Writing less

Writing less is so much more difficult than writing more, as I found when I produced my New Age Encyclopaedia and had to describe subjects like Hinduism in half a page. You have to know just as much about the subject, if not more.

    Signs (http://www.readingthesigns.blogspot.com/) and I were discussing blogging every day and she suggested encapsulating each day in just one or two sentences. I wasn’t sure I could do that so I decided to practise in secret and then maybe publish a week in one go.

    I couldn’t do it! Since Friday, I’ve been writing reams about my days. I was going to publish the reams but then, when I looked at them this morning, I felt weary. Who wants to read all that rubbish?

    Instead, I’ve picked out one or two sentences. It was easy at a distance to see what was important.

    Maybe, with practice, I shall be able to go straight to the short version.

FRIDAY

Walking the dog in a new wood today as she disgraced herself in our usual place by chasing sheep. The noise from the motorway thunders through my head like a migraine. Spring sunshine pours through the trees. It is so white after the yellow and grey of winter. By the carpark a row of wild cherry trees is in blossom.

SATURDAY

I wake sad. In the afternoon I read Fire Bird’s blog post (http://www.slightlysinged.blogspot.com/) about the suicide of her father. I think of my father who seemed to retire from life when he retired from work in his mid-fifties. As far as I could gather on my brief visits home, he spent the next twenty-five years waiting by the whisky cupboard for the magic hours when he could start drinking again. Sometimes I’m like that myself.

SUNDAY

Frog gets out his chainsaw and helps me prune some shrubs. He loves destructive gardening. This time last year the dog would have been lunging at us, growling and attacking our legs. Today she plays with the cuttings and then trots beside me as I drag branches to the bonfire pile. She can be adorable.

MONDAY

Some signs of spring. Frogspawn in the ditch up the road. A rook flying up to a nest with a twig in its mouth. The reappearance of the roadsign warning of toads crossing. An orange-bottomed bumble bee in the garden. The weeping willow by the ford changing from yellow to green as the tips of its leaves emerge.