Saturday 25 August 2012

Open for Business? By Cindy Jefferies

Cindy Jefferies


What is it about doors?
Well of course they make a rather hackneyed metaphor but the way I've been feeling recently they do seem to have been horribly cluttering up my brain with their clunking of latches, creaking of timber and squealing of hinges. That sounds like a pretty appalling sample of horror writing but maybe you get the idea.


I'm at that stage in writing where I have no idea if what I'm doing is good, bad or something in between and recently I've been struggling with a scene that simply didn't want to behave.

I tried everything and of course the answer was to abandon it, because it wasn't right for the character or the story. But that conclusion took a week or so to find and by then I'd hammered on just about every door in my brain that I thought might be barring the solution I thought I needed.

Brain work is surprisingly exhausting and although I'm pleased to have arrived at what I think (aghhh!) is the right solution to my problem I didn't have a lot of unbruised brain capacity available to write this blog. So I idly decided to have a look through my photographs to see if I had pictures of doors. Wow! Maybe I have a thing about them. Doors, doorways, windows too (but don't let's go there). Open, shut, teasingly ajar, beautiful, forbidding or just silly. I have many more pictures of doors than I realised. So here, as a nod to my recent brain activity are just a very few.



Feel free to take any good ideas that may seep under, flow out or even shout at you through a keyhole. But beware. The path to any door is fraught with difficulties, as the smiling worker above who has excavated, barrowed, shovelled and raked a path to the black door will attest. Be careful, watch your step and don't blame me if things go horribly wrong!

2 comments:

Joan Lennon said...

Excellent doors - is the top one Charney? And bravely done with the book - if only there was some guarantee at the beginning of weeks like that that the solution WILL BE FOUND, they wouldn't be quite so harrowing!

Susan Price said...

The top door is certainly Charney - rcognised it at a glance.
Sending sympathy, Cindy - I know the feeling you describe. And yes, brain work can be exhausting, especially when it's frustrating.
And before Joan can tell me off again, I'll get straight back to hammering on the door of Sterkarm tower!