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.

Words of comfort

Today is a bad pain day. It doesn't help that Melbourne has turned on nasty weather. The cold gets to every sore point in my body and renders me incapable of coherent thought. I follow all the guidelines that the pain specialists have given me; the treatments and medications barely make a dent. The pen is hard to grip but I can scribble a few words onto paper. They take me to another place where the world doesn't look like it does though today's icy window. It's a world infused with adventure and alternative lives. When writing becomes too much there are hardcopy books and the Kindle. The best therapy—words that are a distraction from a difficulty reality. 

They give me comfort when little else can.

Exercising your writing muscles

This month I've been doing a daily writing prompt exercise courtesy of Sherryl Clark's ebooks4writers. I'm on the website’s mailing list so in the morning the day’s prompts appear in my inbox and I can choose the time to do them. 

The prompts encourage me to do 10 min of writing every day - more if I want to. There are two sections - fiction and poetry and you don't have to do both. I have been doing both and have some spectacularly bad poetry to show for it! Luckily the writing is for my eyes only unless I choose otherwise.

It's been interesting exercise for a range of reasons. The first is that while love to write, I can't sit at the computer for long periods of time. This makes it difficult to stay in a regular writing rhythm but the prompt exercises, being short, overcome this. Like many writers, I carry a notebook everywhere and I write by hand. Today I did the prompts while waiting at the hairdresser. As a result of the impetus the prompts appearing in my inbox gives me, I have the start of possibly 18 short stories to date. Not all of them will attract me long-term but they are beginnings and story ideas I would not have had without the prompts.

The second is that the exercises till the soil for the rest of my writing. Today I found myself visiting my own slush pile of writing and looking at which pieces I could work on further. I also found my mind churning with new ideas. Again not all of them executable but nevertheless they show me that there is life in my writing yet. If you have a chance to get onto the site, do so and sign up. It’s not too late to get into it.

I've rediscovered how important it is to exercise the writing muscle, even if it’s a little each day. That’s how writing gets stronger.