Tips 1: Write what you know: The
Great God Elephant.
“Always
write about what you know.” Everyone agrees this is the number 1 tip if you
want to be a writer. But what exactly do you know? Try this. Sit in front of a
blank screen with pen poised. Close your eyes and think of a memorable event in
your life. Visualise it. Colour it in (virtually). Hear the voices again.
Breathe the smells. Feel the heat/cold on your skin. Now open your eyes and
write. Just do it. No one’s going to
see it but you. Open the floodgates and let it pour. And relax; you can tinker
with it later.
I
did this; I sat in front of a blank screen and thought about my childhood in
Africa, which is one of the main locations in The Salamander Stone. It was a magical childhood. Here’s one true
story from those days that poured onto the page.
The Great God Elephant
I
stopped at the bend in the dust road, stooped down and slipped on my shoes. If
I got in sight of the school with bare feet, and was spotted by a Nun, the
wrath of God would descend. And worse, I’d lose my position as Head Girl.
Suitably shod I tidied myself up, tucking in here, straightening there, and
continued round the bend. And there it was, the low red corrugated-iron roofs
of the Holy Cross Convent, Livingstone, Zambia. The best school in Livingstone,
so we’d been told after my dad brought the family there from England. But to me
it was a torture house.
Imagine
sitting in regimented rows, back straight, chin up, not allowed to glance left
or right without permission. That’s how our lessons were: a tedious series of
learning-by-rote, broken only by the surreptitious snivelling of some badly
bullied girl. I once – quite courageously – flicked my eyes to see my best
friend Liz bowed over her book, huge tears dropping in globules on the page.
Sister Louis-Michael had harangued her again, viciously, as only a Nun knew
how. I found out, years later, that Sister Louis-Michael had a brain tumour. She
was in great pain all the time she was teaching. But she sure did manage to
spread that pain among her charges.
It
was with thoughts of Sister Louis-Michael that I approached school that morning.
I’d failed to learn last night’s set of history facts, preferring to laze about
reading instead. Oh boy, was I going to suffer!
But something was different that morning; I could see it as I got
closer. It was as if the top of an ant hill had been removed and all the ants
were running about in frenzied circles. The school had emptied and people were
everywhere. What was going on?
And
then I saw it. The school fence was down; the school gardens – the Nuns’ pride
and joy – were trampled into a muddy mire. Fruit trees were broken and one of
the outbuildings was leaning, as though a great weight had snuggled up to it in
the night.
For
one delicious moment I thought the wrath of God had truly descended, and this
time aimed at the correct target. I even looked for the lightning bolt. Then I
knew it was much better. Great piles of ordure told their own story, some still
steaming, while the milling crowd carefully circled them in delicate shoes,
noses averted. Only one animal on the planet marks its passing in that
meaningful way: a herd of elephant had trampled through the school grounds in
the night wreaking their own brand of havoc.
A
herd of elephant! That delectable thought rolled around my mind, just as the
elephants must have strolled around the grounds. And an even better thought
followed: no school today. No test. No telling off. Nothing to do, and a whole
glorious day to do it in.
I
kept the yipeeeeee strictly under wraps and rearranged my face into suitable
misery, before joining the crowd in their incessant circling and pointing at
piles of poo. And I inwardly thanked the great god elephant who had proved
himself a worthy opponent of the bullies and the bigots.
Not
long after, I pretended to step in the poo so I could take off my shoes and
wiggle my bare toes in hot sand. I was heady with a feeling of freedom and
rebellion. And who wouldn’t rebel when you have a herd of elephant leading the
way?
