Beards and other things less hairy (although a little hair-raising)

 

Have beards suddenly come back into fashion among smart young men? I saw some incredibly attractive specimens while travelling around London town today - beautifully groomed they were too - no shabby fuzz balls or harbourers of crumbs and bird nests. Nor were they masquerading as full facial hair under the guise of a bit of a stubble. No, these were class hirsute young men, carrying their accessory with aplomb. I wish I had the balls to photograph a few - I should have pretended I was a model scout or something...

It was a strange day for people watching to be honest. There seemed to be a staggering quantity of people who looked or sounded 'familiar'. Faces that rang bells somewhere deep in my subconscious but for whose names I just couldn't pull out. Then I popped my head in the National Gallery and could have sworn this chap smirked at me... We definitely made eye contact...

Perhaps he was trying to tell me why he had shaved his beard off!

Later...

As a respectable writer, I thought some research might be called for. It turns out that I am about 12 months behind the times - beards are "so 2013 darling". In my defence, I do live in the boondocks where it takes a year or too for any trend to catch on, unless it's a new type of tracksuit of course...

Are you a writer or a typist?

Photograph (c) Lisa Wright

When I'm brainstorming writing ideas it has to be with a pen and paper. I mind map, scribble, snake lines across the page, underline as my stream of consciousness runs rings around thoughts and words. It's a mess yet organised chaos.

Then, when it's time to pull everything together, to allow the prose to flow then everything calms. The thoughts organise themselves into a neat line which marches down from brain to hand and out of my fingertips onto keyboard.

Once on screen there's a little jostling for position as the words decide where they are most comfortable and if they'd much rather be in another sentence entirely. It's a method that just doesn't quite work on paper. The jigsaw builds itself.