Summertime, seaside and sonnets

Low tide on the Medway Estuary

Some writers use the summer as a period of "downtime".  It makes sense - the days are long and drowsy, filled with the warmth of sunshine, the scent of wildflowers and the sleepy hum of bumble bees. The break from routine refreshes us and our creative muscle becomes toned and honed so that we can return to that writing project that will then fill our autumn evening.

So the idyll goes.  Many others of us are still stuck in the treadmill that takes us in long grey lines of commuters to the conveyor belt of activity that is the office or warehouse or wherever it is we spend our days and we are still trying to scribble out that masterpiece late into the night wondering if anyone is ever going to bother reading those words that seem so difficult to draw out of our exhausted minds.

Taking a walk by the Thames can be surprisingly inspirational

Yet even for those stuck at work, the general slowdown that comes each summer can be a bit of a breather, a chance to relax, refresh and restore the spark to their writing. 

Some city dwellers are lucky enough to find local parks with a lake, such as Capstone Park in Chatham

Summertime is thought of as synonymous with the sea.  A good walk along the shore can do wonders to dissolve those cobwebs, clear the fog of overwork (surely I am not the only one who suffers from acute brain fog after one of those interminable meetings where nothing is actually decided?), and inspire.  The sound of the waves, their movement, the way the light plays on them, what they mean to the poet, for example, can all be expressed in words, words that have a gift of arising as the mind relaxes and the writer observes the sea. Take these, from Pablo Neruda in his poem "The Wide Ocean".

The falling wave,

arch of identity, shattering feathers,

is only spume when it clears, 

and returns to its source, unconsumed.

I rather think that a description like this comes from the poet's close observation of wave after wave after wave crashing along the sea shore.

I love being by the sea.  Just an hour after work is enough to energise me.  And I love taking a stroll along the ragged edge of a river, or the wide marshes on the fringe of the estuary.  Some people do similar.  Or they fish, collect pebbles, shells, dig around the mud for cockles and mussels, take photographs with their complex cameras and long lenses.  On my walks along the canal bank, I see students sketching, retired artists daubing watercolours on canvas.  Bodies of water appeal to thinkers as well as doers.  Writers collect words.  Then they go away and mould them into poems, or sentences that pick up the thread of their novel, or add meaning to a story-line. 

So whether you are on holiday at the seaside, or stuck at work, it's worth making the most of those lingering hours of daylight to go down to the river, or lake, or sea, or pond.  Let your mind wander and let the words flow like the incoming tide.  As the sonnet by John Keats goes:

It keeps eternal whisperings around 
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be mov'd for days from whence it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.
Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vex'd and tir'd,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody,--
Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood
Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quir'd! 

John Keats

Stuck in a writing rut?

Not so much stuck in a writing rut as just a bit plain stuck.  I can't complain, mind, there are few more perfect places than being stuck at the home you grew up in, surrounded by family and friends and occasionally benefiting from a cuppa made by your Mum in just the way you like it.

So I'm in Kent, UK for more than just the two weeks that I expected to be, and unlikely to be back home in Gibraltar before the end of August.  The pros, besides loving spending precious time with the family, are many:  I can't go to work so I am having to relax, something I find difficult to do; I can nose around old haunts and see how these have changed, or not, improved or worsened, all of which is quite fascinating; I can go to London which is only a train ride away and I simply love London; I can enjoy warm sunshine without having to hide from the intensity of August Mediterranean heat; I can take a walk on cool grass, breathe clean, country air within a short walk, lay flowers on my father's grave, visit my grandparents' grave and remember my youth.

St Mary Magdalene Church, Gillingham, Kent

The cons: I need to get back to work (no work, no money, although with the internet I have been able to complete some of my writing commissions and hope to Facetime or Skype some clients before they find other writers for their projects); I struggle to get into a routine, interruptions are numerous, distractions more so.  So when I do manage to sit at a computer or tablet, or get my notebook and pen out, I find the hours stroll by at a noncholant pace and I write nothing.  Not even something vague which might be shaped into something useful in the future.  Just plain nothing.

There's only one thing for it.  When I get stuck in as much of a writing rut as I am at the moment, the best thing I can do is walk it off.  Visit places, see people.  For the writer, embracing these distractions can sometimes pay off.  People are endlessly fascinating and even a brief glance at the people in the supermarket queue in front of you can spark an idea, or crop up in a short story in a few months' time.  Places are evocative of emotions, and emotions are what stories appeal to, strive for and evoke.  

Tonight I'm browsing through some of the snapshots I took on my phone of the places I've been to in these past few weeks.  Tomorrow I know that I will be writing.  I've walked, I've contemplated.  By tomorrow the ideas will be formulating and the words will start to flow.  A writing rut?  What's that?

On London Bridge

Rochester Castle, Kent