I mean, I write all the time of course, and you could even call it professional writing. In my day-to-day job I am constantly writing cues and scripts for broadcast on the BBC, as well as associated online tie-ins. The most substantial bit of tie-in writing I did this year was once again doing the programmes for our Treasure Quest Live stage shows at the Norwich Playhouse in November.
Thanks mostly I think to the very talented Andrew-Mark Thompson doing those spoof annual covers for us we raised over £1500 in donations for the programmes alone, towards £5807 in total from the shows for Children in Need, which was rather nice. As usual I curated and designed the interiors, wrote most of the content and chivied along the contributions from the others!
Fiction-wise, however, I had an almost completely blank year... Until it came to Christmas Day.
I went out for a walk early that afternoon, around near my parents' house in Clapham in West Sussex, where I grew up. Instead of walking around Clapham, though, this time I wandered around the neighbouring village of Patching, and when I was passing Patching Pond I noticed how the sky was reflecting onto the water, so took a few photos:
When I posted these on social media, I mentioned that "The Sky in the Water" would be a good title for a story. One of my followers on Twitter, Lesley Harper, suggested it could be an Alice Flack story, so I decided to give it a go. I decided to write a short one that very afternoon, and not only that I randomly decided to record myself doing a reading of it, too:
https://soundcloud.com/paul-hayes-882952482/the-sky-in-the-water
It's probably not great, but neither is it awful. Certainly not bad for something started at 5pm, and all written, recorded and put online just after 9pm that same evening.
It made me want to go back and do some more Alice next year, anyway. I do have several stories in mind for her, but I find it so difficult to get down to writing anything these days. I need more discipline! I also have an idea for a novel I'd like to write in 2019, one that's been brewing for a while, but we shall see...
Happy New Year to you all, anyway!
