Breaking Down Another Barrier

I firmly believe that most people have some sort of talent. Unfortunately for many of them, it remains undeveloped as life gets in the way. So it has been with me. Indeed, it wasn’t until my early 40’s that I started to realise some of my abilities although, even those were the just tip of the iceberg. So, as I often say, at an age when many of my peers have taken to cardigan and slippers, I have an urge to keep going. I need, you see, to dig deeper to see if there is more to come. And how do I know this? Well the answer is that I don’t but I do know that I believe that there is. The problem has long been, do I have what it takes it to realise what I might be capable of?

As evidence of this, although I’m quite good at what I actually do as an author and speaker, I do that within boundaries that seem set within me. While, at the same time, experience small episodes during which, some of those things that I want to do, come to the surface. An example of this is that I now realise that I’m quite a good writer, albeit of nonfiction. Yet even within that genre, I know that, using words, I can paint the pictures that portray what I want them to. Indeed, it’s something I thoroughly enjoy.

The further evidence is that when I read the type of book, “Lincoln in the Bardo”, a novel that I’ve recently finished, I’m amazed at the author’s ability to create a world out of words; the latter   unfettered by anything other than ability and imagination. Concepts that are unfamiliar yet real, half formed sentences whose meanings you have to guess at and an overriding belief in the world that is being set out before you. I would love to be able to do that.

Now, a few months ago my youngest a daughter, Ellie, who has a MA in Creative Writing, gave me a notebook so that I could write down some of the things that went through my head. So I did. Well, yesterday, I read through one of them and discovered that, albeit in snippets, I have actually started to do what that author did. So, I’m going to keep going just to see what happens. Maybe the last pieces of this particular jigsaw might just fit together in a novel. And, if I don’t succeed, well, at least I’ll have tried and, more importantly, broken down another personal barrier.