It has been a hugely busy day, in spite of wanting mainly to curl up and whimper. I’m not particularly good at being unwell, and anyway, I have an Ani to look after, a son who doubles as my employer to go to and books to be working on. Yep, plural.
First of all there is Doomsday, the new book, and the stuff I mentioned earlier that I have been delaying tackling. That is now well underway. Then, of course, there is the Land of the Exiles book, a chapter of which has come in for editing and formatting this afternoon. Meanwhile I have finally put fingers to keyboard on a couple of personal projects that have been in the offing for some time. One, The Feathered Seer, tells a story found in the landscape, another is even more personal, though far less creative. And that is without the other projects currently underway….
Last year my mother gave me a sheaf of manuscripts. Old, unpublished stories, children’s books, novels…. I have been working my way through them and have begun, in that laughable concept called spare time, to type them up and manage the accompanying sketches for publication.
It is an odd thing. I was afraid to read the stories through more mature eyes, scared I would find them less wonderful now than I did long ago as a child; worried about destroying yet another childhood illusion. Yet although I admit some of it is a little dated, I can simply call it nostalgic. Although I itch to edit occasionally, it is not my place to change the words, or to impose my style on hers. My mother always wanted me to get the books published after her death. I promised they would be, one day. I am keeping that promise… and hopefully well in advance of that particular date too.
My mother was passionate about her writing when she was younger. Rejection slips came thick and fast when every submission required a hand typed manuscript and a heavy volume to be weighed at the post office. Yet success came too… acceptance slips, cheques, even BBC radio broadcasts of her dialect stories. I was always proud of her.
When I was very young she read to me, weaving stories and voices to bring the worlds to life. The house was full of books, all of which were open to me to read and under the stairs a small stuffed alligator kept watch over the old Olympia typewriter she used. A big old thing, a museum piece now I imagine. One that made a satisfying and very definite clunk when a key was hit… you didn’t press them. You had to be more forceful than that!
As I leaf through the dog-eared manuscripts, copying, correcting typos, formatting, I am struck by the fact that I am now twice the age she was when she wrote some of these things, yet her stories still remain, many unread by any except her children. I feel rather as if I am preparing the family archive and wonder if, some day in the far distant future, a child may pick up a dusty old book and know that their grandma’s grandma’s grandma wrote it for them to read on that very day. In stories, all such magic is possible.
* Images: Typewriter- Google image search,
Illustrations- Coral Grant, my mother.
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
A lovely post, Sue, moving and fascinating. Hope you feel better soon. Hugs, Ali xxx
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So do I 🙂 Thanks, Ali xxx
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This was a good read. It seems there are always those toy projects from long ago which may never get done.
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Sometimes you really do just have to wait till the momentis right 😉
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what a wonderful gift/project )
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It will be good to have the books printed and on the shelf 🙂
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A little while ago I was going through old scripts of my own going back to my school days. My feelings/thoughts were much as you describe here. It was necessary to audio type them from cassettes 😉 At the time I’d thought this was a safer medium to store them having permanently lost several on a dodgy “floppy disk” lol no comments about age please!! Now in 21st century back they were going onto a computer. Besides showing me starkly how troubled teenage years can be lol some very dark writing there I must admit! I was surprised by the content of much of what I had recorded (I sang on them too! Oh wolf!! What on Europa made me think that I had been blessed with good vocal skills!!! Terrible! Cringeworthy!!) I am quite shocked to find many still came over as powerful in their message all these years on even seen/heard through “mature” (so I fondly like to believe anyway 😉 ) eyes/ears. I plan to edit them and update but I will keep the original versions too.The weirdest thing was listening to myself at 16/17 years old – it was like time travelling and meeting up with my younger self. Very unsettling till I got used to it then it was pretty cool! I smiled at things such as mentions of £1.00 notes…such things do not exist anymore but overall I didn’t feel too ancient! lol It’s fascinating going back through old, old lol material that I thought was so wonderful at the time – well, not all bad, some of it won writing competitons at the time but mostly…let’s just say I am relieved to believe my writing has improved somewhat since those days!
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I have a plethora of old journals too, and many letters. As you say, hide under the duvet time for much of it… yet there is a lot in there that still makes perfect sense, and some I have no idea how I managed to think that way at such a tender age. It makes for an interesting insight on what has made me tick all these years.
And I remember £1.00 notes too… and half crowns, ha’pennies, and even seeing the occasional farthing still floating around in loose change…. 😉
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What a gorgeous project Sue, and what a wonderful mother to have been blessed with. No wonder you can’t stop writing 🙂
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I have a lot to thank my mother for, one way or another… 🙂
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