Lines you wish you’d written, by Elizabeth Kay
When I started my MA in creative writing, I was asked who I wanted to write like. I was immediately indignant – I didn’t want to write like anyone else, I wanted to write like me. Then the question was rephrased – if you wanted to write like a piece of music, what would you choose? There were a number of different responses from the rest of the group. Smoky basement jazz, a clarinet maybe, or a trombone or a saxophone. Someone else wanted a piece by Corelli, there was Ravel’s Bolero and Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. I chose Danse Macabre, by Saint Saens, long before it was popularised by Jonathan Creek. This quickly established me as someone who went for something a bit different, due to the necessity to retune the E string on the violin to E flat, which gives the whole piece its unique flavour. So the lines I wish I’d written are always a bit off-beat, and I am still in awe of the lateral thinking that creates them. ...