If someone is reading this, hello.

I am a writer, a Harry Potter fan and a lot of other things.

Why do I write Fan Fiction ? Aha.

Why I Write Fan Fiction

This morning,when I woke up, the walls were caving in, you know, like in Jericho. except that they were threatening to come tumbling down on my head, like in the story of Samson. (I knew it was something biblical).

Anyway, that's what happens when you wake up at 6.15 in the morning and you catch sight of music instruments you haven't played for a very long time. You are suddenly aware that you will never play them again and that you will spend the rest of your life washing dishes, hanging out laundry and babysitting for grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on.

Help ! I cried. God answered by putting me back to sleep.

The girls woke me up at 8.00.

'Goodbye, Mummy ! Have a good day.'

I will if the walls stay put.

I got up cautiously and began my day.

If I play my electric organ for the first time in I-don't-want-to-remember-how-many-years, will that keep the walls in place ? I looked at my guitar, my recorder, my harmonica. Fatigue overwhelmed me. Discouragement. Guilt. Everything.

If I am going to do something for myself, I'd rather write. It's less noisy. It draws less attention.

I sat at my desk and began to write. Not serious writing to be sent off to a respectable literary magazine. That won't keep the walls from tumbling down. Actually, it will make the symptoms worse when I get my rejection letter. No, I pulled out notebook number thirteen of my unpublishable story called Green and Silver. That did the job. The walls behaved just as walls are supposed to do : they left me alone.

My husband walked in. He was bored, or maybe he too was suffering from an attack of caving walls.

'What are you writing ?' he asked.

Like a child caught with her hand in the jar of cookies (I mean the tin of biscuits, stop talking American already), I slammed my notebook shut and said very unconvincingly,

'Nothing.'

' Oh, it's a secret, I see.

' No, it's just... something silly.'

Two voices fought in my head. One, the voice of my friend Tzippy, said ,

'Don't put yourself down.'

The other, the voice of another well-meaning friend, said,

'Why waste your time with that stuff when you could write great things?'

I defended myself.

'I am not an intellectual like you,' I told my husband.

Flattery always works. He went back to his newspaper.

I went back to my story.

It works. The operation must be repeated every day until the walls stop caving in on you. For added efficiency, hide your music instruments away.

ooo

Just a note about Favorites : There is quite a large choice of stories on this site. Some are very good, written by talented authors. But I decided to use Favorites only for the stories I mention or recommend, for easy reference.