Look at the pic below. It shows the author and his best mate at the time with a Danish girl they met one summer night while on holiday in Ibiza in 1969. I do remember her name - but I will rename her for the purposes of this blog because, if she is still alive, I don't want to embarrass her. I'll call her Julia.
Suppose, 50 years later, the chap on the right tells a story about how he was a little bit in love with Julia and that after the holiday and back home in England, he would daydream about donning his white Aran sweater and sailing a boat across the North Sea, battling storms and all sorts of other problems, to find her waiting for him on the quayside in some Danish port. As he steps ashore, battered but strong and beaming his love for her, she falls into his arms and his soft woollen pullover...
Sounds a bit Walter Mitty-ish, doesn't it? "Not necessarily," the now-elderly chap might say. "But I could write a book about it."
Well, in a way that it is exactly what I have done.
Although I never saw Julia again, she is the first girl I can remember who acted as a sort of muse. The memory of her was the spark which sent me off on fantastic daydreams and in these dreams she really loved me too, and was just waiting for me to come and find her and whisk her off to...well...I don't know where.
There is no doubt that the idea of Julia had a very positive influence on me. The memory of her inspired me to work hard for my A-level exams and I passed them with flying colours. And when my feelings for Julia were replaced by forever-unspoken feelings for other girls, they all provided a spur to act, to succeed. These girls acted as the individuals for whom I wrote, acted as recipients of the love letters that were written as short stories or novels. But, most importantly, all these girls remained untouched, untarnished and as perfect as the day I first met them. Why? Because I never really knew them. To know them would have meant destroying them. The muse must never be known, at least not well, or the muse might die.
Is there anything wrong in all this myth-making? I don't think so. After all, isn't the ability to lose yourself in daydreams a necessity for fiction writers? Personally, I think it is fine to daydream so long as your feet are very firmly set on the ground and provided that there are other girls with whom you can have a "normal" relationship. Ready, steady - dream away!
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