I, like many others, have periods when writing is so blooming
hard that I will do anything to get out of it. Yes, I can make myself
sit at the keyboard but there’s always Google to look up that 90’s band
whose name I can’t think of. Or a recipe for lamb tagine even though I
don’t have a tagine and no one in the family likes lamb.
Yes, of course, I have to look them up right now and, no, of course it won’t wait.
If I turn off the internet and make everyone in the house promise to
shoot me if I turn it back on – although, when I’m writing, there’s
always a word that needs replacing using an on-line thesaurus – there
are other distractions.
It’s amazing what you can get out of the keyboard when you poke round
each letter with a cocktail stick. I’ve done it. Too many times to
count. When writers block hits I have the cleanest keyboard in England.
So how to make myself write?
I wrote a list of things I love. Okay, so it was another diversion that delayed me actually writing but, for once, it helped.
Part of the list.
- Beautiful young men
- Gymnastics
- Beautiful young men falling in love
- Closed, secretive, hidden worlds
- Beautiful young men falling in love and having wild sex
- Books
- Beautiful young men falling in love, having wild sex and being noble
That’s not a bad list. All I had to do was think of a story that involved all those things and it would be easy-peasy to write.
Gymnastics should have been easy to include. I *adore* gymnastics;
the movement, the grace and, if it’s done well, the style and artistry.
I’m equally passionate about both men’s and women’s gymnastics but at
the moment there is no one – and never has been – like Kōhei Uchimura.
Incredibly difficulty done with incredible style. A true artist.
But there’s a problem. Adorable as he is with his floppy mop of hair
and his hairy underarms he’s not my idea of a beautiful young man who
could fall in love and have wild sex.
So how to get gymnastics in the story? No problem: make one of the beautiful young men a gymnastics coach! Sorted.
As for the rest of the list most were also easy. Set the story behind
an impenetrable wall of secrecy – I was thinking somewhere like North
Korea only more secretive – and I could have all sorts of fun. Different
circumstances: different rules that I could change and mould to my
heart – and plot’s – content. Make one of the beautiful young men
collect books and all I had to include was falling in love and wild sex.
I really, really, REALLY like writing about beautiful men falling in love and sex. Oh yes, I love writing about sex as well.
I had to be careful about one thing though. I know a lot about
gymnastics and coaching so I had to make sure I didn’t overload the
story with technical detail that only I’d appreciate. But, apart from
that, the words flowed when I sat down to write. Mostly. I still have an
extraordinarily clean keyboard but, hey, that has to be a good thing,
right!
This story became my new book, ‘To Stand Close’ which was out in March.
You can find it here…
https://www.totallybound.com/to-stand-close