Month: May 2011

Writing the Long Way Around1 Comment

Research

Writing The Long Way Around

So far the research for my narrative non-fiction project has included being called ‘hen’, being enticed into a dark and dusty room full of baskets containing crystals and locked in, witnessing the breakdown of a young mother who lost her little boy in a car crash, Chinese dumplings, being asked to stop writing, bursting into tears in front of a room full of strangers – strange strangers at that, smiling as sweetly as I could at a man making bird noises for me and gently refusing to partake in a plate of stale biscuits proffered by a sweaty round woman … Continue reading Research

Writing the Long Way Around6 Comments

Fact or Friction

Writing The Long Way Around

Standing outside a typical Edinburgh tenement building waiting to show viewers round a property, I became fascinated with an elderly woman at a window of a more modern apartment building across the street. The window was open at the bottom and at first I thought she was using a towel to clean the glass, but as I continued to watch a more interesting picture began to develop. I could see behind her into a miserable and far too predictable bedroom, the furnishings so grey and miserly I wondered if she was in sheltered housing. Two facts dawned on me at … Continue reading Fact or Friction