Her Mother's Likeness
Introducing Lucy, and a whole waiting room full of solid ideas
If my writing strikes a chord with you, a very simple way to support me is to like this post. It will help me reach more readers.
For the second week in a row I’ve woken up with a clear idea of what the week’s post should be: theme, title, ambience, everything. This is the subconscious when it’s at its best, obedient and pliable. But it hasn’t happened of it’s own accord, I’ve shown up here every week for close to two years now, writing a thousand words or more on a topic related to This Writing Life of mine, and now my subconscious knows to work away while I sleep and then hand me this gift on a platter in the morning: a finished idea.
And isn’t this how writing works? Or any hobby we’re invested in. We write or edit our stories, whether we count our efforts in numbers of words, pages, hours or minutes. We step away to do other things with our day, but the subconscious does not step away. It will throw up beautiful phrases as we do the washing up, or solve a plot problem while we’re out walking. For this to keep working, the trick is not to spend too long away from the story.
Turning up every single day isn’t possible for most writers. We have jobs, family, health and life challenges, endless chores to keep up with so as not to get overwhelmed. But as long as we turn up as often as possible, and work through the initial resistance, that fear of facing the blank page, the subconscious will continue to be our biggest supporter.
But what about all those stories we’re itching to write but never get to? The ones we’ve parked in the waiting room? The stories we can’t wait to write, but we’ve got to first finish the story we’re working on at the moment. Will the subconscious keep working away at those too?
Leaving your ideas to rot in the waiting room
You know when you get an idea for a story and feel that tingle of excitement in your belly? A feeling that this idea must surely be your best one yet? In fact, this idea must be the best idea anyone’s ever thought of in the history of the world, but alas, you do not have time to write it at this very minute, because you’re working, or you have to take t…
My experience is that it won’t, but if it’s a solid idea the subconscious will keep a fierce grip on it until we’re ready to write it. One example is novel number three that I’m researching right now. I had the idea maybe a decade ago, maybe even longer ago, when my husband told me this incredible story about his grandmother. I couldn’t write it though, because I was busy writing The Shape of Guilt and then The Legend of Maderwerth (which is currently out on submission), and of course the many Swedish children’s books.
But now, all of a sudden, a year after submitting The Legend of Maderwerth to my agent, and after I’ve written a bunch of short stories to clear my head, the story of my husband’s grandmother was the one my subconscious turned to in the waiting room and asked to please stand up.
Another idea that has been perching on a chair in the waiting room for longer than I dare to think, but which is refusing to leave, is a novella-in-flash, about a café owner called Lucy and an accountant called Greg. The first piece was published in 2020 by The London Short Story Prize, and with that publication, essentially a short-listing, I thought the moment for this idea had come.
But no. My subconscious shook it’s head and turned away. I find this incredibly frustrating, because this is an idea I desperately want to write. Even though it now looks as if it’s going to have to wait a while longer, I feel confident that my subconscious will not lose the grasp of this story. I have the list of flashes I need to write, I have the structure, I know the characters and the setting, the world.
But just in case, another method the subconscious tends to respond well to is the drawing up of contracts. Therefore, for accountability, I hereby declare to you that I will at some future point turn all my attention to Lucy and Greg, and I sign this contract by posting the first story about Lucy here , or if you prefer you can read it online here:
Her Mother's Likeness
Flames licked the likeness of Lucy’s mother, bent the canvas backwards in a dance of kisses and caresses. Threads the colour of skin, red lips and blue eyes snapped and curled, fizzed into ash. Crumbled, glowed orange, hot and burning. Lucy watched, chin in hand. Sat naked with the needle still in her hand, the golden-brown thread for her mother’s hair still trailed along her thigh, snaked around the scars – once a burn, twice a burn, thrice a burn, and those endless pricks from her mother’s needle. She touched them now, a white-hot canvas patterned with stars of hurt. Prodded them gently with the point. Once for borrowing mummy’s lipstick, twice for the teacher calling home to ask about the bruises, thrice so that she’d think twice about doing it again, and endless stabs for the nightmares that woke her crying in the night.
’You wore me out so,’ spoke her mother’s charcoal tongue from the fireplace. ‘Why did you have to be such a difficult child?’
But during these long dark winter nights Lucy had already spent too much time with her mother, watching her become stitch by stitch – the lemon-sucking lips, the dead-fish-eyes, the cheeks of smooth stone. She touched them now, with the poker, stirring the embers into a wisp of smoke and a whirl of sparks. Another log of seasoned birch, wood like fibrous white flesh and pockets of air combusting.
’Why did you stitch me into being only to punish me?’ asked her mother in a flurry of bone-grey ash.
’That,’ said Lucy, ‘I wish I knew.’
This is where I’ll leave you this week. Be patient with yourselves, and with your stories.
In other writing news:
My Substack read of the week is The Forgotten Art of Childhood by
Research-wise I’ve been spending this week in Sing Sing, not IRL of course, but reading, watching documentaries, reading admission records, which can all be found here on Ancestry.
And I’ve booked a day in the archives of a college in Oxford.
Submitted short story number 6 to Luna Station Quarterly.
Submitted a short story that isn’t part of the collection I’m working on to Scott and Lawson Publishing Short Story Prize.
Received a rejection for a short story, an old unnumbered one which might still fit with the theme of the collection.
I RECEIVED THE CONTRACT FOR THE NEXT SWEDISH PICTURE BOOK!!! For a while there I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. It’ll be a long wait now though, as I was determined to have the same illustrator as for Eben von Ruben och husbarnet and he’s much in demand. Nevertheless, Taxen på hjul should be out in October 2026.
Went to Sussex University to collect my alumni library card, but alas, they cannot help me with the microfilms I need to find. The search goes on.
Thank you
for organising this series of mini-interviews in advance of the publication of HOPE: The Thing With Feather, an anthology which features my speculative short story For All That Is and Still Lives.Currently reading the book written by my mentee, to feed back on.
If you have read this far you’ve already made a difference to This Writing Life of mine. But should you wish to, here are a few other options of how to support me:
Subscribing to this weekly missive from me is free for everyone, and my plan is for it to stay that way forever, but I do aim to deliver a well-thought-through observation every week, hopefully with a positive spin, a lesson learned, knowledge shared. This takes time, which is why, if you enjoy reading and have the means, there’s an option here to upgrade to a paid subscription. I’ve now started to add content for you, my paying subscribers, to show my appreciation for your generosity. It makes such a difference, not only are enabling me to continue writing stories, but you make me feel as if what I’m doing is worthwhile. You’ll be the first to find out more about and read excerpts from my novel-in-progress.
Or if you’re unable to commit to a subscription a coffee to fuel my typing would be most welcome.
My novel The Shape of Guilt is available to buy with free delivery from Blackwell’s in the UK or from Barnes & Noble in the States, and if you’re a Swedish speaker you can find out more about where to buy my Swedish children’s books here. Or you can leave a review of The Shape of Guilt here. And finally, here’s a tip jar:
Love the idea of the waiting room! Sometimes I think I have issues with keeping my office properly staffed and organized enough to remember they’re out there waiting! 😅
What a title, Lisa! It drew me iummediately in to read this post. I am in Buenos Aires at the moment. Had to fly suddenly because we thought that my 99 year old mother was about to leave us... Now she is back to her usual 70 year old mind, spirit, looks, etc, but you see why your title captured me. Thank you!