Relationship Ends

Two relationships have come to their inevitable ends this week, and it's left me a little sad.

We'd been together for months, spent lots of time in each other's company, got rather close, but that's the way it goes in this writing life.

Allow me to introduce you to who I'm saying my goodbyes...

Notebooks retire.jpg

The small one in the foreground is the notebook I keep with me just about everywhere, and whip out for a scribble when an idea strikes. It's pocket sized, robust, and ideal for the job.

The larger one in the background is the formal A4 notebook, for the outlines of courses I'm giving, plus plans for stories, settings and characters.

I did something I probably shouldn't and went through them before putting them in the corner that full notebooks go in my study, and wow! Did that trigger some memories. 

Stories that had worked out well, others that hadn't, characters I'd come to love, places I've visited to give talks - so many memories in a few pages of paper. 

 

Is it me, or is it a writerly thing to develop an attachment to inanimate objects in this way? Or do they become more like friends, because of the time we spend together and how we confide our innermost thoughts to them?

Anyway, it's been strange this week, no longer having them around. And perhaps this is just a temporary thing, but I'm finding it harder to write in their replacements.

Maybe it's just a question of time, and new and beautiful relationships will develop there. I certainly hope so.

Before I end my musings, a quick final thought - much of this blog has been downbeat, and I don't like to leave on a low, as you may have noticed, so... beware...

I also use the smaller notebook for jokes, and here's a favourite from its pages to end -

I saw a man in an AA van, driving along, and he was looking very sad, really miserable. And I thought to myself... that poor bloke is heading for a breakdown!