E is Ernest..or Earnest

Perhaps a brief introduction to myself!

Ernie Boxall from Kenilworth, near Coventry in the Midlands of England and just to keep in touch with the theme of writing, 10 miles from Shakespeare's town of Stratford. In my 62nd year and at last getting serious about writing my thoughts down (old man's mistake "writing" should be typing.)

The story of my life has as many twists and turns as any novel I've ever read, each and every one of them pointing back to a moment in 1964-1965 when one of my teachers asked us if we wanted "a pen friend." It was an opportunity I took up willingly and sent of my name, address and short bio to America and thought nothing more of it. How much that letter has shaped my life!

A few weeks later a letter arrived at my house with a US stamp. I opened it and read a wonderful reply from a young girl named Linda who lived in St Paul, Minnesota. It was warm, lively and so intelligently written that I sat right down and replied. To my great delight the second letter from Linda came with a photograph and she was the most beautiful girl I had ever set eyes on and, since I want to keep more of this story for later, to cut a lifetimes story short I fell in love.

E is for Earnest.

Can a writer tell a complete lie? Or is there always part of the author's character in the story. I haven't written a novel or a book yet, but after losing contact with Linda for the first time, a sentence came to me while I was hitch-hiking to Liverpool one year. "Love is Pain." From that one sentence my sub-conscious took over and the next line and the next line followed. The poem was conceived and written inside thirty minutes. The whole came from my heart and I have never altered a single word of it, no re-writes and as far as I believe, no symbolism. I can't remember once thinking "I'm writing this, but I mean that." Does symbolism exist? When a writer puts words to paper is it possible that one word follows another, as if written by a different hand altogether?

Can you write in earnest and still tell a lie?