‘Just like the moons and like suns
With the certainty of tides
Just like hopes springing high
Still I’ll rise.’
Maya Angelou
After quite a few days off, I felt
like I’d lost my way a bit, especially after the flurry following the
return from Cornwall, and that has
continued in fits and starts for the rest of the last few weeks. But by typing
up what I’ve done whilst away and since coming back, as well as using some of
my photos, put up where I can see them, I am feeling better and slowly getting
back into it. Although it was good to
have a break, I do have a life outside writing after all, I just have to be
careful not to leave it too long! And there was a huge positive in getting all
the scribbles down into one place, as I found that I’d written around 7,500
words over the weeks since the holiday, and have to say I was both amazed and
pleased by what I’d achieved in a relatively short space of time and around
everything else. Some more has been written since, but yet to be added to the
total of over 40,000 words and over 100 pages so well on the way now. But
realising what I’m capable of has spurred me on; I just need to take the time
to remind myself.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently
about how I feel when I don’t write. And for most of the time, I spend it
hating myself and thinking I’m some kind of failure. But I’m not, I’m just
normal. So, they say to be a proper writer you have to write everyday. But the
contradiction is to break all the rules. So just what is right? It’s all so
confusing. But what I do know, and it’s taken me a lot of beating up to get
here, is that you can’t do anything if you’re head isn’t in the right place.
Yes I had a good flurry after holiday, and maybe not so much this month, but
that will come back, when I’m in the right place, and that means being back in
my normal routine. As much as I go on about not being happy at work (and that
hasn’t changed much, for the record), I need that routine, having a set time to
write to help me. The few days off at the start of the month were good and not
wasted, a column and a blog were written, lots of jobs done that I had
neglected and the post- holiday scribbles were typed up. So I would say a good
use of the time. The rest will come later and I have to remember that. Maybe it
becomes easier in time, as you become a more seasoned writer, and getting a
novel written is like second nature, but for now I’m still starting out, still
learning and I have to learn to do things my way, find my own voice and way of
writing. So I will continue to listen to all the advice I’m given or read, take
it all on board, but interpret it to suit me, not let it define the writer I
want to be. Otherwise I will be forever trapped .I’m fed up of feeling guilty.
And there are small things that I
find help along the way. Like carrying a notebook with me at all times. So, I
may not write in it, but at least it’s there, just in case. Or carrying my two
novel notebooks, crammed full of ideas and the workings. But then I find that I
can just write, not looking back, but like a comfort blanket, I carry it
anyway. Eventually I will need it to refer back to, when I’m in a dip, so I
always have something to bring me back out, full of so many ideas, I wonder
where I’m going to fit them all in! When I’m feeling a little low, I quite
often take myself off to the closest bookshop, maybe buy a new book (although
have to try not to get carried away), but just to be surrounded by them, look
at them, pick them up, it makes me feel better.
Have I found a place that enables me to write
better? No. One day it could be the bookshop, the next I could just be sitting
outside in the sunshine. But the opposite can also happen, and however hard I
try, I can’t do what I want to do. A little something is better than nothing.
Notes for this blog post, ideas for future stories and columns, it’s still
writing. I have to write all the time don’t I, isn’t that what they say? So
anything I do isn’t good enough, but who are these people that judge me, to
tell me the writer I have to be? They are the ones that cause me to feel so
anxious, like a coiled spring when nothing comes. When I spend time I should be
writing doing something else. They’ve made me into someone I don’t want to be.
I want to know It’s okay to have those days, when all you want to do is sit in
front of the TV and watch back to back episodes of ‘Grey’s Anatomy,’ or go out
shopping, spend some time with friends and family. Even the best intentions don’t
always come to fruition, however hard you try, life gets in the way sometimes.
