I’m on to the eleventh word in my random googled list of twenty words, and it’s ‘ruin’. In some ways it’s easier than previous suggestions – last, donkey, spiffy, lumber, taboo, root, heat, carriage, needless, wasteful, and way, but there are so many options! An actual physical ruin, a ruined business, life, person, ambition – many thoughts came to mind. I had to really rack my brain with some of those I completed – some came out surprisingly well, last, spiffy, lumber, heat and carriage, for example, but a couple were a real struggle and felt (and feel) forced and stilted, and a couple actually may have to be rewritten because I’m not really satisfied.
‘Last’ was a short story about the final night of the final term of a group of friends at Uni, spiffy became the rather cruel nick-name of a poor student, lumber was an episode from my story of Peggy, a young girl who goes to live with her grandma, heat was a memoir of holidays in the south of France, and carriage was inspired by the old song ‘Daisy, Daisy, give me you answer do‘ and if you know it you might be able to guess what the story was about.
We’re very fond of wandering around old places, some of which are ruined, so maybe one of the places we’ve visited could inspire me. The last one I think was Goodrich Castle and on the same holiday, Tintern Abbey. the castle was devastated by a battle during the English Civil war; it had been under sustained attack but eventually it fell in 1646 and was then ‘slighted’ – rendered indefensible and its defences damaged and ruined bu 1648. Tintern Abbey was one of the many monasteries “dissolved” by Henry VIII. It was surrendered to him in 1536 – after four hundred years held by Cistercian monks. Now it is in the safe hands of CADW, the Welsh historic building service.
I’m not sure either of those ruins are going to spark any writing, not an imagined ruin of an old church/castle/fortress/manor/lighthouse – and nor do I think the ruin of some person or institution will inspire me. I shall have to ponder, pondering often seems the best way forward when I’m planning to write something
Lois Elsden 