When it's right to pause and when it's not

Well, here I am again after an absence of two months. I’m feeling quite pleased with myself. I’ve just finished the first complete(ish) draft of The Novel. In other words, I’ve filled in all the gaps and have everything in roughly the right order.

I stalled before Christmas at the climax. I’d put my heroine in jeopardy, she’d reached her lowest point, but I just couldn’t make the leap from there to the ending (which I'd already written). I didn’t think that what I had in mind was exciting enough. I couldn’t fit all the strands together.

Then, a couple of weeks ago – after I’d fiddled around compiling a new chapter breakdown, timeline and synopsis and written a couple of new scenes for the middle of the book – I suddenly thought, oh bu**er it. Just do it. The waiting was worse than the possibility of failure. And somehow it worked. Everything fell into place.

Now, was that because the time was right – because my life had caught up with the novel – or was it because I put myself on the spot?

It’s a tricky business, this writing, knowing when it’s right to pause and when it’s not.

Clobbering the Whatifs

I had strict parents and I went to strict schools. I remember waking up one morning when I was, I suppose, about eleven and thinking, ‘Every day there’s something to dread.’

That way of thinking has stuck with me, even though there’s nothing to dread any more except life itself and what ‘might happen’.

Frog’s mother gave me a lovely book once called A Light in the Attic. It’s a collection of children’s poems by Shel Silverstein, one of which goes as follows. (I won’t quote all of it because that’s not fair to the author or his descendants.)

Last night, while I lay thinking here,

Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear

And pranced and partied all night long

And sang their same old Whatif song:

Whatif I’m dumb in school?

Whatif they’ve closed the swimming pool

. . .

Whatif I start to cry?

Whatif I get sick and die?

Whatif I flunk that test?

Whatif green hair grows on my chest?

. . .

Whatif I tear my pants?

Whatif I never learn to dance?

Everything seems swell, and then

The nighttime Whatifs strike again!

Fiction-writing is my way of clobbering the Whatifs. I drown them out. I replace horrible possibilities with nice ones. Which is why it's so painful when I'm stuck, as now. I shall just have to laugh at the Whatifs instead, like Shel.

Brave New Year

It’s ten days since I wrote anything here, and I started this blog with the intention of writing a little something every day. The reason for my absence is my shame at moaning all the time. And if the writing is going well and I’m saying how wonderful everything is, that strikes me as equally tedious. What I need to do, I think, is write from the heart like Trish ‘cooking’ Currie and not from my head. I need to go deeper and I need to be more spontaneous.

    Which is exactly what Roselle gets you to do and exactly why her workshops are so terrifying and exactly why I’ve taken my courage in both hands and booked into her Thresholds Day on 1 February (Imbolc/Candlemas).

    And why I’ve arranged to go and stay with my sister in London (people/family and London being some of the things that terrify me most).

    And why I’m at last practising using the hearing aids I got two years ago even though they make the world of sound come alive in the most terrifying ways – my own breathing sounds like a pervert down the phone and I had to stop Frog shaking out his washing last weekend as it sounded like claps of thunder.
    Two days ago I had my first hearing walk. The motorway roared like an overhead jet but at the same time I could hear so many birds I thought it was May and I was listening to the dawn chorus.

Talking to real people

Yesterday Ellie and I went on a long walk with friends. (Frog stayed at home nursing the remains of cold/flu.) As you may know from the blog so far, I don’t find socialising easy, but this was my sort of thing – plodding through mud in wind and rain – and a bit of sun.

    ‘How’s the writing going?’ asked James.

    I launched into a long tale of my woes – being stuck, bad reviews, wondering if it was all a waste of time.

    He thought for a bit and then he said, ‘I think everyone feels like that at times, whatever their job.’

    That made me feel so much better. I wasn't some freak. I was normal. Writing wasn't some peculiar self-indulgence. It was just a job.

    And another thing that made me feel better was the fact that we all found social networking sites a waste of time. I had been beginning to wonder if I was the only person in the world who didn’t have a Facebook page. 

    ‘And it’s all so egocentric,’ said Simone.

    That got me thinking about this blog. I started it for several reasons. Firstly, as a way to record my writing progress so that I could learn from my ups and downs. Secondly, to keep myself up to the mark: calling it ‘a writer’s diary’ means that I have to write.

    And there’s a third reason, which I’ve only just recognised now as I write this. It’s a way to talk about what matters to me. Not everyone understands about writing. Few people do, in fact. I probably don’t myself. And I spend far too much time alone. So this blog is a dialogue with an imaginary listener.
    Is that egocentric? I don't know. Perhaps I would be better getting out and talking to real people.

Seagulls in Sainsbury's

Frog is at the deli counter,

I’m with the crisps and nuts

concentrating on my migraine.

I hear seagulls

and I presume they’re in my head

until a nearby man answers his phone

and the noise stops.

‘Seagulls in Sainsbury’s’, I say to myself.

Now there’s a good title for a poem.

But I couldn’t think of one.