Just so we're clear

It’s funny how spooky little coincidences come your way to highlight whatever is going on in your life. I had a string of these recently. First, I was having trouble with my eyes. I couldn’t seem to focus and no matter which way I held my book or my head, all the words were an irritating blur. Off I went to the optometrist who announced that my eyesight had in fact improved and as a consequence I needed new glasses. Hmmm… Then the television picture played up. It was fuzzy, lacked definition and pixilated like crazy. Many technicians and several complex network interventions later, the screen came into sharp focus like a new set minus the expense. Lastly, on my wall hung posters; originally calls to bright holiday destinations. In these, the print had paled to deathbed grey, the names of the locations obliterated by years of sun exposure. As I’m wont to do, I mused on the common theme in these events. I realized that they were reflections of a wider problem, not just being unable to see things clearly but of also being unwilling to so. It made sense, because once you see a problem clearly you're compelled to fix what you can or risk just talking about ‘the problem’ forever and never sorting it out. But change is uncomfortable. That’s why most of us avoid it. It took some action to get back the sharp television images, the bright hues of the new posters and the well-formed letters on the page. Then it took some getting used to.

I decided that there are things for which we need always keep our eyes open: our behavior and its consequences, the quality of our relationships and friendships, our role in making the world a little better, our work and its contributions. When those images become fuzzy and ill-defined, it’s time to step up and make changes. Hard as it is, sometimes we need the paradox of improved eyesight first before the subsequent new glasses. When the image before us stops breaking up, we realize that hanging too long in the same space does nothing to get us to our destination, instead we risk becoming faded and jaded. So we fix and we cull and we edit and we change and in that uncomfortable continuum things become clear once more.

Spring cleaning my head

There are cupboards in my home into which I shove things that are too hard to think about. Consequently, I live in fear of opening the doors in case I'm avalanched by the enclosed mess. Now that the closed doors of winter are being thrown open to the warm spring air, I've been thinking about the many things to which I need to apply the notion of ‘spring cleaning’—besides my cupboards. One of these is my writing. Like many, I suffer from winter blues. The lack of light and the cold sap my motivation and energy. There are days I can’t put my fingers to the keyboard or pen to paper; when the doona seems life’s best option. The last few weeks have been particularly difficult. A perfectionist by nature, I bring to the blank page the weight of my expectations. Before I've even begun to write, I'm worrying about whether the work will be good enough, who will care and what if I can’t do it? It’s easy for all these thoughts to spiral quickly into what’s the point? After that kind of thinking the search for the doona begins in earnest.

In response, I started to explore these creative downs. Through reading the work of Eric Maisel, I discovered they are not entirely seasonal. He makes the point that both creating and not creating provoke anxiety in creative people—it’s intrinsic to the creative process. Taking one of Maisel’s ideas, I’m employing a new strategy which is to document my writing anxieties by keeping an ‘anxiety awareness journal’ for the next month. While I seem to be unable to produce new work at the moment, I can certainly bleat about the fact, even if I'm my only audience. Given that creative people live with anxiety for many reasons and at many levels, this method aids in identifying and challenging the specifics of what is behind the procrastination, fear, blues or any other word you want to give the ‘not writing’.

I recognise the irony of writing a blog about not being able to write. Perhaps acknowledgment does start the road to recovery. So, that’s my plan but before I begin, I need a cup of tea, a biscuit and an hour or so to edit my cupboards...Hey, at least I'm in writing metaphor mode.   

 

Hi mum, I love you. Can I use your washing machine?

This is what happens when twenty-somethings live ‘independently’. The basket  produced on this occasion contained clothes that look like they've never been introduced to washing machine since manufacture. Fair enough, some of that may have been my fault. Perhaps I didn't encourage his laundry skills when he was younger. Of course, he had things to do and places to be. Like the mum that I am, I told him not to worry and I would put on a couple of loads. About five loads as it turned out. Amazing how many clothes he had managed to pack into that one laundry basket. To be fair, he doesn't do this regularly. I'm not whinging about it because as I sorted the clothing, each item told me something about my son. About the colours he likes, the bands he follows, the sports he plays. It gave rise to memories of him as a baby, a boy, a teenager and now the man he is today. My brain tumbled ideas just as the washing tumbled to the rhythm of the machine. It motivated me to write a reflection on our relationship. Go figure. Inspiration is everywhere, even in a pile of dirty washing.  

Word countdown…or up?

