Graffiti

Arm very painful and I feel extremely frustrated and sorry for myself so will cheer myself – and hopefully you – with the following.

I have long been delighted by a graffito on a wall in our nearest town:

Leanne Lister is a slat

Walking past today I realised that the last word is not a mistake – someone has altered the ‘u’, turning it into an 'a'. I also saw that someone else, or perhaps the same person, has now added the following:

and a wonderful human being

Good on you Leanne. You’ve obviously got friends.

I also enjoyed two graffiti inside the door of a service station lavatory recently. Person number one had written:

Your all f***ers

Person number two had crossed out ‘Your’ and written ‘You’re’.

Quite right too. Spelling is important.

A metaphor for life?

Well, I’ve done the scene – thank goodness – but I’m struggling with a bad arm, brought on I think by too much sewing (tugging at seams while I unpick them) which makes typing painful, so I won’t say too much here.

The scene wrote itself in the end as they always do. I’d been trying to do it one way, but my subconscious wanted to do it another way. The subconscious is always right. The skill lies in accessing the subconscious, in recognising its messages and distinguishing them from those of the conscious mind.

And trusting them. Sometimes you can see no further than the next word. But you have to write it just the same.

Is that or isn’t that a metaphor for life?

(Stop me if I’m getting pretentious.)

Bubbles

A lovely day yesterday dog-walking and gardening.

Bubbles – of memory, connections, ideas – started to rise from my subconscious, like methane from decomposing rubbish. Not to mention blog posts which wrote themselves in my head. I obviously can’t stop my brain working completely but at least I can take the pressure off.

At first when I take the pressure off all I am aware of is emptiness but I realised yesterday that emptiness is essential because it’s from emptiness that both happiness and creativity arise.

I still however have to write that blinking scene for the novel and I still have no firm idea of how I’m going to do it. I’m giving myself the rest of this week off and then on Monday, come what may, I’m writing the scene. Even if it’s rubbish, it’ll be something.

Not-doing

I realise when I wake up that it’s not just that I’m worn out. It’s that I need to change gear. Because I need to write an almost new scene I need to enter a relaxed dreamy frame of mind. I need to get out of the semi-editorial mode in which I’ve been for the last few weeks.

It’s the frame of mind I find most difficult because not-doing is the best way to enter it and not-doing is not something I’m good at! (If that makes sense.) Learning about not-doing is probably the whole reason for this crazy move away from a perfectly respectable and reasonably lucrative career as a book editor to this totally flimsy creative writing lark.

Anyway, I decide that a day in Exeter is the last thing I want or need. I shall have another day pottering at home, thinking a bit about the scene while I potter, but not stressing about it or trying to force it to happen. That way lies hell.

Luckily today is the dog’s day at the dogminder. A three-year-old hyperactive highly intelligent springer-spaniel/collie cross whose eyes follow me about the house saying ‘When are we going to do something? I want to go out and chase rabbits/pheasants/wasps/cows’ is not conducive to relaxed dreamy creativity.

So, I have a whole day to myself to do nothing. Bliss.

Castles in the air

You’ll not be surprised to hear, after yesterday’s post, that I ground to a halt today. I have to write an almost new scene but I couldn’t summon up enough emotional intensity. In other words, I didn’t care.

I’ve been going at a great lick since the YouWriteOn reviews a month or so ago and I’ve been neglecting my Daily Pages and my Artist’s Dates. Now I’m paying the price.

I didn’t panic and I didn’t beat myself up. Instead of chewing the end of my pencil, I caught up with lots of little jobs about the house, and tomorrow I might go for a wander round Exeter.

After all, the whole point of writing is to learn how to live better. And if I don’t finish The Novel before I die, so what?

I feel a lot happier.

Castles in the air - valley mist obscuring the bottom of the hill and making it look as if the top of the hill is floating