“La Lecture Interrompue” by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Having written up a second, third or thirtieth draft of any substantial writing project, I find that it benefits from resting a while. Writing and resting work in progress, I may decide not to look at it for, say, four or six months, and meantime take up another project to work on. It is good to have several projects on the go at once, I find, because that keeps me fresh.
Letting a book rest has obvious advantages. The more we write, the better we get, and sometimes, with the passage of a short while, it is very clear where a passage can be improved, which we thought perfect when it was being consigned to its enforced rest. I am grateful for the opportunity to improve, which time offers. After all, where’s the hurry? Unless an editor is actually breathing down our necks, why not slow the pace down and focus more on thoughtful enjoyment? Sometimes, my focus on a daily word count is a bit counter-productive.
Working alone, I also value the shift in perspective that time offers. Ideas that now feel hopelessly naïve, opinions that are exposed as a little under-proved, and examples that are perhaps just a bit too esoteric, are all easier to spot with a bit of distance. Plot weaknesses are also easier to home in on. It is amazing how often I can read through a piece without spotting that I’ve changed names half way through.
And we writers can be touchy. We don’t like other people to tell us what is ‘wrong’ with our writing; so leaving a book to mature is one way of making sure that when someone doesn’t like our writing, it is for personal, rather than pedantic reasons.
I am honoured to be part of your launch for the ‘Great Scottish Book Off’. It was a privilege to represent you on ‘Good Morning Scotland’; (at 02:36:14) and the appearance at Blackwells last night was such fun. Thank you for organising everything so beautifully. It is a total pleasure to work with you, and I hope that my small contribution has helped to give your campaign extra lift.
Thanks also to Blackwells for their generous support hosting last night’s event.
I just want to say… I sincerely appreciate everything Capability does to promote positive, inclusinve living. We all need Capability, to remind us that everyone has something valuable to offer to the big picture. Our part may feel small, only one piece of the puzzle, but…you know how it feels when that one piece of the puzzle is missing. Imagine spending months putting together a thousand piece jigsaw, only to find a piece missing. And if that puzzle is made up of millions of pieces…..?
Whether we are campaigners, volunteers, tea and scone makers or listeners, each one of us is uniquely important. We celebrate life’s richness, when we work together!
Her dark anxiety faded as a dazed, fretful bundle nudged and stretched. A fist found and grasped Helen’s finger like a lifeline, so tight, Helen knew she could never let go, and her heart contracted lovingly. Creased lines in the tiny face would gradually relax as the days slowly widened. Eyes open, Cassie gazed longingly into her mother’s eyes.
‘She looks like her Dad, see?’ and Helen began to cry.
‘Yes, she does…’
The pain of loss stretched her chest and caught her breath. Ordinarily, she took condolences politely, with a hint of a tear and a rueful smile, ‘Yes, Jonathan was a special man….very special…’. At night, the covers over that cavern slipping, she fell and could not breathe. While their babe slept, heaving sobs gripped her throat. She welcomed them, let them wash her grief, clear the stains of loss, the waste of his stinking sickness, and the happy times before he died and left her alone.
It got easier. Cassie smiled so brightly, and her golden hair, at first so sparse and fine, grew over her crown into thick, shiny tresses.
At nine months, Cassie played and cooed on her mat, flicking the crinkly cow’s tail and pressing the buzzy bee’s wings. Cassie lifted her chin to Mum sprinkling glitter, blissful blue eyes catching sparkles.
Doorbell. Letter. Who writes letters these days?
Darling Helen
Thank you for being so brave.
With all my love, always,
Your Jonathan
Johannes Vermeer – ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’
This morning, riding out at Gilmerton in freezing temperatures, gloveless and probably wearing all the wrong attire, I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. Such happiness felt almost indecent, actually, but even that sober reflection could not force my mouth into a straighter line. While my helpers were struggling to keep warm and jumping around to unfreeze their extremities, I smiled inanely, filled with gratitude. I was instructed and counselled so carefully, and after a sore start, my legs settled down. Then, magically, with a straighter back and lengthening legs, sitting up from the hips instead of leading with my head, the pain left and I found my seat. I finally discovered what it means to sit on a horse properly, and move easily, go with the flow.