Recently I discovered another useful tit-bit to add to my writing toolbox. It’s so unbelievably simple that it’s scary. It comes from the fact that is nothing like a deadline or goal to get you cracking! I put together a simple word counting spreadsheet. The formula gives me the word increase for each writing session. its qualitative different to using word count because I can see my progress. For me, that’s important because I can’t sit at the PC for long periods, so in the times I am able to do so do so, every word counts. My goal is to finish with more words than I started knowing that I have limited time available to do it in. Being able to see my progress makes a huge difference to my motivation. Sometimes I add only a few hundred words but every word moves the total forward. I know it isn’t all about the word count but without the words on the page there is nothing to edit and shape. In the last few weeks, this strategy has helped me feel like I can get to the end of my novel – counting on every word.  

A bit of prose panel beating

Like everyone who writes, I have periods where I struggle with my writing. Often it has to do with my confidence in my work. Sometimes it has to do with my physical health. At other times, it’s simply that I’ve lost the plot! I talked with a writer friend today and though that realised that my current struggle is to do with the structure of my story. Each time I try to move it forward I'm overwhelmed by what is in my head and not knowing where to insert the new sections I am writing. Under the weight of that, it’s easy to give up. 

My friend suggested that I map out the story on a large sheet of paper using a simple three act structure. She thought this might help to place all the existing character elements and plot in sequence and to identify what was left out of the story. In panel beating my story into this shape, I worked out the inciting incidents and turning points, not just for the main story but for the subplots as well. It was an interesting exercise and not the sort of rigour I normally bring to my writing. Even a rough draft of a workable structure gave me movement and renewed energy for the project. Until then I had been stuck for words more specifically stuck for the right words and in the right order. It’s worth trying if you’re stuck. Add it to your writers’ toolbox. 

Sex? It’s a pity…

I've recently finished reading a free e-book that I thought was going to be a relaxing read about a woman who reinvents herself after the breakup of her marriage and who somehow gets mixed up in solving a murder (not the cheating ex-husband’s I should add) However, I was totally thrown out of the story by the sex scenes which peppered the action. Now, I don't have anything against sex scenes but these had a vibe that they had been dropped in just for the spice. I guess they were intended to be erotic but I found them comedic. I spent so much time laughing because I couldn’t buy that characters, who had known each other for a few minutes could have sex so great that she has nine – yep, count ’em, NINE - orgasms the first time they have at it! (Just to ratchet up the inadequacy meter for the normal population) The scenes did nothing to progress the story, nor gave me any additional reasons to care what happened to the characters. In fact she’d become such a bleater that the further I got into the book the more I hoped she would be the next murder victim. No such luck. To make matters worse, I figured out the killer’s identity as soon as he appeared on the page. The last chapter was an info dump that tied up all the loose ends via a conversation of assorted characters while the new lovers looked adoringly into each others eyes. Kill me, kill me now! I'm still trying to figure out why I persevered with reading it. Maybe being a freebie, I figured I shouldn’t whine. Maybe I simply hoped it would get better. Maybe I wanted to give the writer the benefit of the doubt.But there’s something I learned: good sex in a novel isn’t just in the writhing, it’s in the writing. Otherwise celibacy from the page is a good option. 

Winter lessons in letting go

I've never thought of myself as a ‘winter person’. Don't like the cold. Don't like the grey. Don't like the darkness. It exacerbates my pain. I experience winter as a season of grief. A heavy time, where the warmth of other seasons seems lost forever. But this winter I have a new little buddy, a wee bird who is teaching me a lesson in letting go of all that I perceive as cold and getting some warmth back into my life, regardless of the season. 

The bird often sits in the bare branches of the elm tree in the backyard. I think it sad that the tree has lost all its beautiful leaves but I've noticed that the bird takes advantage of its nakedness. She sits at the very top having the best view of everything. There are no leaves to obscure her range of sight. She is in a good position to see everything that is going on. I suspect she doesn't grieve the end of the youthful spring, the passing of summer's warmth, the promise of harvest in the autumn gone. To the bird, winter is not like a death. She does not feel the need to withdraw and wait impatiently until the seasons turn again. She seems to enjoy the crisp air. She sings to the sky despite its grey undercoat.

I’ve learned from her. It occurs to me that one of the things a period (be it a season or a moment) of winter does in my life is to lay everything bare so that I could examine how I’ve been living, thinking and feeling. In resting in the quietness of the stripped back season, I can look out to new horizons. I have a chance to reflect and brave my fear of all that I experience as cold and desolate. Change is not easy at the best of times but there is a time to let things lie; to accept the solitude and in it, be at peace with the lessons that winter brings. And despite it all, like the wise little bird, I can still sing to the sky.