To hear our own voices. The writing voice is different from the voice inside your head, different even from the one that you use when you talk. Writing brings to consciousness more of the unconscious.

To recognise stories. Is everything a story? Many things are and when you understand stories by having created them you undertsand the creation of the myths of the world. It becomes easier to see when stories are being told, when a punchline is being delivered. This does not mean that one stops believing the stories but it helps unravel the too-neat truths.

To be published / for others to read our stories. Writing what others want to read is a joy multiplied. It also requires that one harmonises with the zeitgeist a little so that there is a way for other readers to enter the story too.

How do we write?

We all tell stories, we know what a story looks like, how to pause and how much to tell. We write existing stories or stories that we see happen around us or the story that we imagine is behind a chance remark overheard at the prescription counter at Boots. Stories are everywhere. We see things happen. The small red car takes a corner near a school and a huge bus comes the other way and they are too close to one another and crash and the drivers start to argue and curse. We tell these stories and we imagine the rest and writing is simply that act of telling, when one sits down and pieces of stories flow from the pen or the computer keyboard.

Grab one of these stories by the tail. Write it down. Simply write it to write it and be astonished. Feel the joy, because there is usually more on the page than you would have thought was in your head. Read what you have written, see what has emerged. Some of this unpredictable stream we want to share with others, and some not.

Is there some small part of us that wishes that we still took turns telling stories around the fire? Some fanciful, some instructive, some religious, some scatological.

Why train as a writer?

A runner trains by running, a writer trains by writing. Writing is both easier and harder than you might imagine. Easier: as soon as you start (and often only then) big knots of words inside your head start clmouring that they want to come out. Harder: until your inner critic is trained to take care of the technical stuff – like story shape, word order and your own personalised list of common mistakes – that old critic drones on. Easier: we have stories to tell, we have stories that float in our heads all the time; stories that explain the way people treat other people, how flowers grow. Harder: it’s a skill like any other that needs practice, needs doing and can be helped with guidance but truly, you can be your own trainer.

Lucille’s rules about writing fiction?

The story is the most important part of the equation. More important than grammar, or spelling or character development. Some of these can be worked on later, if you want, but if the story is there, the rest is easy.

Complete the story. Finish it, write it through until the end.

Then you can share it. With friends or someone who can bounce back ideas about shape and character and metaphors…

Start another story.

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