Looking back, I think I have been trying to write all my life.
I can remember as a child earnestly explaining to my Mother that I wanted to write a book, but that I was going to need something that would put the words on the paper (typewriter? cold metal printing press? Letraset?). It was an early example of my ‘if only I had a left-handed widget’ syndrome – that a task would be so simply and quickly done if only I had the right tool (which typically doesn’t exist and therefore needs creating, by me – see Matador).
I loved to write stories as a child, but never got very good marks in English, probably due to undiagnosed dyslexia. But that isn’t the origin story; that starts with my father’s father.
‘Jack’ Steele was a natural and inveterate storyteller. After Sunday lunch he would sit in the lounge, barely visible through a cloud of pipe smoke and, if there was anyone in the room, he would start with ‘did I ever tell you about the time…’ And he had so many stories to tell.
He loved the sea. He spent much of the First World War as a nurse in the merchant navy as he was a Quaker and therefore a conscientious objector. In later life my parents used to enjoy going on cruises and often took him with them. Apparently, he took up permanent residence in the bar, lit his pipe and regaled anyone who would listen with his stories.
Coming into a foreign port my parents would ask him if he wanted to disembark and take a tour of the city. The answer was always that he had already been there and was quite comfortable, thank you. Then he would turn to whoever was nearest and start with ‘did I ever tell you about the time…’
I bought a small manual typewriter and taught myself to type so that I could type the text for my ‘A’ level art project.
After college, when I managed somehow to finesse a degree in architecture into the start of a career in computer graphics (CG), I started writing for Acorn User (a magazine about the BBC microcomputer) about CG stuff. At the same time, I was teaching CG at various art schools and having to write lessons every week. Oh, and writing a master’s thesis.
Later it was marketing material, documentation and grant applications. Scribble, scribble, scribble.
Now I am free of all that I can obsess about writing tools (paper, pens, keyboards, software) and try to write fiction. Turns out that storytelling isn’t as easy as my grandfather made it look…