotic and random, fiction has order and purpose.

I write to find out what is going to happen next.  I start with a character and a situation and write to discover where that takes me.  My characters seem to have their own ideas about their stories, sometimes to such an extent that I feel I have no control over the plot.  Things happen.  Characters say things.  I just get pulled along in their wake.  It is exhilarating.  And frustrating.  And it is very hard to explain to anyone who has never written.

So, finally, I write to be honest.  To reveal something about the inner depths of my creative mind.  To put myself on the page for anyone to see.  Yes, I hide behind my characters (I am an introvert after all).  But I am there, on every page.  All those hidden facets of me - writing gives them the chance to sparkle.
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Which leaves one question:
“Why do you write?’

My uncle served in the Royal Engineers and was posted to Hong Kong in 1937.  He was prevented from returning by the outbreak of war.
He set sail on HMS Dunera, a passenger ship, repurposed as a troopship, and this letter details his last sighting of England.
He was captured after the fall of Hong Kong in 1941 and died aboard the Lisbon Maru in 1942.









                                                                                                           H.M.T. Dunera 
Dear Mother & all,
            It is now Wednesday morning.  The sea is fairly calm but the vessel is rolling a lot in a heavy swell.  I have been quite alright up to now but we enter the Bay of Biscay this afternoon.  I expect that I will feel sickish then, up to now though, apart from a slight touch this morning while getting breakfast I have felt fine.  We sailed at half past two.  It was not bad watching England grow dimmer [insert in margin: you liar, it was lousy, nobody spoke].  After we passed the Needles in the evening  we  soon lost sight of the land.  It is great fun sleeping in hammocks - we had to wait until one of the seapigs (sailors) showed us what to do.  I crawled in mine though & had a lovely sleep.

Another chap and myself volunteered to be Mess orderly.  We fetch the grub from the galley & wash up after meals, we have to scrub tables forms and floor & clean all the tins for capt’s inspection at 10 am but we do not go on parade nor do we have any guard or other duties.  I don’t mind the hard work, it keeps me occupied.  Half the other chaps are sick.  Weird to see them lean over the side & then nip into the galley for the messes food.

I hope to get ashore at Gib & get some snaps.  I will post this letter there.  At present we are edging towards the Bay, The seas are starting to run high but I packed a whopping big dinner away with bags of fruit so I am quite happy.  How you all getting on? I will write a big letter when I can but at present I have only seen the sea.  I will enclose a photo of the ship, it is white with a blue band.  Another ship, before we sailed ,all pressmen & movietone & universal newsreels were snapping us.  Perhaps you may see them but I doubt if you will spot me.  The fellows lining the deck are just a few - there were 3 troop decks.  I am on 3 lower, this is the most comfortable but one has to climb 2 flights of stairs to reach the galley & slop bins, wash houses, latrines, etc.

Just before we sailed Hore-Belisha* came round with about 20 officers & inspected us.  He came round nodding & smiling like a small boy on his first day at school.
 
Well, I must close for the present.  I wish you all the best & look forward to the furlough I will receive when next I come to England.
With my love to Mum & the rest
From Frank.
PS. I already roll about like a pukka seapig.

*Hore-Belisha was an MP who became Secretary of State for War in 1937.  As Minister of Transport (1934-7) he introduced the 30mph speed limit in built-up areas and the Belisha beacon was named after him).

There are pockets of London where you can slip away from the seven and a half million souls who share the city with you and find a secluded backwater so quiet you could be the only inhabitant.  A few streets from Impresso, Megan and I reached a small, semi-enclosed square and found a seat on one of the original Victorian iron benches near the middle, beneath a depressed looking tree.  Someone had spruced the bench up with shiny black paint but it was still as uncomfortable as hell.  Megan planted the gift-wrapped box on the seat between us and turned to look at me.

‘You look good, Red’, she said.

‘You said that already.  Cut the crap, Megan!  What’s in the box?’

Megan smiled, the dimples making a brief appearance.

‘Well, it’s nice to see you, too, Red.  Missed me?’

‘Like a heart attack,’ I muttered.  ‘What’s in the box?’

Megan grinned.  ‘Same old Red.  You really know how to make a girl feel wanted.’

Then she grew serious, was all business.  She still took my breath away.  I guess you could say I’ve got it bad.  Good job I had my survival instincts to fall back on.

‘I suppose you could call it a bio bomb, Red,’ said Megan thoughtfully.  ‘I’m told that there are enough little bugs inside  this box to decimate London.  It would make the Black Death look like a summer cold.’

She looked at the shiny silver box the way you or I would look at an interesting species of butterfly.

‘Apparently, it’s got a really impressive hit rate for the size of the sample.  Or, so I’m told.’

So, OK, the survival instincts had obviously gone AWOL.  I scooted back along the bench until I hit the arm, as far away from the box as I could get without actually running.

‘Jesus, Megan!  Where the hell did you get it?’ I could hear my voice rising.  ‘And why bring it to me?  You need to get it out of London!  Get it somewhere safe.’

Megan put her head on one side as she considered this.

‘The trouble is, Red, I don’t think there is anywhere safe for a thing like this.  If the bugs get out of the flask - that’s it.  There’s no antidote.  At least, that’s what Stephen told me.’

‘Stephen?  Who the hell is Stephen?’

My voice may have risen again.  I saw a woman who’d just entered the square with a small over-groomed poodle on a pale pink lead look across at us, then turn away with a scowl.  Fat lot of good that was going to do her and her dog if Megan’s bio bomb went off.  They’d be among the first to go.  Unless the bugs only targeted humans, in which case her dog might be safe for a while but it was going to have to resurrect its wolf ancestry to survive.  I could feel part of my mind playing out this scenario as a diversion from the incomprehensible terror that the box was generating.  The poodle looked as if it might be OK nipping ankles but I didn’t see it leading a pack of feral hounds through deserted London streets.  Too much pampering had tamed the beast.  I fought to get my mind back on track.

Megan gave me the look she gives me when she knows I’m struggling to keep up.
​
‘You know, Red. Stephen.’  She sighed as I still looked blank.  ‘Stephen Mackenzie.  He’s an old friend from college.  You’ve met him, Red.   Tall, thin, wears glasses and never looks as if he knows what to do with his hands.’

OK, yes.  I had a vague memory of someone called Stephen.  He worked for some pharmaceutical firm, as far as I could remember, and definitely looked as if he didn’t get out much.  Megan had a knack for picking up stray dogs and giving them the odd titbit.  I must have met him at one of the gatherings at her flat a while ago, back when I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, getting to know Megan.  I felt a sudden lurch in my stomach.  Maybe I, too, was one of her stray dogs, useful occasionally and meriting the odd pat on the head.  I felt my mouth turn sour at the thought.
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‘I vaguely remember Stephen,’ I said.  ‘Science geek.  Why would he give you a bio-bomb?  What the fuck was he thinking?’