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.

Time he was gone

There is a demon who lurks in the dark dusty corners of my consciousness. He looks and sounds like my father. This is what he says.

‘You will never amount to anything.’

‘You have no right to think that you can write a novel.’

‘Art is a waste of time unless it earns money.’

‘Be secure. Don’t take risks. Worry about the future.’

‘It is your duty to be unhappy.’

It’s time he was gone.

Anniversary cogitations

Tomorrow is the anniversary of this blog.

    I’ve slackened off from it recently because it does, I think, take over the same space in my brain as the novel. In other words, I can’t think about both at once. However, after last Tuesday’s post, I wrote a scene that I was pleased with it. It felt real. It moved me. Scenes like that are rare, much too rare.

    The state of mind that I achieved last Tuesday was, I think, emptiness and it was from that emptiness that a scene swam into my consciousness. That is my current theory anyway. I thought I felt empty today but I haven’t been able to write anything for the novel. Perhaps I have to be empty and desperate.

    And writing the blog post last Tuesday put me in touch with how desperate I felt and helped to empty me out. Ironic.   

    Another factor could be confidence. For some reason, I was always confident about my editing and non-fiction writing. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do it or wouldn’t get the work. So of course it all went fairly smoothly. In my memory anyway. Would that I could approach novel-writing in the same way. But I don’t.  

    Frog (who is my main confidant in this peculiar process apart from my sister and you) compares my novel-writing to native ceremonies. The participants don’t know what works, what it is that achieves whatever result they’re after – making some foodstuff or drink, healing, changing the weather and so on – so they stick everything in – dancing, singing, touching rabbits’ ears, imbibing, decorating themselves and their houses etc etc.

     He also says that my creative writing muscle is one I have used little up till now, so it needs strengthening and toning. I just need to keep practising.

    It’s great that he’s so encouraging because I don’t encourage myself. I refuse to believe in this inexplicable urge I have towards doing something I find so difficult, whose rewards – at present – are few and far between, and which can be so painful.

    The trouble is, I don’t know what else to do. It’s the only shape I can see the future taking.

    Which brings me back to the blog.

    I’ve toyed with the idea of joining Facebook, ‘putting myself out there’ and maybe getting lots of new readers, but I’m not sure that I’m ready for that yet. I like the blog’s current intimacy. I don’t want to get addicted to feedback and numbers of friends.

    Maybe when I have something to sell . . . like a finished novel . . . I will think differently.

    In the meantime, thank you loyal reader. I love knowing you’re there.

Wild daffodils in our gateway (planted by me)

In Redslinch wood

I am sitting on dead leaves and stones

[Where is Dog?]

I hear birds
chiff-chaff
I hear the stream

The sun shines on my face

The wind blows through the tops of the trees

and on the back of my neck

I watch the water

always the same

always different

like flame

I want to write
but I can't

All my pains cluster around that point

[Dog is barking]

A strip of rusty iron

like a piece of chastity belt

lies on the edge of the stream

one spike up

I will go home

to an empty house

an empty page

That is what I have created for myself

[Dog arrives

and puts her paw on my foot

She radiates heat

Her underside and legs

are dripping grey mud

She is panting]

I stand up

and shoulder my backpack

I am lost

but I step forward

That is all I can do

A frosty afternoon's walk

Iced puddle

                                                          Ice on the tracks

Fishbone ice