Am conscious of deafening silence on blog front this week -- put it down to me still being deskless, although that is all about to change as this weekend I'll be moving fully and completely into my beautiful house-shaped shed.
Silence is a rich seam to mine when you are writing. It's not just the interesting spaces which are filled with all that is not said - although what people keep to themselves, and why, is a source of endless fascination. It's also the different qualities with which silence can be loaded. There's companionable silence and the gritty quietness which is its polar opposite. There's the silence of surmise (the coolly assessing stare) and the silence of shyness. There's the silence of pure terror, when even to breathe will betray you. Silence can be contemplative, resentful, aggressive, tender, or bemused. When you think that speech is said to make up only seven percent of all the communication which takes place between people, silence can be any number of things.
If you want a creative exercise for the weekend, try writing a scene in which two people inhabit the same silence, but in completely different ways.
I'll shut up now, because the sunlight is pouring pure spring through my window and the only response is to gaze out in quiet wonder...
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