What I have in my bedside cupboard...

The cupboard - tidying in progress!

For someone who is not actively writing right now, I seem to be writing a lot about it!

Yesterday, in a dull moment, I decided to clear out, or least tidy, my bedside cabinet. I actually managed to put out some things, which is an achievement in itself. One of the things I keep in here are my old stories, hand written in exercise books. Every so often I get them out and flick through them. I'm never sure what to do with them. Perhaps I should edit them while putting them on computer. What I couldn't do is throw them. One of the exercise books is my first go at a sci-fi story. It even has my grandmother's writing in it when she corrected some of my spelling! My grandmother died when I was 21 so this story must have been written when I was in my teens.

The other exercise books cover one story - a love story between an older woman and a younger man. I have a feeling this didn't end well. It's a long time since I wrote it, but even then I was planning a sequel!

This got me thinking. Was this a first novel attempt? I'm not sure how many thousand words this would run to. I had a typewriter later on but I hated typing up manuscripts. Thank God for the computer because I was too darn lazy to type any stories up unless they were short stories!

The evidence - hand written stories.

I found another hand written story, a futuristic one (which if I don't publish it soon, will probably come true!) and ideas for another story which never got past the first chapter (something rather dark and disturbing!).

I gave up writing stories in my twenties. It's taken thirty years to get back to it. I'm not sure what that says, other than writing runs through me - however good or bad I write. I was writing songs in my head at ten and while looking back I realise I invented people, whole families in my head. I played out whole scenes - my own personal soap! None of that was written down but the story continued over years! Did anyone else do this?

Growing up in my era there was no daytime TV, computers and video games. We had to make our own entertainment. Obviously, I did. I invented my own Eurovision and Football League Tables (don't ask!). The stories in my head played out at night or when I woke, usually. Another time I invented a board game. I still have the cardboard, the cards and the rules up in a cupboard. I thought about getting it patented and trying to get it on the market! So, you can see my imagination runs riot at times. It certainly did when I was younger and I'm glad to see that my imagination has reactivated itself.

All this came out of looking in a cupboard and remembering where everything began. What is your story?

Oh and guess what else I found? An old Dream Diary. Bet you'd like to know what's in there. Sorry, it's highly classified!