I hope that a visit to this website will encourage you to write. Whether you like the idea of the workshops or decide that the Writers’ Forum is all you need, the purpose of From The Hearth is to promote writing and in this particular instance, life stories.

Recently, creative writing courses seem to have erupted all over the place. Add to these – tweeting, blogging and Facebook – everyone, everywhere is writing about something. So do we need any more encouragement? In the future, there will be a vast digital mountain of written evidence about 21st century living – not just of the famous few – but of nearly all the world’s population. Archives of memory sticks, discarded i-phones and inactive blogging sites will keep archivists and historians occupied for decades.

Why do we write? Is it an indulgent past-time or an intuitive urge that compels us to put words on paper?

In the spirit of things, I thought I would share with you this morning’s early muse:

So, here we are. It is 6 o’ clock in the morning and a bird begins to twitter. There’s an obvious difference between me and the bird.  I am the one with two Shorter Oxford English Dictionaries: A-M and N-Z. Together, they occupy nearly 9000 cubic centimetres of space and weigh seven kilos. Between the faded blue cardboard, thousands of words recline on white, whisper-thin paper; black squiggles, surrounded by under-garments of description, meaning and origin.

I wonder about all the untold stories, all the squiggles that define a person’s life – their conflicts, passions – their being. And I wonder what it must be like to rest forever upon lifeless words that show no sign of resurrection, no texture of identity. Surely, we are never too tired or too old to hear about love or loss, endeavour or triumph? Black squiggles that can shed fragments of light upon our dawning minds.

We can never know enough.

The early bird has flown and it is very quiet.

Join the Writers’ Fireside Forum to find out what untold stories have started to emerge.

Deborah