Monday 1 September 2008

A horror story, by Lynn Huggins - Cooper

As writers, we all no doubt find that our 'real lives' leach into our writing. If that is the case, expect a story from me soon about a horse needing daily injections...it will be a horror story, because I'm scared of horses at the best of times, and once you get to the 'stick the stabby thing in the big kicky thing' scenario, I'm in a cold sweat. Tonight (day three) ended with me taking four attempts as the poor horse bucked and kicked. Once I had successfully injected the horse, I promptly vomited in a handy hedgerow - only to have to gear myself up to do it all over again tomorrow. A horror story indeed.

Actually, I'm not kidding about it ending up in a story. I find so many fragments of my life end up in my writing that sometimes it's all a bit embarrassing when I read it back to myself. Take the novel I am writing for adults. It's about the diet industry. For those who don't know me, I'm fairly well-upholstered. Cuddly, even. As such, I have read all manner of ridiculous books about dieting and weight loss. Tried lots of them too. The only thing that has worked is eating less and doing more. It's not rocket science. But that doesn't stop me, like so many other people, wishing that their was a magic pill to fix things. I've taken all that angst and poured the feelings into my book. Hopefully, it is working.

The problem though is when you write about something that hasn't happened to you...and people read about it and look at you sideways. I've written about everything from World War One to infidelity. Of course, I've also written about vampires and ghost hunters. It doesn't mean I have pointy teeth or a penchant for EMF detectors. To be honest, though, I think i'll leave it to my readers to decide for themselves what parts of my books hold fragments of my life and which are inventions.

3 comments:

Katherine Langrish said...

But, Lynn, why were you having to inject a horse???

John Dougherty said...

Because the horse couldn't do it itself, of course. No opposable thumbs.

LynnHC said...

Antibiotics - poor mare (literally) had an abcess...