The mood is wrong, or nothing wants to jump on the page. I need to not measure
what I do each day against what has gone before, every day is different, I am
different. I’m striving to do the best possible job that I can do, and I’m like
that with both aspects of my life. Is that what could possibly be what could
undo my writing, causing the blocks I put up in front of me, that I don’t feel
I’m doing a good enough job? The reason that I let myself get bogged down in
the feeling of guilt, of not writing. Am I too neat and ordered to be a proper
writer? Liking everything just so, no mess and not much clutter, can it have a
negative effect? I have so many questions buzzing around and I don’t have any
answers. I end up scribbling when I least expect it, when I’m feeling wound up,
that I can’t write, and then one small thing, that when you look back you can’t
even remember what it was, sparks something inside and a paragraph and then a
couple of pages are written, seemingly from nowhere. So maybe I’m just thinking
too much, but I’m learning a lot about myself.
I need to stop letting things
define who I am. I’ve spent too long thinking I’m doing the right thing,
following what I think I should be doing. But it’s not me. I have a tendency to
think I’m not good enough, so I hide instead. But I need to stop thinking the
worst of myself and start being me, in my own time. I need to start doing
things because I want to, not because I think I should. Following on from that,
I’ve been wrestling with the decision to carry on with something that I feel I’m
not getting what I need out of anymore. Feeling sad on one hand as the only
group that I know of in the local area, but it’s not what I feel I need, and
not helping me in my own journey. But still not an easy decision to make.
Friendships and ideas, but along with the frustration. I need to ask myself
what I want from the other members, am I as much to blame? I need to start
giving back in order to help myself. I learnt a lot about myself at the first
meeting back of the new term, my feelings before I got there and how they had
changed towards the end. Realising that I need to be more open. What is being
read won’t always be my thing, but I have to see past that to critique properly
and ask for what I want in return for the pieces that I take along. It’s about
helping each other with our works in progress. So I need to work on when I lose
interest, therefore not hearing properly and not being able to make any
comments, be less selfish! That’s not to say that I won’t look into the
possibility of other groups, but I may just get some new ideas, not ready to
give up just yet!
It was commented on recently that
I can spend too long on social media, tagging and posting. And yes, I suppose
they are right and it could be bad in some respect, the constant distraction
from both work and writing, of feeling that I have to share with everyone what
I’m thinking and doing. But something else it also does for me is inspire. I
know that may sound a little weird, but it’s true. By following other authors
and writers, people who work in publishing, I find the posts, articles etc.
help me. I can retreat into another world, and I instantly feel better about
things until I have to come back to reality that is! That said, once I do, I
can then sometimes focus more on what I need to do, and I’m always grateful if that
means writing.
For all my good intentions and
helpful purchases, I’m still no closer to actually sitting down and planning
out my novel. I’ve tried and then promptly ignored, not looking at it again for
weeks on end. And I keep telling myself that I need to do things ‘properly’ and
yet it doesn’t seem enough to prompt me into any sort of action. Does that mean
my novel will ever get finished, if I can’t always see it clearly, to the
finest detail what’s going to happen? Sometimes I think no, and then the
inspiration sparks once more and I’m off, scribbling for pages, writing
whatever comes into my head. At the moment it feels like it may never end. I
have done quite a bit (as I mentioned before, not going to sniff at over 40,000
words), but currently in no particular order and I still feel I have so much to
tell, it’s tiring yet so exhilarating. And that’s what a first draft is about
right? I’ve booked onto a writing retreat next year with two fabulous authors,
which gives me a second deadline to get that all important first draft done, if
I miss my original deadline, but then nothings set in stone. Bu I also have the
extra motivation, as I want so much to learn from others and get the feedback
on what I’m doing, whether it be right or wrong, or just my own way. I keep
forgetting that over 6 months ago someone else already said that they liked
what I had to say and want to see the finished novel, but more help along the
way can’t be a bad thing. Plus the space away from everything else, even if
only for a couple of days is what I’ve been craving, to help me really focus.
So March 2017, you are the finishing line for the first draft, but all in the
right order! Best get going then…..