Yes, it felt odd to be sitting straight; but I am left wondering how often I have used my back mistakenly, forcing it to take responsibilities that should really, in the natural way of things, devolve more comfortably to the hips. Afterwards, returning to the car with that feeling fresh in my mind, I tried walking from the hips (instead of leaning forward, my head leading the way) and found that an unaccustomed straightness and unusual confidence was the outcome. Immediately, I wanted to go back and say, ‘Hey! Karen! You’ve taught me a new way to walk!! YAY!’
Quite an achievement for an unassuming class on a Tuesday morning. Must tell the ladies next week, how much I appreciate them. Would a box of chocolates and a large bunch of flowers be a bit over the top? Probably, but then – just imagine! Now, if I remember to walk from the hip, my view casts itself naturally up and outwards, instead of tilting uneasily towards the ground. Confidence lower in the body – instead of massive overcompensation in the back, neck and shoulders – translates into calmness, and awareness of what is happening on the horizon. It’s rather as if I have finally been given a pair of spectacles for distance, instead of being forced to wear reading glasses outside.
I have ideas for a book, provisionally entitled, ‘Just Eat a Peach’. Here is a tentative first chapter or introduction. Comments most welcome.
Personal observations suggest that changing personal habits can take anything from between six months and a lifetime. More optimistically, I would say that where there is no pressing urgency, altering personal routines and habits can be expected, to take between six months and two years.
I can’t manage comprehensive self-sufficiency. Now does this text intend, in its scope and depth, to answer every DIY question from “How do I slaughter a pig?” to “What about Greenhouse gases?” On the contrary, it is based firmly within the realms of my own experience and observations of what works and what may be a waste of time.
Where should we start? There is so much to consider, and potentially every area of our lives can be re-examined. For the purposes of this exercise it helps us enormously to make a start with something, when we remember that we are responsible for our personal circumstances and understand that there are excellent reasons to embrace change. I wish to send out a rallying cry, to empower us to act, to do something, no matter how small, to make a difference. While many citizens charged with aspects of decision-making seem to spend their time in power struggles concerned with budgets, targets, strategies, spheres of influence and planning, we foot soldiers can set to work with our gloves off – or on, if you happen to be washing dishes or gardening.
Seriously, do we want to wait until we have to choose between washing the dishes, or washing our hair? Do we really expect to ‘have it all’ indefinitely? If the Kyoto Protocol and Doha amendments being negotiated mean anything, they signal that we will have to make such choices. Does it not make sense to start examining our habits now, so that the pains we have to go through are less agonizing?
Taking time to choose, then reflect, adapt and accept or reject our choices, is how we eventually achieve permanent shifts in our habits. Much of what I suggest may not work out for you; and since I started writing, various problems have surfaced which make certain apparently ‘eco-friendly’ choices unworkable for me. Unless we have tried and tested something over a period, the chances are, it won’t endure, and may end up costing us more time, energy, resources and goodwill than we can readily afford.
But time is one commodity we seem to be running short of, unfortunately. And certain themes keep coming back to me. On the one hand, there is some reassuring evidence that I am on the right track; and on the other hand, I am reminded of the urgent need make a real commitment to change, to self-empowerment and improvement in my circumstances, regardless of my income bracket or job prospects. That urgency is galvanising. I don’t know about you, but, I want to make a difference. I don’t want to rely on others to come up with magical solutions at the last minute.
She peeled back the curtains and noticed the drops of slanting rain, coursing down the window pane. In the cold, without any of the usual warmth in the radiators, she shivered and yearned to crawl back to her warm bed. But she had things to do, people to meet, appointments to honour. Breakfast was the usual bowl of oats and nut shavings, but she decided to brighten it with a scattering of dried, bitter berries, which brought out the flavour and fed colour to her heart.
As she stumbled to the car, her right knee collapsed and so did she, grazing her hand and grasping in vain for any handhold at the rear of her smooth, aerodynamic vehicle. As she leaned and slid upwards, praying desperately, despair could have taken the lid off all her hopes. But, as she spoke her annoyance, she noticed that it lacked its usual conviction. Like a chesty cough loosening in late spring, her words were blown aside, she kept her focus, and got to the baths early. There she swam better than she might have. Warmed in the sauna, she accepted an invitation to tea, chatted companionably and then zipped through all her town chores easily. As the wind blew, she tripped, stumbled and fell, and oft-times she could have become distracted with the discomfort at her edges, the aching joints, the cold breeze blowing rain and dirt in her face. There was a time when she would have.
