Helen Ellwood on Life and Writing

Helen Ellwood talks to me about her writing and life process...

When I began writing 'Message in a Bottle', I wasn't thinking about publication,

I simply wanted to escape the pain of a spine-damaging car crash. By thinking about my time living as a South Seas castaway, and recording my memories on a Dictaphone, I was able to distract myself from my disability.

As the years rolled by, and my health improved to the point where I could sit up and use voice-activated software, I began to believe in my story. In reality, who goes to an uninhabited desert island to get away from their troubles? I did, and it was a story worth telling, yet for some reason I couldn't finish the wretched thing.

Originally, I'd gone to the island to have an adventure and thereby heal my grief. My mother had died only the year before, and I couldn't cope. I ran away to ‘paradise’, tried to face my demons and returned alive, but did that really make a story? Self-doubt kicked in.

In 2011, I gained a few writerly tools and a dose of self-confidence from Bridget’s writing course at Swanwick Summer School, and a year later gained the interest of literary agent Meg Davies. At this point, I was still focusing on the travel adventure; putting my inner journey second.

I failed to hold Meg’s attention, but my next re-write, in which I focused more strongly on the inner journey, got long-listed for the Mslexia Memoir Competition 2014. So far so good, but Bridget felt I hadn't yet reached the heart of my story. Something indefinable was missing.

I’d gone to the island to find freedom from grief, yet once there, I’d remained emotionally restrained. Why hadn’t I been able to yell and roar – to heal? Why hadn’t I been able to challenge my companion when I needed to? Why had I let the press walk all over me?

As I read through my manuscript with an open mind, I realised my book was actually about authenticity.

I was brought up to be a well-behaved child. Unfortunately, I became too well-behaved; I grew into an adult afraid of authentic self-expression. I was a wild child in conformist clothing. This inability to speak my truth dogged my adventure on all levels. I had found the heart of my story. My journey was complete.
By writing my thoughts and feelings in italics, and showing my actual speech and behaviour in normal text, my latest rewrite explores the mismatch between the two; giving rise to insight and personal change, with a refreshing touch of humour, all set in an exotic and claustrophobic environment.

I am very grateful to Bridget for helping me give birth to my Desert Island memoir.

When you get to the heart of your story, the journey is complete.

What is your story around your writing process?

Use these questions to help you to tell that story, whether it’s still in process, or whether you’ve completed your project.

• What was/is your aim for your writing?
• What got/gets in the way?
• What helped/will help you to achieve your goals?
• What was/will the outcome be?

Why I write by Nikki Woods

Nikki Woods was the winner of the Wild Words Spring Solstice 2015 Writing Competition with her entry Taniwha.

"I felt rather nervous when Bridget asked me to describe the processes I adopted in producing Taniwha...

I am fairly new to creative writing - though I’ve published non-fiction in the past - and, to date, I’ve focussed more closely on what I have written rather than why or how I have written it. Bridget’s questions made me think about the aims and ambitions of writing, as well as the obstacles.

When friends ask why I write, I tend to trot out predictable answers: a love of language and reading, a passion for communicating ideas, the thrill of hearing that others have enjoyed my work. All are true, but they are only part of the story. The other part is more personal: it’s as if a lifetime’s experiences of joy, anger, love, remorse, sadness, cheer, bereavement, delight (to name but a few) have reached capacity and can no longer be contained. They need to cut loose and, for me, their escape route is the written word. In Taniwha, these experiences are represented in themes including oppression, isolation, cultural dislocation and determination.

This is not to say that I set out purposefully to cover particular issues. Far from it. The themes that find expression in my writing are rarely developed in a conscious manner. Rather, I find that ideas evolve during the process of writing, jumping onto the page in a way that is at first surprising but ultimately predictable.

In this respect, I have no choice but to start with what I know, and I continue by (re) interpreting and broadening my experiences within the act of writing. I aim to mix what I know with what I want to know, and use the familiar in different and, I hope, creative ways. In relation to Taniwha, for example, I have lived in New Zealand but as an adult, not a child. I have never had a home on a farm but have experienced bullying. I do believe in monsters, especially those that lurk in the dark depths of deep pools.

The main difficulty I face in writing is beginning a new piece of work. It can take me days – even weeks – to get a story off the ground. I find that a walk with my dog in the wild always helps (pictured). As I sit down with a clean sheet of paper, I feel a conflicting combination of excitement about what I might write, and anxiety as to whether I will be able to write anything at all. I imagine the feeling as a writer’s version of stage-fright and, picking up my pen, I brace myself to step into the limelight.

Seeking Authenticity by Kester Reid

Read Kester Reid's piece, 'Stream', listed for the Wild Words Competition, here:

To write, I seek to experience authentically – unexpectantly, and unhurriedly. I respect every being and every force as something alive with a present power to animate our shared reality. I await their messages, their teachings. To express such experience is impossible. To integrate it is my only goal. To reflect and write about it is to explore it again, to explore its essence, and share it perhaps. Poetry is the most honest way for me to do that. I go back there and look again, with words.

My piece for the Wild Words competition ‘Stream’, began as a journal entry during my time living amongst the Achuar tribe of the Western Amazon. For some years I have been drawn to this particular tropical wilderness, and into tribal realities. The isolation, both cultural and physical, of such experiences, taught me a huge amount about myself and my cultural mode of experiencing. Wild forests and native friends taught me a more natural way, a more human way.

Stillness and observation are critical aspects of an indigenous lifestyle. Cultivating these practices, and states, is vital to noticing the intricacies of the world around me – in order to thrive, physically and spiritually. Such a mode is a survival tool, but also the gateway to recognising the beauty and mystery of the world, which is a momentary happening to which I am integral, which pulses heavily on the waves of my own breath. I recognise the power of natural forces, the creativity there, and the mystery. And suddenly, everything is alive, so alive – as alive as me. This intuition that my experience of consciousness is a marvel not unique to my own species is deeply connective – it makes me humble before the Great Mystery, it uplifts me as a part of the Great Mystery.

‘Stream’ began with an experience I never intended to write about. The same curiosity that drew me out to those forests, and down that particular stream, somehow guided me to explore it with words. The root of it all is out under the changing sky, and inside the wild mind. Coming to close to the Earth, and all Nature, our nature. The rest is just reading and writing and honing – becoming more honest, more open, more honest.

I am pleased to be connected to the Wild Words circle. Thank you."