MY ZEST FOR LIFE By Sylvia Broady
What keeps me young at heart? My handsome grandsons and my zest for life. And there is more. The secret ingredients are: my passion for writing, power of words, eternal youth, and affairs. These are just for starters. They make a delicious mixture, giving me the ability to transform into anyone I wish, and the licence to entertain. What is this woman talking about, you ask? Let me explain and tell you more.
But first, how did my creativity evolve and what gave me this supremacy to continue? From being a very young child I have been an adventurer, a reader, a writer, a dancer, a pavement artist, a cyclist, a swimmer, a runner, a darer, stargazing, a weaver of magic, and charged with the care of my younger siblings. All this helped to shape my enthusiasm for life. Of who I am.
I love meeting people and I am privileged to be a member of the Welcoming Team at the Magnificent Beverley Minster. I talk to people from every corner of the UK and from countries around the world. If when I was a child and naughty, my mother would say: I’ll send you to Timbuktu. I always thought it was a mythical place until I met a lovely young man from this city.
Another great pleasure I have is singing in a choir. It releases the good karma within me and I feel so much younger and rejuvenated and this uplifts my creative spirit of inspiration to write. Plus, I enjoy singing in the three concerts a year we have to raise money for local charities.
My driving force is my passion for writing. The words I create on a page, in a book, gives me the power to influence and develop characters and to guide their lives and destines. Though sometimes characters just appear in my thought process and jump on the page I am writing.
They come with minds of their own, so I listen to them and we have an internal discussion.
Then I either go with their flow, or I bring them to heel, depending on the scenario. What I love to do is when a character hits rock bottom is to resurrect them. To let them be involved with love and hope in their lives. Maybe just in a simple form: a baby to cradle, a place to sleep, a hand to hold, to walk with a loved one, to share a meal, or to experience the changing seasons.
Youth of life is precious. My writing, my creativity with words gives me the ability to metamorphose myself into a young child or a young woman, or into any character I am writing about. I love being my young self, it suits my Gemini personality and gives me an extra dimension.
It helps me to transcribe my characters completely. With ease, I slip into their lives, become their shadow. I get beneath their skin and I hear their voices in my head, and I reach into their minds and listen to their secrets. For we all have secrets, don’t we? Some secrets remain hidden, until I come along and search them out.
I am interested in genealogy and I found secrets. I’ll tell you an interesting snippet. I was in awe of my husband’s paternal grandmother for she seemed so virtuous and then in the course of my research, I found out she was pregnant when she married. That was quite a surprise.
And another ancestor, a widow, married a man whose brother was hanged for murder. Sometimes the scales of life become unbalanced. Now that is a combination to write about.
The magic of the written word and what it means to a reader. I’ll tell you a story. I once worked on a mobile library travelling the beautiful countryside and meeting wonderful characters, a job I loved. One day I called on an elderly housebound lady who always looked forward to seeing me and having a chat. I selected the books for her, knowing she enjoys reading romance books, with, as she called them, with the naughty bits in them. That day she was glum and obviously upset and not speaking.
To cheer her up, I read out the titles of the books I’d bought for her and was surprised at her response. Apparently, her daughter had told her, she shouldn’t, at her age, read books with sex in them. I felt I could ask this lady a personal question. if reading the books brought back happy memories of when your husband was alive and if she enjoyed those intimate moments together. Her face lit up, and she smiled, her sparkle of life returning as she whispered, “yes.” I said ” Tell your daughter and I feel sure she will understand.” I left a very contented reader as she settled down with her book, beside a glowing fire in the grate and a cup of tea on the occasional table.
Now I am having an affair of the heart with a handsome French man in uniform. Later, I will share him with you, but for now, he is mine.
I am a writer, a weaver of dreams and I don’t have time to grow old. A Peter Pan of writing, I am forever young at heart.
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Sylvia was born in the historic city of Kingston upon Hull, and now lives near the medieval town of Beverley in the beautiful county of East Yorkshire, the settings for her current books. She is an avid reader and interested in local history and its people has inspired and influenced her writing. She travesl widely and regularly visits family in Melbourne, Australia. Travel broadens her horizons and enriches herlife and writing. To relax, she enjoy music and singing, the theatre – plays, musicals and live concerts, and the company of her children and grandchildren, keeps her young at heart. To keep in touch with the writing world, she is a member of the Historical Novel Society, the Romantic Novelists’ Association, the Society of Authors, and the Beverley Writers, and various media sites.
Follow her on Twitter @SylviaBroady
DAUGHTER OF THE SEA
Jessica is grieving for her beloved father, Jacob Kingdom, a trawler owner fondly remembered by his crew. But a confrontation with her mother leads to Jessica being cast out from the family home and the reveal of a shameful secret. It isn’t long before she meets a charismatic trawlerman who is proud to walk out with Kingdom’s daughter on his arm, in spite of the discontent among the fisherman now her cold-hearted brother is running the business. With Jessica desperate to prove herself worthy of a place in her tight-knit community, does she have what it takes to weather the storm of her life to come, or will her secret hold her back from embracing who she is?
Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips
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