But no more! Now, her determination to smile felt liberated, and bits of stumbling resistance were chaff, just to be ignored. She knew, now, that if she would simply keep on doing what she chose, that life would get smoother, easier, gentler, kinder and more and more and more and more FUN. As she crested the hill, turned for home and contemplated the many successes of the past hour, she grinned widely, felt as if she was flying, and knew, this time, she meant business. Go Girl Go! For God’s Sake, just FLY!
It is our birthday today. My twin sister and I are each fifty years old: fifty years not out. And I am totally, utterly delighted. In cosmic terms, my sigh of relief and gratitude is audible from here to seventh heaven and beyond.
I can’t speak for those who may bewail this ageing milestone, but I have to say, I have never been more cheerful about a birthday. In past years, filled with the angst of youth, I have fancied myself very grown up, maturing and learning lessons, while uneasily eyeing the horizon of older age, unsure what it would bring: prognostications of doom were never far behind my efforts to find and enjoy a life of my own choosing.
Now, having arrived at this day not only unscathed but facing a bright, buoyant future filled with hope, adventure and love, I feel such deep playfulness and joie de vivre. Despite the cold, the rainy sleet and the tendency to confine oneself indoors with a surfeit of turkey leftovers and superannuated mince pies, I feel a child-like glee.
One way or another, I have managed to confound many critics to get to today, while remaining upright, more-or-less in one piece, and without the aid of too many perambulatory mechanisms. If I have managed to arrive here while feeling variously down in the dumps, grumpy and stranded, then, armed with my new optimism, the future is very bright indeed.
The advent of my fiftieth birthday gives me a valuable opportunity to reflect on all the lessons I have learned. Every year I reflect, and every year I see many new changes and challenges coming my way. Ever so gradually, I notice that, since it serves me to work this way, I can turn every challenge into an opportunity to learn something important. Learning curves go both ways, of course, and maybe the trick is to learn to surf them.
When something difficult happens, we can, of course, get upset and go back to bed. We can see what happens as an inevitable part of life’s rich tapestry. We can smile and what catches us and try to let it go.
I do my best to remember that Life
Constantly hopes for the best for me; and
Has something to teach me.
Therefore, logic suggests that the hardest lessons are the most important, and offer the biggest opportunities for growth, for change and for deciding to play the game of Life differently. That way of seeing things gives me hope.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a blessed, happy New Year. 2014 has been amazing, and I wait with deep excitement for the delights of 2015. Thanks for all your comments, encouragement, reviews, support and friendship.
Little Amanda, in special white stockings, lived lightly with her grandmother, an old curmudgeon, overbearing and humourless.
Grandma had her own daughter once, a beauty with bright green eyes and hazel, switchback hair running in careless shiny ropes down her back. Beauty went off with a beast, who took her downhill into the town, underground into the dungeon city at the base of the hill, the hideout of the poor, desperate and cold citizens with nothing to do, except gaze with gauzy eyes into the middle distance, the dark walls enclosing them, the weight of a whole city above.
From there, a baby was pleadingly brought to the old woman, wrapped in newspaper to keep it warm. Baby child Amanda was quiet. Occasionally she would sing, self-consciously curling her lips, as if to mute the sound. She wasn’t supposed to be happy. Grandma, with her bent back and stern gaze, was unhappy.
But the sun shone, so Amanda found escape from their flat into the back green, below the gaunt height of the tenement. Lying on the grass at the base of the hill, she would gaze dreamily up at the trees, admire their swishing branches and hope flowers would sail down, land on her face and arms. Fragrances blew around her. Beneath the branches, she breathed deeply and her heart lifted.
Not so far away, Simon held a yellow duster. Motes swam in the air, then settled again a little way off: on the mantelpiece, on the round-headed clock, the dust and grime kept the corners of his living-room warm. It annoyed him, a little, when the sun shone. Then he could see streaks and marks from dearly departed toby jugs.
Habit tugged him over to the window. The sash and case rattled faintly as he adjusted the blind. Without really seeing, since he looked so often at the same shorn hills, he watched…adjusted and looked again.
Her dark brown eyes, almost black, found the flicker. She looked too, smiling quietly and easily, careless that caught, she should behave differently. No-one else noticed that light brown face, saw those window eyes catch the sun. No-one else was there to watch the shape of her cheeks, the way her hair swept back. That blue dress, hidden under the bright, waxy green of trees fully awake.
