Locked in

The person writing this is the person who is going to their writing group tomorrow who will bring them a piece they have written on “atmosphere”. If you come here regularly you’ll know this person and her writing group challenge, because I’ve written about it before – in fact I probably wrote about it when she was first given the subject. The subject she and the group were given, three or four weeks ago, was “atmosphere”. I think she probably discussed what she might write – atmosphere as an awkwardness between people, atmosphere as is literally meant “the gaseous envelope of a celestial body (such as a planet) or the whole mass of air surrounding the earth”, or, as the Merriam Webster dictionary has it – “the air of a locality, or a surrounding influence or environment“.

So she has had plenty of time to get something written to share with her writing chums… It is now, as I write, 19:32, on the eve of the writers gathering together to share their tales. Has she written her tale, is it printed and ready to take with her tomorrow to the meeting at 10:00? Obviously not! Procrastinationitis has taken over. She has written here every day, she has finished editing her latest Radwinter book #8 “Something or Nothing”, she has even looked at what she wrote for a possible Radwinter #9 – she has talked over what she might write about atmosphere, she has discussed different ideas – BUT has she written about atmospher? No!!!

She’s about to start writing now, and no doubt she will finish it, but will she have sufficient time to properly reread it, edit it, check and correct it, rewrite as necessary, practice reading it out loud? No, probably not.

So what are my plans… you may not be surprised that my story “Atmosphere” will be set in a pub, very loosely based on The Dolphin as it was before it was taken over and modernised. The main character will be somewhat, based on a young version of me, but inspired by someone we see in our current local The Ship Inn in Uphill. Although my character will be a woman, the person in the pub is male, maybe in his twenties, maybe a little older. He always dresses in black, he is usually on his own, and he sits at a high table near the bar, headphones on, dressed in black, a pint to hand, and an exercise book in front of him – and he writes. Sometimes he has a paperback which he reads, sometimes he reads what he has written – or reads from a different exercise which is no doubt his writing.

So I have my setting (pub) I have my main character (writer), so where does the atmosphere for tomorrow’s meeting come in? When the story opens the atmosphere in the pub is quiet , an evening, late on, voices talking – not shouting or boisterous, just friendly banter, telling tales, jokes exchanged, legs pulled. There is the chink of glasses and bottles, the sound of beer pumps, the ding of the till, intermittent music from the jukebox when someone remembers to press play.

Slowly the regulars depart and the writer who’s lost in her work barely notices. Time is called and at last the writer looks up and returns to the world of the pub, realising it’s time to leave. However, before she goes she has to pay a visit – yes, she needs the loo.

Longer story/short – writer gets temporarily locked in the loo, and when she returns, the pub is empty of people and locked up. Her phone has died, the landlord no longer lives above the premises and has a careless manager who has forgotten to turn off some of the lights or set the alarms, so the writer can wander about, unable to escape, but safe and comfortable. She resigns herself to a night in the pub… but the atmosphere of an empty old pub is very different from one with even just a few people in it. Odd creaks, strange sounds, unexpected drafts, the sound of water flowing, the writer’s imagination is working over time.

This might work, if it doesn’t, I’ll have to get up early and hope I can pull something together… as usual, and as usual I will resolve to write for the next meeting in August in plenty of time!

My featured image is of me very many years ago, in a bar in the south of France.