Playtime by Tracy Darnton

I’m sharing my latest procrastination task – setting up an escape room for writer friends on our forthcoming day retreat.

This means that I’m looking anew at every item in my house as to whether it can be repurposed as a writing exercise/escape room task. Wooden spoon and mixing bowl? Excellent for the writing an abstract recipe exercise. Tiny objects? Perfect for my six objects in a story task.

Paint colour charts? I’m sucked in by the possibilities of titles like ‘Between Dog and Wolf’ and ‘Invisible Green’ or a detective called ‘Juniper Ash’.

I’ve been reading Michael Rosen’s Book of Play! Rosen’s book sets out all the learned reasons why play has developed and why it matters. It’s full of play suggestions and I realise that many of those, especially the wordplay, have been part of my day-to-day since forever. In fact, the way I play around with ‘What if' scenarios or make my characters do improv. is a big part of how I develop a book idea, especially as I am not a plotter thinking about mid-points and Three Act Structures.

Far from growing out of this once the kids left home, I seem to be liking ‘play’ more and more as I get older. Is it OK to just like playing, even though I am getting on in life? I took part in an ‘adults only’ craft session at the Wellcome Collection based around the In Plain Sight exhibition. That’s always one of my favourite places to visit in London for interesting ideas and a strong element of play and creativity about the way information is presented. And I was the oldest there by a good twenty years. But, so what? (That's a photo of my eye in the middle).

 

This week I’ve also been distracted by making small, woolly wigs for cardboard avocados (Don’t ask!) But, dear reader, I enjoyed it.

Let’s hope that the friends I’m ‘locking’ in the escape room have a similar playful approach. We’ll soon see.

My issue is that once my brain sets off in that direction, I find it hard to rein it back to the task in hand. So diligently adding to my WIP, ticking off every 500 words, is a monumental effort.

Speaking of which, my word target beckons. After I’ve set up some more bookish anagrams and turned a cupboard into a time machine….

 

  

Tracy Darnton is the author of YA thrillers Ready or Not, The Rules and The Truth About Lies. She tries really hard to be a grown up. You can follow her @TracyDarnton on Twitter and Instagram.