A writing microscope

I’ve written many autobiographical pieces here in various different ways, as stories, as memoirs, as stimulus for other pieces which shadow true events but with fictional characters. I’ve mentioned several times that I’ve struggled to find a way to write my life story – or part of it. I think I will have to be content with the different episodes I’ve written in these different ways.

A few years ago at the St Endellion  Literary Festival I was fortunate enough to attend a talk and workshop from Natasha Carthew. She was sharing ideas on writing and how, and more importantly, where we write, and introduced us to the idea of wild-writing, wrestling with thoughts and words en plein air. Following on from that, I read her novel, All Rivers Run Free and I was in awe of her mastery, her way with language and narrative. I am now reading her latest book, ‘Undercurrent: A Cornish Memoir of Poverty, Nature and Resilience’ , and if I was awe-struck previously I am even more so now. This is what the blurb says of it:

To grow up in rural poverty is to fight for life before you can walk.
Natasha Carthew was born into a world that sat alongside picture-postcard Cornwall, one where second homes took the sea view of council properties, summer months shifted the course of people’s lives, and wealth converged with poverty on sandy beaches. In the rockpools and hedgerows of the natural world, Natasha found solace in the beauty of the landscape, and in the mobile library she found her means of escape. In Undercurrent she returns to the cliff paths of her childhood, determined to make sense of an upbringing shaped by political neglect and a life defined by the beauty of nature.
This is a journey through place, and a vivid story of hope, beauty and fierce resilience.

I’m not thinking of emulating her in her way of sharing her past, hers is a unique way of painting her childhood so vividly, so powerfully. However she’s certainly offering a masterclass in how to write, and makes me think I am too complacent and easily satisfied in what I write. I comment here that my writing is often inspired by observation, but maybe I’m observing through a writing telescope and perhaps should learn to use a writing microscope from time to time.

http://blakefriedmann.co.uk/natasha-carthew