Writing to commission

You get a really great picture in today's blog, by photographer Roeloff Bakker, whose images of the abandoned Hornsey Town Hall won a London Photographic Association first prize earlier this year http://www.rbakker.com/still/.

It's here because I'm posting to celebrate having just finished a short story inspired by another of his photos.

I've found that it's really hard to write a story to accompany someone else's work - though I love Roeloff's pictures, and found them moving and thought provoking, the thoughts they provoked didn't seem to lead to stories that worked with the photo I'd chosen. How far can you move from the picture? And how much can you say in no more than 1500 words?

I put my first feelings on seeing my chosen picture aside as unworkable in story form, and for several weeks have been wresting with other ideas which just didn't seem to grab my attention. Enough, I said to myself yesterday, and sat down and wrote two-thirds of a story. Today I threw it away and in an hour wrote something completely new, which went right back to my first gut reaction on seeing the picture. I've no idea if it works - my (not famously literary) son says it's mad but great and he's looking forward to having a mum who's famous for writing mad but great stories. Me too. But maybe it's mad but terrible. I'll put it aside and re-read in a few days.

If you like Roeloff's photos of abandonment, take a look at these, of the terrible destroyed centre of Detroit, by Yves marchand and Romain Meffre http://www.marchandmeffre.com/detroit/index.html . I'm saving up for the book.