Amanda grinned. Simon smiled.
The old man turned away, shaking with regret. Where was Ellen, to share this? He had long ago looked at beauty like that, in that way. In the business of passing his days, he had lost the urge to look outside. Outside!
The duster lay on the floorboards where it was dropped.
He saw her again when he left, the front door slamming shut behind him. Deeply busy, dreaming. Such a beautiful child. Such wondrous sunlight. See those flowers…red flowers.
I recall a time when women wore dresses, plus floral aprons, if they knew what was good for them. Frilly, prettily tied at the waist. Not the practical, full-size kitchen chef ones, with depth for drying hands and wide pockets collecting scum. My workaday wrap probably makes me unfanciable. My hands are older than the ideal, too: liver spotted and scarred with livid lines from the metal grilles and shelves of our oven.
In the blinding summer light of June, I am flamed. While my daughter prepares raspberries and cherries and doles them out carefully into three separate bowls, the sun beats through the wide kitchen window, and I desire coolness. I love heat which warms my bones, but this inferno, during which I must work and move and calculate, is ungovernable.
“Had a good day, darling?” I ask, absently, as my husband’s keys turn in the lock and he approaches cautiously, twisting off his tie. I am not really listening, as I must take the flapjack out of the low oven, turn down the heat under the soup – I thought it would be cooling, I was wrong, okay?- and blitz it, while stirring custard to go with the flapjack and raspberries. I thought custard would be comforting, I was wrong, okay? Over half-way finished, there is no point remembering I have ice-cream in the freezer.
I make wrong decisions when I am alone. My daughter comforts me when I weep with frustration and longing. For a bit of a change, for a new place to rest, where the cushions are comfortable and someone else has just done the cleaning. Just for a change, while I get my breath back.
Hubby hovers, unsure whether to stay in the volcanically hot kitchen, and risk getting in the way to plant a warm, affectionate kiss on the face of his favourite woman – our daughter is a girl – or whether to tactfully retreat so that I can get on with finishing cooking, free of distraction.
Either way, when he leaves, I feel lost. I am alone, I am too hot, my husband is not helping me, and all our longings lie quietly where they have been birthed and left to finger their way upwards, wordless.
At last, my daughter sidles through, arriving in answer to my repeated callings that supper is ready. She is a little hang-back, perhaps frightened how I might be at this tipping point in the day, but she has the courage – such courage! – to wrap her arms around my waist. I cannot pull her off, because my yearnings mirror hers. I desire to be cool and fragrant, wrapped in a dainty apron that reeks femininity and layered, scented secrets. I desire to smile widely and hold. So I set down the pan, step sideways so I can lean on against the kitchen cupboards, and hug tightly. In her warmth, her red cheeks on mine and her thick, fair hair shadowing us both, I recall my coolness.
March 16, 2015
Writing and Resting Work in Progress
Fran Macilvey allowing, change, patience, writing The Rights & Wrongs of Writing 2 Comments
Having written up a second, third or thirtieth draft of any substantial writing project, I find that it benefits from resting a while. Writing and resting work in progress, I may decide not to look at it for, say, four or six months, and meantime take up another project to work on. It is good to have several projects on the go at once, I find, because that keeps me fresh.
Letting a book rest has obvious advantages. The more we write, the better we get, and sometimes, with the passage of a short while, it is very clear where a passage can be improved, which we thought perfect when it was being consigned to its enforced rest. I am grateful for the opportunity to improve, which time offers. After all, where’s the hurry? Unless an editor is actually breathing down our necks, why not slow the pace down and focus more on thoughtful enjoyment? Sometimes, my focus on a daily word count is a bit counter-productive.
Working alone, I also value the shift in perspective that time offers. Ideas that now feel hopelessly naïve, opinions that are exposed as a little under-proved, and examples that are perhaps just a bit too esoteric, are all easier to spot with a bit of distance. Plot weaknesses are also easier to home in on. It is amazing how often I can read through a piece without spotting that I’ve changed names half way through.
And we writers can be touchy. We don’t like other people to tell us what is ‘wrong’ with our writing; so leaving a book to mature is one way of making sure that when someone doesn’t like our writing, it is for personal, rather than pedantic reasons.
Thanks for reading.
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